I sent this message out today via Eventbrite to all 165+ attendees of our regional NCDD event in Austin on November 5th, titled “From Chaos to Collaboration: Raising the Bar in Public Engagement.” Since there are so many great resources in the Central TX team’s report on the event, I thought I’d post this on the blog as well. 1. Download the Central TX team’s wonderful report on the workshop at https://ncdd.org/files/NCDD2010Austin.pdf.  The report summarizes the day (including poll results, highlights from panels, etc.), includes […] (continue)

After catching our breath from this fall’s wonderful events, we here at NCDD central have settled into the task of collecting media and materials from all the conferences. We’re especially looking for anecdotes from participants (share yours with me at andy@ncdd.org). Once again we were so pleased with the quality and variety of experiences our community brought to the table, but we also realize that, at the end of the day, it’s the networking opportunities that are often most prized by our participants and we’re […] (continue)

Check out Leif Utne’s wonderful posts about the Portland NCDD conference, which brought 190 people together this past Saturday, making it the largest of our 5 fall regional events. The two posts can be found on Leif’s blog (general reflections here and a post on Gov 2.0 and D&D here), but I wanted to share an excerpt… “Kudos to the entire organizing team (especially crack facilitators Walt Roberts and Tod Sloan) for putting together a fantastic event that left me enlightened and inspired. It was […] (continue)

The “workspace session” towards the end of the day at the NCDD Boston Event (October 29, 2010) provided participants with an opportunity to discuss and work through ongoing cases or key issues in the field. At the end of the sessions, facilitators were asked to briefly answer the following questions: What key points or insights from your conversation would you like us to post on the NCDD blog? What plans, if any, do you have to continue this conversation after the meeting? In the hope […] (continue)

Have you seen NCDD’s new Resource Guide on Public Engagement?  If you’ve attended our regional events this fall, you have.  Those of you gathering together in Portland this weekend (see you there!) will get a copy. Others can download the doc from www.ncdd.org/rc/item/4471.  We’re planning on raising funds for the next round of printing by charging small amounts ($5 each; $3 each if you want more than 20?) for the printed copies we have leftover from the events.  Everybody seems to want them, which is […] (continue)

I’d like to tap into our wonderful network here to find out where people recommend buying tablecloths for World Cafe-style dialogue — and what type of tablecloths you recommend (fabric, paper, color, etc.).  For the regional NCDD event in Portland this weekend, we are holding an evening World Cafe on Friday that is open to the public.  Then we’ll be holding our one-day Cascadia Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation all day on Saturday.  So we’ll need to use the tablecloths both days. We’re renting 36″ […] (continue)

We have received so many thank you’s and kind comments that we just can’t list them all here, but we appreciate them so much and return them in kind because we cannot hold these events without the participation and wisdom of our community. There have been a few (and more to come, I’m sure) that I would like to share, including the previous post featuring Edwin Rutsch’s fantastic videos. Vicky Schubert, of Inspired Alliance Coaching, who attended the Boston event, wrote to thank us and added about […] (continue)

Edwin Rutsch from the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy has uploaded a series of great videos from our NorCal event to his website, including the following four minute overview which captures, so well, the spirit and energy of the day. There are nearly two hours of content, including videos from the “Moving from Challenge to Opportunity in Public Engagement” session with civic leaders Jim Keene of Palo Alto, Mark Linder of Cupertino, and Ed Everett of Redwood City; the “Public Engagement: What Makes It the […] (continue)

It’s been a long 3 days, but Andy and I are back home.  The Boston NCDD event was wonderful yesterday, and attendees had these things to say at the event: “This may be the best conference I’ve ever attended.” “The people and conversations here have been amazing!” “You guys really know how to do this.” Many people told me they were energized by the event, and reminded why the work we do in this field is so important.  I feel the same way having experienced […] (continue)

Our Denver Event was on Friday, and it was a smashing success! Attendee reviews are coming in now, and include: “The collection of people was great. Many different sectors of public life.” “I gained some new connections and reconnected with others, but above all for me, it always reenergizes me to get together with people passionate about this work.” “The energy was high, and I thought the event was a big success.” Boston is full and NorCal is about to be capped, but you can […] (continue)