Tom Atlee announced a few days ago that he just posted three interrelated resources on the Co-Intelligence Institute website. The resources are called “Functions that Make Up Community Intelligence”, “Approaches to Community Engagement and the Generation of Community Wisdom”, and “A map of Community Intelligence and some of its important constituents”, and you can read more details by clicking below. (continue)

Choices for the 21st Century Education Program invites teachers to engage their students in the national dialogue on the role of the U.S. in the world. The Choices Program is working with The People Speak to bring this topic to high school students this fall…. (continue)

I received an email today from my friend Tonya Gonzalez, Director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium, announcing that the Center for Collaborative Policy just released a Hewlett-funded report called “Is Devolution Democratic? Assessing Collaborative Environmental Management.” The report proposes a normative framework for evaluating the democratic merits of collaborative policymaking processes in terms of six criteria: inclusiveness, representativeness, procedural fairness, lawfulness, deliberativeness, and empowerment. The framework is then applied to random sample of 76 watershed-based stakeholder partnerships in California and Washington State. You can download […] (continue)

Rich Harwood, the President of the highly respected Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, launched a web log last month aimed at encouraging people to imagine and act for the public good. The blog, called “Redeeming Hope,” will allow Rich to share his ideas about where we are as a nation and how to get to where we want to be. Each week, Rich will write about public life and how we can place it on an alternative path. Rich believes public life is about the […] (continue)

My friend Tom Atlee, President of the Co-Intelligence Institute, emailed his list today with descriptions of four maps of transformational realms, plus some questions about this whole approach to mapping. According to Tom, “mapping domains of knowledge, inquiry and activity is an important aspect of our developing collective intelligence.” This message expands on an earlier piece about knowledge mapping currently posted here on the NCDD wiki (collaborative workspace). Click below to read his message. (continue)

David Booher, Senior Policy Advisor at the Center for Collaborative Policy, asked me to spread the word about the Center’s stellar e-newsletter, The Collaborative Edge. This free quarterly newsletter provides timely information on collaborative strategies and methods to public agencies, civic organizations, and the public. Click below for more details. (continue)

Here’s a summary of a long, fascinating email I found in my inbox this morning from Tom Atlee, President of the Co-Intelligence Institute (to be added to Tom’s e-mailing list, email cii@igc.org: Collective intelligence, as a field of study and practice, is taking off. Some really interesting work is being done, quite beyond the dialogue and deliberative democracy realms we focus on at the Co-Intelligence Institute. It turns out that even when thousands of people don’t talk to each other at all, they can still […] (continue)

Dr. Billy Vaughn’s Managing Diversity eCoach Book is available at www.globalsoftskills.net – the first 500 to purchase this ebook will receive a 69% discount. According to Vaughn, the book provides you with everything you need to avoid mistakes and disastrous interpersonal situations, develop high impact newsletters and training, offer expert consultation, manage both a national and international workforce, and learn the secrets that separate those who walk the walk from those who merely talk the talk. Click below for his full message. (continue)

Harry Boyte recently sent me some info about his forthcoming book, “Everyday Politics: Reconnecting Citizens and Public Life.” A pioneer in our field, Boyte is founder and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota (www.publicwork.org). In Everyday Politics, Boyte transcends partisan politics to offer an alternative. He demonstrates how community-rooted activities reconnect citizens to engaged, responsible public life, not just on election day but throughout the year. Boyte demonstrates that this type of activism has a rich history and […] (continue)

I received an email this morning from Senator Les Ihara, Hawaii State Senator, NCDD member and Board member of the National Issues Forums Institute. He attached an interesting article entitled “The Rise of the New Civic Revolutionaries: Answering the Call to Stewardship in Our Times,” which was published recently in the National Civic Review. This article, by Douglas Menton, John Melville and Kim Walesh, is adapted from their recently-published book, Civic Revolutionaries: Igniting the Passion for Change in America’s Communities. Here’s a compelling quote from […] (continue)