Author Archives: Sandy Heierbacher

Featured D&D Story: Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Dauphin Island

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Today we’d like to feature a great example of dialogue and deliberation in action, Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Dauphin Island. This mini case study was submitted by Dr. R. Warren Flint of Five E’s Unlimited via NCDD’s Dialogue Storytelling Tool (add YOUR dialogue story today!).

ShareYourStory-sidebarimageTitle of Project:
Strategic Planning for Sustainability in Dauphin Island

Description
I was contracted to design and facilitate a long-term strategy and implementation plan (more here) to create a more resilient community able to balance economic development with environmental protection and conservation. I facilitated planning meetings that included the public, the Town Planning Comm., the U.S. EPA’s Mobile Bay NEP, the NOAA Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Program, and state/county agencies toward designing a strategic planning process to achieve sustainable community goals, adhering to NEPA guidelines and the protection of threatened species. I assisted the community in identifying how strategic planning process could better inform the Island’s Comprehensive Plan and enhance future community resiliency.

The results of this strategic planning process emphasized major issues such as water conservation, community behavior changes related to climate change strategies, including energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, eco-tourism programs, rising sea level, protection of pristine coastal environments, diverse land-use strategies, and the general assessment of best uses for existing community assets (capital) to achieve long-term community resiliency.

The project planning activities developed both short- and long-term strategies for these issues and more. This project was recognized as a finalist in the International Association of Public Participation’s (IAP2) 2009 Project of the Year Award. The international recognition by IAP2 on pages 8 and 67 in the above linked report acknowledged the diversity of environmental, social, and economic issues addressed, as well as the project’s promotion of the IAP2 Core Values in public participation.

Which dialogue and deliberation approaches did you use or borrow heavily from?
Open Space / Unconference, Study Circles, World Cafe, Appreciative Inquiry, Public Conversations Project dialogue, Technology of Participation approaches, Future Search, Charrettes and Deliberative Polling

DauphinIsland

What was your role in the project?
Project director; Primary facilitator; Process design specialist

What issues did the project primarily address?

  • Economic issues
  • Education
  • Environment
  • Planning and development
  • Science and technology

Lessons Learned

  • Important to employ multiple ways of engagement for the different publics in community.
  • Make sure an implementation group is in place before project of planning is completed.
  • Keep reminding stakeholders of the role of sustainability in all discussions for actions.
  • Public engagement includes the promise that the public’s contribution will influence the decision.
  • Public participation seeks input from participants in designing how they participate.
  • Public participation must provide participants with the information they need to participate in a meaningful way.

Where to learn more about the project: www.eeeee.net

Introducing our fabulous youth organizers for Text Talk Act

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Creating Community Solutions is pleased to announce that we’ve teamed up with Active Minds, Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, and our other partners (NCDD is one of them) to identify some fantastic young people across the U.S. who will be helping organize Text Talk Act events in their communities.

We asked them to send us selfies, and you can check out their brief bios here.

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Hopefully you already know all about Text Talk Act from our previous postings and recent confab call on the project, but in case you don’t, Text Talk Act is an innovative event taking place on April 24th (next Thursday). Thousands of people across the country will participate by (1) getting together in small groups of 4 or 5 people and (2) texting into 89800 to get polling questions and discussion questions sent to them by text.

In other words, this is texting-enabled face-to-face dialogue.  We’re experimenting with how the fun and convenience of text messaging can be leveraged to scale up face-to-face dialogue — especially among young people.  And we hope all of you are planning to take part!

Learn more about Text Talk Act here, and sign up today.

NCDD is part of the collaboration running the Creating Community Solutions national dialogue effort aimed at tackling mental health issues in our communities, along with these other NCDDers:  National Institute for Civil Discourse, Everyday Democracy, National Issues Forums Institute, AmericaSpeaks and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium. Check out all of our previous posts on Creating Community Solutions here.

Trainer’s Manual: Getting the Most from a Collaborative Process

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This Manual from the Policy Consensus Institute contains the essential information for training leaders from agencies and organizations interested in learning more about how to use collaborative processes to address public issues. These materials are practical and problem-centered, designed to capitalize on people’s experience and to help them integrate new ideas with their existing knowledge.

They are presented in eight modules, each module covering an aspect of the “best practices” for sponsoring, organizing, and conducting a collaborative governance process. Each module includes descriptions of key points to cover and activities to address the key points.

The Manual also provides audio visual materials in the form of a CD with PDF handouts and slides and a video DVD of various leaders describing their roles in collaborative processes. These materials are designed to be used in conjunction with the PCI Practical Guide to Collaborative Governance. The first step for workshop sponsors and trainers is to decide on your objectives, target audience, and the format and length of the workshop. Then you will be able to decide which modules will best serve your objectives.

At minimum, if all modules are used, the workshop will take six to seven hours. With the use of speakers, panels, and time for group interaction, the workshop will take eight hours or more. However, effectively covering all of the material in one day can be a challenge, even for experienced trainers. An alternative is to hold a series of workshops, so that each module can be covered in a more in-depth fashion. This could take the form of a two – or three-part workshop, or even a “Module a Month.” The more time spent with each module, the stronger the chances are that the material will be used effectively.

Table of Contents

Planning The Workshop

  • Introduction
  • Responsibilities of Workshop Sponsors
  • Responsibilities of Trainers
  • Steps In Planning The Workshop
  • Planning The Workshop
  • Confirming Workshop Participation
  • Preparing And Assembling Materials
  • Preparing An Example For Module 3

Keys To A Successful Workshop

  • Workshop Modules (See PDF slides and handouts provided on CD)
  • Module 1: Collaborative Governance Processes: An Overview
  • Module 2: When to Sponsor a Collaborative Process
  • Module 3: How to Assess the Potential for Collaboration
  • Module 4: Working with a Neutral Forum and Facilitator
  • Module 5: The Role of Convener
  • Module 6: Participation: Who Needs to be at the Table
  • Module 7: How to Plan and Organize the Process
  • Module 8: Tools and Techniques for Reaching and Implementing Agreements
  • Module 9: How to Close the Workshop

Resource Link: www.policyconsensus.org/publications/practicalguide/collaborative_governance.html ($75)

A Practical Guide to Collaborative Governance

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A Practical Guide to Collaborative GovernanceThis 62-page step-by-step handbook from the Policy Consensus Institute walks readers through the stages of sponsoring,convening, organizing, and participating in a public policy collaborative process. Designed primarily for elected and appointed government officials and civic leaders, the guide also is useful for those who provide leaders with the staff assistance, facilitation services, and support they need to employ these approaches effectively.

The Practical Guide was developed and written by Chris Carlson, founding director of PCI and a leading authority on consensus building in the public sector.

The Practical Guide to Collaborative Governance will help equip more leaders – present and future, in the public, private, and civic sectors – with the information and tools they need to bring about better governance through the use of collaborative practices, with instructions on how to:

  • Understand the spectrum of collaborative processes
  • Identify when collaborative processes will work and when they won’t
  • Sponsor a collaborative process
  • Conduct an assessment
  • Choose and use a neutral forum and facilitator
  • Identify and work with a convener
  • Ensure legitimacy for the process through inclusive participation
  • Plan and organize the process
  • Develop ground rules to guide the process
  • Conduct problem-solving discussions and reach consensus agreements
  • Create Mechanisms for implementation and on-going collaboration

Excerpt: Understanding The Spectrum of Collaborative Governance Processes (58kb PDF)

Reviews

“PCI’s Practical Guide to Collaborative Governance is indeed practical. It is also succinct, thorough and wise. Municipal officials and other leaders will appreciate the careful outlines of steps and considerations. Especially important are the balanced assessments of what works when and how – and what doesn’t. This is an excellent resource for local leaders.”

Bill Barnes, National League of Cities

“PCI has provided yet another practical publication for legislators and other government officials. The chapter on ‘The Role of the Convener’ gives lawmakers clear examples and tips about how they can lead and promote collaborative problem solving in their communities. The helpful guidelines should greatly assist legislators who want to try on this important convener role.”

Bruce Feustel, National Council of State Legislators

“A Practical Guide to Collaborative Governance will undoubtedly prove to be an invaluable tool for anyone seeking to develop a consensus-based solution to a complex or contentious public issue. Whether the goal is conflict resolution or the development of sound public policy that all comers can support, users of theGuide will find helpful process-oriented suggestions based on the real-world experiences of those who have successfully employed collaborative governance techniques in a wide variety of circumstances. The Guide will help lawmakers and other elected officials fulfill their unique potential as “conveners” of collaborative initiatives designed to produce lasting policy results.”

Mike McCabe, Council of State Governments

Resource Link: www.policyconsensus.org/publications/practicalguide/collaborative_governance.html ($15)

Featured D&D Story: Respectful Conversations Project

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Today we’d like to feature a great example of dialogue and deliberation in action, the Respectful Conversations Project. This mini case study was submitted by Jerad Morey, Communications and Program Manager of the Minnesota Council of Churches via NCDD’s new Dialogue Storytelling Tool (add YOUR dialogue story today!).

Title of Project:
RespectfulConvProjectRespectful Conversations Project

Description
When the state of Minnesota was facing a ballot question defining marriage, people were divided. Churches found themselves in sharp internal disagreements that mirrored those in the broader community. Fearful of the end result of a year’s worth of polarizing media campaigns on Minnesota’s civic discourse, churches decided to build peace as a way to love the communities they were in and strengthen Minnesota’s civic culture.

The Minnesota Council of Churches, with support from the Bush Foundation and in partnership with The Public Conversations Project, Twin Cities Public Television and The Theater of Public Policy, designed a conversation model not to change minds, but soften hearts. Respectful Conversations on the Marriage Amendment were conducted across the state in rural, exurban, suburban and urban communities. One thousand five hundred fifty Minnesotans participated in 54 conversations. 62% of participants reported experiencing more empathy for those with whom they disagreed. That figure grew much higher in those conversations were the array of viewpoints was most diverse.

People were excited to participate in these conversations and they have proven to be generative. In level 2 evaluations, participants reported improved listening skills, facilitation skills, reduced tension in home conversations, improved parenting skills and paradigm shifts. Many congregations have gone on to create peace in their communities around other divisive issues and sectors such as higher education, government and public health have studied the model for future implementation.

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

What was your role in the project?
Program co-designer and communicator

What issues did the project primarily address?
Gender / sexuality

Lessons Learned
Budgeting more for evaluations that captured people’s stories of the experience in multiple media would have been a great idea — we were surprised by all of the good will and gratitude generated by the project, and the thirst for follow-up activities. Had we captured it better to better report on it then we would have had a great storytelling tool that Minnesotans could be proud of.

Where to learn more about the project:
http://www.mnchurches.org/respectfulcommunities/respectfulconversations.html

Last chance to sign up for tomorrow’s confab on Text Talk Act!

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Don’t forget to register for tomorrow’s free confab call on Text Talk Act! From 2-3pm Eastern (11-noon Pacific), we’ll be talking with NCDD members Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and Mike Smith of United Americans about this innovative project they’ve cooked up for Creating Community Solutions – the National Dialogue on Mental Health project that NCDD has been involved in with our partners NICD, Everyday Democracy, the DDC, NIFI, and AmericaSpeaks over the past year.

Text Talk Act uses text messaging to guide young people (and folks of all ages, really) through a face-to-face dialogue with 3 or 4 others on mental health.

Hip pracademics like Matt who are on the leading edge of this work call this blending “thin engagement” (texting, online ideation, etc. that is quick-and-easy but can reach the masses) with “thick engagement” (face-to-face dialogue and deliberation, which we all know takes more time and resources but has higher quality returns).  It’s important for all of us to consider how we can use online and mobile technology to support face-to-face engagement, and learning the ins-and-outs of this project will help you consider the possibilities.

Read the full announcement about tomorrow’s confab here, or go ahead and sign up now…

Sorry - this event is over so the form has been closed. Peruse the posts at http://ncdd.org/tag/confab-archives to access archives from our confab calls and tech tuesdays.

Results of NCDD’s awesome Codigital experiment

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We wanted to share the full results of our 10-day engagement project, where we invited members of the NCDD community to share what they would like to see happen when our field comes together at the 2014 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation this fall in the DC area.

The level and quality of participation in this activity were amazing! It was exciting for me, and for the whole planning team for NCDD 2014, to see the great ideas that were shared, and to be able to watch as you honed and prioritized each other’s ideas.

Codigital-screenshot

As you can see from the image above, 122 of you participated, 95 ideas were submitted, 174 edits were made, and a whopping 5290 votes (or ratings) were cast.

Props go to James Carr and Codigital for one of the smoothest, most addicting, and most intuitive engagement experiments we’ve conducted for our community.  Codigital was kind enough to donate their services to NCDD for this project, and we are so grateful they did.

Check out the full results of the project here.  The project report contains all the ideas submitted (in the order the group ranked them) and overall engagement statistics. Planning team member Phil Neisser is working on theming the results, and we are open to others’ interpretations and reactions to the results — and to the process.  Please share your thoughts in the comments here.

The results of this project will be extremely useful to the planning team as we move forward in the planning process. Hopefully it is also getting many of you thinking about the most valuable ways YOU can contribute to the conference (our call for workshop proposals will be issued soon).

If you are interested in using Codigital’s co-creation tool, feel free to contact James at james@codigital.com. He can also be reached by phone at 303-884-1260 (Mountain time; he’s based in Colorado). In addition to online activities like the one we just ran, Codigital’s tool is used by groups before and during conferences to improve engagement through participation in interactive projects that gather ideas and perspectives, and co-create solutions reflecting the collective intelligence of the group. They are happy to partner with facilitators and conference organizers.

Register today for May’s Tech Tuesday on Ethelo

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I’m excited to announce our May “Tech Tuesday” event, which will be hosted by NCDD sustaining member Kathyrn Thomson and her colleagues at Ethelo Decisions, on Tuesday, May 27th, from 1:00 – 2:30pm Eastern (10 – 11:30am Pacific).

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Set your calendars, and register today to secure your spot!

I’ve been spending some time with the tool and getting to know the team, and I must say I feel this tool has a lot of potential for the kind of things we tend to think of as only being possible with face-to-face deliberation, like framing issues and weighing all the options. This is very well worth a look.

The team at Ethelo has been grappling with one of the questions we at NCDD ask ourselves too: How do we meaningfully, authentically weave dialogic processes into an online space?

Ethelo’s leadership, an impressive group of designers, programmers, and communications professionals, have been working for the past several years to create Ethelo–a software tool that they believe is a radical new way of understanding decision making.

The team behind Ethelo Decisions believes that the human capacity for dialogue is a fundamental evolutionary need. Their software offers a way of weaving the in-person experience of dialogue and deliberation into an online platform that allows the deliberative process to continue and helps people weigh the issues, options and values behind their thinking and deciding. Ethelo’s data processing algorithm is designed to promote group harmony by finding and ranking outcomes that optimize satisfaction and minimize the resistance due to unfairness and polarization. It can be used for corporate board decisions, large scale community stakeholder engagement and for any process where you have complex, contentious issues and need people’s input to provide a solid, inclusive way to move forward on the issue.

Ethelo will be offering the NCDD community the chance to learn more about how their platform works on the May 27th Tech Tuesday, and we have extended the time a little to make sure there’s enough time for your questions, thoughts, ideas and feedback. Ethelo will also be presenting the NCDD network with a Beta version of a new tool they are developing for moderators, so stay tuned for news about that!

Ethelo from Ethelo Decisions on Vimeo.

Also – be sure to sign up for our April 22nd Tech Tuesday on PlaceSpeak as well!

Register Now for our April Confab on Text Talk Act

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Join us Wednesday, April 9th for our next NCDD “Confab Call.” We’ll be talking with NCDD members Matt Leighninger and Mike Smith about the innovative project known as Text Talk Act. The confab will take place from 2-3pm Eastern / 11-noon Pacific.

As part of our role in the National Dialogue on Mental Health project Creating Community Solutions, NCDD and our partners have been experimenting with how the fun and convenience of text messaging can be leveraged to scale up face-to-face dialogue — especially among young people.

The first round of Text Talk Act took place on December 5, and round two is coming up on April 24 (and we hope you’re planning to participate!).

This is new and important stuff here, folks. We’ve been using Mike Smith’s United Americans platform as well as Textizen to design a text-enabled in-person dialogue process. In other words, people get together in small groups of 4 or 5, text into the same number, and start engaging in a dialogue with their group that is prompted by a video, a couple of polling questions, and then discussion questions that come to them via text. Pretty cool!

Matt Leighninger of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium is the main wizard this, and he talks about this being a way to blend “thin engagement” (what we usually do online and on our phones) with “thick engagement” (the stuff we NCDDers tend to value that takes more time and is best done face-to-face. It’s a way of melding the fun and convenience of texting with the irreplaceable value of face-to-face dialogue.

Along with learning more about the ins-and-outs of this project, Mike will talk to us about how any NCDD member can use United Americans’ technology to design your own text-enabled dialogue projects.

A word on the format:  NCDD’s Confab Calls are opportunities for members [and potential members] of NCDD to talk with innovators in our field about the work they’re doing and connect with each other around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is not required for participation.

This will be a simple conference call (audio only), and most participants will also be engaging on a collaborative doc on Hackpad.com to interact with each other, pose questions, share resources, and take notes.

Register Now to Secure Your Spot…

Register for April’s Tech Tuesday event on PlaceSpeak

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I’m excited to tell you about this month’s Tech Tuesday event, which will be hosted by Colleen Hardwick, Founder of PlaceSpeak, on Tuesday, April 22nd, from 2-3 pm Eastern (11am – noon Pacific).

Tech_Tuesday_BadgePlaceSpeak is a location-based community consultation platform. Colleen will be talking to us about “geo-authenticating” online engagement, and will give us a demonstration of the PlaceSpeak software by walking us through several recent case studies. Register today to reserve your spot on this FREE Tech Tuesday webinar!

One of PlaceSpeak’s key features is the ability to consult with people online within specific geographical boundaries. Instead of engaging with an anonymous public, PlaceSpeak verifies its participants, while protecting their privacy by design. To do so, it uses a 2-sided model. Participants verify their digital identity to their address, and then are able to receive notifications of relevant consultations in their area, according to the setting preferences in their profiles.

Convenors (Proponents) set up and manage their topic pages in an easy-to-use and inexpensive interface. They map the scope of participation and select from a variety of features (discussions, polls, surveys, idea generation) to obtain feedback. They are able to export reports in a variety of formats, all spatially segmented according to the geographical boundaries of the consultation area.

PlaceSpeak is currently working on its Open Data strategy and has developed an API called PlaceSpeak Connect to facilitate integration with other software applications. They are currently looking for suitable pilot projects.

PlaceSpeak-logo PlaceSpeak is:

  • Changing the nature on online consultation with an emphasis on quality of feedback data as well as quantity of engagement;
  • Used successfully by leading consulting and public involvement firms including Stantec, Urban Systems, Kirk & Co., Counterpoint Communications, Associated Engineering, Dillon, Brook Pooni, and many more;
  • Building a growing base of participants beginning in Canada but expanding into the US, UK and Australia.

Tech Tuesday participants are encouraged to set up a free Demo Topic to become familiar with the toolkit. PlaceSpeak has published numerous case studies here. NCDDers might find their white paper about Overcoming Barriers to Online Engagement of particular interest.

If you’d like to join us on the 22nd, sign up today!

Tech Tuesday is an initiative from NCDD that focuses on online technology. Many in our field are curious about how they can use online tools to support their engagement work, and many tool creators are excited to talk us about their innovations. These one-hour events, designed and run by the tool creators themselves, are meant to help practitioners get a better sense of the online engagement landscape and how they can take advantage of the myriad opportunities available to them.