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 ourRead… Read more »
We want the NCDD community to know about a great opportunity to participate in the 2013 Civic Data Challenge: The Civic Data Challenge turns the raw data of ‘civic health’ into useful applications and visualizations that have direct impact on public decision-making. In order to achieve an exceptional level of real-world usefulness, designers, data scientists,Read… Read more »
A recent post on the Everyday Democracy blog caught our eye. Written by NCDD member Janice Thomson and featuring the work of NCDD member Mary Jane Hollis, the article focuses on the power of sustained dialogue to tease out difficult issues such as race and to create lasting positive effects in our communities. The fullRead… Read more »
The National League of Cities, as part of its work with Knight Foundation, is hosting a free webinar highlighting civic engagement in Philadelphia this Wednesday (April 24) at 2pm Eastern. While many tech entrepreneurs are passionate advocates for their communities, most are ambivalent about city hall: neither expecting nor offering assistance, and often working aroundRead… Read more »
Do you work in or study collaboration in public policy? Are you interested in health? Education? The environment? Do you want to learn more about participatory problem solving, finding common ground, and becoming a collaborative leader? The Association for Conflict Resolution’s Environment & Public Policy Section has an exciting conference planned for May 21-22, 2013Read… Read more »
In principle, the same formality is required to change an agreement as to make an agreement. For instance, if an agreement is made in a group meeting and properly documented, no member of the group should assume that the agreement has changed or act in ways contrary to the agreement until the agreement is changedRead… Read more »
We are happy to share this insightful blog post from NCDD member John Blakinger, who reflects on the interplay of facts, beliefs, and being wrong when we are trying to address problems together. John’s reflections come from www.CivilSay.net. Philosopher Charles Bernard Renouvier said “There is no certainty, only people who are certain.” And when itRead… Read more »
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 postingRead… Read more »
Join us on Wednesday, April 10th at 2pm Eastern for an NCDD “Confab Call” with Brad Rourke. After the Newtown shooting, Brad worked quickly to develop an Issue Advisory (or brief issue framework) for the National Issues Forums Institute titled “How Can We Stop Mass Shootings in Our Communities?” I asked Brad to talk toRead… Read more »
We wrote a month ago about the extraordinary work being done in Chicago to map the city’s D&D terrain, and to launch a new Community of Practice for dialogue and deliberation innovators in the city (see the report if you haven’t already!). Now, we want to let you know about the new listserv that’s beenRead… Read more »