Method: Picketing
Oct 3 '16
Picketing is a form of protest. Learn more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picketing
Picketing
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Soup for Syria
Case: Soup for Syria
Oct 3 '16
Problems and Purpose Waves of Syrian refugees crossing through the land border on foot from Austria into Hungary have met with serious hostilities by the local law enforcements particularly in Hungary. The ill treatment of the refugees by the Hungarian police has hit international headlines. A local organization called "Time...
Gender Fender
Case: Gender Fender
Oct 3 '16
The 13th Association for Women In Development International Forum (September 2016) Problems and Purpose The 13th Association for Women In Development (AWID) International Forum was held in Bahia, Brazil in mid September 2016. The 2016 forum brought together 1700 activists from over 140 countries from around the world. AWID is...
Hackathon
Method: Hackathon
Oct 3 '16
This method is a work in progress. Please feel free to contribute by adding to or editing this article. Definition A hackathon is typically defined as an event lasting up to several days in which a large number of people meet to engage in collaborative computer programming. In addition to...
Toronto Planning Review Panel
Oct 3 '16
The City of Toronto Planning Department commissioned MASS LBP to convene a randomly selected group of residents from across the Greater Toronto Area to provide guidance concerning ongoing planning initiatives. The panel closely matches the demographic profile of city residents, and also matches the rough proportion of home owners and...
introspect to reenchant the inner life
John Stewart Mill was the son of a great classical utilitarian. He was taught that happiness could be measured on a one-dimensional scale from pain to pleasure. Since he was only one of many millions of human beings, he should focus on helping others to be happy by serving them directly and by reforming laws and policies to maximize happiness. Happiness was a simple quantity determined by circumstances beyond the individual.
As a young man, Mill became deeply depressed. He asked himself:
“Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?” And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, “No!” At this my heart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for.
Mill realized that other people could not make him happy, and the same was true of everyone else. Each person had to pay attention to her own wellbeing or everyone would be miserable. One reason is that we do not fall on a single spectrum from agony to ecstasy. Instead, we experience a heterogeneous batch of emotions (joy, peace, pain, acceptance, delight, equanimity, and many more) that may be in tension with each other. Mill’s ultimate response was to develop a richer philosophy in which the inner life regained its independent standing and was no longer a mere outcome of justice. “The important change which my opinions at this time underwent, was that I, for the first time, gave its proper place, among the prime necessities of human well-being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of outward circumstances.”
This kind of reflection recalls the intrinsic value–the beauty, complexity, and richness–of inner life itself. Introspection counters an avoidable modern tendency to disenchant the self.
Many centuries ago, the world seemed thoroughly enchanted. There were spirits, angels, or demons in the air, the forest, the water, and everywhere else. It seemed natural that there should also be a spirit inside each of us that was similarly invisible, unpredictable, powerful, and precious.
Natural science has not demonstrated that the only real things are visible and predictable. On the contrary, natural science has discovered quarks and bosons, forces and dimensions. It had yielded a world full of strange and heterogeneous objects. But natural science does presume (rather than discover) that every true statement is about something that one can demonstrate experimentally. As natural science has progressed, the enchanted world has shrunk: we now know that hot and cold fronts rather than demons cause storms, and bacteria and viruses rather than witches cause disease.
An object inside us that we might call a soul, a self, or a will seems likely to disappear for the same reasons. After all, a soul can never be observed or experimentally verified. And science is building an alternative story about networks of neurons that fire (because of forces acting on them) and cause mental states such as desire and will. In turn, these networks of neurons evolved over many millions of years to make species like ours more fit to survive. The implication is that human beings are ultimately just complicated machines, and an experience like freedom of the will is an illusion. Our thinking belongs to the same network of cause-and-effect that explains why a computer opens an application when you push a button, or a tree sprouts a leaf when the sun shines on it.
The premises seem correct, but the conclusion does not follow. Natural science may explain why mental states occur. It cannot not explain what those states are. By analogy: biology explains why most leaves look green, but it wouldn’t convey to a truly color-blind person what green looks like. Likewise, a conscious person actually experiences will, choice, and a host of other complex mental states. To say what will is, one must describe it closely and insightfully from the perspective of the person who wills something. Under close inspection, a simple thing like “will” refracts into many related emotions and beliefs. One must address questions like these: What does it feel like to want something? Can you want it and not want it at the same time? Does wanting an object feel the same as wanting a person? How does will relate to love? To happiness? What thoughts and mental practices enhance and constrain will? What forms of willing are good and which are bad?
Such introspective questions are appropriate even in a world in which natural science works just as well as advertised. If you want to know why human beings think, it’s appropriate to turn to neuroscience and evolutionary biology. But if you want to know what thought is, you must attend to thinking. Even more so, if you want to decide which thoughts are good, you must evaluate the complex, subtle, mysterious world of your own consciousness.
Both the Talmud and the Qur’an propose that to murder one person is to destroy a whole world, and to save a life is to save a whole world. Perhaps those passages reflect a recognition that each human consciousness is an immense accumulation of experience. The whole universe of which I am aware (from distant galaxies to microscopic organisms swimming in a drop of water) is all in my head. My mind contains not one thing but many things connected by a whole network of relations. And each of these things carries value. Consciousness thus requires and rewards exploration. Montaigne wrote:
For, as Pliny says, each person is a very good lesson to himself, provided he has the audacity to look from up close. This [the book of Essays] is not my teaching, it is my studying; it is not a lesson for anyone else, but for myself. What helps me just might help another. … It is a tricky business, and harder than it seems, to follow such a wandering quarry as our own spirit, to penetrate its deep darknesses and inner folds. …This is a new and extraordinary pastime that withdraws us from the typical occupations of the world, indeed, even from the most commendable activities. For many years now, my thoughts have had no object but myself; I investigate and study nothing but me, and if I study something else, I immediately apply it to myself–or (better put) within myself. … My vocation and my art is to live (ii.6).
Showcase Sessions at the 2016 NCDD Conference
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.
the world’s first and only Civic Studies rap
(Washington) And now for something different … My colleague Prof. Jonathan Garlick was a participant in last summer’s Institute of Civic Studies at Tufts’ Tisch College of Civic Life. After two weeks of wrestling with theorists like Jurgen Habermas and Eleanor Ostrom–along with fellow academics and practitioners from half a dozen nations–Jonathan summarized it all up in a rap:
“Now, Habermas’ and Ostrom’s inquiries
Are still a bit unclear to me
So let’s elucudiate these mysteries
By clarifyin their philosophies
Picture them both in a rap repartee
As they exchange views and realities
A civic rap battle of history …”
Here are the rest of the lyrics in PowerPoint.
Turning Dialogue into Action & Other Skills for Engagement
You might have missed it, but the team at NCDD member organization Public Agenda have been running an incredible blog series on “Key Talents for Better Public Participation” this summer. The posts are a great set of resources for D&D practitioners, and we wanted to share an important one about making the often difficult transition from talk to action here. We encourage you to read the piece and find links to the 14 other series posts below, or find the original here.
Supporting Action Efforts
Ideas for action emerge naturally in many different forms of public participation. When people talk about issues that are important to them, they often want to:
- Develop new problem-solving partnerships and new ways to work with others.
- Express their ideas, concerns, and recommendations to public officials and other decision makers.
- Strengthen practices and policies within departments, agencies, community organizations, workplaces or other groups.
During participatory processes, people often think about action ideas they would like to take individually and as a community. It is important for participants to be able to hear one another’s ideas and decide together which actions to take.
In some single-day participatory processes, action ideas are shared at the end of the day. In others, there is a separate action-focused event where participants can come together to share ideas. Still others facilitate action efforts with online tools and tactics.
Two skills, planning action events and supporting action teams, can be helpful for all of these processes. (Many of these tips, along with more information on supporting action, are described by Everyday Democracy here.)
Planning an Action-Focused Event
Events that help people transition from dialogue to action typically have three elements:
- Opportunities for dialogue groups to share their ideas. If participants brainstormed and prioritized action ideas, then the action event should include opportunities for each group to share their top ideas.
- Prioritizing action ideas. During the action event, give people the opportunity to vote for their top three choices for action ideas (perhaps by using keypad polling or dotmocracy). Participation leaders sometimes encourage a mix of short-term and long-term action projects. Short-term projects keep the momentum of the dialogues going and provide an immediate success to share with the community. Long-term goals require more planning, but such efforts can result in lasting change.
- Creating action teams. Identify the action ideas with the most votes or support. Ask people to divide into groups based on the action they would like to work on and explain that the people in these new “action teams” will work together to put the idea into motion. During the action event, give these new teams some time to introduce themselves, gather contact information and identify co-leaders who will help the group move forward with the idea.
Supporting Action Teams
Promoting team pride, hosting regular meetings with action team leaders and fostering a creative environment are some ways to help a group or team prepare a plan and then take action. Action teams should:
- Set clear expectations. What needs to happen, by when, and who is responsible? If people know what they are expected to do and by when, they are better able to develop a roadmap for achieving specific tasks and goals.
- Identify two leaders per team. Co-chairs can share the responsibility of keeping the team on course and moving forward.
- Share skills and talents. Ask team members to write down some of their talents and skills, so when the group needs to complete tasks, requests can be made to people who have the requisite skills.
- Foster a creative environment. Be open and welcome diverse ideas and ways of thinking. Show that everyone is valued and is an important part of the group.
- Continue recruiting volunteers. Even if people were not involved in the initial conversations, they may be interested in taking action. Allowing new people to join brings in fresh energy and cultivates a larger network, greater inclusion and a stronger sense of ownership of the effort.
- Keep in touch. Meet regularly and keep everyone informed via emails and calls. Consider forming an online network and using online tools and tactics.
- Share documents and plans. Wikis can be used to help team members work together on documents and stay informed about plans.
- Connect teams to resources. Participation leaders can provide information, contacts and resources to action teams.
- Celebrate progress. Keep the work of the team in the public eye by engaging media and sharing success stories.
Read other blogs in this series:
Part 1: Ten Key Talents for Better Public Participation
Part 2: Building Coalitions and Networks
Part 3: Cultural Competence and Engaging Youth
Part 4: Recruiting Participants
Part 5: Communicating About Participation
Part 6: Managing Conflict
Part 7: Providing Information and Options: Issue Framing
Part 8: Providing Information and Options: Sequencing Discussions and Writing Discussion Materials
Part 9: Managing Discussions, Blog 1 of 3: Facilitating Face-to-Face Groups
Part 10: Managing Discussions, Blog 2 of 3: Recording and Online Moderation
Part 11: Managing Discussions, Blog 3 of 3: Ground Rules and Feedback
Part 12: Helping Participants Generate and Evaluate Ideas
Part 13: Helping Participants Make Group Decisions
Part 14: Supporting Action Efforts
Part 15: Evaluating Participation
You can find the original version of this Public Agenda blog post at www.publicagenda.org/blogs/supporting-action-efforts.