Constitutional Amendment for Campaign Finance Reform?

Posted on May 30, 2014 by NCDD Community

We are happy to share the announcement below from NCDD organizational member and NCDD Catalyst Award winner John Spady of the National Dialogue Network. John’s announcement came via our great Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Until June 14, 2014, the National Dialogue Network (NDN) is crowdsourcing ideas from as many people as possible about whether or not a constitutional amendment is necessary to either limit or protect current practices of election campaign spending. Please share this announcement and encourage participation using this link: http://ndn.codigital.com.

The Codigital process is the same one recently used by NCDD. Our own experience with Codigital can be reviewed at http://ncdd.org/14641

The purpose of the NDN project is to solicit statements from all sides, edit and rank them using Codigital, and create a summary of the results for delivery to the Senate Judiciary Committee that meets in June to debate the value of a constitutional amendment to limit (or not) election campaign spending.

After June 14 a follow on phase will repackage these results and create materials for local consideration, public engagement, and national feedback using the tools that the National Dialogue Network gives freely to collaborating individuals and organizations to roll up results from numerous local communities. NDN wants our political representatives to understand the opinions and values of those who care deeply about this issue — from all sides.

John Spady is a long time and sustaining member of NCDD. His vision for a National Dialogue Network received the 2012 Catalyst Award for Civic Infrastructure from NCDD voting members. Details about that award are available at: http://ncdd.org/10940. The website of the NDN is: http://NationalDialogueNetwork.org

If you have any thoughts or encouragements, please add your comments below.

Open Government Needs Public Trust

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

The piece below comes from the Gov. 2.0 Watch blog, a project of our organizational partners at the Davenport Institute. The reflections shared on building trust in government as a critical component of public engagement and open government initiatives are good food for thought, and we encourage you to read more below or find the original post here.

In the wake of recent scandals involving California lawmakers, this CA Fwd interview with Leon Panetta is a needed reminder of the importance of integrity in public service. Ed Coghlan comments:

Three months into 2014 and three California State Senators have had brushes with the law. Needless to say, public confidence in elected officials is shaken.

It’s understandable, but like any setback in life, it’s also an opportunity to reflect and change for the better.

Now is the time for our elected officials to enact immediate and meaningful reform in response to alleged state-level corruption that has gotten national media attention. Only then will public trust in government be on the road to recovery.

CA Fwd is attempting to “catalyze a conversation on rebuilding public confidence in government,” and released a roadmap called The Path Toward Trust in April. More information is available here.

The Huffington Post published a related article last month by Gavin Newsom and Zachary Bookman, highlighting successes in the “Open Government movement” in Palo Alto, Bell, San Francisco, and the California State Lands Commission, that they argue have helped to increase public trust and civic engagement:

As a sector, government typically embraces technology well-behind the consumer curve. This leads to disheartening stories, like veterans waiting months or years for disability claims due to outdated technology or the troubled rollout of the Healthcare.gov website. This is changing.

Cities and states are now the driving force in a national movement to harness technology to share a wealth of government information and data. Many forward thinking local governments now provide effective tools to the public to make sense of all this data.

New platforms can transform data from legacy systems into meaningful visualizations. Instant, web-based access to this information not only saves time and money, but also helps government make faster and better decisions. This allows them to serve their communities and builds trust with citizens.

You can find the original version of this post at http://publicpolicy.pepperdine.edu/davenport-institute/gov20watch/index.php/2014/04/public-trust-open-government.

More on our next Tech Tuesday event on Ethelo

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Sandy Heierbacher

Our upcoming Tech Tuesday, on May 27th from 1:00 to 2:30 pm EST, introduces Ethelo—a new tool committed to pioneering progress on how collaborative thinking and decision making can occur online.

Ethelo founder John Richardson and his team (which includes NCDD member Kathryn Thomson) will demonstrate how the Ethelo algorithm works and how it can enhance the work of D&D practitioners. Currently at Beta stage, Ethelo is offering NCDD members free access to the platform and asking for our input to help them refine its development as a powerful tool for dialogue and decision making.

Here is how they describe their work:

Ethelo (a Greek word which signifies deep intention) is designed to complement and support the power of deliberative dialogue. Traditional methods of getting to whole group support, such as consensus, are often exhaustive, time consuming, labor intensive processes. Other methods of gaining group support include some form of compromise–which leave many if not all members vaguely unsatisfied, or a majority vote rule which can leave nearly half of the members unhappy.

Ethelo’s online platform deepens and extends in-person public processes; it enables groups to think differently about the issue or decision at hand, and leads to a more thoughtful, more well supported outcome.

To preview how Ethelo works to identify the collective will of a group (whether that group is a family, an organization, or a whole community) here are some links to different examples:

The Condo Dispute—condo disputes can take up so much time and energy, even on minor issues. Click here to see how one contentious issue was resolved using Ethelo. This example will take about 5 minutes for you to work through.
Group Holiday Decision—this one is also fairly quick to work through.
Comfort Cove Community Center—this is a more complex decision, so you’ll want to set aside about 15 minutes to work through this one.

This webinar will be interactive, thanks to Ben Roberts and the Maestroconference platform, and you’ll have lots of opportunities to provide input and ask questions in large and small group settings. We hope you’ll join your Tech Tuesday hosts and the Ethelo team for this opportunity to learn about more about the potential of this innovative new tool for collaboration and decision making.

Call for Proposals for NCDD 2014!

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Sandy Heierbacher

NCDD’s 2014 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation is coming up this October 17-19 in the DC metro area.

Table-group-600px-outlined NCDD conferences bring together hundreds of the most active, thoughtful, and influential people involved in public engagement and group process work across the U.S. and Canada. 400 people attended our last national conference (Seattle in 2012), and we hope to beat that number this year!

If your work involves dialogue and deliberation, you’ll love the conference. Imagine spending three days with some of the most amazing people in our field, constantly forming new relationships and reconnecting with old colleagues and friends, hearing about innovative new approaches to the challenges you’re facing, and exploring together how we can shape the future of this important movement, all while using innovative group techniques… there’s really nothing like it. (See quotes from past attendees.)

Today we’re announcing our call for proposals for our concurrent sessions for NCDD 2014. We’re interested in finding many creative ways to highlight the best of what’s happening in public engagement, group process, community problem-solving, and arts-based dialogue — and we know you have lots of ideas!

Check out the Application for Session Leaders now to see what we ask for, and start cooking up those great proposals we’ve come to expect from you! For ideas, look over the results of our March Codigital experiment, where we asked the NCDD community to share what they’d like to see happen at NCDD 2014, and peruse the fabulous sessions offered at the 2012 and 2008 NCDD conferences.

We look forward to seeing what you’d like to offer! Please note that the deadline for proposals is Monday, June 16th.

Here is some guidance for those thinking about presenting sessions at NCDD 2014…

Our theme for the 2014 conference, Democracy for the Next Generation, invites us to build on all the innovative practices and tools that have been invigorating the dialogue and deliberation community in recent years. Now more than ever, we have both opportunity—and the increasing 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.

YoungLadiesWithMug-NCDDSeattle What do we want the next generation of our work to look like, and how can we work together to get there? We’ll address these questions through the 2014 NCDD conference goals:

Create new pathways, new partnerships, and new ways of thinking about how we can expand the scope of our work and find new ways to embed our practices in governance.
Provide attendees with insights and know-how for harnessing the emerging technologies that support dialogue and deliberation.
Connect seasoned practitioners to newcomers, for the benefit of all generations.
Inspire and invigorate attendees’ current work through exposure to new ideas and innovations in the field, and by boldly addressing how to break down persistent barriers to participation.
Map out the future tools of democracy that enable a thriving culture of engaged citizens and communities everywhere.

This “next generation” of democracy is the future that embodies the best of what we have to offer the world. Session presenters are strongly encouraged to help us explore these critical elements in moving the work of our community forward. Your proposal will be evaluated, in part, by its relevance to our theme and goals.

Some advice from the NCDD 2014 planning team for potential session leaders:

Identify great co-presenters. Most workshops at NCDD conferences are collaborative efforts involving multiple presenters from different organizations and universities. Have you thought about who you can co-present with? Now’s the time to contact them to see if they’d like to offer a session with you! (Use the NCDD Discussion list and the comments below to put out feelers for potential co-presenters if you’d like.)
Look over past workshop descriptions. Peruse the list of workshops from NCDD Seattle to get a sense of the kinds of sessions the planning team selects. Sessions focused on innovative solutions to common challenges, ways to take this work to scale or to new audiences, and deep dives into great projects (and thoughtful explorations of failed projects!) are especially welcome. You can also scan the fabulous sessions offered at NCDD Austin.
Be innovative with your session. NCDD attendees are usually not too impressed with traditional panels or long speeches. Get them engaging with you and each other! Think about how you can get them out of their seats and moving around the room. And think about what you’d like to learn from them (not just what they can learn from you). Challenge yourself to run a session without relying on PowerPoint.
Share your stories. NCDDers prefer hearing your stories to getting a run-down of your organization or methodology. People are interested in learning about what you did, what you learned, and how they may be able to learn from your experience.
Share the latest. What’s the latest research? What are the latest innovations in the field? What new challenges are you facing? What are your latest accomplishments?

Not quite ready to draw up a proposal yet?
Use the comment field (and/or the NCDD listserv) to float your ideas by NCDDers and members of the planning team. We may be able to match you up with potential co-presenters who can address the same challenge or issue you’re interested in focusing on.

Look over the results of our March engagement project, where we used Codigital to get 122 members of the NCDD community contributing 95 ideas for the NCDD conference, editing the ideas 174 times, and ranking the ideas through 5290 votes. There is a wealth of ideas and insight in those results!

Deadline for submissions

Complete the session application at www.ncdd.org/ncdd2014/session-app by the end of the day on Monday, June 16th.

Members of the conference planning team will review the proposals and respond by email to the first contact listed in your proposal by the end of the day on July 9th.

Group Works Facilitation Training in BC, May 24

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

You’re invited to attend a facilitation training from our friends at Group Works this Memorial Day Weekend in British Columbia. The training will be a great professional development opportunity, so we encourage you to check out the announcement below or find out more by clicking here.

Deepening Your Facilitation Practice

Workshop in Burnaby, BC - May 24th

Calling all project leaders, teachers, facilitators, coaches, public engagement practitioners, non-profit board members, and others whose work involvesempowering people to participate in groups, workplaces, and communities in a more dynamic and effective way!

We invite you to attend a professional development session where you will have the opportunity to:Â

Reflect on your practices
Share dilemmas with colleagues
Get support on upcoming meeting design
Storyboard events - past and future - to identify opportunities for more effectively employing the patterns of excellent group process
Integrate exemplary patterns into yourr professional life and start to speak the shared “pattern language” of facilitation
Engage with others who care about these things!

We’ll be using the card deck Group Works: A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and Other Gatherings as our lens. While familiarity with the deck will be helpful, it’s not essential – you’ll recognize the patterns from your own practice and pick it up quickly.

If you participated in the last workshop Group Pattern Language Project offered in BC, we expect this session will be sufficiently different to make it worth your while to join us again.

When: Saturday May 24, 10:30am to 4:30pm. A simple soup/salad/bread lunch (vegan & gluten-free) will be provided.

Where: Cranberry Commons Cohousing, 4274 Albert St (at Madison just north of Hastings), Burnaby, BC.

Cost: Sliding scale $25-$150.

Registration

Please register in advance so your hosts can plan appropriately. Sign up at: http://groupworksdeck.org/event_reg/GPL_Reg.php. If you have any further questions contact Daniel Lindenberger at daniel@smallboxcms.com.

Pre- and post-event Work Sessions

The day before and the day after the workshop, we’ll be hosting work sessions for those committed to supporting this work in terms of growing the language, articulating potential new applications, and promoting and nurturing the project. Some of the issues we’ll be exploring are developing curricula for self-guided study of how to use the cards, new “e-versions” of Group Works, and outreach activities to spread the word.

Come participate and let others know too! This should be a great networking and peer learning opportunity. Hope to see you there!

Please share this invitation with other people you think might be interested in attending. If you’d like to participate or learn more about this, please email Dave at dave.pollard@gmail.com.

Community Branding Call with CM this Thursday

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We are pleased to announce the next capacity-building conference call from our organizational partners at CommunityMatters, which is coming up this Thursday, May 8th from 4-5pm EST.

CM is working with the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design to host the call, entitled What’s in a Name? The Power of Community Branding. The call is described like this:

Your community isn’t Anywhere, USA. It has stories to tell – tales of historic moments, epic failures, innovative products, resilient businesses and colorful people. How can your community take its most distinct stories and turn them into a compelling and unified message?

Community branding brings local stories and sentiments to the surface, highlighting unique assets that make a place great.

On May 8, Ben Muldrow of Arnett Muldrow & Associates… will share his experience in working with small towns and rural places to create a strong brand that supports community and economic development outcomes.

Before the call, we encourage you to check out the accompanying piece on the CM blog by Caitlyn Horose, which is cross posted below. You can find the original piece here.

What’s in a Name? The Power of Community Branding

The most compelling reminder that community branding matters is a simple question: Would you rather have a bachelor party in Las Vegas or Des Moines? No offense to Des Moines, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most people will pick Las Vegas. Des Moines just isn’t famous for its late night party scene – and it probably doesn’t want to be!

The strongest community brands create associations that seem painfully obvious. You say “Kentucky.” I say “Derby.” You say “Maine.” I say “lobster.” And, even if we’ve never been to Austin, it’s likely we both know that Austin is “weird.”

Place branding isn’t just about associations. The benefits of a positive and unified image impact many aspects of community. Here are a few examples of what branding can do:

Attract and retain strong talent. Glasgow, Scotland’s new brand - People Make Glasgow - acknowledges the skills and talent in the city, highlighting Glasgow as a place that’s great for business and tourists alike.

Shift negative perceptions. Newark, New Jersey was named the unfriendliest city by Conde Nast Traveler in 2013. Branding is aiding efforts to erase the negative and emphasize the positive, starting with the downtown Newark neighborhood of Washington Park. Strategies go beyond graphics and logos to include beautification of public spaces, cultural events in local parks, and food truck rallies.

Support economic recovery. When Oakridge, Oregon’s population dropped to 3,200 people, the community banded together for a branding project. Focusing on Oakridge’s natural resources and recreational opportunities, the town self-identified as “The Center of Oregon Recreation.” The brand promotes existing recreational offerings while providing focus to economic development tactics. Targeted support for outdoor-related businesses is now a top priority.

Stimulate demand. A small town in England is branding its local products and services. Shrewsbury’s “One-Off” campaign showcases the local handmade and artisanal culture. The campaign logo is intentionally flexible so that any business can adopt it.

Strengthen civic pride and a shared identity. Kentucky’s new brand – Kentucky Kicks Ass – was created with input from local residents. It seems the slogan is something every Kentuckian can get behind:

But what about those places where community identity hasn’t been crafted? How can small towns stop feeling invisible or change negative perceptions? What works in creating a well-loved community brand?

On May 8, Ben Muldrow, Partner with Arnett Muldrow & Associates will join CommunityMatters® and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design™ for an hour-long webinar on community branding. Ben will share his experience in working with small towns and rural places to create a strong brand that builds civic identity and supports community and economic development goals.

The original version of this blog post is available at www.communitymatters.org/blog/what%E2%80%99s-name-power-community-branding.

Registration open for our June 12th Confab with Peter Levine

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Sandy Heierbacher

Confab bubble image We’re excited to have Peter Levine as our featured speaker on our next NCDD Confab call. Sign up today to reserve your spot on June’s Confab, which is set for 2-3pm Eastern (11-noon Pacific) on Thursday, June 12th.

We’ll be talking to Peter about his new book, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America. This is an important book for us to discuss, and you have time to get your hands on a copy before the confab if you’d like (here’s the Amazon link). I especially encourage you to check out Chapter 7, titled Strategies: How to Accomplish Civic Renewal, which is what we’ll dig into deepest on the call.

WeAreTheOnes-cover

Peter Levine is the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in Tufts University’s Jonathan Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service and Director of CIRCLE, The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Peter Levine’s We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For is a primer for anyone motivated to help revive our fragile civic life and restore citizens’ public role. After offering a novel theory of active citizenship, a diagnosis of its decline, and a searing critique of our political institutions, Levine–one of America’s most influential civic engagement activists–argues that American citizens must address our most challenging issues. People can change the norms and structures of their own communities through deliberative civic action.

Our confabs (interactive conference calls) are free and open to all NCDD members and potential members. Register today if you’d like to join us!

More about the book…

In the book, Peter illustrates rich and effective civic work by drawing lessons from YouthBuild USA, Everyday Democracy, the Industrial Areas Foundation, and many other civic groups. Their organizers invite all citizens–including traditionally marginalized people, such as low-income teenagers-to address community problems. Levine explores successful efforts from communities across America as well as from democracies overseas.

He shows how cities like Bridgeport, CT and Allentown, PA have bounced back from the devastating loss of manufacturing jobs by drawing on robust civic networks. The next step is for the participants in these local efforts to change policies that frustrate civic engagement nationally. Filled with trenchant analysis and strategies for reform, We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For analyzes and advocates a new citizen-centered politics capable of tackling problems that cannot be fixed in any other way.

A little more about Peter…

PeterLevine

Peter graduated from Yale in 1989 with a degree in philosophy. He studied philosophy at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, receiving his doctorate in 1992. From 1991 until 1993, he was a research associate at Common Cause. In the late 1990s, he was Deputy Director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. Levine is the author of We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America (Oxford University Press, fall 2013), five other scholarly books on philosophy and politics, and a novel.

He has served on the boards or steering committees of AmericaSpeaks, Street Law Inc., the Newspaper Association of America Foundation, the Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools, Discovering Justice, the Kettering Foundation, the American Bar Association Committee’s for Public Education, the Paul J. Aicher Foundation, and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.

Learning to Bring Deliberation to the Classroom

Posted on May 1, 2014 by Roshan Bliss

We recently heard from our organizational partners at the National Issues Forums Institute about an exciting opportunity to learn more about the applications of deliberation work to the teaching profession from the Iowa Partners in Learning. It would be great to see some of our education-oriented members attend. You can read the announcement below or find it on NIFI’s blog by clicking here.

“Teaching Deliberatively”
Fifth Annual Workshop
July 21-25 2014

Want students to learn to “deliberate” over important contemporary issues? Want them to learn how “civility” can be better practiced in classrooms and school communities? Then, learn more about “teaching deliberatively.”

Learn how to frame local issues for deliberation, and how to convene, moderate, record and report on deliberative forums.
Learn how public issues and deliberative democracy come together, using writing to develop civic literacy as authorized by Iowa Core and national standards
Learn to bring issue exploration and issue deliberation into school curriculum and community life.
Develop a take-home discussion guide.
Be invited to share learning experiences in two follow-up sessions – one in the fall 2014 and another in the spring 2015, and
Use e-technology for building & sharing a repertoire of tools, materials and lessons for teaching in schools back home.

Priority for tuition-free participation will be given to interdisciplinary teams (pairs) of teachers from the same school or district/AEA.

The one-week Iowa institute’s curriculum builds on the National Issues Forums Institute’s (www.nifi.org) approach to public issue deliberation, as adapted to classrooms, and blends in the Iowa Writing Project’s unique teaching methodologies. This guarantees a successful learning experience – and increases potential for more civil classrooms, schools and communities.

This institute is a joint project of the Iowa Writing Project at University of Northern Iowa, the Iowa State Education Association, and the Iowa Partners in Learning, with generous support from the Des Moines Public Schools.

A special private grant supports the institute and pays tuition for three hours of UNI graduate credit for each of 25 participants (preference to teams). As an alternative to UNI credit, participants may enroll for license renewal credit. Daily lunches, break refreshments and materials provided.

Dr. James S. Davis of UNI is the principal instructor, and members of the Iowa Partners in Learning team will co-facilitate.

Blog/Website: http://iowapartners.org
Information: james.davis@uni.edu
Registration: https://www.uni.edu/continuinged/distance/courses/summer-2014/11530-english-5133-61

About The Iowa Partners in Learning:

The Iowa Partners in Learning is associated with the National Issues Forums Institute, a program of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan research organization rooted in the American tradition of cooperative research into one central question: What does it take for democracy to work as it should? Or put another way: What does it take for citizens to shape their collective future?

For more information, contact Partners in Learning at Gerald@butlerconsult.net.

NCDD / IAP2 gathering at APA conference in Atlanta this Tuesday night

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Sandy Heierbacher

For those of you attending the American Planning Association (APA) conference this week in Atlanta (and those of you based in/near Atlanta but not attending APA), be sure to participate in Tuesday night’s joint meetup for members of APA, NCDD and/or IAP2 USA who are interested in bridging the fields of public participation and planning.

The idea began with a listserv post by Ron Thomas on the NCDD Discussion list, where he expressed a desire to infuse the planning profession (and APA conferences) with a stronger understanding of highly participatory public engagement work.

NCDD members Myles Alexander (of Kansas State University’s Center for Engagement and Community Development) and Tim Bonnemann (of Intellitics, Inc. and the board of IAP2 USA), worked together to organize an informal gathering at APA — and all NCDD members are welcome to attend.

Tuesday, April 29 at 5pm
McCormick & Schmick’s (http://bit.ly/QlnK1d/)
(One CNN Center)
190 Marietta St NW Atlanta

For more information, contact Myles Alexander at mylesks@ksu.edu or Ron Thomas at ronthom@ameritech.net.

Discounted Registration for Master Class and Learning Exchange

Posted on April 27, 2014 by NCDD Community

The post below comes from NCDD supporting member Rick Lent of Meeting for Results via our Submit-to-Blog Form. Do you have news you want to share with the NCDD network? Just click here to submit your news post for the NCDD Blog!

Take advantage of two great course offerings from the Future Search Network. NCDD members can get a registration discount if they register early.

Change the World One Meeting at a Time: A Master Class with Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord takes place Sept 9-10, 2014 in Philadelphia. The Master Class will explore the realms of practice beyond traditional models, methods and techniques, and go more deeply into personal and structural issues for leading interactive meetings. Together we will learn more about applying principles for meaningful, energizing meetings:

Working with polarized sub-groups
Using differentiation and integration as a key process in transforming group dialogue
Moving from individual intervention to system intervention
Knowing when and how to “just stand there” or when and how to actively intervene.

The Master Class will be followed by the Learning Exchange on Sept. 11-12. Join Sandra Janoff and Marvin Weisbord and members of the global Future Search community to explore how people are using the principles and philosophy of Future Search in meetings of all shapes and sizes in communities and organizations around the world.

NCDD members can register for both together for additional discount before June 1. You can learn more and register by clicking here.

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