I hope to see many NCDDers at the Network for Peace through Dialogue conference this summer in New York City.  I’ll be there, speaking during the opening evening plenary (along with Geraldine Ferraro!) and giving a workshop the next day on moving from dialogue to action. The conference, which takes place June 12th and 13th at Marymount Manhattan College, is designed for community groups, peace workers, practitioners, researchers, teachers, students and anyone who struggles to bring people with different viewpoints together. Registration is now open, ... (continue)

Here is a special message for NCDD members from Peggy Holman about the extraordinary upcoming conference, Leadership in a Self-Organizing World… With so much upheaval happening today, there are many exciting experiments underway that shed light on new forms of organizing.  On May 14-17, we are bringing together people from a variety of sectors including corporations, nonprofits, education, government, communities, and the arts.  We have much to learn from each other.  And as practitioners with conversational forms, NCDD members are at the heart of this type ... (continue)

Here’s an important announcement Joe Goldman sent me last week.  Joe is Vice President of Citizen Engagement at AmericaSpeaks. Four leading organizations in our field very recently convened a two-day meeting with 34 Federal Managers from 23 different agencies and offices across the federal government.  The meeting, called the Champions of Participation conference, focused on what can be done to increase and improve the use of face-to-face participation and collaboration by federal agencies. Here is Joe’s introduction, followed by the official announcement.  It is hoped ... (continue)

As many of you know, NCDD has been hosting a collaborative online conversation aimed at developing a set of Core Principles for Public Engagement that most people and organizations in this field can get behind. We’ve been working on this as transparently as possible at www.thataway.org/2009/pep_project/ and many of you have participated. I’ve found it to be a fascinating, fun, and challenging process — but it’s not over yet. (Update:  all PEP info can now be found at www.ncdd.org/pep). We are doing this, in part, ... (continue)

NCDD member Harris Sussman, of Somerville, Massachusetts, recently won an award with his wife Svetlana.  Harris and Svetlana won the Bay State Council of the Blind Outstanding Service Award “in recognition of their determination and dedication to providing materials and opportunities for people who are blind in Russia through their establishment of the M.N. Adamov Memorial Fund and their personal commitment to independence for people who are blind.” Congratulations, you two!                     (continue)

I was invited by Beth Noveck, the director of Obama’s open government initiative, to attend a meeting last Wednesday (March 11) at the White House Conference Center.  The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy was the official convener of this “informal listening session on the implementation of the President’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.”  According to the email inviting me to attend, the session would focus “on the process of crafting the recommendations called for in the Memorandum.   Specifically, we invite you ... (continue)

Proposals for pre-conference trainings are due TOMORROW (Friday, February 27th) by noon GMT for the 17th Annual IAP2 conference in San Diego, California this September 21st through 23rd. Facilitators of pre-conference trainings set their own participant fees for their trainings. The theme for this year’s International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) conference is Making Sustainable Decisions: The Price and Promise of Public Participation. As a Conference Partner, NCDD is playing a major role in the San Diego conference and we hope to have a large ... (continue)

The 4th Annual International Conference on “Engaging The Other:” The Power of Compassion is taking place November 13-15 in San Mateo, California (outside San Francisco), and we encourage all NCDDers interested in conflict resolution and intergroup relations to attend! NCDD is co-sponsoring this event with the Common Bond Institute and the International Humanistic Psychology Association, and registration will be discounted for NCDD members ($290 rather than $350 for the early rate). Engaging The Other (ETO) is an innovative interdisciplinary conference examining concepts of “The Other” ... (continue)

On Saturday, January 31st, we conducted an intentionally small focus group with just a few people from the Central Texas conference planning team. Present were Diane Miller, Juli Fellows, Tobin Quereau, Steven Fearing, Patricia Wilson, Taylor Willingham and Terry Crain. We wanted to discuss two things with the focus group: 1. A local D&D network What would you want from a local network of dialogue and deliberation folks? What can NCDD to support a local network? How can we make the network as low-maintenance and ... (continue)

If you haven’t yet joined NCDD, now might be the time… Joseph McCormick of the Transpartisan Alliance is offering a huge 50% discount to all NCDD members who haven’t registered yet for this month’s American Citizens’ Summit in Denver. When you register for the American Citizens’ Summit, choose your registration type (affiliated, unaffiliated, leadership delegate) and a box will pop up asking you to “Enter code here.” Enter “friendfamily” (no quotes) in the box and you will be charged half price. I hope some of ... (continue)