We had a great Tech Tuesday on April 7th where about 65 NCDD members participated in a call with Alanna Krause and Chelsea Robinson of the Loomio cooperative. Loomio is an independent and neutral online space for complex discussion used by people from around the world to start a discussions, build agreement, and make decisions together for a course of action. We learned a lot and had a great conversation!
In case you missed it, you can listen to the recording of the call by clicking here, and Alanna and Chelsea’s power point presentation can be found here.
We also encourage you to learn more about Loomio from this snazzy video they’ve made explaining how it works.
Thanks again to Alanna and Chelsea for joining us!
We hope to see even more of you join us for our next Tech Tuesday talk. Keep an eye on our NCDD news blog for updates coming soon.
NCDD is co-hosting an event with the IAP2 Northern California Chapter April 30th in San Francisco – we hope many of you in the Bay Area will join us!
This two-hour event (6-8pm PST) will include networking and a presentation from NCDD Supporting member David Campt. Below is a description of David’s presentation, titled “Paradigm Shift: How Facilitators Are Accelerating Their Practice Through Recent Developments on Audience Polling Systems.”
From the checkout line to customer service phone systems, our opinions are constantly being sought. Yet most in person meetings do not engage an affordable and easy to use technology for conducing live instant polls in meetings. Dr. David Campt, a public engagement specialist with over 20 years in the field, has written the first book about using audience response devices outside the classroom environment. In a combination of a speech and a demonstration of the technology, Dr. Campt will make the case why early adopters of polling technology will have definite advantages in creating meetings that are more engaging to participants and productive to clients.
This will be a great opportunity to connect with others in the region and hear about the latest in audience polling systems. NCDD members and NCDD “types” (facilitators, consultants, nonprofit leaders, public administrators, students, etc.) are encouraged to attend. Light refreshments will be provided.
Head over to the registration page to sign-up today! A nominal fee will be charged to cover expenses for the event ($5 for NCDD/IAP2 members, and $15 for non-members), but there is also a free registration option for anyone who needs it.
Join us on Thursday, April 23rd for NCDD’s next “Confab Call.” We’ll be talking with NCDD Member Pete Peterson about lessons learned from running for office on a “civic engagement” platform. The confab will take place from 1-2pm Eastern (10-11am Pacific). Register today to secure your spot!
Pete Peterson is the Executive Director of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership at Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy in Malibu, California. In 2014, after earning one of the “top two” slots in the primary, Pete became the Republican candidate for California Secretary of State, running on a platform of increasing informed civic participation and using technology to make government more responsive and transparent. Throughout the campaign, he highlighted many of his experiences at the Davenport Institute as unique qualifications for this statewide office.
Although he finished second in November’s general election, he managed to earn more votes (3.2 million) than any other Republican in California for the 2014 cycle, and along the way, earned the endorsement of nine of the ten largest newspapers in the state.
In their endorsement of Pete, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board noted that Peterson “possesses an almost evangelical passion for public participation, which is exactly what the office needs.” The government/technology website, techpresident.com, named Pete, “the most tech savvy candidate running for statewide office this year.”
In this confab, Pete will talk about what it was like to run for statewide office on a platform he described as becoming California’s first “Chief Engagement Officer” and what promise and challenges the civic participation field faces when translated into a political context.
NCDD’s Confab Calls are opportunities for members (and potential members) of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing, and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Register today if you’d like to join us.
On March 25th, NCDD hosted a Confab Call on “Facilitator Ethics and Reflective Practice” featuring NCDD member Kimberly Bain.
Kimberly discussed the importance of reflective practice for facilitators and challenged participants to consider their own ethical values and how they would address a variety of ethical dilemmas.
She also shared an invitation to continue this conversation about ethics and values in virtual discussion groups with colleagues across the globe. Join the conversation today on Kimberly’s website.
If you missed the confab, you can now listen to the presentation and more at the links below.
At the 2014 NCDD conference last fall, we were honored to have David Mathews speak during the opening session. For those who don’t know, David is president and CEO of the Kettering Foundation.
For his talk, we asked David to orient attendees to the past and present landscape in Washington for dialogue and deliberation. We wanted him to look back to his days in the Ford administration, and reflect on what he and Kettering have learned over the years about how citizen deliberation can influence Washington politics and policymakers.
He took the task very seriously, delivering a thoughtful, engaging speech which received a standing ovation from attendees! After the conference, David took the time to expand on his remarks in a must-read 12-page document he prepared for us, titled “A Historic Opportunity to Add the Public Voice that’s Missing.”
David often talks about how the organizations in our coalition have the unique ability to create the conditions that are needed for a real “public voice” to develop, and could bring this voice to Washington with the right approach. In a letter to me about his expanded remarks, David wrote:
Never in our history have we had so many organizations that are dedicated to letting citizens decide for themselves rather than insisting people support a predetermined position. I believe that NCDD can play a key role in seizing this rare opportunity.
Wow! Please take the time to read and reflect on this important document. Next week, we’ll discuss David’s message to our community on the NCDD Discussion list. You’re welcome to add your comments here to this blog post as well.
David’s speech from the conference…
I also want to share some additional text David wrote in his letter to me about his expanded remarks:
The point I am trying to make now is that there are things about the public that are difficult for Washington to get a handle on, even with all the town meetings, polling data, and focus group findings. These are useful, yet not sufficient to understand how citizens go about making decisions about policy issues. In what I’ve written, I’ve gone into more detail about what policymakers need to know–most of all, what people will do if they face up to the difficult trade-offs that have to be made in deciding on policies. There will always be costs and less desirable consequences to consider.
Officeholders know a great deal about what people would like and what special interests want. And they understand what they have to do to retain the support of the base that elects them. But officials have more difficulty finding out what is behind people’s opinions and interests, which is what is deeply valuable to them–what they want to protect above all else.
Officeholders don’t necessarily know what citizens are willing to live with when the things that are dear to them are in conflict, as they often are. (The conflict between freedom and security is a good example.) Even people themselves don’t know what they are willing to live with until they have been in serious deliberations with one another. Deliberation is just a term for the exercise of the human capacity for judgment, and public judgment is indispensable in a democracy where citizens have to make tough choices. Deliberation creates what I am calling a genuine public voice.
As you know, I think the organizations in your coalition, the “talking tribes,” can create the conditions that are needed for this public voice to develop. And, given the dissatisfaction with politics as usual, they have an opportunity to bring this voice to Washington. To be heard, however, the talking tribes, whatever methodology they use, will have provided what Washington is missing.
Never in our history have we had so many organizations that are dedicated to letting citizens decide for themselves rather than insisting people support a predetermined position. I believe that NCDD can play a key role in seizing this rare opportunity.
Please take the time to print out and digest David’s message to the NCDD community, which can be downloaded here. Let’s take the weekend to think about the “historic opportunity” David is describing, and think about how our community might step into this role. I hope we can dive into a thoughtful discussion about this next week!
NCDD’s Tech Tuesday events had a bit of a hiatus since the conference, but they’re back with a vengeance with the next several being firmed up as we speak. For April’s event, on Tuesday, April 7th, we’re pleased to feature Loomio, an open source app for group collaboration and decision-making that has been generating lots of buzz in the field.
Registration is open now, so reserve your spot today!
Loomio emerged when activists from the Occupy movement teamed up with the social enterprise network Enspiral, realizing that they were using different approaches to work towards the same aim. Loomio provides an independent and neutral online space for complex discussion with lots of people at once. People can start a discussion, build agreement toward possible solutions, and ultimately come to a decision together for a course of action. Today, Loomio is used by people across the globe in a variety of settings to achieve better outcomes.
In this Tech Tuesday on April 7th (4-5pm Eastern/1-2pm Pacific), Loomio cooperative members Alanna Krause and Chelsea Robinson will join us to demonstrate the tool and share case studies of how it has been utilized. Participants will have the opportunity to see how Loomio works and ask questions. A brief video introducing the tool is below.
This FREE event will take place on Tuesday, April 7 from 4-5pm Eastern/ 1-2pm Pacific. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to experience this simple yet powerful tool – register today!
Tech Tuesdays are a series of learning events from NCDD focused on technology for engagement. These 1-hour events are designed to help dialogue and deliberation practitioners get a better sense of the online engagement landscape and how they can take advantage of the myriad opportunities available to them. You do not have to be a member of NCDD to participate in our Tech Tuesday learning events.
NCDD’s next Confab Call will take place Wednesday, March 25th from 1:00 to 2:00 pm Eastern (10:00 to 11:00 am Pacific). Register today to secure your spot!
On this Confab we will be led in a discussion of ethics for facilitators by Kimberly Bain, author of Becoming a Reflective Practitioner: The Reflective Ethical Facilitator’s Guide and Chair of the International Association of Facilitators. Kimberly will give an overview of ethical values and reflective practice, and then engage with participants in discussion of the ethical issues participants have experienced in their own practice.
As Facilitators we are “architects of trust” and in order to protect that trust we must always be conscious of the ethical values and principles that guide our profession. Ethics and values allow us to hold ourselves and each other accountable for the power we hold over groups, over processes and over outcomes. Discussing these issues as a profession is critical in this process. We not only need to be individual reflective practitioners but we need to be a reflective profession.
For more about this call, check out the original blog post at www.ncdd.org/17546.
NCDD’s “Confab Calls” are opportunities for members [and potential members] of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing, and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Register today if you’d like to join us.
On February 19th, NCDD hosted a Confab Call on “Newcomers, Latecomers, and Disrupters: Strategies for Sustainable and Productive Engagement” featuring NCDD members Sarah Read and Christoph Berendes.
Sarah and Chris described the structures they’ve used for these kinds of challenges, process elements that affect success, and demonstrated web tools that can help. Seventy people registered for this call! If you missed the confab and are interested in learning more, you can now watch the presentation and more at the links below.
NCDD’s next Confab Call will take place Wednesday, March 25th from 1:00 to 2:00 pm Eastern (10:00 to 11:00 am Pacific). Register today to secure your spot!
Kimberly Bain holding up her “next steps” bubble at NCDD 2014
On this Confab, we will talking with Kimberly Bain, Global Chair of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF), about the concepts in her new book, Becoming a Reflective Practitioner: The Reflective Ethical Facilitator’s Guide. In this guide and on the call, Kimberly will help us bring these ethical principles to life both for us as reflective practitioners and for our profession.
A Reflective Practitioner is conscious of the ethics and values of our profession and constantly reflects on how he/she personally resolves tensions within that ethical framework. Awareness is the first step towards insight. Consideration and reflection are in the interests of each of us, our profession as a whole and in the interests of those we serve. We all must consider the ethics and fundamental values of our profession and be prepared when those values are challenged in practice. As practitioners we must be continually mindful of how we exercise our power as facilitators when helping groups and communities achieve their desired outcomes.
Kimberly Bain is Senior Partner in Bain Group Consulting, based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Kimberly is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator, is Global Chair of the International Association of Facilitators and holds the appointment of Visiting Scholar in facilitation and mediation at Queen’s University.
NCDD’s “Confab Calls” are opportunities for members [and potential members] of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing, and to connect with fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Register today if you’d like to join us.
More about the book…
Becoming a Reflective Practitioner: The Reflective Ethical Facilitator’s Guide is based on the International Association of Facilitator’s (IAF) Code of Ethics and Values, however it works also for other practitioners and organizations (NCDD, IAP2, ICF, etc.) as these ethical principles are universal. Ethics and values set standards that help us as professionals hold ourselves and each other accountable. But a Code of Ethics is only effective if it is continuously reviewed, discussed, challenged and reflected upon.
The IAF knows both the power of facilitation (i.e. better and more sustainable outcomes, higher levels of engagement and ownership of decisions, more effective use of resources, better decisions) and the dangers (i.e. coerced consensus, unequal outcomes, directed outcomes, breaches in confidentiality and loss of public trust). As facilitators, and as dialogue & deliberation practitioners, “we are architects of trust” (The Reflective Practitioner, page 53). We owe it to our clients, and to the public in which we serve, to act with an informed appreciation of the ethical issues and competencies needed to help groups/communities build consensus and produce meaningful outcomes.
More about Kimberly…
Kimberly Bain holds certificates in mediation and dispute resolution and has conducted over 200 court appointed mediations, as well as dozens of workplace interventions and community disputes. Kimberly provides professional facilitation services around the world, speaks regularly on facilitation at international conferences, and teaches at colleges and universities. She has an Honours Degree from Queen’s University and a Master’s Degree from Carleton University. Kimberly is author of Becoming a Reflective Practitioner: The Reflective Ethical Facilitator’s Guide. For more information about Kimberly or to purchase her book, visit her website at www.baingroup.ca.
Join us on Thursday, February 19th from 12-1:30pm Eastern (9-10:30am Pacific) for NCDD’s next “Confab Call.” Register today to secure your spot!
On this Confab, we will be tackling the issue of working with newcomers, latecomers, and disrupters: strategies for sustainable and productive engagement.
Practitioners managing public engagement processes that run over months or years are often challenged by newcomers, late-comers, and disruptors:
The newly elected official who wants to have her say.
The neighborhood resident who finally gets involved when the bulldozers arrive on his block.
The activists who’ve been carefully biding their time and now hope to derail proceedings because “they were not consulted.”
How can you plan for their arrival?
This Confab will be led by NCDD members Sarah Read and Christoph Berendes. For more than 25 years, Sarah has designed collaborative processes to resolve regulatory issues, facilitated community dialogues, and led visioning and strategic planning efforts for a variety of organizations. Chris was a project manager for online public engagement efforts for the Office of the Vice President and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in the early days of the Web and has advised the Kettering Foundation, AmericaSpeaks, and the Democracy Fund on the use of social media to foster public engagement.
Using scenarios to illustrate the possibilities, Sarah and Chris will describe structures they’ve used for these kinds of challenges– on-ramps, off-ramps, and connectors — and the process elements that affect success – managing expectations, building and sharing knowledge (process and substance), setting boundaries, incorporating new information and ideas, evaluation and “flexibility,” and “harvesting as you go along.” They will also demonstrate simple web tools that can help, such as blog tags, maps, project timelines, charts, and trackers.
Participants will be able to share questions and examples of these challenges in advance and during the Confab.
NCDD’s “Confab Calls” are opportunities for members [and potential members] of NCDD to talk with and hear from innovators in our field about the work they’re doing, and to connect with each fellow members around shared interests. Membership in NCDD is encouraged but not required for participation. Register today if you’d like to join us.
discussion used by people from around the world to start a discussions, build agreement, and make decisions together for a course of action. We learned a lot and had a great conversation!
Pete Peterson is the Executive Director of the 
For his talk, we asked David to orient attendees to the past and present landscape in Washington for dialogue and deliberation. We wanted him to look back to his days in the Ford administration, and reflect on what he and Kettering have learned over the years about how citizen deliberation can influence Washington politics and policymakers.