Author Archives: Roshan Bliss

New Leadership for the Journal of Public Deliberation

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Our friends at IAP2 and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium just announced a great new leadership team for the Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD). We’ve been talking to some members of the team about the potential of NCDD helping the JPD with outreach and dissemination to the dialogue and deliberation community. Stay tuned for updates, and check out the full announcement below.

Announcing changes in the leadership of the Journal of Public Deliberation 

IAP2 logo

DDC logo

 

 

 

DDC and IAP2 Federation are pleased to announce exciting changes in the leadership of the Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD). After three highly successful years at the helm of the journal, Tim Steffensmeier and David Procter are stepping down, and a new editorial team is taking over:

  • Laura Black of the School of Communication Studies at Ohio University will serve as the new Editor.
  • Tim Shaffer, who directs the Center for Leadership and Engagement at Wagner College, will be an Associate Editor and the Book Review Editor.
  • Nancy Thomas of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, who also directs The Democracy Imperative (TDI), will be an Associate Editor.

Since its inception in 2004, JPD articles have been downloaded over 82,000 times. The journal occupies a preeminent role in a growing, global, cross-disciplinary field. Black, Shaffer, and Thomas plan to expand the types of articles published, create a new section for shorter articles that focus on innovative ideas and best practice examples, continue the journal’s success with special issues and symposia, incorporate book reviews, and explore new possibilities for interactivity and social media. The new team will soon be issuing their first call for proposals.

Under the leadership of Steffensmeier and Procter, who are based at the Institute for Civic Discourse and Democracy at Kansas State University, JPD has made great progress. Article downloads have tripled and submissions have doubled over the past three years. The production schedule accelerated to two issues per year. Special issues on Participatory Budgeting and (De)liberation Technology garnered wide attention. Steffensmeier and Procter also husbanded the journal’s transition to a new platform at Berkeley Electronic Press, www.publicdeliberation.org, which provides the new editorial team an expanded range of online tools.

In their work, Steffensmeier and Procter have benefited enormously from the work of Associate Editor William Richter, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Kansas State, and Chandra Ruthstrom of the university’s Center for Engagement and Community Development.

Laura Black is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Ohio University. She studies group deliberation and dialogue with a special focus on storytelling, conflict, and group facilitation. Some of her research has also investigated the use of online tools in deliberative forums. She has worked on several research projects with organizations such as the Kettering Foundation and the Interactivity Foundation and local civic organizations. Her research is published in JPD, Small Group Research, and several communication journals as well as edited books on deliberation and democracy.  She has served on the editorial board for JPD and also co-edited a special issue of the International Journal of Public Participation on the communication practices in public meetings.  Laura received her Ph.D. in communication from the University of Washington in 2006.

Tim Shaffer is Director of the Center for Leadership and Engagement at Wagner College. His research interests include historical and contemporary forms of civic engagement and the public philosophies that animate citizens. He has published on topics such as environmental leadership and deliberative democracy as well as higher education’s role in cultivating and supporting civic life. He earned a bachelor’s degree in theology from St. Bonaventure University, master’s degrees in public administration and theological studies, respectively, from the University of Dayton, and a PhD in education from Cornell University.

Nancy Thomas directs research on college student engagement in democracy at Tisch College and CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, at Tufts University. She also co-founded and directs the Democracy Imperative and serves as a senior associate for Everyday Democracy. Nancy has worked for more than 20 years in the national diversity, civic, and democracy reform efforts in higher education. In 2010, she published Educating for Deliberative Democracy and co-edited (with Martin Carcasson) a special issue of JPD on teaching democracy across the curriculum. She holds a BA in government from St. Lawrence University, a law degree from Case Western Reserve University, and a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

In addition to IAP2 and DDC, the Journal is also supported by a range of other institutions, including:

For further information kindly contact:

Iris Almeida-Côté, Executive Director, IAP2 Federation

iris@iap2.org or visit the website: www.iap2.org

Matt Leighninger, Executive Director, Deliberative Democracy Consortium

mattleighninger@earthlink.net or visit www.deliberative-democracy.net

 

Participate in “Real Dialogues” Hangout Today!

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We’re excited to invite you to participate in the most exciting phase yet of the Real Dialogues project, their very first Google+ Hangout discussion! You may remember that the Real Dialogues D&D reality show was one of the winners of NCDD’s Catalyst Awards, and we are proud to see the project entering its production phase! Now you can participate in the project yourself by joining the conversation.

This first dialogue starts Tuesday, October 29th, at 5pm Central so make sure to email realdialogues@gmail.com immediately to sign up! They are specifically seeking participants from Illinois, so please also tell your IL friends about this great opportunity by having them check out the announcement below or pointing them to the original post on Real Dialogues’ website here.

Real Dialogues Fall Update: Entering Production Phase

After months of design work and preparation, our Catalyst Award project is finally entering its production phase!

We will be using Google+ Hangouts to host three rounds of facilitated small-group dialogues online on the issue of employment and the minimum wage in the greater Chicago, IL area:

  • The first Hangout is for our participants to get to know each other and to explain and hear about their employment situations.
  • The second Hangout will feature interviews with Conservative, Liberal and Alternative experts, who will also drop in to answer questions.
  • The third Hangout aims to tie it all together: what have people learned, have they changed their perspectives, and will this affect their lives?

This first Hangout takes place Tuesday, October 29 at 5pm Central Time (that’s 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern).

We are very pleased to welcome Susanna Haas Lyons as our facilitator. Susanna will be facilitating a group of people from the Chicago area to discuss work and the minimum wage. They include employees, employers, minimum wage workers, unemployed job seekers and other people interested in the issue.

Participants wanted

We have a couple of spaces left for Illinois-based people to participate! If you live in Illinois and want to join, email realdialogues@gmail.com immediately, so we can get you set up.

Audience welcome

Anyone can watch this Hangout and use the new Google+ Q&A feature to ask the participants questions (to ask a question or comment, you will be instructed to join or sign in to Google+).

Helping Community Voices Be Heard

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We all would like to see communities having more say in their governments, but as many of us know, making our communities heard is not always easy.  That’s why we were touched by a story recently shared by our friends at Everyday Democracy about a New Mexico group that, despite challenges, persevered in not only making the voices of their community heard, but also in making those voices into local policy.

You can read the story below or find the original post on ED’s blog.  We also encourage you to watch the inspiring video about Families United for Change and their efforts by clicking here.

Creating school policy for the community, by the community

EvDem LogoCandelaria Patterson joined Families United for Education after seeing her son unfairly pushed out of high school.

“I knew that what happened to him was not right, and I wanted to make sure that other students didn’t have to go through the same situation,” she says.

Educators, community members, and parents like Patterson are now part of Families United for Education, a group working to improve the experience of students in Albuquerque schools. The organization quickly is becoming a symbol of unity and perseverance in Albuquerque.

In organizing parents and community members to advocate for its children, Families for United Education developed a new family engagement policy and pushed it through the Albuquerque Public Schools system to adoption.

The policy is centered on eliminating the often-adversarial relationship between schools and communities by replacing it with a more open process that engages parents and communities as key and valued resources.

The policy was in the works for more than two years and officially adopted last August. Implementation is scheduled this year.

It addresses community and parent demands for ending racism, discrimination and the alienation of people of color and marginalized sectors of student population.

Other goals include closing the academic gap that exists between European-American students and other students, as well as increasing parent participation within the school system.

Families for United Education also is advocating for training the school system staff in “understanding the root causes of inequalities,” as well as requiring the school system to “utilize the histories and cultures of our families as a foundation for education.”

The road these community members have taken to replace the older, ineffective policy was anything but easy.

Tony Watkins, an Albuquerque Public Schools coordinator and key organizer with Families for United Education, praised Everyday Democracy, a national organization based in Connecticut that provides resources for community engagement, for supporting the organization’s work.

“Everyday Democracy helped us to start our sessions of dialogues, which gave us a process for bringing together several communities and building relationships and generating data,” says Watkins.

Families for United Education then analyzed and organized the data and used it as a basis to develop the comprehensive engagement policy eventually adopted by Albuquerque Public Schools.

The policy and advocacy-styled strategies allowed Families for United Education to build bridges and eradicate barriers using methods rarely employed by local communities to address their discontent with the school system.

“There is something unique about (the leaders of) Families United for Education,” says Lorenzo Garcia, Albuquerque Public Schools board member and chair of its District Relations Committee. “They are articulate, they know how to use data, they are disciplined, and they can congratulate administrators when they do a good job.”

With its success in Albuquerque, Families for United Education is becoming a valued and requested ally in the quest to make public education in New Mexico more open and equitable.

Recently the organization contributed to two pieces of legislation introduced by Democratic state Sen. Linda M. Lopez. Senate Bill 579 would“require state agencies to review their policies and practices to ensure that they do not contribute to institutionalized racism.” Lopez also introduced a memorial (a form of legislation in New Mexico) calling for a “Student Bill of Rights,” initiated by two young people from the Southwest Organizing Project, an organization that supports Families United for Education.

Families United also played a supportive role in a memorial introduced by Democratic state Rep. Antonio (Moe) Maestas calling for a diverse school curriculum in New Mexico. The bill includes support for books that support Native American and Latino culture, such as Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, and Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 years by Bill Bigelow. These books were among several banned last year by school officials in Tucson, Ariz., when state lawmakers passed a law that removed Mexican-American Studies from its public schools.

Earlier this year, Families United also organized an Albuquerque Public Schools candidates’ forum and created report cards for each candidate based on key educational issues.

“I see this fight as being on a boat where everybody has to row to reach our destiny,” says Hanh Nguyen, a community member who has been involved with the group since its early stages. “Along the way, people will leave the boat, and others will get on and take their places. But as long as you are in the boat, you have to keep rowing,” he added.

Civic Health Clubs and… the Revolution?

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I am excited to share with you today an innovative project that I’ve been involved with in my community that is an interesting twist on connecting people through shared conversations.  The project is led by Evan Weissman, a local teacher, actor, and civic entrepreneur who has been working for over a year now to found a “civic health club” in Denver, Colorado called Warm Cookies of the Revolution – an effort that hopes to offer “an antidote to the loneliness that comes with Facebook and other online interactions” in today’s world.

I have been involved in various ways with Warm Cookies for a while now and have been able to talk with Weissman about the vision for his civic health club, so I’m happy to be able to share what I’ve learned with the NCDD community.

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What is a civic health club, you ask? Weissman answers, “Say you go to the gym for your physical health, and to a house of worship for your spiritual health, and maybe a therapist for mental health. Shouldn’t you have a place where you can go for civic health?”  So, as its website says, “Warm Cookies is where you go to exercise your civic health.”

As many of us know from our work, there are always people who want to connect with others who care about their communities, engage in conversations, find out about different points of view, or find organizations that need volunteers. But as we also know, it can often be hard to find a place to go to satisfy those wants and needs.  So as a civic health club, Warm Cookies of the Revolution seeks to be that place.

But what’s with the name? It’s a question Weissman gets often. For starters, every event that Warm Cookies of the Revolution hosts offers free cookies and milk to participants. But the name is part of a deeper philosophy that Weissman and Warm Cookies hold about the need for deep, far-reaching change in our democracy. Thinking about what change like that could look like can be daunting and even a bit scary, so that’s why the “warm cookies” are there — Weissman wants these conversations to be accessible and fun:

What are the warm cookies of the revolution? What is comforting, enjoyable, desirable about the revolution? What will make the revolution appeal to regular folks that are scared by that word? Is there room for humor in the revolution? What sustains us as we work toward the revolution?

…People either spend their time on things that are necessary, like work and chores, or things that are fun. And just because something is compelling doesn’t mean that people will pay for a babysitter and come to discuss a civic issue. But if it’s fun, they will come… Most people react with a giggle to the name, and that’s important. For people interested in the fun stuff we do, they know there’s a civic purpose as well. And for the people interested in civic change, it’s important for them to understand that fun definitely is part of it.

So in addition to providing cookies at every event, Warm Cookies events are intentionally made to be part serious civic conversation, part fun social gathering. For one of its first events, Warm Cookies put on an event called “Bring Your Government“, where three different speakers — a Colorado senator, a former candidate for Denver mayor, and a local comedian — shared their thoughts on what their ideal government would look like, and steps for how we might get there. At the same time, participants were invited to collaborate on building a Lego city.

That is the feel of many Warm Cookies events: real conversation, but mixed with something fun to occupy participants’ hands or bring them together around food or a shared activity. It is an attempt to embody the reality that if we are really going to have a dramatic shift in our democracy, we are going to need to know our neighbors.

In addition to the “Bring Your Government” format, Warm Cookies has developed a number of flagship types of events that it hosts on a recurring basis, including:

  • The Civic Stitch ‘N Bitch initiates conversations on civic subjects are encouraged while participants get together to knit, crochet, sew, or do another hand craft.
  • Pie, Pie, and Pie Charts in which participants enjoy pizza, pie, and discuss current economic issues.
  • Sunday School for Atheists is a time for discussing issues of values, morality, and their role in society outside of the normal religious context.
  • The Huddle encourages participants to take time outs while they watch the Thursday night football game to discuss the social issues that revolve around professional sports.
  • and the Intergenerational Mixtape Show & Tell, where participants of all ages bring objects and music representative of their generation to discuss what it means to them, as well as the roles of different generations play in our society. (I personally worked on creating the first event of this kind with Weissman and we’re looking forward to doing more soon!)

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The civic health club idea has been catching on and attendance at the events has been growing. Weissman and his partners with Warm Cookies of the Revolution are working to open up a brick and mortar location for the club within a year that will house more frequent civic gatherings and events and, of course, offer free warm cookies.

Opening the space is part of the larger vision to make civic health clubs, as an important infrastructure for growing our communities’ capacity to really practice democracy, a more regular part of our cities and towns. As Weissman says,

The truth is, there’s a sports bar on every corner, shopping malls in every town, theaters and comedy clubs. How about one place you know you can go for some fun and to learn how and why you can take part in civic life? Like my friend Stephen Handen says, ‘You don’t learn to swim by reading a book.’ We have to exercise our civic health. There has to be an action component.

I am excited to see Warm Cookies growing in my community, and we at NCDD are quite impressed with the creativity and innovativeness of this new way of getting our communities talking.  We will be following the way that Warm Cookies of the Revolution shapes up with great interest, and we encourage you to do the same!

You can find out more about the new Denver civic health club at their website, www.WarmCookiesOfTheRevolution.org. You can contact Weissman and his team at info@warmcookiesoftherevolution.org.  You can also learn more by checking out the Colorado publications that have written about Warm Cookies and Evan’s thoughts here, here, and here.

Long live the civic health revolution!

Ideation Nation Contest

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We wanted to share the post below from our partners at the Davenport Institute’s Gov 2.0 Watch blog about an exciting chance to win $5,000 in the Ideation Nation Contest. Find out more, and good luck in the contest!

DavenportInst-logoMindMixer and Code for America are hosting a nationwide contest for ideas of how to improve the ways citizens and governments work together:

MindMixer and Code for America are teaming up for a month-long, nation-wide call for ideas. From September 24 through October 31, we’re asking Americans to share their informed ideas about how to improve the ways citizens and governments work together.

This is a chance for citizens to be a part of something bigger — an opportunity to share thoughtful community-building ideas that could be a catalyst for creating better communities. While most people are not experts in economics or policy, they are truly the firsthand experts about the communities they live in, with different perspectives from policy makers and government leaders.

You can read more about how to participate in the contest here, and follow ideas here.

Announcing the Online Facilitation Unconference: Oct. 23-25

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NCDD is proud to be collaborating as a Media Partner in next week’s Online Facilitation Unconference! The Unconference is a free, fully digital convergence of folks from around the world interested in sharing and learning about virtual facilitation (i.e. facilitating and moderating online).

You can read the event description below or find out more and register for the Unconference at http://ofu13.eventbrite.com. You won’t want to miss this innovative event, so make sure to register ASAP!  We’d love to see lots of NCDD members participating.

The Online Facilitation Unconference is part of the first-ever International Facilitation Week, which you can find out more about on the International Association of Facilitators website.

Facilitation Across Time and Space: How to Create Change Through Virtual Environments?

iaf_key_logoOnline Facilitation Unconference 2013

A community-driven event as part of International Facilitation Week

When it comes to helping groups and communities achieve their desired outcomes, technology is playing an increasingly important role. But how can we really deliver the same value in virtual environments that we know how to deliver in person? How can we operate with the same integrity?

This informal, community-driven event will bring together experts and novices, professionals and volunteers, to share and learn together and to explore the challenges and opportunities we have before us.

As an unconference, the participants will be in charge of defining the topics and setting the agenda.

Come join us. Free to attend!

PS: More information will become available shortly. Watch this space for updates!

What?

An informal, community-driven event for people to share and learn about the exciting world of facilitating in virtual environments.

When?

This event will take place during and as part of International Facilitation Week, October 21-27, 2013.

  • Start: Wednesday, 10/23 in the morning (Pacific Time)
  • End: Friday, 10/25 in the evening (Pacific Time)

Cornerstone activities:

  • 10/23 (morning PT): Kick-off for the Americas, Europe, Africa
  • 10/23 (evening PT): Kick-off II for the Americas, Asia, Australasia (tentative)
  • 10/24 (9-10am PT): Twitter chat “Facilitating a Diverse Group of People” (follow #facweekchat)
  • 10/25 (evening PT): Closing

Why should I attend?

If you are already an online facilitation expert, this is a great opportunity to share your knowledge with others.

If you are new to online facilitation, this will be a great opportunity to make new connections with people who share your interest. Hopefully, we’ll all learn a few things!

This is an international event. Expect to meet fellow facilitators from these countries:

Canada Germany Ghana Finland France Netherlands Poland Spain Sweden Taiwan United Kingdom United States

An “unconference”? How does that work?

An unconference is a conference where sessions are programmed and led by the attendees. They are hands-on, flexible, a little casual but very hard working. All the sessions are open for attendees to define, describe, and lead. You’ll find the format to be energizing and entertaining.

We will set up a website that will allow participants to suggest and schedule sessions on any topic they think is relevant. Participants can then sign up for any session they are interested in.

Session hosts are free to choose their preferred session format and delivery channel, e.g. webinar, conference call, Google hangout, chat… you name it!

Everyone is encouraged to help document the sessions they attend, share any lessons learned and provide feedback on what worked and what could be improved next time. We may provide volunteers to help with documentation and reporting.

We plan to offer some kind of kick-off and closing session as well as a “lounge” where participants can hang out in between sessions.

Potential session formats:

  • Small-group discussion
  • Classroom presentation
  • Tool demo
  • Panel disucssion

Potential session topics:

  • How-tos
  • Case studies
  • Academic research

Do I have to be there for the entire 60 hours?

Of course not! We’re still working on the details, obviously, so thank you for bearing with us.

At the beginning (Wednesday), we’ll spend some time on introductions, identifying a first round of topics, suggesting and scheduling sessions etc. We hope to offer some kind of (synchronous) kick-off activity where people can first connect with one another. And we’ll have a website where this coordination can take place throughout the day and maybe even into the second day (asynchronously).

Our guess is this process will take a while. Plus we want to build in a minimum of lead time. So once a sessions has been scheduled, we want to make sure we can announce it to all attendees.

In the end, the average participant may only spend 2-3 hours total to attend a couple of sessions they are interested in. You are welcome to spend a lot more time, of course, but we don’t expect anyone to be present the entire 60 hours.

How much does it cost to attend?

The event is free to attend. We ask for a small donation to help cover costs.

Are you looking for sponsors?

Yes! We are looking for sponsors to help us offset the cost of organizing, technology setup and documentation. Details soon! Contact us if you’d like to get involved.

How will you spend the money?

We want to make sure every session gets properly documented. To that end, we’d like to hire a few students with facilitation background to write session summaries and help us capture the key take-aways. So essentially, this is a scribe / harvester role.

Another area we’d like to staff is our lounge area where people find a friendly welcome and receive help with any technology issues. This is a greeter / tech support kind of role.

We also want to report session impressions and outcomes in a timely manner via our website and social media. Maybe follow up with session hosts or participants, do a few interviews etc. This is a reporter / community weaver role.

Provided the event goes well (i.e. lots of interesting sessions, all well documented), we’d like to produce a final report. This will likely require the help of a professional editor and graphic designer.

If we have leftover funds, we will reimburse the volunteer organizing team, albeit symbolically (probably a fixed-sum stipend for everyone).

Finally, if we can pull it off, we’d love to do t-shirts (hey, who said you can’t have give-aways at a virtual event, eh?). We’re asking for t-shirt size in the sign-up form, just in case. However, we realize this is absolutely a nice-to-have and would definitely require very strong sponsor support.

Donor list

Thank you to all of our donors for raising a total of $235 so far:

Up to $50:

  • Tim Bonnemann
  • Sandy Heierbacher

Up to $25:

  • Debra  Bridgman
  • Raines Cohen
  • Laurie Dougherty
  • Kathryn Elliott
  • Betsy Morris
  • 1 anonymous donor

If you’d like to donate, just choose “Participant + donation” in the sign-up form and enter the amount you’d like to give.

How can I get involved?

There are many ways people can support this project. Please contact us to be included in future communications. Our interactive website will be available shortly.

  • Let us know your ideas. What would you like this event to be like?
  • Join the planning team
  • Help setting up our web infrastructure (we’ll keep it lean, but a few things need doing)
  • Help get the word out in your community
  • Suggest a session
  • Host a session
  • Attend a session
  • Help with documentation
  • Help with coverage during the event (e.g. social media)
  • Become an event sponsor
  • Become a media partner
  • Write a blog post
  • Share resources

Who are the organizers?

Core team:

  • Tim Bonnemann, Founder and CEO, Intellitics, Inc.
  • Tricia Chirumbole, Facilitator & Scrum Master, Mojo Collaborative
  • Douglas Ambort
  • Helen Wythe
  • Fedor Ovchinnikov, Participatory Leadership Consultant and Facilitator

Supporting members:

  • John Kelly
  • Birgitta von Krosigk

Want to join the organizing team? Please contact us to be included in future communications.

Media partners

Thank you to our media partners:

Please contact us if you’d like to become a media partner.

Have questions about Online Facilitation Unconference 2013? Contact The OFU13 Team

Engaging in Aging (Featured D&D Story)

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D&D stories logoWe are highlighting another example of dialogue and deliberation in action today, and this time it is a project called Engaging in Aging. This mini case study was submitted by Doug Ross of Collaborative Solutions via NCDD’s Dialogue Storytelling Tool, which we recently launched to collect stories from our members about their work.

We know that there are plenty of other stories from our NCDD members out there that can teach key insights about working in dialogue, deliberation, and engagement. We want to hear them! Please add YOUR dialogue story today, and let us learn from you!

Title of Project:

Engaged in Aging

Description

Engaged in Aging was previuosly known as Continuing the Conversation. The “conversations” originated in day long conferences about aging called Winter Forums. These took place every Winter in Sarasota, FL.

My role was to allow some of the participants to meet to continue these provocative conversations. Attendees were common, ordinary citizens with some interest in the challenges of an aging population.

Sarasota County has more people over the age of both 65 and 85 than any other large county in the USA — 32% and growing – so we have trhe right field to study these things.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?

  • Open Space / Unconference
  • World Cafe
  • Sustained Dialogue
  • Bohm Dialogue

What was your role in the project?

Mostly facilitator, and also a participant.

Lessons Learned

Dialogue, by whatever name applied, is the key value in getting people to open up about what touches them on this issue. From several years of using “World Cafe” and a decade ago using “Open Space”, I’ve learned to value the smaller group sizes. Even introverts can manage a group of 4 or 5! I also facilitate “Mastermind Groups”, and again size and trust are keys to success.

Join an Online Conversation on Resilience for New Economy Week

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This post was submitted by NCDD member Hina Pendle of New Economy Coalition via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have field news you want to share with the rest of us? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

neweconweekNCDD members are invited to join the New Economy Coalition’s Hina Pendle and Ben Roberts for an online conversation tomorrow, October 15th from 9-10:30am Pacific/12-1:30pm Eastern time. The conversation is part of the New Economy Week, and the theme will be “Growing Resilient Organizations, Leaders, and Culture.” Make sure to register ASAP by clicking here.

Join an online conversation and connect with other New Economy Week participants from across the nation around the theme of resilience.

“Build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller

Those of us growing a new, co-prosperous economy amidst the old, crumbling, unsustainable system know that it’s not only what we do that matters, but also how we do it. How can we build long-term resilience? How do we turn setbacks into powerful opportunities? How do we prevent suffering unintended consequences? How do we maintain organizational energy when it often seems like the deck is stacked against us, there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it?

Join us to consider these questions and the key dimensions of a resilient enterprise and a resilient culture.

A resilient enterprise…

  • Rides the rapids of change brilliantly
  • Grows from the inside out
  • Anticipates and prepares for the unknown
  • Retains essential functions during disturbance
  • Sees people as the organization’s most valuable asset
  • Has agile systems, infrastructure and flexible architecture

In a resilient culture, people are…

  • Happy, healthy and achieving their potential
  • Co-operative, co-laborative, co-ordinated, co-intelligent, considerate
  • Inspired by the vision and a mission that unifies the enterprise
  • Fully participating in the functioning organization
  • Have relationships that work

IMPORTANT: Vist the following URL to register for the call: http://myaccount.maestroconference.com/conference/register/P8U32VBQXOZWUG19

This conversation on resilience is just one piece of the New Economy Week. New Economy Week is

…an opportunity to shine a light on the thousands upon thousands of things that everyday people are doing right now to build a new kind of economy. These innovators are all around us engaged in the work of growing co-operative and independent enterprises, democratizing and stabilizing finance through credit unions, finding new ways to share skills and goods, new ways to measure success, and new ways to meet growing human needs on an all too finite planet.

From October 12-18, we will be highlighting events, actions, reports, works of art, and other projects across the United States and Canada. By calling attention to the thousands of things people are doing right now to build a new kind of economy, we hope to inspire more participation in this movement and catalyze a conversation on the need for deep, systemic change.

You can learn more by visiting www.neweconomyweek.org.

Webinar on Libraries & Civic Engagement, Nov. 5th

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Mark your calendars and be sure to join our partners at the National Issues Forums Institute and the American Library Association for their upcoming webinar on Tuesday, November 5th, from 4-5pm Eastern Time.  You can read more about the webinar below, or find the original NIF blog post by clicking here.

Guides for Community Discussions:
National Issues Forums (NIF) and Others
Webinar

Register now

Tuesday, November 5th, 2013
4:00-5:00 p.m. EDT; 3:00 – 4:00 pm CDT; 1:00 – 2:00 PDT

Please join us for this one-hour webinar about issue books, videos, and other guides available to help librarians bring their communities together to talk in productive, civil, and interesting ways. A growing and diverse array of nonpartisan, non-agenda-driven materials about important public issues are available from the National Issues Forum Institute and other sources.

Presenters for this webinar include: Patty Dineen from the National Issues Forum Institute, and Carolyn Caywood, and Nancy Kranich, both from ALA’s Center for Civic Life. They will review and show examples of available materials; describe how these guides can support engaging library programs; and give examples of how librarians have used them in their communities. Time will be available at the end of the webinar for Q&A as well as Suggestions/Stories.

This webinar is the fifth in a civic engagement series produced by Programming Librarian and is sponsored by the ALA Center for Civic Life.  Check out Webinars 1-4 by clicking here.

Don’t forget to register today for the call by visiting the following URL: www.programminglibrarian.org/online-learning/guides-for-community-discussions-nif.html.

Winners of the Successful Communities Contest

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CM_logo-200pxNCDD would like to join our partners with CommunityMatters in congratulating the winners of the Successful Communities contest!  The contest encouraged local groups to create projects to improve their communities, and awarded $500 to four winning communities, and the winners were recently declared:

Last month, CommunityMatters asked people to come together, listen to our August call on the Secrets to Successful Communities with Ed McMahon, then decide on one completely achievable action for making their community more successful. To sweeten the deal, the Orton Family Foundation offered $500 to four communities that came up with an idea or strategy for success. Sixteen of the 17 parties came up with a next step for taking action.

Public voting helped us select the following four entries to win $500. Congratulations to Discover Downtown Middlesboro, Upstream Arts Collective, the Medfield Cultural District, and Old Time Ozark Traditions! We’ll keep an eye on these projects over the coming months and share their progress with yo

We encourage you to learn out more about the winning projects here on the Community Matters blog, and check out the Successful Communities Gallery by clicking here. Congratulations again to the winning communities: Middlesboro, KY, Silverton, OR, Medfield, MA, and Mountain View, AR! Here’s hoping your projects continue to grow and improve you communities!