Sandy encouraged us to blog about our experience at the conference. Mine was unusual in that I was not able to attend many of the workshops I wished I could have because (as some of you know) I was upstairs filming interviews for most of the weekend.

But here’s what really surprised me — by speaking at length with those of you I filmed, and listening to the plenary speeches, and chatting with so many other people throughout the 3 days (and nights), I feel like I soaked up an incredible amount of knowledge and insight just by breathing the same air as all of you. It was an amazingly fertile environment, with ideas floating in the air like musical notes just waiting to be plucked and played into new harmonies.

So I deeply appreciate the symphony in which I found myself immersed, even if I didn’t get to play as many instruments as I would have liked. And I’d very much like to publicly thank all those who agreed to be filmed — and who otherwise shared their views with me. And to say a big thank you to Sandy, and Courtney, and the rest of the planning team for making it all possible. Once I’ve edited the videos, I think you’ll find them insightful and inspiring — and maybe some folks outside this field will find them interesting as well.

To get the show rolling — since the theme of the conference was about building civic infrastructure — I thought I’d start with an edited excerpt of Carolyn Lukensmeyer’s plenary speech in which she addressed the theme in rich detail.

Hope you enjoy this first in a long list of conference videos I’ll ultimately share with you.

Till then….

Jeffrey Abelson
Song Of A Citizen
www.songofacitizen.com
ja@songofacitizen.com

NCDD Community

This post was submitted by a member of the NCDD community. NCDD members are leaders and future leaders in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and community problem solving. You, too, can post to the NCDD blog by completing the Add-to-Blog form at www.ncdd.org/submit.

Tags: field news, gems, NCDD projects, NCDD2012

  More Posts