Read the Room for Real: How a Simple Technology Creates Better Meetings (2015) by David Campt and Matthew Freeman is a 200-page book intended for facilitators, presenters, conference planners, or anyone who is curious about how to use increasingly accessible audience polling technology to improve meetings. Campt and Freeman have a deep background in facilitating dialogues about difficult diversity issues and as well as refining dialogic processes on all matter of topics for very small to very large groups of people. From the DWC Group… Read the Room […] (continue)

The practice of using representative samples in decision making in contemporary political regimes creates an opening for re-establishing sortition (making decisions or filling offices by drawing lots). The diversity that sortition adds to political procedures helps reinforce democratic legitimacy. In author Yves Sintomer’s view, we could even introduce sortition into elections. Here’s an excerpt from this interesting paper by Yves Sintomer… Having vanished for centuries, sortition now seems to be returning to the world of practical politics. [1] Recent experience in Iceland illustrates this. After […] (continue)

This chart from Bang The Table uses IAP2's Public Involvement Spectrum (inform, consult, involve, collaborate, and empower) to show which online engagement tools are the best fit for different involvement goals. Tools include websites, blogs, feedback forms, forums, polling, RSS feeds, wikis, surveys, social networks, and more. Download the doc at http://corporate.bangthetable.com/upload/filename/22/Tips_Sheet_-_Online_Community_Engagement_Spectrum.pdf. (continue)

Written by NCDD director Sandy Heierbacher to expand upon the text on our “What Are Dialogue & Deliberation?” page. This resource provides enough details to enable you to decide which of these leading dialogue and deliberation methods you should learn more about. In addition to looking at which methods fit your intentions, you will need to consider which methods are aligned with your resources, timeline, and the people you feel need to be involved. The text below is drawn from NCDD’s Engagement Streams Framework. AmericaSpeaks […] (continue)

This September 2, 2010 article by Joe Klein on the Time Magazine website compares Jim Fishkin's Deliberative Polling process with the kleroterion process used in ancient Athens (a citizen decision-making process that used random selection), and suggests that rather than appointing a "blue-ribbon" commission to study the federal deficit, Obama ought to have initiated a deliberative democracy program using Deliberative Polling. (continue)

All over the world, democratic reforms have brought power to the people, but under conditions where the people have little opportunity to think about the power that they exercise. In this 2009 book, NCDD member James Fishkin, creator of Deliberative Polling, combines a new theory of democracy with actual practice and shows how an idea that harks back to ancient Athens can be used to revive our modern democracies. (continue)

Keypads are audience response devices that look like little calculators or remote controls. They are used in group meetings or events to collect audience responses or opinions, allowing audience members to interact with presentations, give feedback, and become more engaged in large-group settings. Keypads are often used as an added element in large-group deliberation and dialogue events. This resource lists and links to experts in keypad response system as well as mobile device response systems, as recommended by NCDD members in April 2010. (continue)

Dave Davenport, research fellow at the Hoover Institute and professor of public policy at Pepperdine University, wrote a great article for the Hoover Digest titled Why Conservatives should Embrace Deliberative Democracy. The article refers to some deliberative efforts – CaliforniaSpeaks, a European deliberative poll, the Canadian citizens assemblies for electoral reform, etc. – and talks about how, when he describes these experiments to his political and policy friends, he gets more enthusiastic reactions from people on the Left than those on the Right. “Perhaps,” Davenport […] (continue)

When the Vending Machine Breaks, an article written by NCDD member Pete Peterson, has been published in Fox & Hounds Daily, a website designed to discuss and explain the confluence of politics and business in California. Pete is the Executive Director of Common Sense California, and was one of the panelists on the “conservatives panel” at NCDD Austin. The last paragraph of this highly recommended article sums it up pretty well: It’s a process I have witnessed many times: as residents learn about the difficult […] (continue)

NCDD member Jim Fishkin was featured in a May 6, 2010 article in The Economist print edition. Jim is the Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford and creator of the Deliberative Poll. The article, titled “Ancient Athens online: Democracy is about discussion, not just voting” can be viewed in full at this link on The Economist’s website. The full text is quoted below. (continue)