When designing dialogue or deliberation processes, many professionals spend a few weeks or even months planning. But we all know that time is not always a luxury we can enjoy. In the article below, Steve Brigham explains how the AmericaSpeaks team was recently challenged to design a town meeting process in less than 24 hours, and shares the encouraging results that show even when time is scarce, this talented community can make big things happen.  Steve’s article can be found in full on the AmericaSpeaks website here: www.americaspeaks.org/blog/24hourdesign.

We had a fascinating experience last week that challenged us in the use of our model. We were invited in by the Center for Excellence in Public Leadership at George Washington University to facilitate the majority of the 3rd day of a 4 day leadership capstone that they were conducting for the Natural Resources Conservation Service (part of U.S. Department of Agriculture).

The Capstone brought together three leadership cohorts from the agency to synthesize, practice and apply the skills and competencies about leadership towards a real-world problem: drafting a new framework from which to develop and launch new landscape conservation initiatives for the agency to consider using going forward.

What was the key challenge for AmericaSpeaks? We typically develop the design for our town meetings and summits well in advance of a big meeting, ideally beginning that process 8-10 weeks before the meeting convenes. In this case, although we came in with some notions of what we might do for day 3, we didn’t begin the design process until we were onsite on day 2 at the same time as the cohorts were participating in a number of intensive learning and evaluation exercises, even in the same room! (more…)

This post was submitted by NCDD member Michelle Miller of MMBD Consulting…

Getting people involved is one of the most powerful approaches we can take to build team and build skills. However, often we choose whether or not to involve others, it’s based on an “I” decision. For instance, “Do I need support in making this decision?” Or, “Do I need new and better ideas?” Another way to look at it is to judge how this opportunity can help build something that the organization or team may need. For instance, “How can my team benefit from sharing in this decision-making process?” Here are some reasons why you might (or might not) choose to involve others:

• If you want to build critical thinking skills, consider involving people in a participatory decision-making process.
• If you want to increase the innovation capability of your organization, consider involving people in collaborative problem solving and solution development.
• If you want to build a cohesive team and a strong culture, consider doing both – involving people in a mix of participatory decision-making and collaboration.
• If you need to move fast to manage a crisis – consider bringing together a small group of trusted advisors to help you think through your options and choose how to make your decision

As your organization develops greater critical thinking skills, innovation capability, deeper relationships, stronger bonds of trust and increased buy-in and ownership, you become better poised to tackle big challenges and strategic opportunities.

To read the full blog, visit http://mmbdconsulting.com/team-building/.

There are many exciting ways in which civic data is improving governance in towns and cities across the country.  We want to invite you to check out one of the newest blog posts from our friends at the Davenport Institute highlighting a new project using open data called Data-Smart City Solutions.  You can read more about it below or see the full blog post from the Davenport Institute here.

An interesting project at the Ash Center of Harvard’s Kennedy School directed by Stephen Goldsmith looks at how open data is changing the face of government in a variety of areas including public safety, civic engagement, public works, and health and human services:

Data-Smart City Solutions is working to catalyze local government efforts to more effectively solve local problems through the use of integrated, cross-agency data combined with community data to better discover and preemptively address civic problems. The initiative is designed to offer city leaders a national depository of working analytics methodologies and to connect leading industry, academic, and government officials in the field.

You can explore the website and featured projects here.

Public engagement practitioners commonly note that it seems easier to garner participation from women in dialogue processes than it is to engage men.  Our friends at the Network for Peace through Dialogue have noticed the same issue, and we wanted to share their recent post highlighting the White Ribbon Campaign, a newly formed movement aimed at getting men involved in crucial conversations around gender, which you can read about below or find here: www.burl.co/241FDC2.

We at the Network for Peace through Dialogue are very interested in promoting and being involved in dialogue.  In our dialogue sessions, over the years we have noted that many more women attend and participate. In addition when the issue of conversation is related to gender and how men and women relate to one another there are even fewer men participating and very particularly on issues related to violence against women. We are exploring how we can involve more men in our conversations.

We have discovered the White Ribbon Campaign, the world’s largest movement of men and boys working to end violence against women and girls,  promote gender equity, healthy relationships and a new vision of masculinity. (more…)

We are pleased to note that the work of our friends at the Kettering Foundation and Public Agenda contributed to the national education conversation when it was cited in the Washington Post recently. Here are Kettering’s remarks on the Post article.

With several major cities closing large numbers of neighborhood schools as part of their reform efforts, the Washington Post’s education blogger, Valerie Strauss, took a look at recent studies analyzing how much money is actually saved to be reinvested in other, more successful schools. The answer is, Strauss writes, not much. She then shares an insight from the recent KF/Public Agenda report, Will It Be on the Test? When it comes to reform efforts, parents largely want their neighborhood schools to be improved rather than closed.

This leads Strauss to offer up a new alternative: turning under-enrolled schools into community schools. Strauss writes that such “community schools” could offer not only additional support for schoolchildren, but also classes for parents and weekend activities that integrate health services and educational opportunities for neighborhood families. The notion of schools as a community asset, rather than simply as the local affiliate of a much larger organization, is very much in line with Kettering’s research on the public and public education, and it’s encouraging to see such ideas sprouting up independently in the national conversation.

The comments that follow this story are also worth checking out. Many voice the frustration that the expert solutions policymakers have come up with have not addressed the problem as parents see it, another echo of the research in Will It Be on the Test?

Original Kettering post: www.kettering.org/kfnews/will-it-be-on-the-test-wp

AmericaSpeaks, an organizational member of NCDD, facilitated the District of Columbia Mayor’s Youth Bullying Prevention Task Force over the past year, and the District’s citywide prevention policy was recently released. The policy sets an important precedent by being one of the first city-wide anti-bullying policies, and it has already begun to be implemented.  Here is Steve Brigham’s recent blog post outlining AmericaSpeaks’ role in this important project.  Steve’s original post on the AmericaSpeaks blog can be found here: www.americaspeaks.org/blog/forging-a-citywide-policy-on-bullying.

Bullying has been a chronic problem for many school-aged kids across the country for decades, but has never been well addressed. In fact, it is an issue that has been largely ignored until recently. The issue received a significant boost in 2012 with the release of the documentary film, Bully, about students who face bullying on a daily basis in U.S. schools.

Up until now, most bullying prevention policies have been developed and implemented at the state level and focused almost exclusively on K-12 settings. Very few cities have initiated anti-bullying policy efforts although many urban school districts have. No cities, to my knowledge, have initiated a policy that applies city-wide and very few states, jurisdictions, or educational systems have done it primarily with an eye toward prevention.

Working in collaboration with the Urban Institute, a national nonpartisan policy research non-profit organization and under the direction of the Office of Human Rights in the District, AmericaSpeaks has had the privilege to facilitate the District of Columbia Mayor’s Youth Bullying Prevention Task Force over the past eight months. The Mayor assigned the diverse task force, consisting of representatives from District government agencies, advocacy organizations, direct service providers, educational institutions, school mental health professionals, as well as teachers, parents and legal guardians, and youth, in building a bullying prevention policy on behalf of the District’s youth. (more…)

In principle, if a disagreement is caused by an outside issue that has nothing to do with the group issue at hand, then it must be dealt with outside the group.

An outside issue is a disagreement because of, for example, some incident between the parties that happened years ago and was never dealt with, or because of a mental disorder or perhaps an addiction. Or perhaps the conflict is related to a misconception closely held since childhood or an illogical fear.

Outside issues are usually personal and often completely unrelated to the group’s immediate business, although they can get hugely in the way of the group’s immediate business. Outside issues prevent people from seeing or acting clearly.

If an outside issue is in the way, agreement will only come about if the issue is dealt with. If an outside issue is not dealt with and disagreeing parties are unable to let go of the issue, then the group is at risk of being paralyzed, held hostage by an issue that they have no ability to fix.

Practical Tip: Once you recognize that an outside issue is the cause of a disagreement, encourage the parties to deal with it outside the group. Perhaps mediation is called for, or perhaps therapy.

If those with outside issues are unwilling or unable to get outside help, take a vote, bring in an arbitrator, or have somehow otherwise resolve the issue — even over objections. Someone might lose but losing is not always bad. Sometimes it’s the only thing that will allow some people to move forward.

It is better that one or two people lose a single issue than for the group as a whole to get bogged down and unable to make progress.

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 Cowgill (some of whom are NCDD members) are conducting an important survey on these occurrences, and would like all of you who have experienced this challenge to participate.  The researchers will forward their findings back to the network, so we all can benefit from the data gathered.

Please note that the survey is time sensitive, and responses must be submitted by May 10th.

Dear Colleague:

I am writing to you on behalf of a collaborative research team from the University of Arizona, the University of Virginia, Portland State University, and Virginia Tech University that is studying organized disruptions to deliberative discourse. As a member of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, we are very interested in your responses on this issue. All results will be anonymous unless you choose to give us your contact information for follow-up purposes. You can access the survey instrument by clicking on the link below. We ask that you complete the survey by Friday, May 10th. More detailed information about the research project is provided below.

https://arizonacsbs.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7WilrRnRblMFFBz

Project Description:
Anecdotal evidence suggests that orchestrated activity by organized groups intended to disrupt or shut down forums for public deliberation is occurring in a variety of settings. Even the most carefully designed efforts to engage diverse stakeholders in open public deliberation have been vulnerable to organized strategies to disrupt them. (more…)

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 Thomson, who’s work (cataloguing and launching a community of practice for Chicago D&D folks) I’ve been featuring on the blog.

You can read the full announcement after the break, or just head over to the sign-up page to register for the call. (more…)

This post was written by Jill Miller Zimon of TheCivicCommons.org, a new organizational member of NCDD…

Online and offline conversations can differ in some significant ways. For example, you can’t see body language and you can’t hear intonation. But our track record at the Civic Commons has shown us several ways in which we can use an online platform and go where few other dare to tread (including civil digital discourse).

This topic becomes particularly relevant as facilitation practitioners, like those who belong to the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, examine the potential extension of their work to and through digital media. A recent conversation about tips and tricks for online facilitation highlights areas for further exploration. For example, what substitute skills should be developed and used if we can’t see someone’s body language or hear their voice?

This is not entirely new territory for NCDD by any stretch of the imagination. Previously, NCDD has explored best practices for conducting virtual meetings, situations during which many of us may either evolve into or have to deal with distracted participants. At the NCDD site, you can also access several pages of entries tagged, “online D&D.” And NCDD’s biennial conference in October 2012 included a session called, Demystifying Online/Offline Engagement.

Getting Started

So how might folks already proficient with in-person dialogue and deliberation get the most out of an online platform such as the Civic Commons? Seeing is believing and by all means, give the “Start A Conversation” tool a whirl! The only step necessary prior to doing that is to register on the site (see the upper righthand corner where you can sign up). But once you are registered, you are ready to start dialoguing and deliberating – online. (more…)