A bunch of folks have asked for more time to work on their session proposals for the 2012 NCDD conference in Seattle. We decided to extend the deadline for proposals until July 10th (today was the original deadline) to give everybody a bit more time.
If you’re working on a proposal and you can get it to us before the July 4th holiday, I’d greatly appreciate it!! But do please get your proposals in by the end of the day on July 10th at the latest.
You can download the session application at http://ncdd.org/main/wp-content/uploads/App-for-Session-Leaders-final.doc — but be sure to also look over the text at www.ncdd.org/8609 for tips and direction from the conference planning team!
Haven’t decided yet if you’d like to propose a session? The 2012 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation (October 12-14 in downtown Seattle, Washington) will bring together hundreds of the most active, thoughtful, and influential people involved in public engagement and group process work across the U.S. and Canada — and some of the most exciting and innovative people in our field present sessions at NCDD conferences (see for yourself here).
NCDD Seattle is our community’s chance to come together to establish and re-establish strong relationships, stay in-the-know on the latest innovations in public engagement and group process, and work together to shape the future of this movement we’re all passionate about. We’ll be tackling some big issues in Seattle — including how we can best work together to ensure we’re creating communities that are equipped to bridge divides and tackle their most challenging problems.
Here’s some advice from the NCDD Seattle planning team for potential session leaders:
- Be innovative with your session. NCDD attendees are generally not too impressed with traditional panels or long speeches. Get them engaging with you and each other. Think about how you can get them out of their seats and moving around the room. And think about what you’d like to learn from them (not just what they can learn from you).
- Share your stories. NCDDers prefer hearing your stories to getting a run-down of your organization or methodology. People are interested in learning about what you did, what you learned, and how they may be able to learn from your experience.
- Share the latest. What’s the latest research? What are the latest innovations in the field? What new challenges are you facing? What are your latest accomplishments?
- Focus on challenges and opportunities. Think about how your innovations may help address one of our “wicked problems” in the field. Have you made progress embedding D&D in local government structures? Have you developed a new, replicable tool for assessing this work? Have you found a great way to broaden the audience who “gets” and supports this work? Think about your offerings in terms of these and many more challenges NCDD attendees face in their work.
- Co-present. Some of the best workshops at NCDD conferences have been collaborative efforts involving multiple presenters from different organizations and universities. Have you thought about who you can co-present with? Now’s the time to contact them to see if they’d like to offer a session with you! (And feel free to use the NCDD Discussion list or Facebook group to identify potential co-presenters.)
Not sure which of your ideas to propose? Feel free to email NCDD director Sandy Heierbacher ([email protected]) about your ideas.
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