NCDD Discussion List

NCDD's main listserv is a popular resource for practitioners, scholars, activists and students of dialogue and deliberation. As of January 2007, over 600 subscribers use this listserv for networking, information-sharing, and discussing key issues facing our community of practice. This discussion list is NCDD members' primary means of communicating directly with one another, and with others in the D&D; community. Non-members are welcome to subscribe to this list.

NCDD Email Updates List

National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation.

NCDD's website (you're here right now!) is an online resource center for organizers, facilitators, scholars, and others who want to learn more about dialogue and deliberation, improve their work, or stay informed about what's happening throughout the field. NCDD sends out a monthly email message to over 10,000 people in the D&D community to give them a heads-up about what's new on this ever-changing site--and in the field in general.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org

NCDD's Engagement Streams Framework

Sandy Heierbacher and other members of the D&D; community.

NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework helps people decide which dialogue and deliberation method(s) are most appropriate for their circumstance. The framework is a series of two charts that categorize the D&D; field into four streams based on intention or purpose (Exploration, Conflict Transformation, Decision Making, and Collaborative Action), and show which of the most well-known methods have proven themselves effective in which streams. The second chart also outlines 20 dialogue and deliberation methods, and includes information such as size of the group and how participants are selected.

Resource Link: http://www.thataway.org/exchange/files/docs/Engagement_Streams.pdf

NCDD's Quick Reference Glossary

There are numerous streams of practice running parallel in the broader dialogue and deliberation community (deliberative democracy, intergroup dialogue, conflict transformation, etc.), and they have each developed their own terminology for what they do. We hope our glossary helps you make sense of it all!

Resource Link: http://thataway.org/index.php/?page_id=499

Nonviolent Communication

Nonviolent Communication (NVC) is a way of being and relating to one another based on the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. NVC is a process that strengthens our ability to inspire compassion from others and to respond compassionately to others and ourselves. NVC guides us to reframe how we express ourselves and how we hear others by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing and requesting.

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion

Marshall Rosenberg. PuddleDancer Press, 1999.

NVC is an approach that can be effectively applied at all levels of communication and in diverse situations from self-talk to international politics. The NVC model for communications includes: observing, without judgment, actions that effect our well-being; stating our feelings as we observe the action; saying what needs, values, desires are connected to the feelings; and requesting the concrete actions we would like.

NTL Institute

Through the use of the applied behavioral sciences, NTL strengthens relationships and organizations by fostering self-awareness and interpersonal, group and system effectiveness. NTL pioneered a particular kind of learning environment called the T-Group, and has had a profound influence on the theory and practice that presently underlies the professional field of organization development.

Resource Link: http://www.ntl.org

On Dialogue

David Bohm (Lee Nichol, Editor). Routledge: New York, NY, 1996.

David Bohm was one of the greatest physicists and foremost thinkers of this century. This revised and expanded edition is the most comprehensive documentation to date of David Bohm's dialogical world view. Bohm explores the purpose, methods and meanings of the multi-faceted process he called "dialogue", suggesting that dialogue offers the possibility of an entirely new order of communication and relationship with ourselves, our fellows, and the world around us. His book offers tools that facilitate a true exchange of ideas between people.

One America Dialogue Guide: Conducting a Discussion on Race

Washington, DC: One America In the 20th Century/President Clinton's Initiative on Race, 1998.

This guide provides a simple but effective model for dialogue and some good resources. The guide was a key part of Clinton's One America in the 21st Century: The President's Initiative on Race. Clinton recognized that, even as America rapidly becomes the world's first truly multi-racial democracy, race relations remains an issue that too often divides our nation and keeps the American dream from being real for everyone who works for it.

Resource Link: http://clinton2.nara.gov/Initiatives/OneAmerica/america.html

Onlinefacilitation

The onlinefacilitation listserv is for discussion about the skills, techniques and issues around online facilitation in a variety of Internet online environments and virtual communities.

Resource Link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinefacilitation/

Open Space Technology Process

Open Space Technology, created by Harrison Owen, is a self-organizing practice that releases the inherent creativity and leadership in people. By inviting people to take responsibility for what they care about, Open Space establishes a marketplace of inquiry, where people offer topics they care about, reflect and learn from one another, to accomplish meaningful work. It is recognized internationally as an innovative approach to creating whole systems change and inspiring the best in human performance.

Open Space Technology: A User's Guide

Harrison Owen, Open Space Institute. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1997.

Open Space Technology: A User's Guide is just what the name implies: a hands-on, detailed description of facilitating Open Space Technology (OST). Written by the originator of the method--an effective, economical, fast, and easily-repeatable strategy for organizing meetings of 5 to 1,000 participants--this is the first book to document the rationale, procedures, and requirements of OST. OST enables self-organizing groups of all sizes to deal with hugely complex issues in a very short period of time. This practical, step-by-step user's guide details what needs to be done before, during, and after an Open Space event.

OpenSpace Online

Change Facilitator Gabriela Ender and her team from Germany developed the internet real-time methodology OpenSpace-Online, which promotes autonomous, responsible, respectful, and results-oriented collaboration. Available in German and English, the Internet Conference method features successive phases in which 5 to 75 people can work simultaneously. The participants work together in a goal and solution-oriented manner for 2 to about 8 hours.

Resource Link: http://www.openspace-online.com

Option Technologies, Inc.

Option Technologies provides interactive tools that improve group collaboration and decision-making in either face-to-face or multi-site meetings. Ideal for immediate assessment or rating lists of brainstormed ideas 'on-the-fly,' OTI's OptionFinder technology polls meeting participants who then respond from their pocket PC, computer, or wireless keypad. OTI's facilitator-friendly solutions include easy-to-use, PowerPoint-based software and portable, cost-effective response keypad options. AmericaSpeaks uses Option Technologies for the keypads each participant uses during their 21st Century Town Meetings.

Resource Link: http://www.optiontechnologies.com

Orangeband Initiative

The OrangeBand Initiative is promoting conversation about what matters, and YOU decide what matters. Begun at James Madison University in Virginia, over 8,500 people have OrangeBands and chapters are starting around the USA and beyond. Your OrangeBand is an issue, idea, concern, or topic you think is important to bring into conversation. OrangeBands (orange strips of fabric you attach to your bag) serve as invitations to respectful conversation about issues that we feel are important to talk about. The idea is simply to get an OrangeBand, put it someplace visible, and use it to spark a conversation - hopefully with someone who thinks differently.

Resource Link: http://www.convergingvoices.com/oband/

Organization Development Network

The Organization Development Network is an international professional association of organization development practitioners. The OD Network is dedicated to being a leader in the advancement of the theory and practice of organization development.

Resource Link: http://www.odnetwork.org

Organizing Community-Wide Dialogue for Action and Change

Study Circles Resource Center, 2001.

A comprehensive guide to help you develop a community-wide study circle program from start to finish. Study Circles are at the heart of a process for public dialogue and community change. This process begins with community organizing, and is followed by facilitated, small-group dialogue that leads to a range of outcomes. Study circles don't advocate a particular solution. Instead, they welcome many points of view around a shared concern.

Resource Link: http://www.studycircles.org

Palestinian and Jewish Recipes for Peace

Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group, 2004.

This unique 100-page, illustrated cookbook celebrates 12 years of sustained relationship building and community outreach by the Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group of San Mateo County, California. In addition to 71 wonderful recipes, the book includes dialogue participants' narratives about childhood memories of family and food. The book provides windows into the two cultures about how food is vital to celebrations, holidays, and identity for both peoples. The book also contains guidelines for how to begin a Sustained Dialogue and ideas for events, ceremonies, and outreach to the public.

Resource Link: http://traubman.igc.org/recipes.htm

Participatory Budgeting in Brazil: Contestation, Cooperation, and Accountability

Brian Wampler. Penn State University Press, 2007.

In this first rigorous comparative study of participatory budgeting in Brazil, Wampler draws evidence from eight municipalities in Brazil to show the varying degrees of success and failure PB has experienced. He identifies why some PB programs have done better than others in achieving the twin goals of ensuring governmental accountability and empowering citizenship rights for the poor residents of these cities in the quest for greater social justice and a well-functioning democracy. Most scholarly literature on Brazil's experiments in participatory budgeting has focused on the successful case of Porto Alegre and has neglected to analyze how it fared elsewhere. Wampler is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boise State University.

Resource Link: http://www.psupress.psu.edu/books/titles/978-0-271-03252-8.html

Partnerships Online

David Wilcox's Partnerships Online site focuses on collaboration, including how technology can help people build partnerships, networks, participation. The Partnerships Online site is a mix of personal observations and insights from projects Wilcox works on with other people, mainly in the UK. It includes blog items, web pages and bookmarks mainly focused on how to make collaborations work through facilitation in workshops and online, with various digital technologies.

Resource Link: http://www.partnershipsonline.org.uk