D&D Streams of Practice

Public Agenda, a national non-profit, non-partisan research and civic engagement organization, and an NCDD organizational member, is seeking a public & stakeholder engagement associate. Public Agenda (www.publicagenda.org) is at the forefront of the vibrant field of public & stakeholder deliberation/collaborative problem solving and is pleased to offer this opportunity for a confident, motivated professional.

Public Agenda’s public and stakeholder engagement methodologies and practices include issue framing, community forums, leadership dialogues, and on-line engagement strategies. Current projects involve work with community-based organizations and leaders at all levels across the United States to build capacity for engaging critical stakeholders in problem solving on issues around K-12 and higher education reform, economic development/regional planning, the environment/energy use, health care and others. The engagement associate will work on a variety of research and writing tasks, on field–based work on diverse projects, and will assist with organizational tasks in support of a busy department.

Public Agenda is looking for a highly motivated, collaborative fully bi-lingual (Spanish/English) individual who is interested in joining their team in New York City and developing into a project leader over time. (more…)

Lots of people have signed up for tomorrow’s “NCDD Confab” (June 30th, 12 noon to 1:45pm EST), but it’s not too late to register! Our confabs provide members and potential members of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) a chance to network with one another while delving into an important issue in our field.

Register at the following link (once you register, you’ll receive call-in details):

• http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/Z2KU79UCR6ZLSQ4

Tomorrow, we’ll be using Maestro conference call software to run a World Cafe on the topic of online engagement. World Cafe is an easy-to-use method for fostering collaborative dialogue, particularly in large groups.

Our host for this Confab is new NCDD member Amy Lenzo of the World Cafe Community. The call is co-sponsored by the World Cafe Community and Maestro Conference. NCDD member Ben Roberts will be co-facilitating, and members Greg Keidan and Lynn Adams helped us design the call.

I’m particularly excited about the Maestro conference call system, which is a new technology that provides hosts with some unique, exciting options that are really appropriate for our community — like breaking people up into small groups in separate virtual rooms (for small group dialogue) and setting up polls that people can participate in just by pressing numbers on their phone (like keypad polling).

Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with the technology yet; aside from registering for the call, you just need to call in with the phone number and access code on the 30th like any other conference call (there’s nothing to download and no site to visit during the call). Though unlike typical conference calls and webinars, you can’t get away with much multitasking because you’ll be actively engaged and involved throughout the call.

Note: “NCDD Confabs” are conference calls and webinars for NCDD members where we explore key issues in the dialogue & deliberation community and encourage new connections among members. (Potential NCDD members and members of the World Cafe Community are welcome to join us for this call.)

Patricia Neal of Heartland, Inc. has asked us to let our community know about the special summer rate (for July-September 2010) of $495 (regularly $550-595) they are offering to NCDD members for their next “Art of Convening” teletraining.

The Art of Convening - Authentic Engagement in Meetings, Gatherings & Conversations

In an age of reduced travel budgets and reliance on effective, virtual communication, the AoC adds crucial capacities to leaders who are conveners/facilitators of conversations and meetings that matter and work. Not just another meeting methodology, the Art of Convening Core TeleTraining (AoC Core) provides the practices, tools and skills that create the conditions for authentic engagement to transform your meetings, gatherings and conversations. As you meet with, convene, facilitate and gather people (virtually or in person), The Art of Convening will expand your capacity and thought leadership in depth and breadth.

You can learn more or register at the program’s website.  NCDD members should use the following discount code at checkout while registering:  DSC-HeartCom

The next 3-month AoC Core Series begins July 13. The series meets via teleconference for 2 hours every other Tuesday morning.

For more information about the teleconference or the discount contact Patricia Neal () or visit their website at http://heartlandcircle.com/.

Hi, everyone!  I’ve announced before that the 2011 Reinhard Mohn Prize is focused on the work that many of you do:  “Vitalizing Democracy through Participation.”  The prize carries a value of €150,000.  NCDD member Hans-Peter Meister is one of the leads on the research team for this award, and I know he would like to see more submissions from NCDD members.  Matt Leighninger (another NCDDer) is also on the research team. (Note: the deadline for nominations is August 22nd.)

Nominees should be governmental institutions (departments, administrations, towns, etc.) that have shown innovative democratic leadership by making a strong and lasting contribution to vitalizing democracy through participatory projects, program or structural measures. The prize will be awarded to a governmental institution – possibly in cooperation with a non-governmental actor – which has initiated successful projects (or programs) to vitalize democracy, to integrate underrepresented citizens and to establish new forms of democratic problem-solving capacities through participation. It is crucial that the projects and actions can be adapted to the German context, as the Bertelsmann Stiftung aims to draw on these examples of international best practice as inspiration for possible future projects.

At this point it looks like there are about a dozen nominations posted, so the odds are not too shabby if you submit a new nomination.  The current nominations (which you can vote and comment on now) including Roger Bernier’s Public Engagement Project on Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Priorities, CaliforniaSpeaks, Bridgeport, CT Community Conversations, and a few others you might recognize.

Below is the full announcement I received this morning… (more…)

As you hopefully know because we’ve posted about this numerous times, today is AmericaSpeaks’ national town hall on “Our Budget, Our Economy.”  NCDD has served as a promotional partner for the event, and many NCDDers are involved in various capacities (I’d be there myself, but tonight is my 20-year high school reunion).

Across the U.S., thousands of people have come together to take part in this national discussion.  I’ve been following the day’s events off and on today, by watching the live feed at http://ht.ly/23CXB (which is showing real small-group discussions happening in different cities; it’s pretty cool and fascinating to watch) and following what people are posting on twitter today with the hash tag #usabudget.  Thought some of you might want to check out these links, too!

What’s working in our political system? What isn’t? Our company is OnlineTownhalls and we are passionate about improving the quality of our national dialogue. We recently joined the Open Model for Citizen Engagement Working Group here in Washington, DC which inspired us to give this a shot.

From June 23-27, 2010 we are conducting an experiment called the American Townhall on National Politics. Our mission is to find deeper ways to discuss critical issues facing our democracy combining tools for discussion online, in-person, and over the phone.  The target audience is not the general public; we’re testing these tools on our own communities: opengov, NCDD, e-democracy, transparency, etc.  When we learn what works and what doesn’t, then we’ll repeat the experiment with the general public and publicize the method for others to replicate.

Join Us In-Person:

We’ve kick-started the townhall by conducting video interviews on the National Mall in Washington, DC. We’ll be asking visitors to our nation’s capital what they think is broken and what they think is working well in our national politic system. All the videos are available here and are included in the OnlineTownhall mentioned below where others participants can build on these ideas.

Join Us on the Phone:

The central question for the three-day show is, “What is working in our national political system, and what isn’t?” We’ll be joined by Wayne Burke of the Open Forum Foundation and the lead organizer of the Open Model for Citizen Engagement, key staff in the Sunlight Foundation, and members of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation (if you’d like to be interviewed about your dialogue work, 6:30pm EST is open on Thursday and Friday; email if you’re interested).

We have three live call-in radio shows:

• Wednesday, June 23 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HERE to listen.
• Thursday, June 24 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HERE to listen.
• Friday, June 25 from 5pm-7pm EST. Click HERE to listen.
• From June 23-27, join this OnlineTownhall to discuss the ideas raised in the radio shows.

Want to call into the radio show? Dial (917) 889-2510 to join the discussion during the times listed above. You can also add your thoughts via email to [email protected] or through Twitter using the tag #ATHNP (for American Townhall on National Politics). We look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Join Us Online:

Using this conversation at OnlineTownhalls, participants will be able to take the conversation started on the videos and the radio show deeper from June 23-27.

OnlineTownhalls is different than standard commenting software; it helps participants visualize all the branches in a conversation and see which issues are controversial and which are common ground.

For those that would like a brief orientation to the software, we will be available over the phone. The dial-in number for the live walk-through is 605-715-4920 with an access code of 616033 from 7pm-9pm EST on June 23-25. The online discussion will be open through June 27.

If you’re comfortable with online tools, you’ll probably be able to figure out the townhall technology after watching this three minute intro video.

I wanted to remind everyone that on June 26th, thousands of concerned citizens — and a whole bunch of NCDDers — are coming together for an unprecedented national conversation on our budget and economy hosted by NCDD organizational member AmericaSpeaks. (NCDD is a promotional partner for this event.)

Together, we’ll find common ground on the tough choices our nation will have to make in the years ahead in order to ensure that growing debt payments don’t crowd out our national priorities, like education, healthcare, national defense, and transportation infrastructure.  Learn more about Our Budget, Our Economy at http://usabudgetdiscussion.org/.

If you’re not already signed up (or facilitating!), I encourage you to participate in the event nearest you this Saturday (June 26) – and help spread the word by sharing this message with others in your networks.

Can you participate in a meeting near you on June 26?

• Yes, I can participate (find a meeting near you)
• I can’t attend, but I will share it on Facebook

The event you attend will link you to thousands of other Americans around the country via satellite video, webcasts, and interactive technologies. Experts will brief us on the basic budget challenges we’re facing, and then we’ll work together to identify shared priorities and discuss options we have to reduce the national debt. Most importantly: the results of all the meetings across the US will be compiled into a report that will be submitted to the White House and Congress later this summer.

We are working to have this non-partisan citizen discussion reflect the political, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity of the United States. So, please invite your friends — and I hope to see you there.

Also- for those interested, the issue guide for Our Budget, Our Economy, titled Federal Budget 101: An Introduction to the Federal Budget and our Fiscal Chalelnges, can now be downloaded here.

I just got an invitation from NCDD member Lucas Cioffi for July’s Open Government Community Summit (July 16 from 9-12 EST, location in D.C. TBD).  Previous summits and workshops have been hosted by the Department of Transportation, the General Services Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, and the US Department of Treasury.

Who: This workshop is open to federal, state, and local officials involved in restoring our nation’s Gulf Coast.  Members of the Open Gov Community from the private sector and non-profit organizations are also welcome to participate. RSVP here by July 14th: http://gulf-coast-restoration.eventbrite.com/

What: The summit will focus on the intersection of open government and the Gulf Coast Restoration Plan which President Obama assigned to the Secretary of the Navy on June 15th. (more…)

If you’ve been thinking about enrolling in Fielding’s award-winning Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement Certificate program, now may be a good time. They’ve just extended the deadline to apply for sponsorships to July 2nd and wanted to invite all NCDD members to apply!

Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement Certificate (DDPE)
August 16, 2010 – January 18, 2011

SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITY

Deadline Extended to July 2, 2010

The dialogue, deliberation, and public engagement certificate helps you build mastery by working with a scholar-practitioner model of collaborative learning and reflective practice. An exceptional faculty of scholar-practitioners who do real world work in diverse contexts and cultures, will support your learning and provide coaching for a culminating capstone project over 19 weeks of online, telephone, and 2 face to face workshops. (more…)

The February 2010 report to the Kettering Foundation, “Aligning the Work of Government to Strengthen the Work of Citizens: A Study of Public Administrators in Local and Regional Government,” was written by my friends (and NCDD members) Barnett Pearce (pictured here) and Kimberly A. Pearce. The Pearces’ report surveys California administrative leaders from cities and counties, noting their changing views of “public engagement.” The main research question for the study was “What do public administrators need to know and to do in order to promote and respond constructively to an engaged community?” Downloadable here from the NCDD site.

The primary research method was participatory action research. The Pearces took advantage of an opportunity to work with Common Sense California (CSC), a multi-party, nonprofit organization founded in 2005 whose purpose is “to help solve California’s public problems by promoting citizens’ participation in governance.” They offered their services in helping design and evaluate a series of seminars for public administrators in exchange for access to those seminars and contacts and information gathered in other CSC projects.

The report is chock-full of useful quotes from public managers like this one:

“It is part of our job to get the public engaged to give a meaningful voice and ultimately have control over their government…[civic engagement] is not in addition to, but it is the work…if we are going to be as good as we can be in serving the community.”

- David Bosch, Manager, San Mateo County

Here are the sections included in the must-read conclusion of this paper:

• Public administrators question the public’s will or ability to communicate responsibly in civic engagement.
• Public administrators think of civic engagement in the context of their professional responsibilities.
• Public administrators are reassured by the experience of their peers and adaptable examples.
• Civic engagement involves “culture change” and “authenticity.”
• Public administrators have powerful motivations to support civic engagement.
• Public administrators know that they need to develop new skills for supporting civic engagement, but are not sure what those skills are.

About the Authors: Barnett Pearce is Professor Emeritus at Fielding Graduate University; Kim Pearce is Professor at De Anza College. Both are Principals of Pearce Associates, Inc. and Founding Members of the Public Dialogue Consortium

Our next “NCDD Confab” is scheduled for Wednesday, June 30th from noon to 1:30 pm Eastern (9am Pacific), and I wanted to encourage you to add it to your calendars now if you’re interested.  The Confab calls are free (you pay your regular long-distance phone charges) and open to all NCDD members.

Our host for this Confab is Amy Lenzo of the World Cafe Community (and a new NCDD member!), and we’ll be using Amy’s Maestro account to organize a virtual World Cafe to further examine a question we’ve been exploring on the NCDD listserv lately:  What constitutes quality online/virtual engagement?

We’ll be using the Maestro conference call system, which is a new technology that provides hosts with some unique, exciting options that are perfect for our community — like breaking people up into small groups in separate virtual rooms (for small group dialogue) and setting up polls that people can participate in just by clicking numbers on their phone (like keypad polling).  The good news:  all YOU need to do is call in to the conference call, like any of the conference calls we’ve done in the past!  Well, you’ll also need to register for the call, but we’ll include all the details you need in future announcements.

Please save the date in your calendars if this Confab interests you!

By the way, our last “Confab” of sorts was our May 14th webinar with PublicDecisions featuring Caroline Lee and Francesca Polletta.  A bunch of you participated, and it was a great webinar.  The presentation and audio recording are available for download at http://www.publicdecisions.com/publicforum_2010May14_recording.html.

I received a message tonight from Vicki Robin, co-founder with Susan Partnow of Conversation Cafes.  Vicki and Susan are both NCDD members, and Conversation Cafe is a well-known dialogue model that is elegantly simple, if you aren’t familiar with it (learn more here).  Conversation Cafe is going through some big changes, and I wanted to share them with the NCDD community.

In her message, Vicki said…

You haven’t heard from us at Conversation Cafes in quite some time. We’ve been reorganizing and the whole project is moving to a new host: Community Action Dialogues CAD in Richmond Virginia. Jacqueline Pogue and her CAD group have been among the most active and creative CC hosts and they are super enthusiastic about a new CC website that will replace the current one this summer – and hosting annual Conversation Weeks.

Susan Partnow and I did our very best to spread the Conversation Café method with integrity and fidelity – and it is now used around the world in cafes, classrooms, conferences and more. We are thrilled that the CAD group with their new energy and vision are here to take the CCs to the next level. They will be glad to hear from you and serve you.

I spoke to Jacqueline Pogue about this switch-over recently (Jacqueline is also an NCDD member – click here for her contact info), and she is very enthusiastic and hopes to collaborate with NCDD on Conversation Weeks and other activities.  Further updates from Jacqueline are forthcoming.

There’s a great job opening at AmericaSpeaks for those looking…

The Director of Online Engagement and Participation will lead AmericaSpeaks’ initiatives to design, facilitate and organize online participatory processes that provide citizens and stakeholders with a greater voice in governance processes. The Director will be responsible for generating new projects through which AmericaSpeaks may engage the public online, representing AmericaSpeaks in discussions with federal agencies about how to use online methods to create a more open government, managing a group of online associates and partners to deliver online engagement programs, and forming and nurturing partnerships with other online innovators. The Director will also oversee the organization’s online and social media presence. Full job description below. (more…)

Our friends at UT’s Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution asked us to let NCDDers know about the upcoming Innovations in Collaboration and Conflict Resolution – Skills Enrichment Institute (July 28-30 in Austin).

This is their 2nd annual Summer Skills Enrichment Institute for conflict resolution professionals and academicians interested in insightful learning and discussion. This dynamic skill-building program allows participants to choose either two one-day tracks, or one intensive two-day track. In addition, the program fosters opportunities to form a variety of connections including small topical discussion groups and an opening reception. The selected session tracks showcase prominent trainers (like Mark Gerzon, Bill Potapchuk and Colin Rule) and represent the latest advances in the field. Participants will learn to integrate innovative techniques into their work, while the setting provides a congenial atmosphere for deliberate thought and dialogue among colleagues and recognized leaders in the field.

Susanna Haas-Lyons just shared this with the NCDD Discussion list, and I thought it was worth posting here for those of you in the U.K…

Deliberative Democracy Master-class and Workshop, John Dryzek, 30 June – 2 July 2010

John Dryzek will be leading a one-day master-class in deliberative democracy at the London School of Economics on 30 June 2010. Immediately following the master-class (1 and 2 July) there will be a two-day workshop of presentations on the theme ‘The epistemic potential and empirical realities of deliberative democracy’. (more…)