I am proposing a session about public forums where there is an advocacy group and/or media who are very suspicious of public dialogue and attempt to derail the session. I have an interesting experience with a county-hosted forum about public employee pensions. The story was dramatic, many lessons learned and we can report a net positive outcome. Others may have different stories (with different outcomes) — I would welcome a couple of partners to create a panel, followed by audience discussion. Sandy – I think you had some suggestions? Anyone else?

I’ve just learned about NCDD, and I am excited to get to know more.

Has anyone submitted a proposal on human-centered design, or presented on that topic before? I use the design process to enable dialogue that helps solve business problems, develop business models, and in general create greater customer focus.

I don’t have experience using it in a civic context (yet) — although there are others who do. Would you be interested in a presentation purely from a business context? If so, are there any particular aspects that the audience would be interested in (in addition to the points above)?

Thanks

Michelle

We’re a group called PublicForums with an innovative approach to decision making: new software called Ethelo that takes the ratings by individuals of a wide range of issues that comprise a decision, and the options and values that apply.

The process involves a phase during which an experienced facilitator leads a public consultation to determine the issues, options and values. Then voters rate each of those items. Ethelo then discovers that set of options that would satisfy the most people, while creating the least inequality of satisfaction (as opposed to win/lose majority-based decisions).

A voter can go through the entire list of options and rate them individually, or rely on a trustee group that determines how values would be reflected in each option (such as ‘benefit to economy’, ‘impact on environment’, etc.). So a voter can just weight the various values and their ‘ballot’ is derived from that, making a complex decision much simpler.

We would decribe the concept and demonstrate where we’re with it, inviting input from other attendees.

Does this sound like the kind of thing that would fit the format?

Thanks
John Dowler
PublicForums