PARCC faculty members serve as consultants for training, community development, negotiation, evaluation, and the design and study of conflict and collaboration projects. PARCC’s commitment to practice can be seen in its Summer Institute, which has trained individuals in the skills of conflict resolution and collaboration for over 25 years, a graduate-level Certificate in Conflict Resolution, a Conflict Management Practice Group, and policy-relevant publications.

E-PARCC, an innovative education project, is a web-based collection of cases, simulations, and syllabi for the teaching of collaborative governance. All materials, authored by top scholars, are available in multiple languages, and are available at: www.maxwell.syr.edu/parcc_eparcc.aspx.

Resource Link:  www.maxwell.syr.edu/parcc.aspx

Submitted via the Add-A-Resource form by NCDD member Tina Nabatchi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration at PARCC.

It leverages the common sense of average citizens and believes that through a movement beginning with intimate local conversations, citizens from across the political spectrum just might be able to short circuit the destructive political dynamics we find ourselves trapped in. This model can be applied to any issue or area in which a community finds tension or friction but wants to work towards a solution and it does not require a trained facilitator.

The Public Conversations Project is serving as LRC’s fiscal sponsor and their newly-launched website is up and running at www.LivingRoomConversations.org. LRC was honored recently when Craig Newmark of Craigslist named the project 1 of 16 People & Organizations that are Changing the World in 2012: http://craigconnects.org/2011/12/changing-the-world-in-2012.html.

Between December 2010 and June 2011, LRC conducted a pilot project, eight Living Room Conversations convened in five states – Colorado, California, Washington, New Hampshire and North Carolina. For these first conversations, they chose the topic of energy independence/climate change.  They tested the hypothesis that people can come together through their existing social networks, as friends and friends of friends, and engage in a self-guided, structured conversation about a charged political issue.

Each conversation had self-identified “progressive” and “conservative” co-hosts. Each host invited two of their friends or family members who shared their political worldview to join an evening of conversation. These initial conversations demonstrated that meaningful conversation is not only possible in this context, it is, in fact, deeply appreciated, and for many participants was transformational. Participants expressed surprise that it was possible to “go so deep” with people they did not know and gratitude for the experience.  More than half indicated a desire to have more conversations of this nature.  You can read the full report about the pilot project.

Check out their materials for hosts and participants at http://livingroomconversations.org/materials/.

This is definitely a project to watch!

Resource Link: www.LivingRoomConversations.org

Amid the last two decades’ astounding advances in consumer and enterprise technologies, governments — especially cities, towns, counties, and the other units of government that are responsible to deliver public services every day — have largely been standing on the sidelines. Civic Commons is dedicated to helping cities embrace the transformative potential of shared technologies and collaborative development techniques that have been pioneered and proven in the private sector.

We believe that our cities can now take advantage of the same technologies that have generated such enormous efficiencies and innovative services in our lives as citizens and consumers. In a digitally interconnected world, cities don’t have to operate in isolation: they can pool their resources — their talents and ever-shrinking budgets — to build shared technologies, save money, and innovate.

And here’s how we’re helping them…

What we do

We Help Governments Work Together to Innovate

We believe that governments can make better use of scarce technology dollars by working together to solve common problems. We’re helping them share their solutions. Here’s how:

• We’re building an online marketplace for civic technologies (currently in development), to network government technology professionals as they buy and build software.
• We provide direct technical assistance to government entities regarding the process of open-sourcing software applications.  See some of the work we’ve done recently, and  find out how you can work with us.

We Build Open Civic Platforms

Platforms are technologies that enable the creation of new things: think about the Internet or the iPhone as a platform, and all of the apps that have been built on top of each of them.  We see the same potential within government — to build a “civic platform” that enables more diverse, meaningful, and sustained connections between governments and citizens thorough the creation of civic applications.  This is both a technical issue, requiring a rethinking of government technology architectures and priorities, and a social issue, causing us to consider how governments and citizens connect with one another on a daily basis.

Our flagship open platform is Open311 — a standard and API for citizen reporting that was developed collaboratively among a large number of cities and commercial technology providers.  Open311 is the front line of civic engagement in cities around the world.

We Spread Knowledge and Develop Community

When it comes to civic technology we know there is an answer to your question out there somewhere. We’ll help you find other’s answers and share your own, building a strong community along the way:

• We’re connecting civic leaders with questions with their peers with answers through our deep and continually growing wiki on open data, open source software, and open government, which includes a curated legal guide on navigating the procurement processes for open source software.
• We’re also building a network of open government advocates both within and outside government with our active network and discussion forums.  Check out the community page to see the different ways to get involved with our work.

Resource Link:  http://civiccommons.org/

MeetingWords is intended for real-time collaboration between people. It’s not meant for long-term document storage. Pads may be deleted if they haven’t been used in more than seven days.

Some people use MeetingWords during audio conference calls, to allow participants to chat, take notes, and ask questions.  Google Docs can also be used in this way.

The MeetingWords web site was created by Peter Kaminski, with the support of generous volunteers. MeetingWords uses the EtherPad Open Source engine. You can find more information and help at the MeetingWords Community Support Forums.

Resource Link: http://meetingwords.com/

Agencies in coming years will face greater fiscal pressures and they will also face increased citizen demands for greater participation in designing and overseeing their policies and programs. Understanding how to most effectively engage citizens in their government will likely increase in importance. Nabatchi hopes this evaluation guide will be a useful framework for government managers at all levels in helping them determine the value of their citizen participation initiatives.

The report can be downloaded from the Center’s website:

http://www.businessofgovernment.org/report/manager%E2%80%99s-guide-evaluating-citizen-participation

If you would like to distribute hard copies of this report to others, please e-mail or call the IBM Center at (202) 551-9342 to request free copies.

Tina Nabatchi, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs and Faculty Research Associate, PARCC, at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs of Syracuse University.

For years Peter Nixon worked with people from all walks of life, advising and training in the art of negotiation. It soon became apparent that what was preventing optimal decision making was not the give and take of negotiation but the dialogue between stakeholders. We have become experts at sending information (via email, text message, Internet, TV, social media) i.e. communicating, but at the expense of engaging in dialogue, defined as collaborative thinking. In Dialogue Gap, Nixon explores the growing gap between the quality of dialogues we have and the quality of dialogues we need to succeed in a world where the ability to engage with and influence others (in order to address change and conflict in the corporate, social, political and environmental landscapes) has become essential for humanity to succeed  at work, at home and in society in the 21st Century.

Bibliographic Details:  Dialogue Gap by Peter Nixon, published by John Wiley & Sons, Feb 2012, ISBN 978-1-118-15783-1

Resource Link:  http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1118157834.html

The project was initially funded by the European Commission with the aim of promoting best practice exchange and connecting established and experienced eParticipation players and networks throughout Europe. By doing so, we aimed to achieve a critical mass. PEP-NET continues to act as a repository and disseminator of good practice, and a visible resource for all interested parties across the European Union.

PEP-NET ensures wider access to European eParticipation projects and permits more effective dialogue between eParticipation experts, researchers, practitioners, public administrations, civil society organisations and the public with the ultimate goal of facilitating knowledge transfer, encouraging further eParticipation trials and establishing European leadership in this field. To do so, PEP-NET seeks to showcase participatory technologies “in action” by leveraging the full potential of popular Web 2.0 and 3.0 tools.

The project is coordinated by TuTech Innovation GmbH.

TuTech Innovation GmbH was formed in 1992 as the first private technology transfer company founded by a German university. Together with its sister company Hamburg Innovation, it serves all Hamburg’s universities in technology transfer and industrial liaison matters. In the last ten years TuTech has been involved in dozens of research and development projects funded by the European Commission, in many of them as coordinator and lead partner. The department of Interactive Communication (IK) specialises in the conception and implementation of Internet-based interactive applications and new media research focusing on electronic participation, online communities and eLearning. The department has been and continues to be involved in research and development or market validation projects funded under different EU programmes such as FP 5 (DEMOS), preparatory action of the EU eParticipation initiative (LexiPation) and eTEN (TELL-ME).

TUTECH/IK has seven years of experience in conceptualising and implementing online consultations, e.g. on behalf of the cities of Hamburg and Munich (Germany), Bologna and Massa (Italy) and Thessaloniki (Greece).

Resource Link: http://pep-net.eu/

Their January 2012 briefing paper, The Use of Public Engagement in Tackling Climate Change, draws from compelling results and evaluation findings of a range of public dialogues around climate change and argues there is clear evidence that engaging people in a meaningful way has the potential to change attitudes and behaviors towards tackling climate change. In this way, public engagement can complement legislative changes that force change, as well as the government’s agenda of ‘nudge’. Only by involving the public in decision-making and in the design of projects will the government be able to bring about the changes in public attitudes and behavior of the scale that is required.

[Information taken from their website, www.involve.org.uk.]

Submitted by Cheryl Honey of the Family Support Network, International. Cheryl is a social architect who pioneered Community Weaving, a structural change method published in The Change Handbook.