Interested in hearing the latest on E-Democracy‘s groundbreaking efforts to support online participation in lower income, highly diverse neighborhoods?  NCDD is one of the co-sponsors of an online event E-Democracy is running on Wednesday (May 16) from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM Central (10:30 Eastern).  Register today if you’re interested in participating! Here are the details on Wednesday’s online event… Join us for an in-depth two-way exchange on the lessons from E-Democracy’s Inclusive Social Media effort to support online neighborhood participation in lower income, highly diverse, high ... (continue)

Here’s one more reason to sign up for NCDD’s first online book club…  the Kettering Foundation wants to send a free copy of Democratizing Deliberation to all book club members! Sign up at www.ncdd.org/community/bookclub1-signup today if you haven’t already. Democratizing Deliberation: A Political Theory Anthology presents cutting-edge political theory on deliberative democracy. Edited by Derek Barker, Noelle McAfee, and David McIvor, the collection reframes deliberative democracy to be sensitive to the deep conflicts, multiple forms of communication, and aspirations for civic agency that characterize real public deliberation. In ... (continue)

I wanted to post a final reminder about tomorrow’s confab at 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific on the new Group Works card deck. Be sure to register today (if you haven’t already) to get the call-in details. Our 90-minute “confab calls” (conference calls with simultaneous use of a collaborative google doc) are great opportunities for members of the NCDD community to connect with each other, hear about exciting projects in our field, and explore some of our field’s most pressing challenges. This should be a fun ... (continue)

Don't forget to register for next week's NCDD "Confab Call" on Thursday, May 10th from 2:00 to 3:30 Eastern / 11:00 to 1:30 Pacific (register here). This should be a fun Confab, with NCDD members Tree Bressen and Sue Woehrlin leading a discussion about the innovative Group Works card deck and the collaboratively-developed pattern language it conveys. (continue)

Thanks to a tweet from Edward Andersson at U.K.-based Involve, it was brought to my attention that the Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre for Public Dialogue In Science and Innovation (ERC) — UK’s national centre for public dialogue in policy making involving science and technology issues – featured a recent NCDD listserv discussion here on its website. The Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre aims to help policy makers commission and use public dialogue to inform policy decisions which involves science and technology. Here’s the post from the Sciencewise site… How ... (continue)

May 8th update from NCDD:  Kettering has agreed to send out free copies of the book to people who join the book club!  Another reason to sign up today. I’m really excited about a book that’s about to be published by the Kettering Foundation, called Democratizing Deliberation: A Political Theory Anthology.  The book brings together recent and cutting-edge political theory scholarship on deliberative democracy. We’re going to be working with Kettering to engage NCDDers around the book’s content, and right now I’m calling for chapter leaders ... (continue)

Join us for next month’s NCDD “Confab Call” on Thursday, May 10th from 2:00 to 3:30 EST (register here).  This month’s featured NCDDers are Tree Bressen and Sue Woehrlin, who will be talking with us about the innovative Group Works card deck and the collaboratively-developed pattern language it conveys — and of course sharing a variety of uses for the cards. NCDD’s “Confab calls” are opportunities for members of the NCDD community to connect with each other, hear about exciting projects in our field, and explore our field’s most pressing ... (continue)

I’m really excited about a book that’s about to be published by the Kettering Foundation, called Democratizing Deliberation.  We’re going to be working with Kettering to engage NCDDers around the book’s content, because we feel the book covers topics of great import to our field.  It’s always challenging for practitioners to find the time to stay on top of research in the field, so we’re going to be running NCDD’s first-ever online book club to help bridge that ever-challenging research-practice gap — and hopefully have fun doing ... (continue)

I’m heading to New York City tomorrow for the participatory budgeting conference, which NCDD is proud to be co-sponsoring.  I’m excited to learn more about what may be the most rapidly-growing area of our field. I’ve been learning a little about Participatory Budgeting here and there for years now (especially about the great work being done in Porto Alegre, Brazil), and I hope to leave this event with a much stronger sense of how PB works, what can be done to make it as deliberative ... (continue)

2012 has been a wonderful year so far for NCDD.  We’re celebrating 10 years working with this amazing community and preparing for our 5th national conference in Seattle.  We’re also continuing to grow, welcoming more new members and seeing many existing members show their support by renewing and even upgrading their memberships. We wanted to recognize and thank the nearly 100 groups and leaders who have joined, renewed, and upgraded their membership in the last few months.  They are… Organizational Members Orton Family Foundation  Ariana McBride ... (continue)