Members of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) have let us know about a number of workshops and trainings they are offering in the coming months.  Most of them are discounted considerably for dues-paying NCDD members.  They are…

• What Methods to Use When?
• Advanced Public Engagement Training
• CogNexus Institute’s Issue Mapping Webinar Series
• Masterful Facilitation Institute’s Spring Programs in Vancouver, BC
• Dynamic Facilitation Trainings for Individuals, Groups, and Large Systems
• “Hidden in Plain Sight”: a Center for Strategic Facilitation workshop
• Two Trainings for Dutch-Speaking Members

What Methods to Use When?

Analyzing Whole Situations (course ICAE 290) is a March 23-25 open enrollment online course offered by Antioch University McGregor that offers you practice in thinking through situations to decide (a) whether a participatory public process is needed, (b) for what purpose, and (c) of what kind. We’ll use cases brought by participants and an integrated systems framework to figure out just what it is about different kinds of participatory methods that suit them for different kinds of situations.

Participants may apply this workshop towards completion of Antioch’s new Graduate or Professional Certificate in Civic Development & Systemic Transformation, or as part of its Master’s Degree in Conflict Analysis & Engagement. The certificate program begins April 9, 2010 on-line. It includes three, 3-day workshops and can be completed in 6-9 months. For more details, email Sara Ross at or Nancy Glock-Grueneich at . You can read about all ICAE courses here.

Advanced Public Engagement Training

The Canadian Trainers Collective is partnering with Dialogue Partners Inc. and gWhiz Consulting Ltd. to include three additional courses in their schedule that provide additional learning opportunities in public engagement techniques:

• Group Facilitation Skills for Public Involvement
• Analyze This! Making Sense of Conflict in Public Engagement
• Standing in the Fire: Transforming Conflict Through Collaboration

Offered in Calgary in April, Ottawa in June, Washington DC in September, and Halifax in October, these courses build advanced skills in engaging participants.  The courses are presented by some of the most experienced trainings in Canada, and dues-paying NCDD members receive 15% discounts on all Dialogue Partners trainings.

For a brochure and registration info for all courses, visit www.dialoguepartners.ca/forms/index.asp?tid=131.

CogNexus Institute’s Issue Mapping Webinar Series

CogNexus Institute is excited to announce their next Issue Mapping Webinar Series, which starts on April 14, 2010. Every time we have offered this course participants have said that they are able to work more effectively with highly complex (or “wicked”) problems. The course teaches a new disciplined approach to listening, thinking through issues, and making decisions in groups and as individuals. Discounts: early bird discount ($100 off) ends April 5; Colleagues (people from the same organization) get an extra $25 off, and NCDD Members are being offered an extra $50 discount.

Register at www.cognexus.org/april_imws_registration.htm.

Masterful Facilitation Institute’s Spring Programs in Vancouver, BC

Enhance your facilitation competencies and mastery to enable groups of any size in any setting to tap their creativity and wisdom, and produce extraordinary results. Register now for significant Early Bird savings! (NCDD members earn extra 10% savings!)

• The Virtual Facilitator: Leading Interactive TeleCalls and Webinars – March 4, 11, & 18, 2010
• The Confident Facilitator: Essential Skills for Guiding Groups – March 24-26, 2010
• The Engaging Facilitator: Conversation Methods for Collaboration and Wise Action – April 13-15, 2010
• The Inspired Facilitator: Achieving Mastery in Engaging Organizations and Communalities – May 19-21, 2010
• The Artful Visual Facilitator: Bringing Meeting Results to Life with Graphics – May 26-27, 2010

For more information on any of these programs, visit www.masterfulfacilitation.ca.

Dynamic Facilitation: Emergent Leadership & Self-Organizing Change Skills for Individuals, Groups, and Large Systems

Dynamic Facilitation is a unique form of facilitation that feels like dialogue in that people share deeply from the heart about has meaning to them and generates group decisions and unanimous outcomes similar to deliberation. Its large-scale applications, known as the Creative Insight Council and the Wisdom Council, are being used to transform democracy in the public and private sphere, helping diverse groups address systemic and complex issues creatively and collaboratively and reached shared outcomes. In this introductory seminar, you’ll learn how to use these skills to help groups and large systems think together creatively and collaboratively to achieve self-organizing, win/win outcomes at home and in workplaces, schools, government agencies, and community settings.

Upcoming seminars are scheduled in:

• Atlanta, GA – Feb. 22-24
• Santa Fe, NM – Feb. 27 – Mar. 1
• Port Townsend, WA – Sept. 20-22

Dues-paying NCDD members receive a 20% discount on DF trainings. Visit www.tobe.net/df/page24/learn_df/seminars.html for more information and to register.

“Hidden in Plain Sight”: a Center for Strategic Facilitation workshop

The Center for Strategic Facilitation‘s Technology of Participation (ToP) Learning Community is offering an interesting workshop called Hidden in Plain Sight: A Workshop on Unpacking Multiple Dimensions of Privilege and Facilitation. The workshop will take place in Oakland, California from 5:00 to 8:00 pm on February 17, 2010. Dues-paying NCDD members receive a 20% discount on all CSF trainings.

One of the ways institutional privilege operates is that when we have it, we’re often the last ones to see it. We have inherited a system of inequity that hurts us all. Some of us have more access to structural privilege than others, depending our age, body size, class background, physical/mental/emotional abilities, gender and gender-identity, race, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, citizenship status, native language… These forms of privilege shape our experiences and perspectives and therefore influence our facilitation. Join us for an opportunity to reflect on:

• What are some of the ways privilege impacts my facilitation, including in ways I may not be aware?
• How could increasing my awareness help me be in better service of the groups with whom I work?

Kathleen Rice will be sharing from the research she has conducted on white privilege and facilitation as a spring-board for reflection and small and large group discussion. Planning team members Steven Bucholtz, Sarah Calhoun and Marti Roach will also guide our work.

RSVP and Information: contact Marti Roach, Senior Partner, CSF at 925-376-3853 or .

Two Trainings for Dutch-Speaking Members

NCDD member Kees Voorberg of Centrum Dialoog en Samenleving announced two upcoming trainings:

Two-day workshop : The Power of Dialogue
The workshop is mainly experiential, partly theoretical. We’ll work in the dialogue circle and in small groups and with other dialogical methods. You will experience the effect of dialogue on yourself and on the quality of communication, the connectedness and the creativity in the group. You’ll learn about backgrounds and methods of Dialogue and you’ll discover what the long term effects of dialogue can be. The workshop is open to all and participation in it is also a pre-requisite for those who want to register for the Professional Training Program for Dialogue Process Facilitators. Language: Dutch. Venue: Conference Centre De Voorde, Laag Zuthem, The Netherlands. Dates: 22/23 march or 24/25 june. Info: www.keesvoorberg.nl/cm/index.php?page=introductieworkshop

Professional Training Program for Dialogue Process Facilitators
In september 2010 the next Training Program in Dialogue Process Facilitation will get started. Participants get acquainted with the dialogical principles and with a wide variety of dialogical methods. You’ll learn how to build a sustainable dialogical culture, that can function as a solid base for all kinds of change projects. The Training Program is focused on Facilitating Dialogue Work both within and without the context of organisations. Language: Dutch. Venue: Conference Centre De Voorde, Laag Zuthem, The Netherlands. Start: 22 september 2010. Participation in the two-day workshop ‘The Power of Dialogue’ is a prerequisite for participation in the Professional Training Program. Information: www.dialoogopleiding.nl

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See the entire list of trainings that are discounted for NCDD members at www.thataway.org/discounts.  And email if you would like to offer NCDD members a discount in exchange for publicity on the NCDD website, facebook group, linkedin group, listservs, and email updates.

Thought some of you would be interested in looking over the Society for Organizational Learning‘s 2010 program schedule.  According to Sherry Immediato, SoL will be offering a variety of workshops for individuals and teams in 2010. “Our intention is to help those with unconscious competence – that is, all of us – develop greater capacity for organizational learning, and to make these practices the rule rather than the exception in business, government and civil society.” Please contact Frank Schneider at 1-617-300-9535 or by email if you need help with registration, have questions or would like to know more about the value these programs offer. (more…)

Here are five books by NCDD members which have recently come to our attention that I highly recommend you add to your library…

Standing in the Fire: Leading High-Heat Meetings with Clarity, Calm, and Courage
by Larry Dressler

Focusing on how to stay “cool” during high-heat deliberations, consultant, author, and NCDD member Larry Dressler drew on his 25-years experience facilitating high-stakes meetings and also interviewed 40 other veteran practitioners for this new book, co-published by Berrett-Koehler and ASTD and available this February. To read a description of the book, sample chapters, and free resources visit www.larrydressler.com. You can also pre-order it from Amazon.com.

Who Dialogues? (and when and where and how?)
by the Network for Peace through Dialogue

Network for Peace through Dialogue’s new 51-page book Who Dialogues? (and when and where and how?) provides a solid introduction to the subject through the personal stories of 10 practitioners who use dialogue in their work. Among the variety of uses these practitioners describe are: laying the groundwork for conflict resolution, designing a large UN conference, helping to heal the wounds of the Holocaust, teaching in a university, working with youth and conducting dialogue online. The book is available directly from the Network for Peace through Dialogue and costs $5.00 plus shipping. Ordering details can be found at their website and you can call them at 212-426-5818 for more information.

The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning
by Thomas R. Flanagan and Alexander N. Christakis
(A Collaborative Project of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras)

The Institute for 21st Century Agoras is proud to announce an important new book, The Talking Point: Creating an Environment for Exploring Complex Meaning. The authors, Agoras president Tom Flanagan and Agoras founder Aleco Christakis, present user-friendly stories of how Structured Dialogic Design continues to generate significant social innovation. Available at Amazon.com.

Democracy as Discussion: Civic Education and the American Forum Movement
by William M. Keith

Using primary sources from archives around the country, Democracy as Discussion traces the early history of the Speech field, the development of discussion as an alternative to debate, and the Deweyan, Progressive philosophy of discussion that swept the United States in the early twentieth century. Available at Amazon.com.

When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy & Public Consultation
by James S. Fishkin

In this book, NCDD member James Fishkin combines a new theory of democracy with actual practice and shows how an idea that harks back to ancient Athens can be used to revive our modern democracies. The book outlines deliberative democracy projects conducted by the author with various collaborators in the United States, China, Britain, Denmark, Australia, Italy, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, and in the entire European Union. The book is accompanied by a DVD of “Europe in One Room” by Emmy Award-winning documentary makers Paladin Invision. Available at Amazon.com.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the site sociologists (and NCDD members) Caroline Lee and Francesca Polletta created at http://sites.lafayette.edu/ddps/ to display the results of the 2009 Dialogue and Deliberation Practitioners Survey. You can also download the full survey results here.

The survey was conducted online last Fall for the purpose of academic research on the deliberation field by the researchers. Francesca and Caroline felt that the field of public dialogue and deliberation has been growing so dramatically that no one fully knows what the field looks like. They sought to answer questions like:

• Who is doing public dialogue and deliberation work?
• What forms is their work taking?
• What common challenges do they face?
• How they would like to see the field develop?

The data they collected is extraordinarily valuable for our field, and you are encouraged to site it and utilize it widely. On the site, you can download or browse the survey results, ask a question of the researchers, or join a discussion about the findings.

Here are some of the results I found most interesting/useful from NCDD’s perspective:

Participants were asked to rate the importance of the 5 challenges facing the D&D community that were identified by NCDD conference participants:

• 34% identified the Systems Challenge as our most important challenge (making D&D integral to our public and private systems).
• Three of the challenges were seen as most important by 20% each:  the Framing Challenge (framing D&D work in a more accessible way), the Action & Change Challenge (strengthening the link between D&D, action and policy change), and the Evaluation Challenge (demonstrating to powerholders that D&D works).
• Notably, only 6% indicated that the Inclusion Challenge (addressing oppression and bias) as the most important challenge facing our field.

When asked who should take the lead in advancing dialogue and deliberation in the U.S., “professional associations” like NCDD and IAP2 was selected most often (62%), followed by an “alliance of experienced local organizations” (51%), the White House Office of Public Engagement (48%), “national D&D facilitation organizations” like AmericaSpeaks and National Issues Forums (47%), foundations that support D&D (47%).

57% of respondents prefer the term “community of practice” to describe the people and organizations currently leading D&D efforts, compared to 16% who prefer “movement” and 11% who prefer “profession.”

Of the 4 engagement streams (exploration, conflict transformation, decision making and collaborative action), conflict transformation was the only one selected by less than half (38%) of respondents indicating the type of D&D work they practice. (more…)

Peter Levine had an important article published on the Huffington Post yesterday titled The Path Not Taken (So Far): Civic Engagement for Reform. The article outlines the Obama Administration’s failure–so far–to engage the public in our great national challenges.

In his article, Peter writes…

Candidate Obama argued that positive change comes from organized social movements, not from the government alone. Social movements should be broad-based, not narrow groups of people who all agree with one another. They should promote discussion and collaboration across lines of difference–including ideological difference.

As he said in May 2007, “politics” usually means shouting matches on TV. But “when politics gets local, when the person talking to you is your neighbor standing on your front porch, things change.” In that speech, he called for dialogues in every community on Iraq, health care and climate change.

Later, on Obama’s executive order on transparency, participation and collaboration, Peter writes…

“Transparency” came to mean feeding information to organized interest groups, reporters, and a few independent citizens who have deep interests and skills in particular areas. Participation and collaboration have not been part of the agenda since Inauguration Day.

Service and transparency are not nearly “edgy” enough; there is no fight in them. People are angry – from the Tea Partiers to MoveOn. When citizens try to solve serious social problems, they identify enemies. They do not just hold hands and serve together; they strike back at those whom they perceive as threats. “Active citizenship” reduced to non-controversial “service” or downloading government data completely loses touch with the legitimate anger of the American people.

An expanded version of the article is posted here in Peter’s FaceBook and here on his blog.  What do folks think of Peter’s article?  Do you agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to comment here.

Two NCDD organizational members, AmericaSpeaks and Ascentum, just launched a great new blog called Open Government Directions.

Open Government Directions will be a resource for those who care about the Open Government Directive and creating a more participatory and collaborative government. At this point, as Joe Goldman explains, it includes four kinds of resources:

1. Several thought pieces that we have written about best practices in open government, as well as links to resources that others have written. Specifically, we have written a few interesting pieces on key questions that agencies should ask before launching an online dialogue as well as recommendations for what agencies should include in their open government web sites. These will be regularly updated and added to
2. Online dialogues about best practices in online engagement using IdeaScale and Mixed In
3. A newsfeed with links to new stories and articles about Open Government
4. And links to specific elements of the Open Government Directive

Be sure to also check out the Open Government Playbook, a wiki-based resource site launched by NCDD member Lucas Cioffi of OnlineTownHalls.com. As knowledge about the OGD is spread out across the Web; the purpose of the Playbook is to serve as a directory to those resources.

The Golden Fleece is seeking proposals on You, Me and We: Connecting through Story for workshops and presentations on storytelling in the workplace and our teams, communities, and beyond for our upcoming one day Conference to be held Saturday, April 17, 2010 from 9 to 5 at George Mason University, Arlington VA Campus (Washington, DC area).

The workshop proposal submission deadline has been extended to January 29, 2010.

Golden Fleece, in conjunction with the 2010 Storytelling in Organizations seminar of the Smithsonian Institution’s Resident Associates Program (April 16, 2010), is pleased to announce the ninth annual International Storytelling Weekend in Washington.

This one-day conference offers the possibilityfor change leaders, executives, storytelling professionals, organizational development practitioners, students and researchers to conduct workshops, present findings, and discuss the important aspects of using story to explore all of the myriad of contemporary challenges we face today and in the future.

Please contact Denise Lee for more info:

Saw this in my inbox this morning…

The Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD Centre), an independent mediation organisation, is seeking to recruit a Project Manager to support its activities in Africa. Reporting to the Africa Regional Director, she/he will:

• Project manage selected Africa based conflict mediation activities;
• Identify potential new conflict mediation work;
• Conduct research and analysis in support of conflict mediation efforts;
• Fund raise and maintain regular contacts with donors in the region.

Candidates should have 7-8 years of professional experience in an international environment, particularly in an African context, and a Master’s degree in conflict resolution, political science, development studies or another related field. (more…)

Jim Fishkin shared this on the NCDD Discussion list tonight, and I thought I’d share it here as well…

The documentary from MacNeil/Lehrer Productions about the statewide Deliberative Poll in Michigan is now being broadcast around the country. It can also be seen on the PBS Newshour website at www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01pd8e.

It is hosted by Jim Lehrer and produced by the Newshour team. Detailed results are on our CDD web site at http://cdd.stanford.edu/polls/btp/#michigan.

It is very striking that when the people grappled with the state’s economic problems, they moved to raise the taxes whose pain they directly feel (the sales tax and the income tax) and they moved to lower the taxes they feel only indirectly (business taxes, presumably to stimulate jobs). They really grappled with hard choices. It was also a great sample, representative in attitudes and demographics. The whole state in one room faced up to the state’s difficult choices.

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Jim is the Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford, creator of Deliberative Polling and author of When the People Speak: Deliberative Democracy and Public Consultation.

A commentary was published by NCDD member Tim Bonnemann at Federal Computer Week yesterday, titled The Outer Limits to the Crowd’s Wisdom. His timely commentary outlines the limits of “crowdsourcing” techniques in government decision-making and policy creation. Crowdsourcing, which Tim explains as “the concept of applying open-source principles to fields outside software,” is a popular topic right now in conversations about new public participation requirements in the Open Government Directive.

Tim points out that crowdsourcing projects like the online Open Government Dialogue so many NCDDers participated in, which are useful for such tasks as brainstorming and idea generation, tend to fail to live up to some of the basic principles of public participation, like inclusion and collaboration.

Tim writes, in a nutshell, that “there is more to public participation than crowdsourcing alone can deliver.”

From the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest…

MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation are partnering for the ninth year to recognize, sustain, and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization.

Cash grants will be awarded in two categories. Neighborhood Revitalization Awards (six awards of $15,000 to $25,000 each) will honor exemplary collaboration between community groups and police that yields crime reduction as well as economic development outcomes, such as real estate development, business attraction, and job growth. Special Strategy Awards (five awards of $15,000 each) will honor community and police partners who have achieved significant accomplishments in one of the following areas: applied technology; aesthetics and greenspace improvement; diversity inclusion and integration; drug market disruption; gang prevention and youth safety; and seniors and safety. (more…)

I’m going to be in Point Clear, Alabama from March 3rd through 6th for a conference called “Connecting the Dots.” It’s a national student conference on embedding the democratic practices of public dialogue, deliberation, community problem solving and action sponsored by the University of Alabama’s David Mathews Center for Civic Life.

I’m being brought in to present a couple of workshops on distinguishing between and deciding on various approaches to dialogue and deliberation, and I’m really looking forward to spending time with college students (and others) who are passionate about democracy and engagement!

The conference goal is to provide a forum for students learning about how to embed democratic practices in their everyday work and lives. The conference director, Lane McClelland, told me that the event was inspired by the students who attended the No Better Time conference many of us attended in New Hampshire last July.

Students, faculty members, program administrators, practitioners, and community members are encouraged to attend. Registration is $150 for students and $300 for others. The $300 registration fee is waived for any faculty or staff who register 4 or more students at the $150 rate. Although there’s not a whole lot of lead time on this, I hope those of you who work with students will consider bringing a few of them to Alabama in March!

Steering committee members for the conference include representatives from Everyday Democracy, The Kettering Foundation, and The Democracy Imperative.

More information on the skill-building workshops conducted by leading practitioners in the field, as well as a Call for Proposals, is available at http://mathewscenter.org/2010_student_conference/.

I wanted to post a “new and renewed members” report for December 2009, with a special welcome to our 8 new December members and a huge thank you to the 32 existing members who renewed or transitioned from non-dues to dues-paying memberships. I plan to add a post like this every month in 2010, and hopefully earlier in the month than this starting in February…

NCDD is an open, inclusive network and, as such, membership dues are not required.  But in these tough economic times, support from our members is more needed and more appreciated than ever!

Please note that everyone below (and all our other members) are listed in the members network at www.thataway.org/ncddnet with their contact info, bios, and sometimes photos, so feel free to look people and organizations up to learn more about them.  If you are a member of NCDD, you’ll find that your member page in the network includes a field called “member type” which will tell you if your dues are paid up, if you’ve lapsed, or if you are a non-dues-paying member. (Click here for payment details if you want to send in your dues, which are still only $50 for individuals and $100 for organizations.)

December was a great month for renewals, but a weak month for new memberships.  In December, NCDD gained 1 new organizational member, 7 new individual members (1 dues-paying and 6 non-dues-paying), 2 of our existing individual members became dues-paying members, and 30 of our dues-paying members renewed their memberships (22 organizations and 8 individuals)!

Our new organizational member is the Small Planet Institute (Contacts: Frances Moore Lappe, Julie Jensen and Brooke Ormond).

Our new dues-paying individual member is Sandra Holder, Assistant City Manager for the City of Carlsbad.

The two existing individual members who became dues-paying members are Muriel Strand, a practitioner based in Sacramento, California and Mark Warren, Professor and Harold & Dorrie Merilees Chair in the Study of Democracy in the University of British Columbia’s Department of Political Science

We gained 6 new individual NCDD members (non-dues):

1. Kees Voorberg at the Centre Dialogue and Society
2. Naomi Wolfe at North Island College
3. Ashar Johnson Khokhar at Notre Dame Institute of Education (NDIE)
4. Jennifer Allen, Whole Systems Design graduate based in Scappoose, Oregon
5. Amanda Kathryn Roman with the Transpartisan Alliance & Citizens in Charge Foundation
6. Kevin Dillon at Tufts University

In the month of December, 30 NCDDers renewed their memberships. 22 organizational members renewed, and those are (with contacts in parentheses):

1. Americans for the Arts (Pam Korza and Barbara Schaffer Bacon)
2. Ascentum (Megan Beahen, Manon Abud and Joseph Peters)
3. Bluebonnet Hills Christian Church (Landon Shultz)
4. California State University’s Center for Collaborative Policy (David Booher, Susan Sherry and William Leach)
5. The Co-Intelligence Institute (Tom Atlee and Adin Rogovin)
6. CogNexus Institute (Jeff Conklin)
7. Community Building Institute (Bill Potapchuk, Yvonne Green and Bill Schechter)
8. Community Mediation, Inc. (Chet Brodnicki, Hannah Gruhm Croasmun and Penny Rogers)
9. Deliberative Democracy Consortium (Matt Leighninger)
10. Fielding Graduate University’s Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement Program (Jan Elliott and Katrina Rogers)
11. Institute for 21st Century Agoras (Kenneth Bausch, Alexander Christakis and Peter Jones)
12. Institute for Global Leadership (Virginia Swain, Sarah Syeed and Michael Britton)
13. Kearns & West (Janet Thomson, Briana Moseley and Eric Poncelet)
14. Mediation Matters (Peter Glassman, Esther Patterson and Sarah Rudgers Tysz)
15. Network for Peace through Dialogue (Virginia Dorgan)
16. The Project on Civic Reflection (Elizabeth Lynn, Debbie Garbukas and Deva Woodly)
17. Public Agenda (Will Friedman, Alison Kadlec, Laura Birnback and Isaac Rowlett)
18. The Public Dialogue Consortium (Shawn Spano, Kim Pearce and Stephen Littlejohn)
19. PublicDecisions (Beth Offenbacker and Paul Coelus)
20. The Taos Institute (Dawn Dole, Mary Gergen and Sheila McNamee)
21. Weisman Consulting, LLC (Paul Weisman and Michele Simos)
22. West Virginia Center for Civic Life (Betty Knighton, Jean Ambrose and Patricia O’Reilly)

And 8 people renewed as dues-paying individual members, and those are:

1. Mike Coombs at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Dept of Cognitive Science
2. Kenneth Cissna at the University of South Florida, Department of Communication
3. Julie Fanselow at Write the Change
4. Lorrie Janatopoulos at Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency (AEOA)
5. Charlie Pillsbury at Mediators Beyond Borders (MBB)
6. Mary Thompson at Corder/Thompson & Associates
7. Sue Woehrlin at Antioch University Seattle
8. Gill Wyatt at the Centre for Relational Living

If you’ve run online engagement projects in Latin America, Africa, Asia, or Central & Eastern Europe, this is an important announcement for you…

A group called Rising Voices will be launching a new initiative this month: the Transparency and Technology Network. This is a three-month, participatory research mapping to gain a better understanding of the current state of online technology projects that increase transparency, government accountability, and civic engagement in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, and Central & Eastern Europe. The project is co-funded by Open Society Institute’s Information Program and Omidyar Network’s Media, Markets & Transparency initiative, and aims to inform both programs’ future investments toward transparency, accountability, and civic engagement technology projects.

Rising Voices in the process of hiring eight regional researchers who will spend 16 weeks documenting at least 32 transparency, accountability, and civic engagement technology projects. These researchers will also facilitate 16 region and country-specific discussions on Global Voices about relevant topics related to transparency, accountability, and public participation in political processes.

They are also seeking research reviewers to leave valuable comments on each of the case studies and blog posts.  The Transparency and Technology Network website will allow moderated case study submissions by any registered user.

In addition to producing good research to inform the investments of funders like Open Society Institute and the Omidyar Network Rising Voices also aims to build a global network of individuals, groups, and organizations who care about the use of technology to promote more transparency, more accountable governments, and greater civic engagement. If you would like to get involved, follow the instructions on the full post or send an email to .

See the full post on the Rising Voices website.

Just a quick note to encourage those of you who are aware of job openings related to dialogue and deliberation to forward them to me or Joy () so we can share them with the NCDD network.  Too many NCDD members are unemployed or underemployed right now, and sharing job openings within the network is a first step.

I’ll be making it a priority this year to add job openings, internships, consulting opportunities, etc. that I hear about to the News & Perspectives blog on our main page, www.thataway.org.  If you’re friends with me on FaceBook, those posts will appear on my wall and under my “notes” tab.  If you’re a member of NCDD’s LinkedIn group, those posts will be found under “news.”  You’ll also see the posts listed in brief on NCDD’s Twitter account.

Please send me anything you hear about!  We’ll judge if it’s relevant to NCDDers.