Category Archives: educational opportunities

Public Engagement Training from Annette Strauss Insitute Feb. 25-27

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We hope that NCDD members will take advantage of a great public engagement training being offered this February 25th-27th by the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life – one of the NCDD organizational members who partnered with us to sponsor NCDD 2014. The early bird registration deadline for the trainings is January 30th, so make sure to register ASAP!

NCDD would like to thank the Annette Strauss Institute for their continued support of our work and for their leadership in the field. You can learn more about the training from ASICL’s announcement below or by clicking here.

Facilitating Civic Dialogue and Consensus Seminar

ASI_horiz.spotAre you often in a position where you’re making decisions that affect large populations?  Do you frequently feel political pressure from multiple directions?  Do you feel as if you are often unsure of what the public wants, or perhaps you only hear from the same, small group of citizens?

The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life at The University of Texas at Austin is offering a 3-day seminar that will help you develop the knowledge and skills you need to enrich your engagement with the public. Join us to boost your skills on:

  • Creating customized strategies for engaging the public;
  • Facilitating difficult conversations involving competing viewpoints;
  • Bringing an array of stakeholders to consensus; and,
  • Utilizing innovative technology for public engagement.

This seminar will help you develop the knowledge, tools, and skill sets to enrich your engagement with the public.  You’ll learn how to identify stakeholders and create customized strategies for engaging them; how to facilitate difficult conversations involving competing viewpoints; and how to bring an array of stakeholders to consensus.  You will also examine some of the most cutting-edge technology for public engagement.

Register for the 3-day training or just one module!

Module One – Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Powerful, Productive, and Prudent: A New Paradigm for Public Engagement + Technology and Civic Engagement.

Module Two – Thursday, February 26, 2015
Designing Civic Engagement Processes

Module Three – Friday, February 27, 2015
Dealing with Difficult Civic Topics and Stakeholders

For more information on this the training or to register, please visit http://moody.utexas.edu/strauss/public-engagement-training.

Build Peace 2015 Conference: Peace through Technology

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We want to make our network aware of an exciting community and conference that we know will interest many of our NCDDers, especially those of us oriented toward conflict resolution and technology.

Build Peace is a community that brings together practitioners, activists and technologists from around the world to share experience and ideas on using technology for peacebuilding and conflict transformation as well as an annual, international conference. The Build Peace 2015 conference will be taking place April 25th & 26th in Nicosia, Cyprus, and we want to encourage anyone who might be interested to consider attending.

Build Peace 2015 is titled Peace Through Technology: By Whom, For Whom and will be focused on alternative infrastructures for peace. Here is how the conference planners describe the gathering:

Where Build Peace 2014 aimed to demonstrate the potential of using technology for peacebuilding in terms of ‘breadth’ of initiatives and ideas, Build Peace 2015 will begin to examine issues of ‘depth’: How is the use of technology resulting in the creation of alternative infrastructures for peace? To this cross-cutting theme, the program adds three sub-themes:

  1. Empowerment. One key reason to use technologies in peacebuilding is that they can empower a larger number of people to engage and participate. But there are also tensions between state uses of technologies for surveillance and security implications of some grassroots uses. Who is empowered, by whom and how?
  2. Behavior change. And empowered to do what? Technological tools can affect behaviours that pertain to patterns of violence and peace: by shaping the peace and conflict narratives, through training or education, or by helping shape alternative identity formation processes.
  3. Impact. Another assumption underlying the use of technologies is that it can help ‘improve’ peacebuilding, with the caveat that there are associated risks and ethical issues. What are the actual or possible impacts of using technologies for peacebuilding? How can we measure them?

We have designed the program to weave these guiding themes through the different types of content. Because the themes are interrelated, some sessions are guided by more than one theme. Different sessions are designed to offer different modes of interaction. Keynotes aim to be thought provoking and allow for deeper exploration on one aspect of a theme or themes. Panels offer an overview of one theme and permit interaction with the audience on the broader questions raised by that theme. Short Talks provide concrete evidence of practice and/or research in a particular theme. Working sessions are more practitioner-oriented and will produce a concrete output that contributes to practice in one thematic area.

We know that there a plenty of folks in our NCDD network who would gain and contribute a lot by attending this great gathering, and we hope that some of you can make it! You can learn more at www.howtobuildpeace.org/program or get registered for the conference at www.howtobuildpeace.org/tickets.

Want to really contribute to the gathering? It’s not too late to apply to be a short talk speaker, to host a stand at the Technology Fair, or give a presentation during the Peace Lab at Build Peace 2015! But you have to act fast, because the deadline for application for speakers, stands, and presenters is this Monday, January 5th, so visit Build Peace’s call for speakers today!

We hope that some of our NCDDers will be able to take advantage of this great opportunity, and we thank Build Peace for inviting us to be part of it!

Orton’s Community Field Guide Makes Holiday Reading List

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If you are looking for something to read during your holiday down time or gift ideas, we encourage you to check out the great community and economic planning reading list that our partners with CommunityMatters shared on their blog. We especially encourage you to learn more about the Orton Family Foundation’s wonderful Community Heart & Soul Field Guide, a resource on the list that is designed to help those of us doing community & civic engagement work. You can read the list below of find the original post here.

CM_logo-200pxThe Center for Rural Entrepreneurship shared its list of top reads of 2014. Included on the list is the Community Heart & Soul™ Field Guide recommended by Erik Pages, a CRE fellow and president and founder of EntreWorks Consulting, an economic development and policy development firm who said: “This is an excellent guide to strategic planning and community building for small towns.”

Thank you Erik! Lots of great reads to add to our holiday wish lists!

Here are the center’s Top 12 Recommended Reads of 2014:

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: The Tyranny of Experts by William Easterly. While the book is mainly about international development issues, it’s a useful caution that economic development is about individual choice and empowerment – not the latest scheme from so-called “experts.”

Recommended by Don Macke: Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson. This book provides both a framework for exploring the innovation process and wonderful stories of innovation. Check out Johnson’s program on Public Broadcasting.

Recommended to Deb Markley by Angela Lust, Amarillo Area Foundation: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. This book is a true story of innovation under the most challenging circumstances. Inspiring!

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: Community Heart & Soul Field Guide by the Orton Family Foundation. This is an excellent guide to strategic planning and community building for small towns.

Recommended by all Center staff: The Good Jobs Strategy – How the Smartest Companies Invest in Employees to Lower Costs and Boost Profit by Zeynep Ton. This book provides great case evidence that the race to the bottom need not be the rule as businesses struggle to be competitive.

Recommended by Don Macke: Owning Our Future – The Emerging Ownership Revolution and Journeys to a Generative Economy by Marjorie Kelly. For those of us engaged in entrepreneurship as a means to better economies, this is a must read.

Recommended by Erik Pages, EntreWorks Consulting and Center Fellow: Fueling Up – The Economic Implications of America’s Oil and Gas Boom by the Peterson Institute, an economic impact study of shale energy. Not the most scintillating read, but great data that encourages us to be cautious and realistic about the “shale energy revolution.”

Recommended by Travis Starkey, a millennial and educator in eastern North Carolina: “Creative Class Counties and the Recovery.” This Daily Yonder article shows the value of the “creative class” to the economic recovery in some parts of rural America.

Recommended by Don Macke: The End of the Suburbs by Leigh Gallagher. This book provides interesting insight on the changing spatial demographics in the United States.

Recommended by Deb Markley: Sources of Economic Hope: Women’s Entrepreneurship. This Kauffman Foundation research report suggests why accelerating women’s entrepreneurship might be the best thing we can do for the U.S. economy.

Recommended by Don Macke: The Coming Jobs War by Jim Clifton. This book provides insight from the Chairman of Gallup and their unique international view of global competition.

Recommended by Don Macke: What Then Must We Do? – Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution by Gar Alperovitz. Rooted in the value that economies exist to meet the needs and dreams of residents, this book provides insights worth considering as we engage in economic development.

You can find the original version of this CM blog post at www.communitymatters.org/blog/12-great-reads-add-your-list.

Charlie Wisoff reviews “Making Democracy Fun” by Josh Lerner

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We just love Making Democracy Fun – a great new book by Josh Lerner, an NCDD member and ED of the Participatory Budgeting Project. We love to work with Josh and his ideas – from hosting his great “gamification” talk during the final NCDD 2014 plenary to co-sponsoring PBP’s recent conference – and we hope you’ll read the review of his book written by Charlie Wisoff of the Kettering Foundation below.

In Making Democracy Fun, Josh Lerner addresses a key problem of democracy: “For most people, democratic participation is relatively unappealing. It is boring, painful, and pointless.” This is the case in traditional public hearings that end in bitter conflict and have little impact, but Lerner argues that even idealized forms of participation, such as deliberation, are not intrinsically fun.

To address this problem, Lerner draws on the growing field of game design. Games are defined as, “systems in which players engage in artificial conflict, defined by rules, that result in measurable outcomes.” Lerner has in mind a broad range of games including sports, board games, video games, or play-oriented games like tag. In contrast to the paltry numbers many public engagement processes get, 183 million people in the US report playing computer or video games regularly, 13 hours per week on average.

Lerner suggests utilizing a number of game design concepts and mechanics and applying them when designing democratic processes. He outlines 27 game mechanics organized under the categories of conflict and collaboration, rules, outcomes, and engagement. He also notes that the effectiveness of games does not depend on digital technology, that face-to-face interaction is essential for democracy, and that digital games should only be used to supplement rather than replace in-person engagement.

Throughout the book, Lerner draws on a number of case studies in Rosaria, Argentina and Toronto, Canada to illustrate his points about incorporating games into democratic processes. In a participatory planning process called Rosario Hábitat Lerner notes how a map puzzle game was used to prompt slum residents to make collective decisions about where they want their lots of land to be developed. A core game mechanic highlighted here is group vs. system conflict. This mode of conflict presents a group with a collective challenge, such as limited land, orienting participants towards collaboration rather than competition over scarce resources.

Another game mechanic Lerner highlights is the importance of having enjoyable core mechanics. Core mechanics are the basic activities of a game like bowling a bowling ball or rolling dice, which should be intrinsically enjoyable in a well-designed game. In Rosario, Lerner notes how theater-like games were used to get participants moving while at the same time allowing participants to act-out a new law in particular contexts. In Toronto, during Participatory Budgeting events, simple activities like putting color dots up to rate proposals made a voting process more enjoyable.

Lerner concludes by arguing that, while there “are no simple or universal recipes,” there are certain principles that should guide the application of game design mechanics to democratic processes: engage the senses, establish legitimate rules, generate collaborative competition, link participation to measurable outcomes, and participant-centered design.

For more info or to order Making Democracy Fun, visit www.mitpress.mit.edu/demofun.

Mathews Center Hosts Teachers’ Institute, AL Issues Forums

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We are pleased to share about a couple of announcements about from our friends with the David Mathews Center for Civic Life – an NCDD organizational member – about some exciting work they are doing in Alabama. We originally found these announcements separately on the National Issues Forums Institute’s blog, but we’re combining them here to make sure NCDDers hear about it all.

First, for all of our education-oriented members, be sure to note that the Mathews Center is hosting a great civic learning training for teachers this January:

The Mathews Center is pleased to announce that registration for Teachers’ Institute 2015 is now open. Teachers’ Institute is an interactive, hands-on professional development experience designed to equip teachers with skills and tools to increase active civic learning in the classroom and beyond. The workshop will be held January 15 – 16, 2015 at the American Village, and A+ Education Partnership and Alabama Public Television will be co-sponsoring the event.

Registration is free*, but space is limited. Reserve your spot today HERE. For more information, contact DMC Program Director Cristin Foster at cfoster@mathewscenter.org.

* The Mathews Center will reimburse substitute pay for all attendees. CEUs will be provided.

Second, if you live in Alabama, the Mathews Center is launching a yearlong series of dialogues across the state on children’s health:

After months of work, the David Mathews Center for Civic Life is excited to announce that we are kicking off Alabama Issues Forums (AIF) 2014 – 2015 in two weeks. During the yearlong series, we will be focusing on “Minding Our Future: Investing in Healthy Infants and Toddlers.” The first forum will be held on Thursday, November 13 from 6:00 – 8:00pm at the Harris Early Learning Center in Birmingham, Alabama. The Early Care and Education Work Group of the Children’s Policy Council of Jefferson County is convening the event, and everyone is invited.

If you are interested in convening a “Minding Our Future” forum in your community, please contact DMC Program Director Cristin Foster at cfoster@mathewscenter.org.

You can learn more about the David Mathews Center for Civic Life at www.mathewscenter.org.

National Harwood Public Innovators Lab, Dec. 16-18

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We highly encourage you to read the announcement below from our friends at The Harwood Institute, an NCDD organizational member. They are offering one of their great Public Innovators Lab trainings December 16th-18th, which NCDD members can get a 15% discount on. Be sure to check out the announcement below or learn more and register by clicking here.

HarwoodLogoNational Harwood Public Innovators Lab

December 16-18, 2014 in Alexandria, VA

Deepen Your Relationship with the Community

Communities across America are accelerating their change efforts with The Harwood Institute tools and methods shared in the Lab. It’s helping them engage people in new ways, generate new visibility and deepen their ability to lead change with community partners.

The Harwood Institute has a 25-year track record of success in helping individuals and communities accelerate their change efforts and achieve their strategic goals.

The Public Innovators Lab is open to all community leaders engaged in building a community’s capacity for change. It provides both the foundation of the Harwood approach coupled with a strong focus on concrete application. After the three-day training you will be able to:

  • Engage your community beyond the usual suspects to understand people’s shared aspirations.
  • Shift your relationship with the community through engagement – so that you aren’t simply seen as a customer service provider but are building will for people and groups to act together as partners.
  • Create or modify your strategies so they are aligned with your community’s capacity for change efforts – what we call a community’s “rhythms” or Stage of Community Life.
  • Assess the conditions that enable change in communities – what we call public capital – and learn how to build strategies to achieve your mission and create these conditions at the same time.

Cost: This 3-day course is $1,095.

Participants learn how they can use The Harwood Institute’s frameworks to start changing the way they and their organizations or community teams are doing their work, so that their efforts become more effectively rooted in the context of their communities. Having an orientation such that you use the community, not the conference room, as your reference point for the day-to-day and strategic decisions you make- we call this turning outward.

Learn more about the Public Innovators Lab and view the agenda at www.theharwoodinstitute.org/lab.

You can always learn more about the other great discounts available to NCDD members by visiting www.ncdd.org/discounts.

Workshop on Facilitation Under Fire from PCP, Nov. 11-12

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We hope that NCDD members will take advantage of a great training on handling challenging moments in facilitating being offered from our partners with the Public Conversations Project. Also be sure to note that there is a 15% discount for dues-paying NCDD members, so make sure to learn more below and register before the Nov. 3rd deadline if you’re interested!

Public Conversations ProjectDid you attend the workshop at the NCDD 2014 conference on “Facilitating with Grace Under Fire” with Public Conversations Project’s Bob Stains and Maggie Herzig? And did you wish there could be more? As it turns out, Bob and Maggie are teaming up again in just a couple weeks for a two-day iteration of that workshop entitled “Facilitating With Purpose and Poise – Even When Things Get Hot.”

This workshop, which will take place just outside of Boston from November 11-12, will prepare facilitators for handling difficult moments while facilitating. In this workshop, you will:

  • Develop deeper awareness of the personal, social, and cultural attributes you bring to the facilitator role that may help or hinder you in “staying grounded” when working with people whose views, styles, or identities differ from yours
  • Take away core questions you can ask yourself that will help you see through the fog of confusion in difficult moments
  • Gain clarity about resources at your disposal when a clear response or direction is not obvious
  • Build skills through role-play for deciding when and how to address difficulties
  • Learn preventive strategies that can be employed before people are in the room together or in the opening phase of the meeting

The workshop at NCDD 2014 required us to bring in extra chairs, so as we thought of people who would be interested in our two-day workshop, of course NCDD came to mind first! You can find out more about the workshop here, and, if you’d like, you can register directly here.

We are asking people to register by November 3 to confirm their spot, but if you register with a friend, both of you will receive 20% off with our Bring A Friend rate.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email Katie Hyten, Program Manager at Public Conversations, at khyten@publicconversations.org.

NCDD Discount on Future Search Leadership Workshop

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We are excited to share the following letter to the NCDD community from Sally Theilacker of the Future Search Network about a great discount being offered to NCDD members for their upcoming Future Search leadership workshop this December. We encourage you to read below and take advantage of the discount! Find out more by clicking here.

FutureSearch-logoDear NCDD Community,

Sandra Janoff and I are inspired by your work in your recent conference and in your community.  We want to support you in the following way. Sandra is offering a Managing A Future Search Training Workshop on December 8  - 10, 2014 in Philadelphia.  We would like to give considerable discounts to NCDD members.  Call or e-mail us and make plans to join us in December!

Managing a Future Search – A Leadership Workshop with Sandra Janoff

December 8-10, 2014 in Philadelphia

Visit our website to register or find out more: www.futuresearch.net/network/workshops/descriptions-50748.cfm

Managing a Future Search – A Leadership Workshop is for facilitators and leaders who want to learn how applying Future Search principles enables a community or organization to transform its capability for action. Participants will acquire the tools needed to organize and manage Future Search conferences with integrity in any sector or culture.  This workshop runs Monday morning through Wednesday lunch, December 8-10, 2015.

Workshop participants will learn:

  • How to manage a meeting in which the target of change is a whole system’s capability for action now and in the future.
  • Key issues in matching conference task and stakeholders.
  • A theory and practice of facilitating large, diverse groups.
  • How to keep critical choices in the hands of participants.
  • How freeing yourself from diagnosing and fixing enables diverse groups to come together faster.
  • Basic principles and techniques that can be used to design many other meetings.

The workshop is built around a simulated Future Search. The simulation is planned by the participants as part of the learning design. The whole group then has a basis for a shared experience with the techniques for building community, developing a mutual world view, creating desired futures, finding common ground, expanding the range of choices, and moving into action. Included are interactive sessions on theory, history, planning, facilitation and follow-up.

John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of  Whole Foods in Forbes Magazine  says  “… Whole Foods Market  tries to embody all of the principles of conscious capitalism all the time … and if you look at our history, that is what we have done—become more conscious as we have grown. One very powerful way in which we accomplish this is through our “Future Search” process, through which we bring representatives of all of our stakeholders together every five years to think about how we can continue to grow and evolve as an organization and as an ecosystem of interconnected players.” 

The tuition for this 3 day workshop is $1,690 –  including materials, lunch, and a copy of the Future Search Book, 3rd Edition, by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff.  We would like to give special discounts to people who are NCDD members. Call or e-mail  us and we’ll try to work within what you can afford.

We want you to join us in December!  Future Search is a GREAT and little known intervention proven to transform whole systems dealing with tough issues any where the world. Call Sally or Sandra at 215.951.0328 or 800.951.6333 or email us at fsn@futuresearch.net.

Sincerely,

Sally Theilacker

Program Manager, Future Search Network

Sign up for the Morven Park Field Trip at NCDD 2014

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We are excited to share an invitation from Abby Pfisterer, a member of our conference planning team, to join her for another great field trip during NCDD 2014 to Morven Park! Find out more below and read more about our field trips by clicking here or sign up here.

Join us during NCDD 2014 for a field trip to Morven Park on Saturday evening and explore a hidden gem in DC’s metro area! Located in Leesburg, Morven Park is a 200 year old historic mansion that has been a home of political leaders from the days of the early republic through the beginning of the 20th century. It’s the perfect setting to relax after a busy (and invigorating!) second day at the conference – plus there will be local wines to try.

I’ve been a part of Morven Park’s educational team for several years, and what I love is that it’s more than just a place for interesting history and wide open spaces. The story and the site are the base for the exciting and forward looking programs we get to create and share with our community.

One of my favorite initiatives here is our Center for Civic Impact, which teaches K-12 youth how to be active and thoughtful citizens. But there is also a small farm (home to the presidentially pardoned Thanksgiving turkeys), equestrian center, athletic complex, and three museums. To me, it is a place to come together to explore spaces and ideas.

We’d love to share this site and story with those of you traveling from outside the DC region and locals too. We have a mansion tour lined up that looks at the civic activism of the last owner – a former governor of Virginia, and then a chance to enjoy the view with wine, food, and good discussion. The topic – from rural to urban, and where dialogue fits in – is based on the history you’ll hear on the tour as well as the fact the Morven Park sits squarely on a dividing line between town and country. I have a feeling many of you will have similar stories to share!

The cost is $25 to cover transportation and food. We’ll head out at 4:30pm and take buses for the 25 minute drive to Morven Park. It will be a lot of fun – so sign up today!

Thanks! – Abby

Register TODAY for NCDD 2014 before the Late Fee Starts!

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Look, we know everyone procrastinates. I do it, you do it, we all do it.

But if you haven’t registered yet for the NCDD 2014 conference yet, today is your last day to get registered before the extra $100 late fee kicks in. So if you’ve been putting it off until the last minute, now is the last minute!

Make sure to get registered before midnight tonight at www.ncdd2014.eventbrite.com.

You wouldn’t want to miss all of our great workshops, the D&D Showcase, our brand new Short Talks, the exciting field trips, or our wonderful plenary speakers, would you? So stop procrastinating and register already!

We can’t wait to see all of you at NCDD 2014 in just over a week – it’s going to be our best conference yet!