Author Archives: Roshan Bliss

Kettering Research Assistant Positions Now Open

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kfWe want to give a heads up to our NCDD members, especially student and researcher members: It’s the time of the year when our organizational partners at the Kettering Foundation are taking applications for full-time Research Assistants for the next year.  This is a great opportunity that some of you may certainly want to apply for.

Applications are due by March 15, so don’t make sure to get started soon!

Here’s a little snippet of how Kettering describes itself and the position:

Kettering is an operating research foundation that explores practical ways democracy can be strengthened through innovation in public practices. Its research, done in collaboration with people and organizations around the world, emphasizes the roles of citizens and the qualities of their interactions as decision-making actors in public life.

The primary responsibility of research assistants is to provide Kettering staff with reviews of relevant scholarly and professional literature. We seek candidates whose interests complement and will be strengthened by the foundation’s interdisciplinary research. The successful candidate will have strong communication and writing skills, especially the ability to understand and translate technical ideas and language into coherent written reports.

Minimum requirements for the position include a bachelors’ degree. We especially encourage applications from scholars who have interests in topics such as deliberative democracy, civic engagement, social capital, civic education, civil society, and social movements.

To apply, applicants should send an CV, letter of interest, writing sample, and 2-3 letters of recommendation to abd@kettering.org. You can find out more about the openings at Kettering by visiting www.kettering.org/how-we-work/research-positions.

Good luck to all the applicants!

2014 Public Participation Interviews: John Lewis on Outreach

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We recently started reading a terrific interview series from the talented team at Collaborative Services on public participation lessons they have learned in the last year, and we wanted to share their insights with the NCDD community. The third interview in the series features the reflections of John Lewis of Intelligent Futures, who shares insights gained from the award-winning ourWascana engagement endeavor in Canada last year. You can read the interview below, or find the original on Collaborative Services’ blog by clicking here.

Multiple Entry Points into the Conversation Create Multiple Opportunities for Successful Public Participation

collaborative services logoThe uncertainty of change coming to a city’s crown jewel can cause an outpouring of different opinions. So how do you capture all of this input and make sure every voice is heard?

That’s the challenge one firm was tasked with in the summer of 2012, when it came to proposed change for Wascana Centre in Regina, Saskatchewan. Just shy of the Centre’s 50th birthday, the ourWascana Visioning Project was launched to collect citizens’ hopes and dreams for the future of Wascana and its beloved Centre. More than 3,300 citizens shared their 8,000 unique ideas during “ourWascana.” Their input is being used to create a sustainable future for this civic gem for the next 50 years.

This week as we continue our look at public participation successes we hear from John Lewis, President and Founder of Intelligent Futures and native Reginan. By providing multiple entry points into the conversation, Intelligent Futures was able to accurately collect public input and foster an open and honest dialogue during the ourWascana Visioning Project. Unique tools for collecting input such as sounding boards set up in Wascana Centre, a social media campaign and creative graphic design all contributed to the project’s success. ourWascana’s success was then reaffirmed on an international scale when it won the 2013 International Association of Public Participation’s Core Values Award for Project of the Year in the Member at Large category.

Today, Lewis shares with us his firm’s experience working on ourWascana, how their approach to outreach is evolving and some of the other exciting projects Intelligent Futures you should know about. We welcome his insights.

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Given your client list, Intelligent Futures is clearly a veteran outreach firm. How has your approach to outreach campaigns changed or developed over the years?

I think we have become more creative in how we give the community an opportunity to provide input. We use the term “multiple entry points into the conversation” a lot. Whether it’s in-person or online, we are trying to create as many ways for people to find out and share their thoughts as possible. I think we’re also getting better at catching people’s attention (in a good way). We know people are really busy and there are millions directions you can take your attention. Through graphic design, plain language and surprising tactics, we try to make our projects interesting, relevant and if possible, fun!

What do you think is the most important act a host can do to foster constructive public dialogue?

Be honest. If you’re honest and clear – about the parameters of the dialogue, about what is being done with the feedback or your experience in a place – you’ll end up with a constructive conversation. I think the projects that get into trouble are the ones that aren’t honest in one way or another. Honesty is the only way to erode the skepticism that many of these projects face from the outset.

What tools, methods, and strategies were used in the ourWascana engagement process and which were the most effective?

We used the “multiple entry points into the conversation” approach extensively with ourWascana, but the three most effective were:

  1. Community “Sounding Boards.” This was a series of feedback boards installed within the park, allowing citizens to share their ideas within the space itself. It didn’t matter if you were attending a festival, having lunch or walking your dog at midnight, you could look around you and provide your ideas.
  2. An extensive social media campaign. ourWascana came out of a celebration of Wascana’s 50th birthday and was looking ahead 50 years. We collected a variety diverse, surprising facts about Wascana Centre and created a #50thingsaboutwascana campaign that generated a lot of interest in the community that translated to interest in the project. Overall, the project campaign was so successful that we ended up with more Twitter followers at that time than Wascana Centre Authority. An interesting, but good, problem to have.
  3. Use of extensive and creative graphic design. In order to generate interest as mentioned before, we took our visual identity and graphic design elements very seriously. We heard from a number of stakeholders that this was an important part of creating the project buzz, which obviously leads to more interest and responses. We especially heard good things about our “Wascana at a Glance” infographic that captured much of the diversity that makes Wascana Centre special.

A sounding board at the Wascana Centre (Credit: ourwascana.ca)

Were there any revisions to your campaign strategy once ourWascana was launched?

To be honest, not really. We took a great deal of time and care to plan the process, including extensive discussion and feedback from the Strategic Planning Committee of Wascana Centre Authority, and it really seemed to pay off.

Of the 8,000 ideas received during the community engagement process, more than 50% were submitted in person via Sounding Boards rather than through workshops or online. Were you expecting this type of response?

It is really difficult to predict the level of response. ourWascana represented our biggest opportunity to take all of our experiences and learn to date and apply them, so we certainly hoped we would receive great levels of feedback. Taking the time to understand the community and plan accordingly certainly helped.

Did any of the feedback surprise you?

Having grown up in Regina (and actually being married in Wascana Centre) I know the place fairly well. The only thing that really surprised me was how strongly the community feels about Wascana Centre. This masterpiece has been 100 years in the making and while any project gets excited about the change that can happen, it was really a validation of all the vision and hard work that created the place that exists today. People really want to ensure that is maintained and built upon in the future.

Credit: ourWascana.ca

Any time you propose a major design change to a civic jewel like the Wascana Centre, people are going to have very strong opinions. How did the ourWascana process ensure that every opinion was heard and considered?

ourWascana fed into the Comprehensive Review Project for Wascana Centre Authority, which will then lead to a review of the master plan for the space. Having said that, I have to give tremendous credit to the Strategic Planning Committee and Bernadette McIntyre, the Executive Director of Wascana Centre Authority. Throughout the process, they never wavered from our approach to have a completely honest, open conversation and to hold judgement and listen to what the community had to say. It was really remarkable to work with a group of people like that.

Do you know of any other communities that have used a model similar to ourWascana? Can you provide some of the best examples?

There are many communities that are shifting towards more creative and authentic community engagement. ourWascana was a hybrid of many approaches. Some of the folks we have drawn particular inspiration from are Candy Chang, Build a Better Block and Rebar Design Studio out of San Francisco. They are doing great things to make conversations about the future of our places more interesting, authentic and exciting.

Is Intelligent Futures still involved in the Wascana Centre Visioning Process today? 

Not formally. We are still in touch with how things are going, but hope to work there again soon!

What are some projects that your company is currently working on that the public should know about?

We are working on a number of interesting projects these days. Two in particular come to mind:

ReImagining: This is a developer-led engagement project to redevelop a former inner-city golf course. Through this project, we are trying to set the new standard for how developers engage with the community. This project is a three-phase process over six months that is all in advance of a formal application even being made to the local government.

Sustainability reporting: We have recently completed our third installment of Pathways to Progress: The Cochrane Sustainability Plan Progress Report. After working with the community to create this award-winning plan, we have been leading the monitoring of progress, which has been really interesting. We’re trying to make the information as user-friendly and graphically appealing as possible, so that the information is actually used.

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Thank you John. It is great to see the community of Regina come together to take ownership of Wascana Centre and create the vision that future generations will enjoy for years to come.

This interview is part of a blog series from Collaborative Services, Inc. - a public outreach firm in San Diego, California that brings people together from their individual spheres and disciplines to improve communities and help people adapt to an ever-changing world. The firm uses inter-disciplinary efforts to manage and provide services in stakeholder involvement, marketing and communications, and public affairs. The firm’s award-winning services have spanned the western region of the United States from Tacoma, Washington to the Mexico Port of Entry.

We thank Collaborative Services for allowing NCDD to learn along with them, and we encourage our members to visit their blog by clicking here. You can find the original version of the above article at www.collaborativeservicesinc.wordpress.com/2014/01/29/multiple-entry-points-into-the-conversation-create-multiple-opportunities-for-successful-public-participation.

Is “Bowling Alone” Still Relevant?

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This post is shared from the blog of supporting NCDD supporting member and professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Boston, Dr. Peter Levine. Peter recently wrote a reflection on the debate inspired by the now classic Robert Putnam work Bowling Alone, and whether or not it is still relevant after nearly 20 years. We encourage you to read Peter’s thoughts below or find the original post at www.peterlevine.ws/?p=13329.

Bowling Alone after (almost) 20 years

Robert Putnam published “Bowling Alone” in the Journal of Democracy, vol. 6, no. 1, January 1995. By September 25 of the same year, he was in People Magazine (smoking a pipe, standing alone in bowling shoes on a New Hampshire bowling alley). “We’ve become disconnected,” he said in the article, and “I think it’s at the root of all other problems.”

“Bowling Alone” has altered my own trajectory. It led to the National Commission on Civic Renewal, of which I was deputy director. The Commission called for a research center on youth engagement–noting the evidence, cited in Putnam’s original article, that the decline in social connectedness had been generational. That center is CIRCLE; I still direct it nearly 20 years later.

The original article quickly provoked a debate, with empirical and theoretical contributions. At the time, I thought one of the strongest counterarguments was in Jean Cohen’s 1999 chapter “American Civil Society Talk.” I am teaching Cohen this week, along with Putnam’s “Community-Based Social Capital and Educational Performance” (2001), which I take to be a more advanced version of the “Bowling Alone” argument.

In essence, Putnam argued that membership generated trust and reciprocity, which had  good outcomes for individuals and societies. A bowling league was a good example of voluntary membership. Shrinking bowling leagues would be a sign of decline if that exemplified a broader trend.

Drawing on Habermas, Gramsci, and various liberal thinkers, Cohen argued that laws or norms of free speech, free association, and deliberation yield certain kinds of associations that generate politically relevant discourse. That discourse produces better and more legitimate government. Bowling leagues are poor examples of civil society for Cohen because they do not involve political discourse. Unions, social movements, and advocacy groups would be better examples.

Cohen objects to the whole “decline” narrative. For Putnam, Baby Boomers were responsible for decline because their levels of associational membership fell. For Cohen, they were impressive because “they created the first environmental movement since the turn of the century, public health movements, grassroots activism and community organizing, the most important feminist movement since the pre-World War II period, the civil rights movement, and innumerable transnational nongovernmental organizations and civic movements–all of which have led to unprecedented advances in rights and social justice.” She ends: “we must drop the rhetoric of civic and moral decline.”

The debate is partly about method. Putnam finds strong empirical links between composites of membership, trust, turnout, following the news, etc. He tweaks his empirical model until it provides the best prediction of desirable social outcomes. He calls the composite measure “social capital” and offers theoretical reasons for its benefits.

Cohen, however, wants to disaggregate the various components that Putnam combines because she sees some as good and others as bad, from the perspective of left-liberal political theory. She is not interested whether social trust correlates with membership, or whether membership predicts trust in government. She sees membership in discursive associations as desirable, but trust in government as problematic. She also claims that Putnam omits important measures from his explanatory model. He should consider variation in legal rights, for example. (This part of her critique seems a bit unfair considering the methodology of Making Democracy Work.)

I think Cohen scores some valid points, but nearly 20 years later, I find myself increasingly sympathetic to Putnam. The reason is our political situation now. Cohen recognizes that the model of a liberal public sphere is far from perfect, but her argument depends on its potential. We must have reason to hope that free speech and democracy will allow people to form associations that generate reasonable public discourse and hold the government and market to account. Her positive portrayal of the Boomers rests on their success. They achieved “unprecedented advances in rights and social justice.”

But those advances have thoroughly stalled since 1999. We still have the legal framework that permits free association and free speech, but people are not using it very effectively. There are many reasons for that, but I think one is a declining capacity to associate. It now looks  as if the great social upheavals of 1955-1975 rested on a general culture of joining associations and norms of social solidarity. Those have eroded–probably not because of the social movements of the 1960s, but for other reasons, including economic change. The result is a civil society that has great difficulty generating the kinds of political movements that Cohen rightly values. Putnam looks prescient in noting the decline in the groundwork of effective political action.

Betty Knighton Interview from Kettering

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Our friends at the Kettering Foundation, a long-time NCDD organizational member, recently shared a great interview on their blog with Betty Knighton (also a member) that we found to be quite insightful. Betty is an accomplished public engagement professional in W. Virginia whose experience we can all learn from, so we encourage you to read the interview below, or find the original post at www.kettering.org/kfnews/betty-knighton.

kf You can learn a lot about an organization by who they learn from. One of the folks Kettering has learned the most from is Betty Knighton of Charleston, West Virginia. Betty is a master of citizen engagement, someone who’s figured out how to work with communities around her state. But unlike many folks with a supersized talent, she also has the even rarer ability of being able to tell you how she does what she does. If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Betty, either at one of Kettering’s many learning exchanges or in West Virginia, here are some of Betty’s unique insights into community engagement – in her own words.

Since 1998, Betty has run the West Virginia Center for Civic Life. The center, which functions as an impartial organization supporting public engagement on tough issues in West Virginia, believes in the motto of National Issues Forums: “Understand. Decide. Act.” Three simple words, yet many lament we rarely see this attention to public issues any more. The poor state of public discourse in many communities around the country makes her work all the more admirable and worthy of discussion. And like many people Kettering works with, Betty doesn’t fit the stereotypical public engagement personality: she isn’t an elected official, she’s not trained professionally in public administration, nor does she have a degree in political science. Betty is a former high school English teacher who was working at the West Virginia Humanities Council on a literature discussion program for teachers when she became interested in National Issues Forums. Through the council, she began to form a statewide coalition of partnering organizations to help West Virginians talk and work together on issues facing the state. Eventually, their work grew into the creation of a nonprofit, freestanding organization, the West Virginia Center for Civic Life.

Jack Becker: Can you talk about a current issue you’re working on?

Betty Knighton: We’re currently working on a project about the economic future of West Virginia. Like so many states in rapid economic change these days, West Virginia is struggling to find ways to move forward on many fronts. There are conflicting ideas in some of these areas, especially in how the state should use its natural resources. For us to be useful to the state and to communities, we’re focusing on identifying conflicting perspectives and helping community’s frame those perspectives into constructive conversations.

When we work with West Virginians to frame issues, we’re really engaging in a conversation with people about how they see the problem. The framing of the issue has to represent different points of view in order to help communities have a comprehensive discussion that leads to productive decisions. The framing of these discussions is integral to the integrity of the entire process. If the issue framework sidelines an entire group of people, it won’t help the state move forward in the way it needs.

We’ve also seen how important it is that the organizers of community discussions come from different sectors – nonprofits, faith groups, government agencies, educational groups, the private sector. Not only does this kind of coalition underscore the openness of the process, but also it allows working relationships to develop that will have a major impact as communities move from dialogue to action.

A big part of what you’re doing, then, is identifying when and where people come together, and sometimes catalyzing opportunities for that to happen. A lot of people are thinking about this as “civic infrastructure.” What are your thoughts on that?

While most communities don’t use the term “civic infrastructure,” those that are most intentional in building opportunities for people to talk and work together are actually thinking a great deal about what civic infrastructure entails. Recently, we’ve been working with several communities as they are identifying the existing connections and relationships in their areas.

They are asking themselves: Where do conversations occur naturally in our community? Or, what kind of informal relationships do we have that help our community move forward? People often have to think hard and dig deep to uncover what is happening in their communities since so much of it is outside formal processes and spaces. Everybody, from the mayor to any citizen, knows something about the civic infrastructure in his or her community. At the same time, nobody knows everything. The work community members are doing to “map” what is happening around them is increasing opportunities for connected work and for stronger relationships to carry that work forward.

Some communities have developed ongoing spaces for community conversations. Huntington has a weekly process they call Chat ‘n Chew – open to everyone – as a time Huntington residents can come together, talk about local needs, and often, to work to address the needs they’ve identified. During Chat ‘n Chews, they are also enjoying a social time together and building a more connected community in the process.

Many communities in our state are doing this, often at cafés or restaurants, over breakfast, lunch or dinner. What’s special here is that many people are intentionally building habits of coming together and to talk about issues. While these initiatives are all locally organized, we try to learn about what’s happening so we can share their practices with other communities in West Virginia.

So I’m hearing that there’s a bit of a tension between rapid response dialogue and the more long-term work of building civic infrastructure. Is that right?

In many cases, we’re seeing that communities that have been the most intentional about building – or surfacing – connections are the ones that are most equipped to respond to public issues. It won’t necessarily be done quickly; most of these issues are complex and difficult. But communities that have an informal infrastructure to support public framing of issues and productive dialogues are starting several steps ahead.

When we work with communities, we try to help them build on the capacity they already have. Sometimes, people think they have to have a great deal of professional expertise and training before they can bring the community together for a conversation. While certain skills are very helpful for these community moderators and conveners, most often, it’s a matter of redirecting the skills they already have into a new, more public purpose.

The language I hear you speaking is that of assets. Similar to what John McKnight and the Asset-Based Community Development Institute has worked on for years, you’re saying that focusing on a community’s assets rather than deficits can facilitate better problem solving?

Communities do have infrastructures and capacities; they just don’t always recognize them. In our work with communities, and especially in our current work on the economic future of the state, we are working with communities to build on existing assets rather than to develop a list of deficits. It’s important for people to understand the severity of problems, though. For example, many West Virginians’ eyes were opened to the severity of the state’s prescription drug abuse problem in the 120 community dialogues that have been held around the state. Fortunately, they also learned about much good work that was underway, and they were able to build on that and set directions for new work to fill the many gaps.

How does the infrastructure that supports dialogue impact the move to action?

We’ve seen that the strong community connections that support deep and broad public dialogue are the key indicator of whether community actions will evolve. No matter how good the discussion is, community actions don’t just spontaneously erupt afterward. The connections and relationships that create the dialogues, coupled with the new relationships that develop during the dialogue, provide a solid infrastructure to support the hard work of planning and implementing community actions. It’s been exciting to see communities work so intentionally and with such deep insight into the importance of these connections. We’re trying our best to learn along with these communities and to share their work with others.

New Step for Harwood’s Public Innovators Initiative

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We are pleased to share the announcement below about an exciting and ambitious initiative being undertaken by Rich Harwood and the Harwood Institute, an NCDD organizational member. The Harwood Institute is setting bold goals for its Public Innovators program, which you can read about below or in the original post here.

We are also excited to share that NCDD is in talks with Harwood to develop a partnership between our two organizations and networks which we hope will further advance all of our work. Stay tuned for more details!

Our New Goal: 5,000 Trained Public Innovators Ready to Change the Country

HarwoodLogoI’m glad to announce today The Harwood Institute’s plan to train 5,000 new Public Innovators by 2016. Public innovators are individuals with the mindset and skills to catalyze and drive productive change in communities and change how communities work together. We’ll also grow our Public Innovators Corps to 100,000 members – individuals who actively support this new direction and use our approach to better their communities, organizations and lives.

We’ve put this stake in the ground to counter the growing toxic public discourse, division and mistrust in our society. There is an urgent need to make community a common enterprise. Even the best leaders, organizations, and citizens cannot make progress alone in the existing environment. We must pull together in a common direction.

This year I’ll also continue our new Reclaiming Main Street Campaign in which I’ll be touring the country to lay out what people and groups can do to make communities a common enterprise, and to invite individuals from all walks of life to join this cause. To be clear, this is not an initiative to garner support for the Institute, but rather for the Institute to support the progress I have heard so many Americans say they want to achieve in their communities.

Public innovators – a designation developed by the Institute – share three defining characteristics. First, they have deeply held ideals that serve as a compass for everything they do in their work and community. Second, they are deeply pragmatic; they know that ideals alone will not produce the change they seek. They want to know what works and they are insistent on re-calibrating their efforts as they learn. Third, they understand risk. They are willing to push hard for change and try out new ideas, while recognizing they must align their efforts to what people care about in their communities.

At the Institute, we don’t “create” public innovators. Instead, we help people tap into their own innate potential and capabilities to develop themselves into public innovators. We teach these individuals a practice that involves a mindset of making the community the reference point for everything they do (what we call being “turned outward”) and a set of core competencies that gives them the skills to bring people together to produce results on issues ranging from education and hunger to health care and financial literacy.

Admittedly, our 2016 goals are audacious. But we stand at a critical point in time. The Institute’s efforts – together with like-minded endeavors across the U.S. – can make a real difference in restoring our belief that we can get things done together. Through these efforts we aim to create:

  1. Proof points of change – generating both big and small wins that demonstrate that change is possible;
  2. New ways of working – showing that it is possible to fix our toxic public discourse, increase shared responsibility and make community a common enterprise. These are essential to answer people’s yearning for an alternate path to business as usual;
  3. An army of storytellers – mobilizing people and groups to amplify and spread stories of change. It is imperative to foster a new, can-do narrative that combats ingrained negative beliefs that progress is not possible;
  4. A path for people to act – providing individuals and groups clear ways to get started and take action in their communities and lives. People want to step forward, but they need to see how they can make a difference.

I said earlier that no one group or individual can do this work alone. I believe that. And so one of the ways in which the Institute is achieving these goals is through forging alliances with networked organizations such as United Way Worldwide, American Library Association, AARP and public broadcasting. Literally thousands of local affiliates and individuals in these networks are now using our practice across the U.S. and around the globe.

And we’re starting new alliances all the time. Just last week we launched a new statewide partnership with the Indiana Association of United Ways to develop public innovators throughout the 60-plus local United Ways in the state. We’ll be announcing additional alliances in the coming months. At this very moment, the Institute is building a critical mass of public innovators and organizations in individual communities such as Battle Creek, Michigan and Youngstown, Ohio to help shift the civic culture of those communities.

Throughout the country, public innovators are finding one another and working together. Our new strategy is to greatly expand these efforts in order to marshal the collective energy of individuals and groups to move the country in a new direction.
I hope you’ll join with me in this effort as we:

  • Bring Public Innovator Labs to more communities in the coming months. Join us for one of these Labs, or even bring a Lab to your community.
  • Develop and launch a new Public Innovator Certification program over the next 18 months. You’ll be able to go deeper in this approach and get certified.
  • Recruit 100,000 members of the Public Innovators Corps by 2016. We’ll provide them with ways to take effective action in their communities, organizations and lives. My hope is that you will encourage your friends and colleagues to join with us.
  • Expand the Reclaiming Main Street Campaign. We’d love to come to your community.

I invite you to write me directly at rharwood@theharwoodinstitute.org about how, together, we can make communities a common enterprise and put our nation on a more productive, hopeful path.

Communications Specialist Opening at Network for Peace through Dialogue

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The job announcement below comes from the Network for Peace through Dialogue, an NCDD Organizational Member, and we are happy to share it. We know many of our members would be a great fit, so make sure to read and share the info about the position below. 

network for peaceThe Network for Peace through Dialogue seeks a Communications Specialist to manage our website, our Let’s Talk program through Google Hangouts, and promote our work widely and interactively through Facebook and Twitter.

Work requirements include working at our upper Manhattan Eastside site 10-15 hrs per week during a regular business day, including the weekly Staff Meeting from 1-3pm on Wednesdays. Rate of pay will depend on the applicant’s background and expertise.

All interested parties may apply by sending cover letter and resume to info@networkforpeace.com.

Good luck to all the applicants!

Conflict Management Opening at KIPCOR

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We were recently made aware of a position opening with the Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution that would be a great fit for many of our NCDD members, so we wanted to share it with you. You can find more information about the position below.

The Kansas Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution (KIPCOR), an institute at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, invites applications for the position of Conflict Management Practitioner and Trainer.  This is a full-time position with benefits.  The starting time for this position will be negotiated with the successful applicant, but will need to be on or before July 1, 2014.

This position has widely varied tasks that will include third-party intervention work in both interpersonal and group/organizational conflict, as well as designing, preparing materials, and leading intensive trainings, workshops and courses.  As in most small non-profit offices, additional tasks related to social media management, scheduling logistics, networking, and miscellaneous office tasks will also be expected.  Specific work areas may be assigned based on the education and skill-set of the person selected for this position.  A master’s degree in a related field or a law degree is required, as is significant specialized training in conflict resolution. The successful applicant must be comfortable working with and advocating for an organization that focuses on peace, social justice, and conflict resolution.

For a full description of this position and the application process, go to www.kipcor.org/Careers/Conflict-Management-Practitioner.php. For more information about KIPCOR go to www.kipcor.org.

Can Online Comment Sections Be Dialogue Spaces?

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Whether we participate in them or not, online comments sections of news and opinion websites are a venue for great dialogue to take place, but too often, they are vitriolic and unproductive. That’s why we wanted to share a great article from the Illuminations blog run by Journalism That Matters featuring thoughts from a number of experts – including NCDD’s own director, Sandy Heierbacher – on transforming these online spaces. Check out the article below, or find the original here.

Moderation matters for online commenting

Imagine if a newspaper white-washed the side of its building every morning and encouraged strangers to tag it with their response to the day’s news. Now imagine that printed in each edition of this paper is a photo of that wall just before it was painted over again.

Although the experiment might yield interesting results, most of the messages on the wall would probably do little to contribute to the conversation about the news of the day and much of it would be little more than graffiti.

Without moderation, comment sections on news Web sites quickly become like that wall, but real conversations are possible when news organizations invest the time to manually curate their comments and foment discussion.

Managing online comments can be a challenge for any news organization, but as Poynter veteran Butch Ward points out in a recent column, the solutions are simple but are resource intensive.

Which brings us back to those cursed Web comments sections. What can be done to make more of them places for productive debate? Three ideas I hear most often are these:

  • Comments need to be moderated.
  • Comments sections need to be more than fenced-off areas for the public to talk among themselves. They need to be part of a newsroom’s coverage strategy.
  • Reporters and editors need to participate in the conversation.

For starters, moderation. Conversations on websites that moderate comments tend to be more substantial and less venomous. So why aren’t more comments sections moderated? Money, of course. Many newsrooms have decided they don’t have the resources to invest in good comments sections. A few are “deputizing” members of the public to police comments, and the verdict is still out. The others? Well, as my mother would say, you get what you pay for.

The Illuminations Blog previously looked at how newspapers are using services like Disqus and Facebook to require commenters to use their real names. But this low-cost solution pales in comparison to the power of human intervention transforming a discordant sea of ad-hominem attacks into a meaningful forum filled with civil discussions.

Sandy Heierbacher, the Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, has been looking at civility in online comments and has identified a few local news sites willing to make the investment needed to maintain it. “I think Deseret News is a really interesting example of a newspaper that took charge of the incivility in its comments,” said Heierbacher in an e-mail. “And I really like this gritty 2010 article on wordyard.com, which points out that platforms like The Well have decades of experience with online commenting. It also emphasizes that it’s not just about moderation.”

GirlWithLaptopDeseret News is a newspaper serving the Salt Lake City, Utah, area. Most of the stories on the front page show only a handful of comments, but because the comments must be approved before being posted to the site, it’s unclear how many might be in the queue. The most commented story listed on the front page has 106 published comments, which reveal an incredibly civil discussion over gay marriage – for a newspaper comment section – which I imagine is particularly controversial within the newspaper’s coverage area.

In the wordyard.com article Scott Rosenberg writes that although it isn’t a bad idea to require commenters to use their own names, it’s all but impossible to enforce and won’t prove very effective if the environment has already turned vile.

“Show me a newspaper website without a comments host or moderation plan and I’ll show you a nasty flamepit that no unenforceable ‘use your real name’ policy can save,” writes Rosenberg. “It’s often smarter to just shut down a comments space that’s gone bad, wait a while, and then reopen it when you’ve got a moderation plan ready and have hand-picked some early contributors to set the tone you want.”

The San Francisco Bay Guardian did exactly that last August. The newspaper closed comments for a one-week period and offered an in-person forum as a substitute for the one online. Although the trolls quickly returned, a visit to the site this week reveals a far more civil environment than it seemed to be a few months ago.

“It’s hard to assess what impact my decision to temporarily suspend comments had, but I do feel like it was a shot over the bow of those who use our comments solely to undermine the work we do,” said Editor Steve Jones. “With new leadership at the Guardian, they seemed to realize that they’d lose their forum if they didn’t clean up their acts a little. It didn’t change much, and we are still planning to implement a comment registration system.”

Publisher and Web Editor Marke Bieschke said in an e-mail that he’s increased his efforts to remove comments that violate the site’s policy but also pointed to troll cannibalism as one reason for the increased civility.

“I know a couple of our most notorious trolls seem to have been hounded off the site by other trolls,” said Biescke.

But perhaps if Biescke had the resources to take advantage of Ward’s third point in his Poynter article – reporters and editors need to participate in the conversation – then his staff might have been able to transform the trolls into healthy contributors or at least persuade them to spew their venom elsewhere.

“Talk about a hard sell,” said Ward. “The truth is, most journalists have never been anxious to mix it up with the public. Newspaper editors and reporters for years responded to unhappy readers with one, or both, of these scripted responses: ‘We stand behind our story,’ and ‘Why don’t you write a letter to the editor?’”

Ward goes on to publish an interview he conducted with two journalists from the Financial Times. But one thing that may make comments posted at the Financial Times distinct from those being left on the Bay Guardian’s Web site or most other publications is that the site lives behind a pay-wall making its comments only accessible to paid subscribers. This certainly diminishes the number of trolls, which I’d imagine are already greatly reduced given the site’s specialization.

I’ve often wondered what would happen if general-news sites like the Huffington Post reserved comment privileges to paying members, but I doubt many would pay for that opportunity alone. Without a layer of curation beyond simple moderation, it would be overwhelming for reporters try to engage with the several hundred comments that can pile up on a popular story.

The Verge, a technology news-site based out of New York has somehow inspired its staff to not only engage with the comments on their own articles but also those written by their colleagues, but the site is one of a few exceptions I’ve found.

Gawker Media is another site where its contributors regularly participate in the comments. The threads in which the author has joined the conversation are marked off with a star and the words “Author is participating” are affixed to a banner on the top. The company has also made a concerted effort to elevate reader comments and participation by creating Kinja, a sort of personal publishing platform for Gawker content.

Kinja users are given a URL where they can curate pages from Gawker sites while also compiling any comments posted by the user. The potential for Kinja was revealed in October when Linda Tirado wrote a lengthy comment about poverty that went viral on her Kinja account Killermartinis. That comment eventually generated over $60,000 in donations and a likely-unpaid position as a contributor for the Huffington Post.

While the Huffington Post maintains a line between its contributors and its commenters, it has certainly tapped its audience to contribute and remains a mixture of professionally produced and unpaid content. Sites like the Daily Kos and Buzzfeed have gone even further in incorporating user-generated material into their strategy. Both sites provide a platform for users to generate their own content that they can promote themselves but is also sometimes highlighted alongside the work of their paid staff.

Comments have been a key component to online publishing almost since its inception. For much of that time comment systems have seen little nurture and almost no new development and online conversations have suffered as a result. As more and more attention is paid to rethinking online commenting, new tools are quickly emerging that promise to bring relief to the pains associated with online conversations. But no amount of engineering will ever replace the human resources needed to keep that conversation both civil and engaging.

Announcing the 2014 Taylor Willingham Fund Award Winner

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We are excited to congratulate Mr. David E. McCracken on winning the 2014 award from the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund , coordinated by our organizational partners at the National Issues Forums Institute. You can find out more about Taylor, her work in deliberation, and her legacy here. You can read the award announcement below or find the original here.

NIF-logoDavid E. McCracken, of North Carolina, is this year’s recipient of the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund grant.

McCracken will be working with residents in Haywood County, North Carolina to name and frame local issues and then to conduct four community forums.

Biographic sketch and description of planned deliberative forums work from David E. McCracken:

David E. McCracken is a lifetime military and civil servant with extensive experience in leader development, domestic and international security, and peacekeeping training.  He served 29 years as an active US Army officer, mostly in Special Forces, and 13 years as a Department of Defense civil servant. He has been an independent consultant since 2012, and leads a discussion group, Great Decisions, in western North Carolina. The group encourages individuals to think critically about global issues facing policy makers.

He grew up and worked on a dairy farm during his youth, then graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point and earned a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Oklahoma. He holds post-graduate certificates from both the JFK School of Government at Harvard University and MIT Seminar XXI, and also served on the faculty of National Defense University.

His decision to request a grant from the Taylor Willingham Legacy Fund (TWLF) emanated from a question raised during his local Great Decisions discussion series last year.  Research into locating a viable information program to better inform citizens on domestic issues resulted in a dearth of available options. TWLF provided the sole source to implement a local forum focused on citizen information.  In light of the opportunities during election year 2014 at the local, state and federal levels, he has been awarded a grant to conduct multiple forums to increase awareness among citizens within Haywood County, North Carolina on topics to be generated by forum participants.  The result will enable citizens to better select representatives at national, state and local levels who align with their individual priorities.  Moreover, he plans to also conduct a youth focused, leader development track that will better educate future voters to stimulate their participation as citizens so that government ‘of the people, by the people and for the people’ shall prosper.

Click here to learn more about the Taylor L. Willingham Legacy Fund.

2014 Public Participation Interview: Lessons from Hollywood

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We recently started reading a terrific interview series from the talented team at Collaborative Services on public participation lessons they have learned in the last year, and we wanted to share their insights with the NCDD community. The second interview in the series features the reflections of Corri Planck of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division, who talks about the award-winning engagement project the Division ran in 2013. You can read the interview below, or find the original on Collaborative Services’ blog by clicking here.

Taking the Study to the People:
Successful Public Participation the “WeHo” Way

collaborative services logo There’s no place like home. This is true for the residents of the vibrant and eccentric city of West Hollywood, or “WeHo” as it’s lovingly known. When the City of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division conducted its 2013 Community Study it discovered that 90% of its residents responded that they have a good or excellent quality of life. Can you say the same about the place you live?

West Hollywood is home to the Sunset Strip, Santa Monica Boulevard, and the Avenues Design District. It has a land area of less than two miles. Here you can run errands and get to and from restaurants, bars, shopping and services all without a car. It is one of California’s most walkable cities according to Walkscore.

Its population of around 35,000 is as diverse as its land uses. Its residents are known for being socially minded. They are made up of various cultures, ages, religions and sexual orientations. It is also the second most concentrated Russian-speaking region in the United States.

With a city this compact and diverse, which services are most important? That was the question. The City’s Social Services Division set out to engage, listen to and learn from its residents during its 2013 Community Study to develop recommendations for the allocation of general funds and to update the city’s demographics. The Social Services Division used creative and flexible opportunities for public participation to bring the Study to the people. This type of engagement helped the City of West Hollywood to win one of the two 2013 International Association of Public Participation USA Core Values Awards for Project of the Year.

This week we hear from Corri Planck, the Program Administrator for the City of West Hollywood’s Social Services Division. She shares with us the unique and collaborative approach to public participation that was used with the 2013 Community Study. An approach to public participation that is sure to be part of the city’s legacy.

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What is the Social Services Division’s role at the City of West Hollywood?

The Social Services Division for the City of West Hollywood has a rich and deep history of ensuring service and support for our community members. Though a collaborative funding process, the Social Services Division monitors $4.2 million annually in social services contracts.

In addition, the Division manages a variety of transit programs; develops and coordinates social and educational programming for a diverse range of issues and populations; and responds directly to constituent needs.

What findings were you hoping or expecting to gather from this year’s Community Study?

The purpose of the study was three-fold. We wanted to update our City’s demographics; develop actionable recommendations for the $4.2 million of general fund dollars allocated for social services contracts; and make sure we could continue to best understand West Hollywood and its residents.

What was your outreach approach and how early did you begin generating interest in the Community Study?

This was an exceptionally ambitious project – in its scope, in its commitment to unprecedented community engagement and certainly in its timeline. We began in January, and held our last community event in March. A preliminary summary report was issued in April, with the full, final report published in early August.

Our planning for the Community Study included a thorough outreach and communications strategy that utilized a full range of the City’s resources to get the word out. Our commitment was to consistent, constant communication.

There were the standard flyers, postcards, and posters as well as banners in our two major City parks. We crafted nine news releases on various stages of the process, placed an article in the City newsletter, worked with our Public Information Office to script a special episode of #trending, a magazine style talk show, exclusively dedicated to the Study on WeHo TV. We created a social media presence, and all printed materials were available in English, Russian and Spanish (including the survey itself). We created a special webpage dedicated to the Study that was updated throughout the process, and benefited from the e-mail signatures with the Community Study logo and hyperlink that our City staff members added to their outgoing messages.

We also relied on old-fashioned, face-to-face communication. Our Social Service staff and the City’s Human Service Commissioners visited every City Advisory Board and Commission, some more than once, during this process to keep them informed. We were able to utilize the Neighborhood Watch e-mail lists to engage residents, and did direct outreach to the West Hollywood-serving social service agencies. In addition, staff members generated multiple e-mails and phone calls to invite community members to participate in a number of the opportunities, from focus groups to stakeholder interviews to attending community meetings.

This year’s Community Study attracted a record high number of responses. Is there a single tactic or public participation event that created more interest to have the influx of new survey participants?

Our commitment to consistent and constant communication aided us across the board in increasing the level of participation.

We added pop-up workshops to this year’s process, guided by the idea of taking the public meeting to the people. We “popped up” in multiple locations throughout the City on various days and times.

Participants were able to engage in multiple activities, all designed to solicit their priorities for social services – target populations, service areas and budget priorities. It allowed people to give us their time as they chose – one of the activities could take 10 seconds, and others could engage people for 15-20 minutes. It was a really great way for us to hear from people who might not ever attend a traditional community meeting.

A pop-up workshop booth at the City of West Hollywood City Hall lobby
(Credit: PMCWorld.com)

The last Community Study was conducted in 2006. What are the most notable differences in how the Community Study was carried out between now and then?

The major difference was the addition of the community engagement activities — pop-up workshops — which took the study to the people.

Were you surprised by any of the feedback you gathered?

More than surprising, there were moments in this process that were completely inspiring, and it was absolutely affirming of the City of West Hollywood’s core values.

We found that 88% of residents rated as excellent or good the job the City is doing to provide services, and 90% rated their quality of life as excellent or good.

Last year, nearly 10,000 of our community members utilized a social service – whether it was a home-delivered meal or an HIV test or a shelter at night or an after-school program or any number of other services we provide. That’s nearly one-third of our total population.

The City’s commitment to social services is clearly a source of pride for our community members as well. The provision of social services is part of the City’s legacy and our residents feel a sense of shared ownership in this core value, in this ideal.  An email signature used by City of West Hollywood staff.

How do you plan to share the Study’s findings with the West Hollywood community?

The findings of the Community Study were put to immediate use by the Human Services Commission, our City Council and prospective partner agencies as part of the funding process for our Social Services contracts. The needs that were articulated in the Community Study process were directly addressed in that funding process – resulting in new providers, increased access to mental health services, and additional options for substance abuse services and programs.

We continue to report back to various City advisory boards and commissions, to our City staff and the Study itself has been made available to the public since it was published.

Some of the findings were just so great that we felt we should find additional, creative ways to share the info. We created a series of graphics to utilize via social media and as e-mail signatures.

What changes will you make, if any, to your next outreach campaign?

Because the City has a history of conducting these Community Studies, there are elements that will remain the same over time, primarily to ensure the consistency and validity of the comparisons over time. That said, it’s probably too early to commit to potential changes in outreach, given the speed at which technology and communications is changing. Our primary commitment, however, will remain the same – to secure the highest levels of community engagement possible.

Credit: The City of West Hollywood

What do you think is the most important act a local government can do to foster constructive public dialogue?

To foster engagement on a regular basis — provide information, ask questions, and listen. To ensure that we truly engage with our community and that we strive to do so in real, meaningful and purposeful ways.

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Thank you Corri for sharing your insights with us. Taking the Study to the people is a great way to make it easier for them to get involved.

This interview is part of a blog series from Collaborative Services, Inc. - a public outreach firm in San Diego, California that brings people together from their individual spheres and disciplines to improve communities and help people adapt to an ever-changing world. The firm uses inter-disciplinary efforts to manage and provide services in stakeholder involvement, marketing and communications, and public affairs. The firm’s award-winning services have spanned the western region of the United States from Tacoma, Washington to the Mexico Port of Entry.

We thank Collaborative Services for allowing NCDD to learn along with them, and we encourage our members to visit their blog by clicking here. You can find the original version of the above article at www.collaborativeservicesinc.wordpress.com/2014/01/24/taking-the-study-to-the-people-successful-public-participation-the-weho-way.