Talk Matters! Saving the World One Word at a Time

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Keiva Hummel

The 342-page book, Talk Matters! Saving the World One Word at a Time, by Mary Gelinas, was published September 2016. In the book, Gelinas explains and guides you and your community in eight practices that are essential to creating effective dialogue and deliberation. Use it as a guidebook or training manual to enhance your own skills as you work with groups to address the issues they care about.

From the book…

We create the present and future in our meetings and conversations every day. What can we do to increase the likelihood that we’re creating a future that we all want? We can start by talking more constructively and productively about what matters to us all.

After decades of advising groups in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors, process design and facilitation expert Mary V. Gelinas has integrated her best knowledge of brain and behavioral sciences, mindful awareness, and effective process to create Talk Matters! Her eight essential practices offer us ways to avoid getting hijacked by our survival instincts, engage with people who differ from us, and open ourselves, our businesses, and our communities to real, lasting change. As she explains, good process can help us work better together to do good things for the world.

In this highly readable and accessible book, Gelinas uses real-world examples to illustrate the practices that can help you start achieving life-serving results in your interactions as a leader, participant, or facilitator today.

What NCDD colleagues and friends say about the book:

“Talk Matters! is an invaluable contribution to public engagement practices. It provides us with the process savvy to increase our ability to work together across partisan, ethnic, and other divides to address today’s toughest problems. Gelinas’ work gives us the essential individual and collective keys to being more effective participants in and leaders of our democratic processes.”
—Sandy Heierbacher, Founder and Executive Director of NCDD

“Gelinas provides a deeply optimistic and pragmatic perspective for dealing with the complex challenges of our time. If you are seeking a practical source of hope and guidance to make a difference, this book is for you. Whether at home, in community, or at work, be prepared to be energize and equipped to lead the way in facing intractable challenges.”
–Peggy Holman, NCDD member and author of Engaging Emergence

From the Foreword by Pete N. Peterson, Dean, Pepperdine School of Public Policy:

“What excites me about Mary Gelinas’ work is that for the first time, the connection is made between how we engage one another and why it’s not working…This book could not come at a more important time. The scale and scope of our public policy challenges—from the local to the national—has never been greater…What Mary Gelinas has given us with Talk Matters! is a book to prepare public leaders for the 21st century. For this, we as citizens and leaders, should all be thankful.”

To find out more and/or to order a copy, go to http://gelinasjames.com/

You can also find this book available for purchase from Amazon here, and remember Amazon will donation a portion of AmazonSmile purchases to “The National Coalition For Dialogue & Deliberation Inc”. Learn more about NCDD on AmazonSmile here: bit.ly/NCDDamazonsmile

About Mary Gelinas
Mary V. Gelinas, Ed.D., has been working as an educator, consultant, process designer, and facilitator for forty years. She is a managing director of Gelinas James, Inc., and co-director of the Cascadia Center for Leadership. With her partner Roger James, she has developed pioneering and transformative approaches to leading, creating change, planning, and solving complex problems. She lives in Arcata, California.

This resource was submitted by Mary Gelinas, author of Talk Matters! via the Add-a-Resource form.

Looking Back at NCDD 2016 and What Has Happened Since

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Courtney Breese

The 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation brought together 350 innovators in dialogue and deliberation to discuss the conference theme of Bridging Our Divides. Over the course of three days we discussed how to tackle some of today’s toughest divides, including partisan, racial, economic, and more. For a recap of the conference in numbers, see our earlier blog post.

Since the conference, NCDD has been producing and gathering media that captures our time together and the stories of our work. And, we’ve been following up on the conversations that happened at the conference and continuing the important work that began or was renewed in our time together.

Sharing the Stories of the Conference

At NCDD 2016 Keith Harrington of Shoestring Videos recorded our plenary sessions as well as short videos of participants. Keith is in the process of producing several videos, and has shared with us the following two videos:

Panel on Philanthropy and Fundraising

Mark Gerzon of the Mediators Foundation moderated a discussion among a panel of philanthropists about the constraints and opportunities facing our field’s efforts to bring people together across divides. Panelists shared their experiences funding bridge building efforts and answered participant questions about how we can all be better advocates for our work.

Panel on Journalism and Public Engagement

Peggy Holman of Journalism that Matters moderated a panel discussion among journalists, discussing both their work in engaging the public and discussing the opportunities they see for public engagement practitioners to partner with journalists.

ncdd_podcast_200x200 Sharing More Personal Stories

In addition to video, for the first time ever at an NCDD conference we offered participants the chance to record stories and conversation in an audio room, run by sound designer Ryan Spenser. We recorded several conversations that would become our first episodes of our new NCDD Podcast. Check it out on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Google Play. Our first episodes are now live:

Listen to Barbara Simonetti, NCDD’s Board Chair, and myself discuss her metaphor for the D&D field as a utility
Hear the story of Conversation Café from co-creator Susan Partnow and past steward Jacquelyn Pogue, as they speak with NCDD Resource Curator Keiva Hummel about the process and their hopes for it under NCDD’s stewardship

Stories of bridging our divides were shared throughout the conference – in workshops, informal gatherings, and particularly in our first plenary session where we asked all participants to share a story of a time they witnessed divides being bridged.

We welcome additional stories of how you or those you are working with are bridging divides. In particular, we’d love to have people share using our Storytelling Tool. Using the tool gives NCDD the details for a great case story that we can share on our blog, so your story is shared with more people!

Last but not least, last week we shared our Storify page – take a look at that for a great recap of the social media activity during the conference, along with great photos and quotes!

Continuing this Work

Lots of inspiration was drawn from our time with you all at NCDD 2016, and we have been working to continue to address the needs and desires that arose at the conference. Some of the ways we’ll continue to do that include:

The Race, Police and Reconciliation Discussion List: The racial divide was a central part of the conference theme. Many workshops addressed this divide and we heard from three panelists in our first plenary about their work in this area (video coming soon!). Many participants expressed a desire to connect with others on this work, and so NCDD has launched a discussion listserv for folks interested in connecting with one another. So far, more than one hundred of you have joined! Learn more here and then join the listserv.
Our #BridgingOurDivides campaign: NCDD has continued our conversation at the conference over the past several months through our #BridgingOurDivides campaign. We’ve been sharing information and resources on social media and the blog. We also hosted a call for our community to talk about our post-election work. We’ll keep this conversation going in 2017, as this work is more important than ever.
The Emerging Leaders Initiative: NCDD has worked hard to bring students and youth to our conferences in 2014 and 2016, and in between we have been talking with these young and emerging leaders about how to get them involved in NCDD. This has all culminated in our new Emerging Leaders Initiative, which we’ll be more formally launching in 2017. We need to foster long-term resilience for the field of dialogue & deliberation, and we can do that best by intentionally cultivating our field’s next generation of leadership.

We had such a great time at NCDD 2016 connecting and re-connecting with you all and discussing how we can continue to do this important work of bridging our divides in today’s world. Let’s use what has been generated from the conference and continue to build upon it – our communities and our country need dialogue and deliberation right now.

A Look Back at NCDD 2016 on Storify

Posted on December 12, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

With so much that’s happened since October, it’s a little hard to believe that the NCDD 2016 national conference was less than two months ago! Since the gathering, Bridging Our Divides has only become more relevant, and we want to remind our D&D community of the powerful conversations and experiences we had and the commitment we made when we were together.

So we’ve released an awesome Storify page for the NCDD 2016 conference! This compilation of the best photos, quotes from evaluations, links, and other gems from this engaging event will be great for seeing how it was if you missed out, or remembering some of the best moments if you were there.

We encourage you to check out the NCDD 2016 Storify below, and don’t forget that you can always continue the conversation by participating in NCDD’s ongoing #BridgingOurDivides campaign.

AllSides

Posted on December 5, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

From AllSides…

Unlike regular news services, AllSides exposes bias and provides multiple angles on the same story so you can quickly get the full picture, not just one slant.

At AllSides, we believe the way society gets its news and information affects the world around us. And lately it hasn’t been going well. News, social media and even search results have dramatically changed in the last several years, becoming so narrowly filtered, biased and personalized that we are becoming less informed and less tolerant of different people and ideas.

This is how it happens, and what we can do about it.

Blasted with the overwhelming 24-hour news noise of today, which is often loud, extreme, partisan and rude, we tend to do one of the following:
Disengage from trying to understand or solve society’s problems.
Block out different perspectives, becoming more close-minded and less tolerant of other people and ideas.

There’s a better way… AllSides sees a strong connection between our ability to comprehend and tolerate different opinions, and our ability to develop better schools, more jobs, more wellbeing, and less violence. So we decided to address the core problem – the overwhelming and often one-sided information flow.

How? Change the way we get information so it is easy to sort through the noise and see different perspectives. Armed with a broader view, we can resist attempts to manipulate us in one direction or the other. Instead, we can truly decide for ourselves:

Understand and appreciate different perspectives and people. We’re creating a better informed, less polarized world.

AllSides delivers technology and services to provide multiple perspectives on news, issues, and topics – and the people behind the ideas. With it, we get a broader, deeper understanding of the issues and each other so together we can build a more perfect union.

About the AllSides Bias Rating
The AllSides Bias Rating TM reflects the average judgment of the American people. Bias is normal. If you’ve got a pulse, you’ve got a bias. But hidden bias misleads and divides us. That’s why we have the AllSides Bias Rating.

Bias ratings can be a powerful tool. With it, we can easily look at a news story or issue from different perspectives just by looking at articles on the same topic but from sources that have different bias ratings. By understanding bias, we can understand topics and each other better.

Join us in making bias more transparent everywhere. Rate your own bias, learn how you compare to others (options on this page to the right), and help us rate the bias of other news sources.

How AllSides Calculates Bias
The AllSides patented bias detection and display technology drives arguably the world’s most effective and up-to-date bias detection engine. It’s powered by a combination of wisdom-of-the-crowd technology and the best statistical research and methodologies.

You drive the bias ratings. What you do at AllSides affects our bias ratings. That includes how you rate your own bias and how you rate the bias of news sites, especially through our blind bias surveys. All of this is added to our crowd data, which is statistically normalized to represent a balance of the American public.

Multiple methods for calculating bias. Our blind bias surveys, described in the graphic below, is our most complete and robust method for rating the bias of the source. That is not the only method we use, and often we don’t need anything as robust as that. The source itself might openly share its own bias, 3rd party research may have already determined the bias, an independent review might be decisive, or a broad consensus could be sufficient. Take a look at the variety of methods we use to measure bias.

Our bias detection engine gets smarter as time goes on. We are constantly evolving the bias engine. And, the more you participate, the better our ratings will be and the more sources we can rate. We also ask you to rate your own bias. We’re continuing to improve ways to help you get the most accurate bias self-rating so you can participate on AllSides and in life with transparency and self-awareness. Make the world a better place by understanding and sharing your own bias openly!

Resource Link: www.allsides.com/

How D&D-Journalism Partnerships Hold “Infinite Potential”

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Roshan Bliss

Our media collaborations panel during the NCDD 2016 conference had the whole room buzzing. NCDD member Peggy Holman facilitated a conversation between accomplished journalists and conference participants on how the D&D field can create stronger partnerships with media makers, and we uncovered some very powerful possibilities for D&D-journalism collaborations.
One of the panelists was Chris Faraone of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism, and he recently penned an article reflecting the conference and those possibilities. In it, he shared advice for how our field can bring them to fruition that we hope our members will take to heart, so we encourage you to read the piece from Chris below or to find the original version here.

Talk Kin: Where Journalism Meets Dialogue and Deliberation

“Where the heck have you all been my whole career?”

I found myself thinking and saying such things repeatedly at the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, which was held outside of Boston two weeks ago. I only learned about the host group, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), a few months earlier, but by the time its members came to Massachusetts for their biannual gathering I felt like I was meeting long-lost cousins.

Other realms cross over into media as well – from research and academia, to public relations, to technology and programming. But while several virtually simpatico professional alliances may lurk out there, the discovery of Dialogue & Deliberation – or simply D&D for the initiated – was particularly surprising and exciting. Comprised of voices from a wide range of fields, from life coaches and lawmakers to psychologists and social workers, they’re primarily communicators, and are therefore kin to any journo worth a damn.

The theme for NCDD 2016 was “Bridging Our Divide,” a timely guideline amidst so much partisan crossfire and political warfare, but also a reference to how the D&D community is ready to engage new partners and expand. In their welcome letter, NCDD Executive Director Sandy Heierbacher and Program Director Courtney Breese wrote that they hoped attendees would “take a systemic look at why so many initiatives in our field [D&D] are underfunded and under-reported,” and added that their intention for the weekend was to “provide an opportunity to build a new foundation of relationships … and create new momentum.”

Which is where I entered the picture. This year NCDD tapped Journalism That Matters, a nonprofit that convenes conversations (one of which inspired me to start the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism nearly two years ago) to foster collaboration, to help bridge individuals and outlets doing D&D with those involved with journalism.

According to JTM Executive Director Peggy Holman, “the engagement space is where journalists and communities intersect,” and after taking in the conference and participating in the final plenary which examined this topic, I’m happy to report that I believe there’s absolutely infinite potential in a D&D and journalism matrimony. I have no doubt that deliberation is an industry that I will write about, revisit, and consider for years to come; for now, here are my takeaways from the NCDD event neatly parsed into two sections: comments that I heard in last week’s sessions that are relevant to my reportorial experience, and ideas for how these fields can start co-functioning.

ENGAGED MINDS THINK ALIKE

“We need to take this work to a whole new level. There’s a need for media organizations that are tied to the community in a meaningful way.”

This is essentially the whole idea driving our nonprofit journalism model. Whereas many university-based incubators recruit staff from the top J schools and provide content to major outlets, BINJ proudly works with freelancers and even advocates from the communities we cover, and primarily publishes through local, independent, and ethnic news outlets. In short, we’re the kind of grassroots operation that has open arms for interesting collaborations.

“Build on what’s already happening. We need to get people where they already are.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. This was a major part of the idea behind BINJ, which is not a publication in and of itself but instead boosts and adds to other outlets. As it relates to how we can connect with various non-journalistic organizations, D&D or otherwise, my philosophy has always been to harness as much content from the real world as possible. If more reporters did that, if they actually left their desks, there would be less insultingly trite “think” pieces, and hopefully more articles featuring people who really know something.

“There’s a hunger out there not just to be heard, but to be engaged at a level that we haven’t seen before.”

Even I am getting tired of “engagement” growing into such a buzzword of late – it’s what journalists should be doing anyway, all day and all week, I can’t stress that enough. Similarly, D&D people may be miffed to see big media organizations getting credit for the kinds of interactive programs, public dialogues, and forums NCDD members have done for decades.

There’s a positive side to said trend as well though. At least from where I’m thinking. I come from the alternative media tradition where people are entrusted to report on situations in which they are stakeholders: women on feminist movements; people of color on civil rights issues; poor people on poverty; students on education. And so on. This is a point of pride, as well as a model on which budding D&D media makers can build in beginning to publish material.

“Learning relationships.”

This is just a phrase I heard a few times that resonated with me. Considering how bad reporters (including myself on occasion) can be at building with our sources, as opposed to simply prodding them for quotes, we can all use a reminder of how learning should be symbiotic.

“So that we can tell the world our story. So this work can get out in the public.”

This may be even easier than many dialogue specialists realize. Or maybe they realize that there are some awesome opportunities to get the word out about everything they’re doing, but feel as if there’s some kind of technological roadblock. I’ll address this more below, but there are no such impediments. All you need is time or hired guns, and every last critical deliberative note can be disseminated widely via social media and other channels.

LET’S GET IT STARTED

Consider journalists your friends.

Members of the media are potential pals and allies to the D&D world, or at least we should be. Furthermore, both groups can collaborate in certain cases, while in others hacks can demonstrate to NCDD members how to generate media, since opportunities for traditional coverage are dwindling. As some of my esteemed co-panelists at the D&D conference noted, it is increasingly a waste of time for nonprofits, for example, to hassle journalists for favorable ink.

Even if one does land an occasional story in a newspaper of record, that’s still unlikely to amount to more than a quick hit that’s soon forgotten. This may sound somewhat cliche, but in 2016 it’s more important to generate your own media than it is to send out press releases.

Get involved with local and community news organizations.

This goes back to that line I heard at NCDD: Build on what’s already happening. There may be existing opportunities in your area to get in the same room with reporters, or at least to get thinking like them – from Mediabistro meetups, to civic engagement events like those being held by more and more media outfits, from nonprofits to commercial ones. BINJ, for example, has a Community Advisory Board with representatives from various nonprofits and advocacy groups; though we don’t always agree with members, we have spurred instructive dialogue with all of them.

If none of the community, nonprofit, local, or alternative outlets in your area have a comparable mechanism for input, maybe D&D experts can help get something started.

Start chronicling your D&D work.

A lot of people in the D&D world are already doing reporting in some way – they’re just not always publishing the fruits of their hard work, or organizing assets in a fashion fit for mass consumption. Think of the possibilities though – from starting a podcast or a cable access show, to taping and transcribing certain dialogues to create oral histories.

The production of compelling content on a regular basis, even in micro-installments on social media, will require somebody with press savvy or even real newsroom experience to curate and edit. But as I noted on my panel at the NCDD conference, no matter who is making the media, it’s important that they stop thinking of the task as public relations, and start considering themselves storytellers.

You can find the original version of this piece by Chris Faraone of BINJ on Medium at www.medium.com/binj-reports/talk-kin-686f7f501427#.rlsrt0357.

Showcase Sessions at the 2016 NCDD Conference

Posted on October 1, 2016 by Sandy Heierbacher

Showcase2014-1 We’re excited to share the final list of our featured presenters in this year’s “D&D Showcase” — a highly anticipated, high-energy event held on the first night of the 2016 NCDD conference. The Showcase is a fun way for you to meet some of the movers-and-shakers in our field and learn about their leading-edge projects, programs and tools.

Showcase presenters are asked to prepare a brief spiel to use as a conversation starter during this un-timed session, to provide handouts so you can follow up after the conference, and to prepare an eye-catching poster so people can easily identify their topic. More about how the Showcase works is up at www.ncdd.org/15606.

Assessing Civic Engagement Needs

Susan Jeghelian, Executive Director and Madhawa Palihapitiya, Associate Director, MA Office of Public Collaboration

A recent legislative study by MOPC, the MA state dispute resolution agency, assessed civic engagement needs around destructive public conflict in local communities and provided policy recommendations to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for improved societal results.

Citizen Science

Chris Santos-Lang, Facilitator, Citizen Science Belleville

The most famous use of citizen science may have been to instigate reform of the Flint, Michigan, water supply. As science advances–especially science of the mind, of values, and of the divide–so does the importance of this form of dialog.

Conversation Café

Keiva Hummel, Conversation Café Coordinator, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation

Conversation Cafés are 90-minute hosted conversations, held in a public setting like a café, where anyone is welcome to join. A simple format helps people feel at ease and gives everyone who wants it a chance to speak.

CU Dialogues Program

Pilar Prostko, Program Coordinator/Facilitator, University of Colorado Boulder

The CU Dialogues Program facilitates dialogues that engage diverse members of the University community in honest conversation with one another across differences of all kinds. The Program also offers a 3-credit undergraduate course, “Dialogue Across Difference,” which offers students the opportunity to learn what dialogue entails, practice dialogue, and be trained as dialogue facilitators.

Dialogue Playing Cards

Peter Nixon, Founder, Potential Dialogue

Dialogue Playing Cards are regular playing cards featuring a different dialogue behavior on each card. They are great for stimulating discussion on ways to improve dialogue in teams and organizations as well as teaching and training dialogue to people of all ages, in families, schools, university and business.

Drawing Lines

Lynn Osgood, Principal, GO Collaborative

The Drawing Lines project was an arts-based civic engagement project funded by ArtPlace America, that asked the question – what role can the arts play in the context of historic political change? What emerged was a spectrum on arts-based engagement projects and a LOT of lessons learned on how to administrate such projects.

Harwood Institute

Marla Crockett, Certified Coach, The Harwood Institute

Learn about The Harwood Institute’s Turning Outward approach and how to develop a deep knowledge of your community and use it as a reference point to make better choices and judgments. Find out how you can be trained in this approach and deepen your impact.

Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue

Robin Prest, Program Director, Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue

Know someone who has demonstrated, internationally, excellence in the use of dialogue? Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Dialogue is now accepting nominations for the 2017/18 Jack P. Blaney Award for Dialogue, and would love to hear your suggestions.

Journal of Public Deliberation

Laura Black, Associate Professor, Ohio University

JPD is a place for NCDDers to find published research on tools and methods and to potentially publish reflections from their practices. Large System Change Steve Waddell Principal NetworkingAction Large systems change (LSC) is a new field of knowledge and action. It engages many, many people and organizations over significant geographic expanse; it addresses issues in need of transformation and radical change.

Learning to Deliberate

Katy Harriger, Professor and Department Chair, Dept. of Politics and International Affairs

At Wake Forest we have just completed a study of the long term impact of learning to deliberate (to be published by the Kettering Foundation this fall as a monograph). We incorporated deliberative dialogue into our first year experience course for new students and have used it to discuss issues of diversity and inclusion on campus.

Let’s Talk About It

John Ungerleider, Professor, SIT Graduate Institute

“Let’s Talk About It: A Guide to Leading Youth Dialogue” presents dialogue principles, structures, and activities that can help a facilitator of youth dialogue prepare to deepen participants’ positive experience. The short manual presents simple steps of youth dialogue planning and design, communication training for participants, and effective facilitation–with explanations of rationale behind approaches, and examples that have been tested in years of multicultural youth empowerment programs at the School for International Training.

Liberals Guide to Conservatives

J. Scott Wagner, Founder, Reach the Right

Working with the world’s leading academic experts on ideology, J. Scott Wagner has written an informal, inspirational, story-filled guide that wends its way through neurology, personality, and biases to help us understand and work well with each other.

Loomio

MJ Kaplan, Lead for US Growth, Loomio

Loomio is open source software that enables inclusive, collaborative decisions for groups in 110 countries globally – in and across communities, universities, governments, businesses and networks. Loomio is a social enterprise and a worker owned cooperative. Loomio’s innovative, flat structure is a leading model of emerging workplaces that are more creative, engaging and productive.

NarraFirma: Story Project Software

Cynthia Kurtz, Independent Consultant and Researcher

NarraFirma is open source companion software to the textbook “Working with Stories in Your Community or Organization“. NarraFirma helps your group collaboratively plan a story project, collect stories, ask questions about them, look for patterns in what you’ve collected, plan workshops, and reflect on what you’ve learned.

National Dialogue Network

John Spady, Founder, National Dialogue Network

NDN is the recipient of the 2012 Catalyst Award from NCDD. Come and learn about the $20,000 available in grants to all NCDD members. NDN seeks to coordinate collaborative local conversations into mindful national dialogue.

Participedia

Pat Scully, Managing Director, Participedia

The Participedia Project is an open-source, global research partnership whose primary goals are to map and make sense of the growing universe of new channels of citizen involvement in government and other forms of public problem solving. Anyone can join the Participedia community and help crowdsource, catalogue, and compare participatory political processes around the world. In addition to our Showcase, we will also make available a brief online survey for conference participants who would like to share their ideas about how the information we are gathering can best inform and support the work of practitioners in the field of dialogue and deliberation.

The Peacebuilding Process of Reconciliation

Virginia Swain, Founder and Director, Institute for Global Leadership

PPR is an approach and practice that is uniquely inclusive, visionary, reflective and restorative–healing the cycle of violence through inner governance, re-envisioning the common humanity of perpetrators and victims, socially responsible action that transcends self-interest, and mobilizing the will of the people for common issues.

PlaceSpeak

Colleen Hardwick, Founder and CEO, PlaceSpeak

How do you consult with people online within specific geographical boundaries… and prove it? The answer is PlaceSpeak, a pioneering location-based smart city civic engagement platform. Currently, online citizen engagement is anonymous and not tied to place. This has led to the proliferation of trolls, sock puppets, astroturfing and other forms of online dysfunction designed to skew and distort public opinion. PlaceSpeak’s vision is to improve the quality and legitimacy of decision-making and public policy development by modernizing authentication of digital identity, protecting privacy by design and ‘making it real’.

SmartParticipation

Joshua Brooks, e-Government Fellow, and Brian Post, Lead Technologist, CeRI (Cornell e-Rulemaking Initiative), Cornell Law School

SmartParticipation, developed by Cornell University, is an innovative and adaptable platform for informed, inclusive and insightful online discussion. Now open source.

The Civility Scorecard

Russ Charvonia, President, National Civility Center

The Civility Center has developed this Scorecard to aid in evaluating the degree of civility in speeches. Just in time for the US Presidential Election!

Transpartisan Review

Jim Turner, Attorney/Partner, Swankin and Turner

Launching alongside the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, The Transpartisan Review will be an online journal promoting new ideas in political engagement and exploring ways to bring people together who are now in conflict to solve problems that otherwise seem insoluble. Learn more at www.transpartisanreview.com.

Trusted Sharing

Ruth Backstrom, Director of Marketing & Outreach, Trusted Sharing

Trusted Sharing is a set of online tools and spaces for hosting deeper conversations using specific facilitation methods.

Pre-Conference Options for NCDD 2016

Posted on September 27, 2016 by Sandy Heierbacher

The 2016 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation is just around the corner, and we wanted to bring your attention to some cool options that are happening the day before the conference — Thursday, October 13th.

As you know, NCDD 2016: Bridging Our Divides is taking place October 14-16 in the Boston Metro Area, at the Sheraton Framingham Hotel & Conference Center. All pre-conference activities are taking place at the Sheraton.

The first three events below do require pre-registration, and there is (very reasonable) fee for participating in Essential Partners’ day-long workshop. See below for details.

8:30am – 4:30 pm – WORKSHOP ON FACILITATING PUBLIC MEETINGS

Essential Partners (formerly the Public Conversations Project) is known for its high-quality workshops. We’re proud to say that they’re offering their advanced workshop on “Facilitating Public Meetings” on October 13th at the Sheraton!

Leading effective public meetings has become increasingly difficult. Designing and facilitating effective public meetings requires coolness, clarity, courage and skill. This workshop will help participants address the challenges of engaging an impassioned and deeply involved public in constructive conversation.

Dave Joseph, MSW will facilitate the training. The regular rate for this one-day training is $150, but NCDD members pay only $125. Learn more and register today. (Middlesex East)

4:00 – 5:30 pm – RED-BLUE DICTIONARY WORKSHOP

Do you mean by pro-life what I mean by pro-life? What about socialism? Freedom? Compassion? Answering these questions is the goal of the Red-Blue Dictionary, a transpartisan collaboration to help all Americans explore the varied meanings of commonly used (and misused) words. We’re not building a reference handed down from some great authority on high; we’re exploring what words really mean to all of us down here on the ground.

This free interactive workshop, co-facilitated by Cynthia Kurtz and John Backman, is your chance to learn about the Red-Blue Dictionary, join us in improving it, and explore our diverse experiences with the words we love (and love to hate) most. Email Cynthia Kurtz at cfkurtz@cfkurtz.com to let her know you’d like to participate in this workshop. (Commons II)

5:00 – 7:00 pm – DELIBERATION BOOTCAMP

This free evening session will provide an overview of the deliberative perspective and an introduction to many of the key concepts, organizations, and challenges related to the field. Specifically designed for newcomers to the field, the boot camp will help acclimate participants to the conference.

The session will be led by Martín Carcasson, NCDD Board member and Director of Colorado State University’s Center for Public Deliberation. Dr. Carcasson’s presentation will focus on the question of “what kind of talk does democracy need?” and will make the case for building deliberative capacity in our communities.

Email Martín at mcarcas@colostate.edu to let him know you’ll be attending the Bootcamp. (Commons I)

6:00 – 7:00 pm – INFORMAL RECEPTION / COCKTAIL HOUR AT THE BAR

Though the conference doesn’t begin officially until Friday morning, many of you are arriving on Thursday. Plan on coming down to the hotel bar/restaurant for some informal networking if you’re around (food and drink is on you, though). Of course, you’re welcome to stick around after 7pm! (Hotel bar)

8:00 – 9:15 pm – EMERGING LEADERS PRE-CONFERENCE EVENT

NCDD is hosting a pre-conference event for young people and students. This will be a time for attendees 35 and under connect with the other younger conference attendees. During the event, we will be officially unveiling NCDD’s new Emerging Leaders Initiative and all the great ways NCDD will be working to bring younger folks into the D&D field and support them in shaping its future. We will also be kicking off our NCDD 2016 Mentoring Program, which will intentionally connect a cadre of experienced D&D leaders with students and youth attendees during the conference.

Ships Passing in the Night

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 20-page report, Ships Passing in the Night (2014), was written by David Mathews and supported by the Cousins Research Group of the Kettering Foundation. In the article, Mathews talks about the two major movements in civic engagement; one in higher education and the other found growing among communities able to work together. He uses the analogy of the wetlands, like how life thrives in the wetlands, it is in communities that can come together, where democracy thrives. Because it is these opportunities for people to discuss details and issues of their lives, that people will become more engaged in the issues that matter to them.

Mathews explores the question, “Why, though, are these two civic movements in danger of passing like the proverbial ships in the night? More important, how might these efforts become mutually supportive?”

Below is an excerpt of the report and it can be found in full at the bottom of this page or on Kettering Foundation’s site here.

From the guide…

The Shaffers of academe are one of the forces driving a civic engagement movement on campuses across the country. Not so long ago, the civic education of college students was of little concern. Now, thanks to educators like Shaffer, that indifference is giving way. Leadership programs are common, and students are taught civic skills, including civil dialogue. There are also more opportunities to be of service these days, which is socially beneficial as well as personally rewarding. These opportunities are enriched by students’ exposure to the political problems behind the needs that volunteers try to meet. University partnerships with nearby communities offer technical assistance, professional advice, and access to institutional resources. Faculty, who were once “sages on the stage,” have learned to be more effective in communities by being “guides on the side.” All in all, there is much to admire in the civic engagement movement on campuses.

Another civic engagement movement is occurring off campus. At Kettering, we have seen it clearly in communities on the Gulf Coast that are recovering from Hurricane Katrina…

People wanted to restore their community—both its buildings and way of life—and felt that they had to come together as a community to do that. The community was both their objective and the means of reaching that objective. This has been the goal for many of the other civic engagement movements in communities that are trying to cope with natural disasters, economic change, and other problems that threaten everyone’s well-being.

Interestingly, a year or so after Katrina, a group of scholars studying communities that survived disasters validated the instincts of Don, Mary, and their neighbors. These communities were resilient because they had developed the capacity to come together. And the resilience proved more important than individual protective measures like well-stocked pantries.

People with a democratic bent like Don, Mary, and their neighbors don’t want to be informed, organized, or assisted as much as they want to be in charge of their lives. And they sense that this means they need a greater capacity to act together despite their differences. That is why they say they want to come together as communities to maintain their communities. Unfortunately, they often have difficulty finding institutions that understand their agenda.

Nongovernmental organizations, according to a recent Kettering and Harwood study, are often more interested in demonstrating the impact of their programs than in facilitating self-determination and self-rule. Even citizens may be uncertain of what they can do by themselves and want to put the responsibility on schools, police departments, or other government agencies…

The Wetlands of Democracy
We don’t have a name for what we are seeing, but the more we see, the more we have come to believe that we are looking at something more than civil society at work, more than revitalized public life, and more than grassroots initiatives. We don’t think we are seeing an alternative political system like direct democracy; rather, we are looking at the roots of self-rule. Democratic politics seems to operate at two levels. The most obvious is the institutional level, which includes elections, lawmaking, and the delivery of services. The other level is underneath these superstructures, and what happens there is much like what happens in the wetlands of a natural ecosystem.

We have been experimenting with a wetlands analogy to describe what supports and sustains institutional politics. Wetlands were once overlooked and unappreciated but were later recognized as the nurseries for marine life. For example, the swamps along the Gulf Coast were filled in by developers, and the barrier islands were destroyed when boat channels were dug through them. The consequences were disastrous. Sea life that bred in the swamps died off, and coastal cities were exposed to the full fury of hurricanes when the barrier islands eroded. The wetlands of politics play roles similar to swamps and barrier islands. They include informal gatherings, ad hoc associations, and the seemingly innocuous banter that goes on when people mull over the meaning of their everyday experiences. These appear inconsequential when compared with what happens in elections, legislative bodies, and courts. Yet mulling over the meaning of everyday experiences in grocery stores and coffee shops can be the wellspring of public decision making. Connections made in these informal gatherings become the basis for political networks, and ad hoc associations evolve into civic organizations.

In the political wetlands, as in institutional politics, problems are given names, issues are framed for discussion, decisions are made, resources are identified and utilized, actions are organized, and results are evaluated. In politics at both levels, action is taken or not; power is generated or lost; change occurs or is blocked. We aren’t watching perfect democracy in the political wetlands because there isn’t such a thing. But we are seeing ways of acting, of generating power, and of creating change that are unlike what occurs in institutional politics.

Why the Disconnect?
It would seem that two civic engagement movements, occurring at the same time and often in the same locations, would be closely allied—perhaps mutually reinforcing. That doesn’t seem to be happening very often. Research reported by Sean Creighton in the 2008 issue of the Higher Education Exchange suggests the connection is quite limited. Even though academic institutions have considerable expertise and a genuine interest in being helpful, they don’t necessarily know how to relate to the self-organizing impulses of Don, Mary, and their neighbors…

This is an excerpt of the report, download the full guide at the bottom of this page to learn more.

About Kettering Foundation
The Kettering Foundation is a nonprofit operating foundation rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research. Kettering’s primary research question is, what does it take to make democracy work as it should? Kettering’s research is distinctive because it is conducted from the perspective of citizens and focuses on what people can do collectively to address problems affecting their lives, their communities, and their nation.

Follow on Twitter: @KetteringFdn

Resource Link: ships_passing_in_the_night

The Next Generation of Our Work

Posted on September 12, 2016 by Keiva Hummel

The 6-page article, The Next Generation of Our Work (2014), by NCDD’s own Co-Founder, Sandy Heierbacher, was published in the Journal of Public Deliberation: Vol. 10: Iss. 1. In the article, Heierbacher shares her unique view of the rapidly growing dialogue and deliberation field and lifts up the shifts in the field that shape the next generation of D&D work. Changes are happening in regard to:

– collaboration with government
– openness to online tools for engagement
– consistently rapid growth
– increased energy devoted to collaborative efforts
– re-focus on the power of local
– funders are coming around
– attention to infrastructure

Read the article in full below ind the PDF available for download on the Journal of Public Deliberation site here.

From the article…

How does one comment on the state of a field that seems to be ever growing yet constantly in flux? As the director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD), I have a bird’s eye view of this burgeoning, vibrant field. Yet I realize I see only a fraction of the great work that is being done to engage people in the decisions and issues that effect their lives.

Here are a few of the trends I have been noticing from my vantage point.

Collaboration with government. Many engagement practitioners are accustomed to working outside of government out of necessity, pushing on the edges of power but rarely getting through. This has been gradually changing with innovations like the Citizens Initiative Review and Participatory Budgeting being embraced by local and state governments. Additionally, government networks like the National Council on State Legislators and the International City/County Management Association are beginning to recognize deliberative public engagement as vital to effective governance.

Openness to online tools for engagement. Many group process experts are still skeptical that quality dialogue and deliberation can happen online. Yet there has been a growing interest among NCDD members to understand how they might utilize technology to engage new audiences and to support their face-to-face efforts. The popularity of our Tech Tuesday events and the quick acclimation our members have shown to our own online programs using tools like Codigital, Maestroconference and Hackpad are a testament to this shift.

Although skepticism is still par for the course among dialogue and deliberation practitioners who understand the power of in-person engagement, we are learning how to selectively invest our time and energy in online technology so we are not left in the dust as the world rapidly becomes more connected and digitized. Some examples of successful online engagement include recent experiments like Creating Community Solutions’ Text-Talk-Act project (www.creatingcommunitysolutions.org/texttalkact), which utilized text messaging technology to guide groups of young people through in-person dialogues, and our successful use of Codigital to get the NCDD community to crowdsource, hone and prioritize ideas for our upcoming conference. These experiences show how the deliberative democracy field is learning to appreciate the continuum Ethan Zuckerman of MIT Media Lab refers to as “thin engagement” (for texting, voting, clicking, sharing) and “thick engagement” (for the work our field is all about).

Consistently rapid growth. If NCDD’s membership is any indication, the deliberative democracy field is growing rapidly. After launching in 2002 with 50 organizational members, we now have more than 2,050 members and 33,500 subscribers. Lately, it seems like someone new finds and joins NCDD every single day, and we constantly learn of new organizations, networks and innovators we would love to bring into the network.

Increased energy devoted to collaborative efforts. Many in the dialogue and deliberation community recognize that their hopes for this work cannot be realized unless we combine efforts. An important recent example of cross-organization collaboration in the deliberative democracy field is Creating Community Solutions, an alliance of six organizations—AmericaSpeaks, the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Everyday Democracy, the National Issues Forums Institute, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, and the University of Arizona’s National Institute for Civil Discourse— which organized hundreds of dialogues across the country as part of Obama’s National Dialogue on Mental Health.

Also, two notable collaborative events are being planned to coincide with the National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in October. First, the Mediators Foundation will lead a meeting-of-the-minds of top leaders and influencers in transpartisan dialogue work. Second, the CommunityMatters Partnership will convene a summit on civic infrastructure bringing together leaders in various sectors of public work. Both events will encourage collaboration and relationship building among people doing parallel, but often disconnected, work.

Other examples of successful collaboration include last year’s effort by a group of NCDD members to organize a public-at-all-levels infrastructure for national dialogue on a shoestring budget. Additionally, the Kettering Foundation has increased its attention to the opportunities for deliberative democracy organizations to collaborate, and as a field we are recognizing and dealing with the various barriers and snags we face while attempting to work together. These efforts are just a taste of the collaboration that is happening across this field.

A re-focus on the power of local. Though President Obama’s attention to open government caused a temporary spike in our field’s hopefulness that public engagement would be supported from the national stage, I’ve seen a strong swing back to a focus on the local level. Many new ultra-local efforts have formed and thrived in the past few years. These efforts tend to be self-supported, innovative, timely, and practical. One of my favorite examples comes from an NCDD member in Denver, local playwright and actor Evan Weissman, who founded an effort called “Warm Cookies of the Revolution.” Warm Cookies has created a “Civic Health Club” in Denver that runs creative civic events on everything from water treatment to pro sports—and serves milk and cookies at every event for the hungry activists and curious citizens who attend.

Even national efforts like Transition Towns and Resilience Circles, which help prepare people for environmental and economic fall-out, prioritize the establishment of local level groups. And we were reminded of the power of local relationships while running Creating Community Solutions for Obama’s national dialogue on mental health, when support, publicity and creativity came through in abundance at the local level while we struggled for attention and funds at the national level.

Funders are coming around. Though the lack of funding is a much discussed challenge facing practitioners of work focused on “process,” more and more funders seem to be focusing on convening, facilitation, and stakeholder collaboration. The Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation both produced gorgeous guidebooks on convening last year. Community foundations across the U.S. and foundations that work intensively in select communities, like the Orton Family Foundation, are embracing their role as catalysts for community-wide dialogue and collaboration. And many foundations are devoting significant resources to “Collective Impact” efforts, which bring together issue-focused groups that typically compete with each other for funding and public attention, and facilitate and support them in setting, measuring and achieving joint goals.

Attention to infrastructure. Leaders in the deliberative democracy field are increasingly focused on infrastructure. NCDD dedicated its last national conference to examining the concept of “civic infrastructure” – the underlying structure and supports people need so they can come together to address their challenges effectively. There are also many other examples of dialogue and deliberation organizations raising questions about infrastructure. For example, the Community Matters Partnership (www.communitymatters.org/who-we-are), an alliance of seven national organizations involved in community building, place making and grant making, have turned their attention to understanding and proliferating the concept. New Hampshire Listens is working to build a statewide infrastructure to support public deliberation on complex issues affecting New Hampshire residents, and UIC’s Institute for Policy & Civic Engagement studied Chicago’s participation and activist infrastructure in order to build a robust dialogue and deliberation network in the city.

The Creating Community Solutions’ partnership has been looking at what kind of infrastructure is needed to support future multi-method nationwide deliberation efforts. Finally, NCDD is working with the Kettering Foundation to gain a better understanding of the capacity and infrastructure that already exists throughout our field, in order to uncover how this capacity can best be utilized.

What’s next for the field? Much of NCDD’s time is devoted to keeping our network strong and active, and providing valuable content and programming for our members. This is a time of extraordinary momentum and productivity in our field, and we could easily fill our staff time simply by highlighting our members’ programs on our blog and social media, sharing their resources in our online resource center, and providing them with more and more ways to connect with each other about their successes and challenges.

Yet the trends I outlined above point to a strong yearning in our field to break out of our current constraints, to find ways to collaborate more effectively with each other, to combine forces with those outside our field, and to scale up our efforts. At the 2014 NCDD conference, we will be exploring all these trends as we rally around the theme “Democracy for the Next Generation.” What do we want the next generation of our work to look like, and how can we work together to get there? Now more than ever, we have both the opportunity and, increasingly, the imperative to bring this work to a much larger stage in order to build a stronger democracy that is able to address society’s most pressing challenges.

Download the article from the Journal of Public Deliberation here.

About the Journal of Public Deliberation
Spearheaded by the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in collaboration with the International Association of Public Participation, the principal objective of Journal of Public Deliberation (JPD) is to synthesize the research, opinion, projects, experiments and experiences of academics and practitioners in the emerging multi-disciplinary field and political movement called by some “deliberative democracy.” By doing this, we hope to help improve future research endeavors in this field and aid in the transformation of modern representative democracy into a more citizen friendly form.

Follow the Deliberative Democracy Consortium on Twitter: @delibdem

Follow the International Association of Public Participation [US] on Twitter: @IAP2USA

Resource Link: www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol10/iss1/art23