I’m excited to launch a new tool on the NCDD website to help you share your success stories more broadly The draft tool can be found at www.ncdd.org/storytelling-tool and I encourage everybody to take a look and give the tool a test drive by entering one of your dialogue and deliberation projects! For a long time now, NCDD has wanted to find a way to collect more stories from our members about their dialogue and deliberation projects.  We’re working with both the Kettering Foundation and Participedia.net to broaden ... (continue)

Andy and I put together some new postcards (featuring attendees of our conferences — you might recognize some of them!). The postcards are simple, with a short description of NCDD on the back, as well as some contact info. We got plenty to share, and we’re wondering if some of you would like a handful — or even a small stack — sent to you to distribute at conferences you’re attending or running, public meetings, or workshops you’re giving.  Distributing these postcards helps raise awareness ... (continue)

Brandon Lee of the Campaign for Stronger Democracy posted this great write-up on CSD’s blog this morning and gave me the okay to cross-post it.  Thanks for taking the time to provide these great reflections on yesterday’s NCDD confab call on red-blue dialogue, Brandon! Had a great time listening in to NCDD’s confab call this month on liberal-conservative dialogue. Unfortunately I had to jump off a little early, but there was still plenty of great conversation to be had. Here are some takeaways and other ... (continue)

In preparation for our NCDD Confab call on Wednesday at 2pm on the current state of liberal-conservative dialogue, we’ve been thinking about key milestones and programs in this area that NCDD members have spearheaded or have played a major role in. Andy Fluke, NCDD’s creative director and co-founder, created a timeline for us to take a look at during this popular confab call (over 120 people have signed up so far!), to help us think about the trajectory of red-blue (or transpartisan, or political bridge-building) dialogue ... (continue)

Happy Saturday, everybody!  Voting is underway in the Looking@Democracy video contest, and a bunch of NCDD members have submitted videos for consideration — Jeffrey Abelson (Song of a Citizen), Living Room Conversations, the Participatory Budgeting Project, Evelyn Messinger, and Cynthia Farrar’s Purple States project. There are $100,000 in prizes altogether (first prize is $25,000), and these funds and exposure could really make a difference to our colleagues’ work.  I looked at a bunch of the videos that have been submitted, and I think some of ... (continue)

When I heard that my friend and colleague Rich Harwood of The Harwood Institute was invited to Newtown to help local leaders and residents make decisions about what to do with Sandy Hook Elementary School, I asked him if he’d be willing to send us a post about his work for the NCDD blog. It looks like we’ll be sharing a series of posts as Rich’s work in Newtown progresses.  Here is the first… This week I am going to Newtown, CT, where I’ve been ... (continue)

Have you experienced organized disruptions in your public engagement work?  At last fall’s NCDD conference in Seattle, we had a great workshop on “Embattled Public Forums – When Vocal Opponents Try to Discredit/Derail the Process” facilitated by Susan Stewart Clark, Janet Fiero and Christine Whitney Sanchez.  Yet not much systematic research has been done to explore and learn from this phenomenon, how it effects our work in dialogue and deliberation, and how we can best handle organized disrupters. Our colleagues Kirk Emerson, Frank Dukes, Wendy Willis, and Kim Hodge ... (continue)

Here’s a conference call I think some of you will definitely want to participate in.  Community Matters (a partnership NCDD is involved in) is hosting a call entitled “Civic Infrastructure: On the Ground!” on May 9th at 4pm Eastern focused on strengthening civic infrastructure in your area. I’ll be introducing the topic, and then we’ll be hearing from two people who will share timely on-the-ground stories of how civic capacity and structures are being built in their cities. One of those two featured speakers is Janice ... (continue)

Join us for our next NCDD Confab call on Wednesday, May 15th from 2:00 to 3:30 EST.  May’s featured NCDDers are Phil Neisser and Jacob Hess, who will lead a discussion on the current status of liberal-conservative and transpartisan dialogue, and how we might work together to expand this area of dialogue and deliberation further. 5/13/13 update: Jacob is surveying call participants here about their work and ideas re: red-blue dialogue.  Please add your thoughts if you haven’t already.  Also check out our 10-year timeline of milestones in red-blue dialogue ... (continue)

Last fall, Participatory Budgeting Project donors voted to fund a new PB Intro Video – a tool that could be widely used to introduce people to PB at meetings and online, and to promote the process to government officials, community groups, and funders. The PBP staff and advisory board (I’m on the advisory board!) are thrilled to share a preview of the video with you, and we hope you’ll help push it to the next level. We’re so excited about the video’s potential to raise the profile of ... (continue)