NCDD Confabs are opportunities for members of the NCDD community to connect with each other, to hear about

exciting projects in our field, and to explore our field’s most pressing challenges. We run the Confabs via conference

call, and use collaborative Google docs to allow Confab participants to introduce themselves, jot down notes, ask

questions, share resources, and more.

NCDD Confab CallJanuary 17th, 2012 at 2pm EST / 11am Pacific

Featuring Tom Atlee, Founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute On this call, we’ll be talking with long-time NCDD member and thought leader Tom Atlee about some of the concepts that are in his book that’s in the works, Empowering Public Wisdom: A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics. You can view and comment on a couple of the draft chapters here for a few more days. You can also see this NCDD blog post for more about Tom’s book. Today’s call is also being facilitated by Ben Roberts, a principal in both weDialogue (www.wedialogue.com) and Occupy Café (www.occupycafe.org), and the call will be run on the Maestro platform. Your host is Sandy Heierbacher, Co-Founder and Director of NCDD. Who’s on the call? NCDD wants to thank all it’s participants, especially all those who took the time to include themselves in this

document, ask questions via this document and enrich the overall conversation with their participation.

● Sandy Heierbacher, NCDD Director, sandy@ncdd.org or www.ncdd.org/contact● Ben Roberts, principal of weDialogue and Occupy Cafe. ben@wedialogue.com ● Dan Fauchier, The ReAlignment Group, dan@projectrealign.com ● Barb Brattin, Wilkinson Public Library bbrattin@telluridelibrary.org ● Glenis Joyce, University of Saskatchewan glenis.joyce@usask.ca● Tim Bonnemann, Founder and CEO, Intellitics, Inc., tim@intellitics.com, @intellitics ● John Abbe, Co-Intelligence Institute, johnca@ourpla.net ● Dana Morris-Jones, The Delphi Group, Inc, dzmorr@thedelphigroup.com● Heather Tischbein, Co-Intelligence Institute, htischbein@wa-net.com

● Fernanda Ibarra, Collective Intelligence Research Institute, ciri@fernanda.oib.com http://ciresearchinstitute.org

● Ken Cissna, Department of Communication, University of South Florida, kcissna@usf.edu● Jon Denn, Editor, www.aGREATER.US and @ElectoralSummit info@aGREATER.US ● Jitendra Darling, developer/teacher integrated transformation;founder Core Awakening Journey,

cofounder Occupy Cafe, jitendra@occupycafe.org ● Anne Carroll, IAP2-USA board and consultant; Minnesota; www.carrollfranck.org;

carrfran@gmail.com ● Dick LaFever, Crossroads Leadership Institute Anchorage, Alaska - cli@ak.net

www.consultcli.com● Geoff Ball, SmartGroups®, Palo Alto, CA - ghball@aol.com● Kathryn Krastin - Austin, TX bluebonnetfields@gmail.com (just recently lost job of 6+ yrs but am

familiar of NCDD and extremely curious)● Tim Hicks, Director, Master’s program in Conflict and Dispute Resolution at the University of

Oregon. web site: conflict.uoregon.edu● Janet Keller, ED, Communities that Can! Institute, janetkeller@communitiesthatcan.org

www.communitiesthatcan.org● Janis Magnuson, Conversation Consultant, Vancouver BC janis.magnuson@gmail.com● Carolyn Caywood, Hampton Roads [VA] Center for Civic Engagement www.hrcce.org and American

Library Association’s Center for Civic Life ● Brad Stauffer, Colorado Association of School Boards, bstauffer@casb.org, www.casb.org● Mary Jacksteit, Public Conversations Project, www.publicconversations.org● Alexa Bradley, On The Commons● Bruce Schuman, Evolve Santa Barbara: http://sharedpurpose.net/home/index.cfm?tq=579411● Sylvain Mallet, Coach in Self-Development, Nantes, France sylvain.mallet@gmail.com● Mark Spain Canberra Australia mark@globallearning.com.au● Kimbra White consultant Melbourne Australia kimbra@thornepartners.com.au● Hina Pendle, Us Partners, hina@uspartners.com● Lenny Lind, CoVision, lind@covision.com● Adin Rogovin, Co-Intelligence Institute, adin@trimtab.net● Leanne Nurse, IAP2-USA, lotusnurse@gmail.com [employed @ US EPA]● Doreen Agostino, Align Shine Prosper Inc. http://freetobewealthy.net● David Wayne Johnson, Jefferson County, WA aoria@olympus.net● Marla Crockett, independent consultant, Chevy Chase, MD. marlacrockett@gmail.com● Stephen Buckley, democracy engineer, @OpenGovMetrics, sbuckley@igc.org● Andy Fluke, NCDD andy@ncdd.org● Larry Victor larryvictor@comcast.net● Sheryl Shapiro, Community Advisory Committees; Seattle Public Utilities

sheryl.shapiro@seattle.gov● David Eggleton, dse@appliedecologics.com● Diane Miller, Owner, Civic Collaboration, Austin, TX. dmiller@civiccollaboration.com● Kelly McFarland Stratman, League of Women Voters, kmcfarland@lwv.org ● Brian Sullivan, Founder of CivicEvolution, http://civicevolution.org, brian@civicevolution.org● Rita Moore, ritamoore1@yahoo.com● Max Gail, max@lap.org● John Spady, jspady@mac.com, social entrepreneur and consultant for

CommunityForumsNetwork.org (in development) and CommunityForums.org. More info at ncdd.org/2401

What questions do you have for the speaker? 1. Dan Fauchier: By what mechanism does random demographic selection overcome Gerrymandering? 2. Fauchier: Isn’t Facilitation a key that is clearly missing in current legislative and executive bodies. 3. Fauchier: Lobbying and all outside influence must be excluded. Without sequestration, how is this possible? 4. Fauchier: Citizen Initiative Reviews could be corrupted by one side or another stacking the deck and publishing "findings" favorable to their position as though they had been fairly developed. (How would they stack the deck? You mean organize their own independent review that wasn’t truly randomly constituted?) 5. Fauchier: How do you propose a path for adoption? I recommend we just do it and not wait for official approval. A groundswell of informed, deliberative citizens acting in the People's interest could swiftly outnumber the Government of the One Percent and create a compelling Evolution of democracy rather than waiting for the breakdown of the current system. 6. Fauchier: In any event there is a need for a sanctioning body to assure the purity of each process and group. 7. Henry Williams: Is anyone working on the Deliberapedia idea? How can it move forward?

If anyone wants to join Henry to discuss this, put your name here and we can put you into a group during the breakouts.

8. Leanne Nurse: What lessons can we take from the Occupy movement when most public policy conversation is in the grip of the scarcity/no money for X frame? 9. Hina Pendle: The OWS movement is using a form of democracy in their General Assemblies...do you know how they are going in different areas? How can the this wisdom inform them? 10. Marilyn Schramm: I’m concerned about public apathy/ignorance -- therefore, it’s nearly impossible to get a random representative group of people involved in deliberation/discussion about important public policy issues. 11. Doreen Agostino: As winds of change grow in disruption and destructiveness, how do we get consciously awake people, organizations to align as One family of Light, to move through a rare paradigm shift in reality sweeping the Planet, with most ease? 12. John Abbe: Would you tell us about what’s going on in western Australia? 13. Charlie Wisoff: How do you ensure or measure that a group is representative? Assuming the goal of dialogue is searching for complexity and deeper meanings doesn’t looking for representativeness force us

to stereotype participants and deny the fact that we are complex and unique human beings?

Just as a baseline, we can do at least as well as polling firms do, which have been tested pretty extensively and found accurate if it’s done fairly. Also, the iteration that Tom emphasized early on makes it likely that over time you’ll have a very good diversity represented. Of course, it’s also up to the facilitators of any council to make sure that whoever shows up gets to bring their full complexity and uniqueness. --John Abbe

14. Anne Carroll: I’m concerned about too much focus on “representation” in all its many forms. Much of the P2 work I do is explicitly NOT trying to get a representative sample but rather to add lots of perspectives and dimensions to critical decisions. I also focus heavily on identifying and engaging underrepresented stakeholders. How do you see all these dimensions fitting together?Sheryl Shapiro: I’m working and wrestling with these issues as well. You might find the work we are doing in the City of Seattle interesting and I would like to discuss further. http://www.seattle.gov/rsji/; I also appreciate the Equity section on NCDD website!

For a legitimate voice of the whole community, a representative microcosm or “mini-public” is essential. On the other hand, wisdom is more likely to be achieved the more diverse perspectives are creatively included. So I can see having a citizen deliberative council that has 18 people representing the actual demographics of the community plus six or eight additional people specifically selected to represent significant minorities whose numbers in the community are insufficient to have fair demographic representation in a small group. -- Tom Atlee

15. Marla Crockett: Tom, you mentioned the lack of substantive discussion this election year. Is there any project/process that might help break through the political fog? In other words, is there something we could do to inject some public wisdom this year? 16. Why don’t we do the Canadian experiment here in the US? Were the 12 paid?

I don’t remember - the answer might be available via http://www.co-intelligence.org/S-Canadaadvrsariesdream.html --John Abbe Great idea! Who wants to help make it happen? :-) I have a platform for it to be transparent. -- Jon Denn. See my note below re: Lyn Carson’s work. -- Anne Carroll

17. Carolyn Caywood: How do you convince the public to trust the diversity of a small group and how useful is the outcome if the public doesn’t trust it?

The statements of the group is its greatest appeal - assuming the process was done well, such councils are likely to come up with ideas that will appeal to a broad array of the population. And the iteration over time, with later councils having the experience of earlier councils and how the public responded to them should also help with this. If, over time, trust does not grow, then at least we’ve learned we’re not doing it right :-). --John Abbe The most potent answer to this, as far as I can tell, is for appropriate media to cover the council

before, during and after it so that people can vicariously experience what happened as well as see the final statement - like Maclean’s did. It would of course help if some politician or other opinion leader made a big deal about it. In the meantime, if it is iterative, like WIsdom Councils are, we can hold town meetings at which the results are announced and council members describe their experience. From the evidence I’ve seen, each subsequent town meeting would have more people at it, especially at the community level if the WCs were held every 3-6 months. -- Tom Atlee

18. Mark Spain: Who is seen to have the legitimacy to host a council? (One story that suggests this might be easier than we think - Jim Rough, developer of Wisdom Council, initially thought this could only be done in the U.S. with a constitutional amendment. After facilitating a wisdom council for the first time, he was so blown away by the response from the community at a meeting where the results were read and council members described their experience that he felt that an amendment was unnecessary, that councils could be self-authorizing. In other words, the wisdom and power of such councils’ statements and process might be a powerful enough attraction.

Am I the only one who is deeply, deeply troubled by the too-casual use of “citizens” throughout this and so many other conversations? In my community we have 10s of thousands of new immigrants, refugees, and others without citizenship, who are explicitly welcomed into decision-making processes. And yes, language DOES matter. We are not all Americans, we are not all citizens of the countries in which we live, we are not all men, we are not all White...language matters. -- Anne Carroll No, you are not alone. When I bring this point up to Tom, he clarifies that by “citizen” he does not mean the legal definition, but the civic role. In that sense, *everyone* is a citizen, whether they have papers or not. The challenge now to include us all sufficiently in these processes. -- John Abbe So when you say we invite all men to participate in something, you mean me, too? And when you invite all White people, you mean everyone, too? No, I can’t accept this at all, because our work is about stakeholders and how they perceive the process. They do not feel welcome if we use exclusive vs. inclusive language. -- Anne Carroll I don’t remember Tom saying anything about inviting “men” or “white people” - please let me know if I am wrong here. He does talk about including “citizens” and by that, means everyone. I agree that most people are likely to interpret that language differently from how Tom intends, and prefer to talk about “people”, and using other language to emphasize the civic role that we all can play. -- John Abbe Agreed -- Anne Carroll This is a common debate in our field. The word “citizen” is used mainly to distinguish legislators from non-legislators. It’s an alternative to using “resident” (though that has limitations, too) or “people” (which often just sounds too vague). Most NCDDers are also distinguishing their work engaging citizens (ordinary people who don’t represent anyone officially) with other projects which focus more on engaging stakeholders (people who are representing a particular group. -- Sandy Heierbacher I understand the issue and address it directly in my new book. Having grown up during the Cold War, I fear calling them “people’s deliberative councils” (it sound Communist). I’m open to other

suggestions. My current strategy is to regain the original definition of a citizen as a resident (denizen) of a city (or other community) and imbue it with the energy that is in the word “citizenship”, as in someone who takes their democratic responsibilities seriously and works to make their community better. (I just noticed Carolyn Caywood’s definition of a citizen as a “civic person”. I second that.) A person who is not recognized by the government as a citizen but who is a positive participant in their community or country is, in my book, a citizen - as well as a patriot - in the best sense of these words. And those who simply live there are citizens, as well. I do not use the word “alien”. In addition, however, all living systems are defined by boundaries of some kind, and I respect the right of any group to define who is in and out of their group. And, as long as we have countries (which is a whole ‘nother issue!), I think they have a right to decide who is a “member” of that country with certain “rights” retained by members. So, for me, the use of the word “citizen” evokes/provokes exactly the kind of healthy democracy-evolving conversation we are having here. I expect that some communities or conveners will restrict the members of their citizen councils to officially recognized citizens and others will include anyone who lives in their community/country while still others will not bother to make the distinction - and around them all will swirl this conversation. So thank you for raising it here and in the minds of those who see this document. - Tom Atlee

20. Larry Victor: Given that today in the USA corporations are persons, might a citizens council incorporate and run for office as a "person". This might be a means to advertise public wisdom. Maybe citizen councils should be our representatives, not individuals.When we have many wisdom council active, how might they be able to interact, as what one council recommends may impact on the deliberations of other councils. 21. Anne Carroll: Would have liked to have heard more discussion about the critical distinction between identifying the purpose/objective of an effort and selecting the tools. I very much appreciated the in-depth conversations about some incredibly powerful tools, but worry that if all someone has is a hammer, everything really does look like a nail...

I didn’t start with a tool. I collect dozens of tools; that’s been one of the trademarks of my work. My new book lists over 50 of them in the Appendix, with links. I wanted to build a house of a “legitimate voice of we the people” that enabled “empowered public wisdom” - and the best tool I’ve found so far for that are the various forms of citizen deliberative council - Citizens Juries, Consensus Conferences, Citizens Assemblies, etc. That’s my hammer. And I’m aware of how inadequate even these leading edge processes are, so I’m trying to invent new hammers at the same time. - Tom Atlee Also want to note my disappointment that it seemed to easy for people to dis and name-call elected officials as disingenuous, unwilling to listen, and corrupt. As both a P2 consultant and an elected official serving 287,000 constituents, I’d ask for more nuance in such conversations, please. (It is not so much elected officials, per se, but the system and power dynamics that dominate our representative governance model - dynamics that get worse the higher you go and the higher the stakes are. I’m delighted to know you are an elected official, and invite you to sign the Co-Intelligence Institute’s Politician’s Pledge which requires very little of the signer but clearly says that they will take seriously a legitimate citizens deliberative council. One of the two signers so far is NCDD member Les Ihara, a leading Hawaii State Senator. - Tom Atlee

Other stuff you want to share before or during the call... Public Policy Forum www.ppforum.caRescuing Policy The Case for Public EngagementDon Lenihan, 2012 From preface: In 2009, Canada’s Public Policy Forum launched the Public EngagementProject to explore new ways of thinking about how governments, stakeholders, communities and ordinary citizens can work together—collaborate—to find and implement solutions to complex problems, such as climate change, poor public health or the failure to innovate.The project involved seven provincial/territorial governments— British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Nunavut—the Canada School of Public Service, the City of Hamilton and the Government of Australia. It established an online dialogue with more than 500 officials from participating governments, and held some 30 workshops across Canada and in Australia.

Canada was also home of perhaps the most powerful citizen deliberative council to date - the Maclean’s Experiment (also see Tom’s blog post on its 20th anniversary). Speaking of Australia, the western province there has been doing great work on citizen engagement for years. Tom visited a few years ago, and has been in recent conversation catching up on their latest. It would be great to hear a summary from him on that. --John Abbe

EPA International Public Participation Toolkithttp://www.epa.gov/international/toolkit/ Work on Representative Sampling/EngagementSee research and articles by Lyn Carson.http://www.uws.edu.au/centre_for_citizenship_and_public_policy/people/researchers/lyn_carson The Need to Share Examples of Online EngagementI’d be interested in finding better ways to systematically document project examples that involve technology, specifically web-based. There are at least a couple of online resources already (Participedia.net, ParticipateDB.com) but both are still lacking. Without easy access to these lessons learned everybody keeps reinventing the wheel. If anyone’s interested in exploring this research question, please email me at tim@intellitics.com. Thanks! -- Tim Bonnemann http://www.envisiontransportation.com/ http://hamptonengages.com/

Tim: not sure who added these two links, but one is already captured on ParticipateDB (though certainly not in-depth): http://participatedb.com/projects/223

Inclusive Public Outreach and Engagement/Equity Toolshttp://www.seattle.gov/rsji/I also appreciate the Equity section on NCDD homepage!Interested in discussion on this: sheryl.shapiro@seattle.gov Tools I UsePolleverywhere.com (public feedback during presentations using common cell phones)Exacttarget.com and SurveyGizmo.com (used together they can “push and pull” subscriber data using sophisticated email and survey tools. In fact, I have extra capacity on some of these tools and I am open to working with someone to utilize them more purposely for the general good on a limited and experimental basis. Let me know. -- John Spady (jspady@mac.com) A Greater USWant to help set a Greater Platform for the U.S. by Flag Day in June? I bet we can do a better job than Congress! A bipartisan rating is assigned every idea/bill. I’m looking for wisdom editors that will bring a greater answer with them, caucus with like ideas, and/or folks to rate the ideas. Contact Jon Denn, info@aGREATER.US. www.aGREATER.US. Citizens Initiative ReviewOne specific example of what Tom is talking about is Citizens Initiative Review here in Oregon. The state is endorsing Citizens Juries being convened on all ballot initatives, and their consensus statement together (and the two “sides” votes and statements) will be printed in the voters information booklets. See http://healthydemocracyoregon.org to learn more. NCDD to Co-sponsor the Intl Conference on Participatory BudgetingFrom NCDD’s News Blog -- http://ncdd.org/6618 Question for breakouts: When you think about what the world needs and what we, collectively, know and can do with conversation--what are your deepest concerns, inquiries and ideas about making a difference?

1. Why it isn’t happening. I guess what I’m saying is, the deliverable is the goal. Are we thinking big enough?

2. How to prioritize the issues/needs to be addressed -- everyone has their own view of what’s most

important.

3. How does “making a difference” look “different” at different levels of scale of engagement? Federal, state, county, city, neighborhood, watershed, foodshed, airshed, bioregion? How would “we” know

when a difference is being made?

4. What baseline of listening skills is required across a broad population to allow for wisdom to emerge thru conversation?

5. How to get organized on a wide scale so that the results can actually have an impact.

6. No one has TIME even to vote, let along participate in deliberative discussions in their community.

People say they have no time to read to understand an issue.

7. What is expressed as “not enough time” may really be a lack of understanding that conversation can produce action, that conversation is a civic responsibility, that listening to others in the community (not pundits) is part of the work of being a citizen, and I mean citizen in the sense of civic person. We do find time for our priorities. -- Carolyn Caywood

8. Just attempting to engage in the process, regardless of the outcome, is worthwhile and should be

pursued -- it can only move us along the path of evolution. Breakout Notes with John Abbe, Marla Crockett and John Spady, David Eggleton Marla: injecting public wisdom into this year’s election campaign? (she asked above, also)Is that the best place to intervene? How do you break through the noise? John Spady: helped organizers at the Victoria, B.C. Wisdom Council (facilitated with Dynamic Facilitation) and produced survey model (since greatly updated) to gauge community feedbackLink 1: http://wisedemocracyvictoria.wetpaint.com/Link 2: http://wisedemocracyvictoria.wetpaint.com/page/Second+Victoria+Wisdom+Council+StatementLink 2: http://opn.forumfoundation.org/keylogin.php?key=iackaytechLink 3: http://KingCounty.gov/operations/auditor/CommunityForums/topicsLink 4: http://CommunityForums.orgLink 5: http://ncdd.org/2401 John Spady: Self-selected Community Forums on similar issues have had up to 1400 people (most recently on “Round 8” regarding the King County budget). Unsuccessful in that a disappointingly small number of people responded to a survey tool for feedback during the Wise Democracy Victoria event. Successful in the evolving structure of the design - now both online and offline, getting many people involved in small group forums on particular issues over time... updated version used by King County (greater Seattle area) for its “Countywide Community Forums of King County.” Marla: how do you get the statement out there? John S - Get the people who have the ear of the media to talk about it as being important. Get it to people who have a lot of attention (politicians, other newsmakers and opinion leaders, etc.) Otherwise non-traditional or community newspapers, alternative/social media, etc. David: Vision must have a role, but how does it “get the part”? By focusing on quality of life vs. standard of living? Who can deliver one or the other? People are experts at quality of life.

[not DE:] What will get a lot of people involved? Just two examples: The Maclean’s Experiment (and Tom’s 20th anniversary blog post ), and the Victoria Wisdom Council. Marla: blue sky vs. grounded, want processes that invites the latter David: Reminds me of standard of living vs. quality of life. Some valuable things are hard to measure. Marla/John S.: making things less expert-driven. John S.: distinguish feedback from “experts” and “non-experts” and compare the two to see how similar or dissimilar their responses are. “Experts on tap, not on top.” Marla: Good summary, John. One other concern that came to mind after we re-joined the group is about being wedded to specific dialogic processes. Practitioners are often advocates for “their” techniques, but I think we’ve got to be flexible and smart about how projects are designed. It takes a lot of wisdom to hear the needs/goals, etc. and then tailor something specific for that locale and issue. John: Agree. Concerns:

● including vision (and grounded, not blue-sky)● role of experts● attachment to particular processes

Inquiry:

● How do we get the traditional media to advocate or at least promote these kinds of things? (Or if not, use alternative/social media.)

Examples:

● Victoria Wisdom Council and follow on version of Community Forums● The Maclean’s Experiment (and Tom’s 20th anniversary blog post )

Breakout Notes with Doreen Agostino, Tom Taylor and Hina Pendle Hina: Concern, not so much about process; concern is how to get people into the room to talk about the process. People already employed to solve issues; more concerned about protecting their territory. Get all stakeholders together. How do we breakthrough barrier of bureaucracy, and stakeholders, to access collective wisdom. Polarization of people due to lack of information. Tom: Lots of people involved; post signs around room according to interest, get reps from each group to sit and converse, other people can add to inner circle discussions. Can’t assume assembled people represent larger population. People don’t participate because they feel they can’t make a difference; power brokers do what they want. Choose a representative that will make sure the voice of people is heard. Hold power brokers accountable to the people. Tom: Issue desalination plant, required water and tax authority involved for fair care share. Different

counties and municipalities fought over who has water, how much it costs. At street level pushed for a regional water authority, who used a mediator to bring parties together to create a water plan, so that costs are shared. Doreen: People in denial, which contributes to not showing up.. Hina: Different counties formed a coalition around water availability, costs, etc.Opportunity for process like Tom talks about. Tom: enabling legislative, took 20 years and millions of $ in litigation to find out it would not work, and forced everyone to get together. People showed up because they did not want to be left out. Hina: How do we transition into citizen council, get all stakeholders, citizens, into same room, with people who did research? Tom: Needs to be more than citizen council. Gov officials don’t want to be told how to spend $. Requires home owners, environmental groups, biz, stakeholders to get wider participation. Local govn’t have a veto; may not show up if not deemed to be in their interests. Doreen: Concern is media withhold information, consequently there are issues that the majority of people worldwide are unaware of; speak up peacefully so that media TELL THE TRUTH, so people unite locally, across states, provinces, countries and work together to deal with disruptive change in reality, and to smooth the path forward for everyOne. Hina: OWS successful at using grass roots democracy to change the conversation. Strategy speaks to media withhold; media are corporations want to keep status quo; makes $ Tom: Media may withhold, but are giving coverage to OWS. Teach leadership so people make critical assessment of info; the more people demanding critical assessment and making their own assessment, the more ideally we get informed decision making. Water from local to interntl; jurisdiction problems also problems between states and countries. Is UN a way to do this? Role plays re water disputes in India; need these forums and to be facilitated, to bring stakeholders to work out solutions, will be a power struggle between nations with water and $ who will take advantage of those without. Denial of climate change not good. Wars of future will be over water, food, climate changes we see. Hina: How do we get people to show up? Who is going to sponsor people gathering? Doreen: http://occupycafe.org is a place for people to unite online, share collective wisdom, work together, and cross the consciousness bridge into a new world together!

Concern, not so much about process; concern is how to get people into the room to talk about the process.

Hina, I recommend that instead of “just one room” we instead think of, many, small rooms where people meet more easily with fewer numbers of people but using simple technology (like paper or cell phones or iPads) to summarize all responses into a virtual group (or a “virtual room”.) This is done over a window of a few weeks instead of everyone having to come together on the same night. This allows people to fit your process into their schedule. In essence these techniques allow people to “show up” wherever it is convenient for them to do so -- so OWS can branch out “virtually” in

smaller face to face groups instead of requiring everyone to be “physically” at one place at one time. -- John Spady (jspady@mac.com)

On Participatory Budgeting It seems to me that a real participatory process has to start well before the budgeting stage. By the time budgets are being generated, the process has already moved into the implementation phase, the point at which conflicts and polarizations tend to form. If the public is rather engaged early, when a vision for the community, a representation of the higher goals the community wants to achieve, is being formed, it provides a way for the public to generate a shared vision that incorporates all voices. Once this is achieved, budgeting becomes much less controversial since it is a process of implementing what the community has already agreed upon. If this is not the case, then the budgeting process would seem to be more of a process of managing a range of interests. (This was a response to a question on the call about participatory budgeting.)-- Kenoli Oleari (kenoli@igc.org) Following from Kenoll’s comments, I very much agree with the need to get WAY ahead of the budget process. I have done a number of community visioning P2 efforts that were very robust and inclusive, and thus provided very clear and direct guidance to elected officials making budget decisions -- and also for anyone from the community or staff advising electeds as they make budgeting decisions. Also, as an elected official myself representing 287,0000 people serving on the board of education, district staff works very hard to engage stakeholders in key strategic decisions prior to budgeting. Of course, the way to get people involved early is to do good outreach to engage a broad range of people, generate effective and meaningful meeting designs and involve people on a regular basis to build a culture of participation. None of this can be done on an event by event basis. Imagine if the city council only met now and then, there was no consistent attendance and no record of meetings or decisions were kept. Many of these elements characterize the way the public is included in public governance. -- Kenoli My sense is that the critical question/framework is what we-the-people want the role of government (and of other societal institutions) to be. The budget becomes an expression of those choices. -- Carolyn Caywood Yes, though from a process standpoint, when you are working on implementation, which is what budgeting is largely about, you have no direction for making good decisions if you haven’t reached agreement on direction first. -- Kenoli I just know something about this topic...it’s not my area of particular interest so while I”m happy to discuss with anyone offline, I’d rather not break out on that topic now. ok! (but thanks ;-) -- Anne Carroll Link to latest Green Gauge findings, which point to priority attitudes for Americans: finance, friends/family; then institutions as sources of motivation for environmental choices. I think this might hold true for other civic choices. Others? http://www.gfkamerica.com/newsroom/press_releases/single_sites/008716/index.en.html -- Leanne Nurse Social Media + Interactive Digital Wall = Civil Debate at U. of Florida: With a new digital platform called The Wall, the Bob Graham Center for Public Service hopes to engage students in civil debates about economy, politics, and domestic and foreign policy. In this experiment, the center will find out if digital communication and social media will help change the behavior of 18- to 29-year-olds. http://www.convergemag.com/college-career/Social-Media-Wall.html-- Glenis Joyce

Post Call Feedback - Took 20 minutes into the call to get to the purpose of the call. +1 Having to jump off the call at 1 hr point for another conference call, would like to have knowledge how to reconnect to a recorded version of this confab to hear “the rest of the story” Thanks! (send information to bluebonnetfields@gmail.com) -- Kathryn Krastin

I will speak with Sandy about a recording. Ben Roberts I liked being in a breakout group. We got to down into local details and then expanded out to the international applications. It is good to have recorders and It will be interesting to see if someone summarized the input in an organized product. It would be nice to have an on-line audio capacity so I didn’t have to pay long-distance or minute charges. -- Tom Taylor My first experience of Google Docs in this environment - very interesting, but occasionally confusing as people type over top of each other or the text jumps. Hard to track all the different sections changing and listen at the same time. I would like breakouts on different topics so I had some sensible choice to make. -- Carolyn Caywood Citizens Jury sounds like a great reality TV show. I tried to sell A GREATER PARTY that would have these conversations over meal(s) but funding at PBS wasn’t available. (Jon - please check out this announcement about a TV show called “Purple Couples” - http://ncdd.org/6363) -- Jon Denn A little bit too much input at once. It was hard to do google docs and focus on the group conversation at once. -- Charlie Wisoff Final document styled for readability on January 23, 2012 by Andy Fluke, NCDD. Any changes made after this will not be included in the distributed document. Want your voice heard by the NCDD community? Contribute to the NCDD news blog! (http://ncdd.org/submit)