The unique Citizens' Assembly process was pioneered in British Columbia (Canada) in 2004. The process gathered a randomly-selected group of voters together over the course of a year to learn about electoral systems, conduct public hearings, and spend an extended amount of time deliberating about what new electoral system (if any) should replace the existing one. Ontario is following the BC process pretty closely. The Ontario Assembly will meet in three phases: a learning phase, a public hearing phase, and a deliberation phase. The Assembly is empowered to craft a recommendation for a new electoral system that will be put directly to a public referendum.... (continue)

DO-WIRE is a source for what's important and happening with the convergence of democracy and the Internet around the world. DO-WIRE is a free, low volume, moderated blog and e-mail announcement list. Launched in January 1998, DoWire connects thousands of experts, practitioners, journalists, and citizens across nearly 100 countries. Democracy Online covers politics online, new media, e-governance, online advocacy and activism, citizen e-participation and related topics. (continue)

Two things make Darzin stand out from other public participation software tools: (1) Quality of analysis - Darzin combines qualitative, quantitative and spatial analysis in a highly user-friendly interface and (2) Integration - Darzin intergates data from all sources, including surveys and meetings, so you build better understanding of your stakeholders and their interests. Darzin also seamlessly integrates with your exisitng software making work easier/less complex. (continue)

A private foundation located in San Francisco, TWI promotes open-mindedness, cross-perspective dialogue, and engaged communication to improve the process and quality of public and private decision-making. Our ultimate goals are to broaden the public conversation about the importance of critical and collaborative thinking and to link that deepened awareness to effect individual and social change. (continue)

Alexandra Samuel's blog is every blogger's guide to citizen engagement and every citizen's guide to blogging. Alexandra is a consultant, researcher and writer specializing in online dialogue and electronic democracy. (continue)

Whatever else you do, documenting your stakeholder engagement ensures that if you are ever challenged about your Engagement activities you can mitigate your risk and substantiate that you have actually done what you said you did. Jurat provides you with a simple to use template driven system that ensures your planning is carried out, you have identified issues, stakeholders and most importantly fully documented ALL stakeholder input. Jurat is easy to use, simple to implement and has little impact on IT Resources. Jurat provides a superb toolset for an organisation wishing to cover the bases and ensure that they are documenting and reporting on engagement processes correctly. (continue)

Chris Corrigan is a process facilitator, a specialist in Open Space Technology, and an active and public learner. His blog is about living in Open Space. It's about noticing what's alive in the world that informs a life long practice of invitation, conversation and facilitation. And it's about putting it out there for others to share. (continue)

Nan Skelton at the University of Minnesota brought this article to our attention, which she says is a great local story that shows the Mayors in St. Paul and Minneapolis beginning to make the paradigm shift to a culture of citizen-government partnership. The subtitle of this article is "It's called global warming, but cities and towns, including the Twin Cities, are waging the war." (continue)

Richard Harwood's blog, Redeeming Hope, shares Rich's thoughts on how to improve public life and politics. Rich Harwood founded the Harwood Institute for Public Innovation to help people imagine and act for the public good. For almost 20 years, he and his colleagues have been evolving both the ideas and the practical approaches for changing the negative conditions in society that too often divide people and keep them from making progress in their neighborhoods, communities, and the nation as a whole. (continue)

AI Annotations is a place to create a conversation - an exchange of ideas and practices - among the co-owners of Appreciative Inquiry Consulting and with others who are on the journey of exploration and collective understanding of Appreciative Inquiry. Loretta Donovan, Roberta Peirick, Loretta Randolph, Tony Silbert and Sandy Wells make up the AI Annotations blog team as of 5/07. (continue)