I’m excited to share the news today that Pete Peterson of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement & Civic Leadership (an organizational member of NCDD) just announced his candidacy for Secretary of State in California.  Pete has been involved in NCDD since 2008, and I’m a huge fan of his. He was part of our “panel of conservatives” who support public engagement work at our 2008 national conference in Austin (along with Grover Norquist), and we asked him to play a speaking role again at […] (continue)

Hello again friends, This is a quick update from John Spady on the opinions collected so far to help determine the inaugural issue for the 2013 conversations from the National Dialogue Network (this project received the endorsement of the NCDD voting membership in January 2013). At the bottom of this post is a link to the latest results — updated daily until the survey closes on April 30th. And if you haven’t yet contributed your own voice to these results, you can click here to […] (continue)

NCDD is holding a meetup for our members (and potential members) right before this year’s Frontiers of Democracy conference begins at Tufts right outside Boston in Medford, Mass.  We have so many fabulous NCDDers in the area, and we’ll also have some exciting members coming in from outside the region, so we thought this would be a good opportunity for us to get together. Whether or not you’ll be attending the Frontiers conference July 18th through 20th (http://tinyurl.com/ceezm9u), if you’re within driving distance of Boston, please […] (continue)

This post was submitted by John Spady, Coordinator of the National Dialogue Network — winner in the Civic Infrastructure category of the recent NCDD Catalyst Awards. Update:  The deadline has been extended until April 30, 2013. “We need a national dialogue about… X” — but how can we actually do it? After weeks of talking, planning, and preparation, the “working group” team of volunteers with the new National Dialogue Network (NDN) is ready to address this question. NDN is now seeking feedback from NCDD members, and […] (continue)

The following post, written by CommunityMatters fellow Caitlyn Horose, is reposted from the Orton Family Foundation blog. CommunityMatters®, a partnership of seven national organizations including Orton [and NCDD], share the belief that people have the power to solve their community’s problems and direct future growth and change. As leaders in the fields of civic engagement and community and economic development, the partners believe that by strengthening civic infrastructure, communities can become more prosperous, vibrant places to live. Why is civic infrastructure key? Because, like the […] (continue)

Ellen Ernst from IAP2 submitted this post to the blog a couple of weeks ago — so sorry for the delay!  There are still 4 days left to apply for this great position.  I’ll check with Ellen to see if we can get a further extension for NCDD members since we were slow in posting this. Position Title: Professional Development Manager of IAP2 Location: Virtual Office (International Travel Requirement) Salary Range: A flat rate of $4,500 per month – $55,000 per year (USD) Contract Type: […] (continue)

I was thrilled to learn all about the “Sharing Economy” on last week’s CommunityMatters conference call.  A lot of what Neal Gorenflo (Co-founder and Publisher of Shareable Magazine) talked about on the call resonated strongly with me, as I found that Shareable’s philosophy of group decision making and collaboration is very aligned with the dialogue and deliberation community’s principles and work. The Sharing Economy is not just about pooling resources like bikes, cars, yard tools, and office space; it’s also about rebuilding a lost sense of community, […] (continue)

I wanted to share some information about a new project AmericaSpeaks (one of NCDD’s founding members) is doing in conjunction with Face the Facts, USA.  During March and April they are taking advantage of the publicity surrounding the budget stalemate in Washington and promoting the need for “nonpartisan dialogue instead of partisan debate.” AmericaSpeaks will be working to help change the conversation on budget issues by getting people around the country to have paired conversations with those who have somewhat different political views. This involves getting […] (continue)

Update 4/1/13:  Look over my summary report of what we’ve gleaned so far from this great discussion!  And keep adding comments here so we can learn even more. Some of you may remember the 2004/2005 national dialogue project “Let’s Talk America.” LTA was a joint project of the Utne Institute, Conversation Cafe, World Cafe, and NCDD run in/around 2004.  The project aimed to bring Americans from all points on the political spectrum together in cafes, bookstores, churches and living rooms for lively, open-hearted dialogue to consider […] (continue)

You may have noticed the same people’s posts always showing up on your Facebook news feed lately, but you may not have realized that even your Google searches are tailored to what a not-so-thoughtful algorithm thinks you want to see. One of the most disturbing and pervasive trends happening on the interwebs is described brilliantly by Eli Pariser (board president of MoveOn.org) in this 9-minute Ted Talk. As Pariser notes in his talk, there has been a gradual shift in the way information is being posted […] (continue)