We had another great NCDD “Confab Call” last week and as always, if you couldn’t join us we welcome you to listen to the audio recording. Our latest Confab featured NCDD members Jacob Hess and Phil Neisser, co-authers of “You’re Not as Crazy as I Thought, But You’re Still Wrong,” leading a discussion on red-blue dialogue. We had over 100 participants, 75 of which dropped in on the call’s collaborative doc, which this time was hosted on Hackpad.com and focused on several thoughtful questions and next ... (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)

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 Wednesday, NCDD hosted its April 2013 Confab Call with featured guest Brad Rourke.  We focused on Brad’s recent Issue Advisory How Can We Stop Mass Shootings in Our Communities? (pdf) prepared for the National Issues Forums Institute in response to the mass shooting in Newtown, CT last December. It was a well-attended Confab, with more than 150 sign-ups and a healthy conversation during the call and on the collaborative document we created to allow participants to ask questions and introduce themselves. If you missed the ... (continue)

NCDD is holding a meetup for our members (and potential members) right before this year’s Frontiers of Democracy conference begins at Tufts right outside Boston in Medford, Mass.  We have so many fabulous NCDDers in the area, and we’ll also have some exciting members coming in from outside the region, so we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to get together. Whether or not you’ll be attending the Frontiers conference July 18th through 20th (http://tinyurl.com/ceezm9u), if you’re within driving distance of Boston, please ... (continue)

Join us on Wednesday, April 10th at 2pm Eastern for an NCDD “Confab Call” with Brad Rourke. After the Newtown shooting, Brad worked quickly to develop an Issue Advisory (or brief issue framework) for the National Issues Forums Institute titled “How Can We Stop Mass Shootings in Our Communities?” I asked Brad to talk to us next month not just about the issue advisory itself and how NCDD members might utilize it, but also about the process of framing this challenging, emotional issue on a ... (continue)

NCDD member John Spady (Community Forums Network) just sent this to the NCDD Discussion list, where we’ve been discussing how we might respond as a community to Friday’s tragedy in Newtown… During our recent NCDD 2012 conference in Seattle, I had the honor to host (then) Sheriff Steve Strachan at my session. He touched on the subject of unmanaged mental illness and the access to firearms. Sheriff Strachan then gave a courageous call for rational dialogue on a problem we keep experiencing over and over ... (continue)

One of the local heroes of our conference in Seattle this year, longtime NCDD member and NCDD2012 All-Star Sponsor John Spady, worked tirelessly during the event to record as much content as he could, and has recently shared the audio recordings he collected on SoundCloud.com. Since many of these items were recorded from the audience, the sound quality does vary, but there’s some great stuff here, with over 20 recordings capturing both workshops and plenary sessions.  I strongly urge you to spend some time with them, ... (continue)

Check out this wonderful write-up of one attendee’s experiences at the 2012 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation in Seattle earlier this month.  Jill Miller Zimon, Director of Partnerships at Civic Commons, posted a review of the conference titled “Dialogue, Deliberate…Do??” this past Friday.  See the original post here, and learn more about Civic Commons at www.theciviccommons.com. Dialogue, Deliberate…Do?? If someone is offering to send me to Seattle, Washington to attend a four-day conference dedicated to talking and cogitating, does anyone who knows even the remotest ... (continue)

Here’s a great post by Janice Thomson that appeared here on Involve.org’s blog this morning. I’m reposting it here on the NCDD blog because it provides a wonderful overview of our efforts at the NCDD Seattle conference (and in the field) to make progress in strengthening our country’s and communities’ civic infrastructure… Janice Thomson’s take on the NCDD conference and American’s vision for Public Dialogue and Deliberation Over a long and rainy weekend in Seattle, I joined 400 members of the US-based National Coalition for Dialogue and ... (continue)