Open Government Dialogue
« Back To OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

sandy

User Profile Image sandy
Member since : May-21-2009 (Verified)
2 Ideas, 8 Comments, 165 Votes

User Activity Stream

Ideas Posted

The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) is an active network of people and groups with expertise in public engagement and group facilitation. The NCDD network should be included in the Open Government Directive as a resource to be tapped into for dialogue facilitators, participation consultants, and public engagement training for federal managers.

Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong, open democratic society. Effective public engagement goes beyond public relations and information-sharing by providing ways for people with a variety of viewpoints to grapple with issues together and come up with creative solutions.

NCDD is a vibrant network of over 1000 organizations and individuals who, collectively, regularly engage and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people across the globe around today's critical issues. Formed in 2002, NCDD is a U.S.-based organization with international members and affiliations, all of whom are dedicated to expanding the capacity of people with divergent views from all walks of life to engage in honest dialogue and quality deliberation.

NCDD members include virtually all of the organizations that are breaking significant new ground in public engagement and conflict resolution – including AmericaSpeaks, the Center for Deliberative Democracy, Public Agenda, Everyday Democracy, National Issues Forums Institute, Viewpoint Learning, the World Cafe Community Foundation, and many others.

NCDD’s resource-rich website, at www.thataway.org, is a popular hub for public engagement and conflict resolution practitioners and researchers. Our website offers a comprehensive assortment of resources, tools and best practices related to participatory democracy, public engagement, political inclusion, restorative justice, organizational development, and conflict resolution at all levels, and we keep in touch monthly with over 25,000 people who do this work.
Over the past several months, experts in public dialogue, facilitation and collaborative decision-making worked together to develop 7 "Core Principles for Public Engagement." The authors and editors of these principles have spent years creating and honing innovative techniques that help people talk constructively about difficult issues that effect their lives--issues like health care, crime, and conflict between ethnic groups.

We consider these 7 principles to be the fundamental components of quality public engagement, and we propose that federal agencies adopt these principles to guide their public engagement work.

Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong democratic society. Effective public engagement goes beyond public relations and information-sharing by providing ways for people with a variety of viewpoints to grapple with issues together and come up with creative solutions.

- The Core Principles for Public Engagement -

These seven recommendations reflect the common beliefs and understandings of those working in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution, and collaboration. In practice, people apply these and additional principles in many different ways.

1. Careful Planning and Preparation
Through adequate and inclusive planning, ensure that the design, organization, and convening of the process serve both a clearly defined purpose and the needs of the participants.

2. Inclusion and Demographic Diversity
Equitably incorporate diverse people, voices, ideas, and information to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.

3. Collaboration and Shared Purpose
Support and encourage participants, government and community institutions, and others to work together to advance the common good.

4. Openness and Learning
Help all involved listen to each other, explore new ideas unconstrained by predetermined outcomes, learn and apply information in ways that generate new options, and rigorously evaluate public engagement activities for effectiveness.

5. Transparency and Trust
Be clear and open about the process, and provide a public record of the organizers, sponsors, outcomes, and range of views and ideas expressed.

6. Impact and Action
Ensure each participatory effort has real potential to make a difference, and that participants are aware of that potential.

7. Sustained Engagement and Participatory Culture
Promote a culture of participation with programs and institutions that support ongoing quality public engagement.

–

More details about each of these principles, info about who took part in creating them and how, and a growing list of endorsements can all be found at www.thataway.org/pep . Also feel free to email me (Sandy Heierbacher, Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation) at sandy@thataway.org if you have questions or want to get involved.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 4205 Ideas
12345678910….168169Next »

Comments Posted

sandy 9 months ago
I love this idea and, knowing most of the people who have been working together on this proposal, I know they are not "lobbying for a government contract." They are good people doing work they are passionate about, and they (like so many of us who work in public engagement) are looking for ways to share their skills, ideas, networks and know-how with the new administration. We are used to having to work outside of government, pushing on the edges of power but never getting through; this administration has shown that they "get" the importance of the work we do, and have asked for our ideas.

Individuals have been invited to participate in this dialogue, yes. But dozens of the leading organizations in participation, transparency and collaboration were also asked to get involved and encourage our members and networks to get involved. So ideas like this that come from people who have the capacity to move the ideas around public engagement forward are completely relevant to this conversation.

That said, I think this idea should be presented more as a starting point idea than as a finished proposal. Many others would want to be part of making this kind of series of national conversations happen, and I think we would be best served by blending a variety of face-to-face and online dialogue techniques. Christine or others on the design team - I know you are still inviting others to get involved at this point. Could you maybe add a comment clarifying this for people?

Personally, I'd like very much to see this idea move on to the "discussion" phase of this dialogue, so we can develop this idea further together!
sandy 9 months ago
Interesting questions, johnruu and solarzanomilton! A couple points of clarification...

Like I said in a comment above, these are not "NCDD's Core Principles." This was a collaborative project led by NCDD, IAP2 (the Int'l Association for Public Participation), the Co-Intelligence Institute and several others. Many dozens of leading organizations in the public engagement field were involved in crafting these principles, and you can view all the endorsements at www.thataway.org/?page_id=1444 . As the Director of NCDD, which is a large-ish network with a tiny staff, it's very important to me that people know these are not "NCDD's" Principles. (The last commenter mentioned "Core Values," and there is a different post about IAP2's Core Values; maybe that's a point of confusion.)

These principles were finalized very recently, so no - we haven't done any real lobbying for them yet. NCDD has never actually 'lobbied' for anything in the past, but our members are excited that concepts like "participation" and "public engagement" are actually being paid real attention to by the White House and we don't want to pass up these kinds of opportunities. We'd like the principles to be included somehow in the Open Government Directive, but even if they're not we think they are going to be very useful for our field, which before this hasn't really attempted to come to any widespread agreement about principles.

We have indeed asked our network to support this recommendation, as I've seen several other organizations do for a number of posts here. I haven't seen anything on this site that specifies that individuals and not organizations or networks are the ones who should be posting ideas and recommendations. It's hard to tell which posts are really coming from organizations, since all you see is a vague username and few people are identifying themselves or their affiliations in their posts. I know this whole process is an experiment that many will be learning from; maybe future forums will be earmarked for "individual citizens," and others for networks or organizations. But with online forums, it's hard to control such things.

I can see how this free-for-all approach could be seen as unfair to individuals if it ends up that those posts submitted and supported by organizations end up with many more votes. It will be interesting to see what happens. I noticed, though, that it says on the main page that, in the second phase of the process, "we will deepen the conversation about compelling topics raised during the brainstorming." It doesn't say we will deepen the conversation about topics with the most votes.

Also, with specialized topics like these, it makes sense for those who have worked in these areas to be the ones proposing most of the ideas. And oftentimes it's the organizations and networks that have really taken the time to develop concrete ideas, no?
sandy 9 months ago
Thanks for mentioning the Core Principles for Public Engagement, JDG. We've added them to this dialogue with the title "Ask Federal Agencies to Adopt the Core Principles for Public Engagement." Please go to http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/2510-4049 to vote the Principles up!
sandy 9 months ago
NCDD (the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation) is a membership organization, John, and as you noticed, the membership fee is optional so no one is excluded due to income. We have over 1000 wonderful members, and you can learn more at www.thataway.org (feel free to join us!). But these principles were not just developed by NCDD. We worked closely with IAP2 (another membership organization, the International Association for Public Participation), the Co-Intelligence Institute, and many others to involve people with expertise in public engagement work to construct these principles together. (We don't consider these "NCDD's Principles.") We worked very hard to involve as many people in the process as we could, using organizations and networks that reach many public engagement practitioners and scholars. We then asked those organizations to consider endorsing the Principles, so we now have endorsers like the National League of Cities, the League of Women Voters, Public Agenda, AmericaSpeaks, the Institute of Cultural Affairs, and many others. They're all listed at www.thataway.org/?page_id=1444 . Hope this helps!
sandy 9 months ago
IAP2 is great, but what are you proposing be done with these Core Values? Please be more specific so people know if their vote is saying "yay - I like these values" or "the IAP2 Core Values should be adopted as part of the Open Government Initiative" (or something else).
sandy 9 months ago
You lost me at "conducted according to Robert's Rules of Order," Edward. This category is called "New Strategies and Techniques" and meetings conducted with Robert's Rules are anything but new and have been shown to promote divisiveness and extreme power imbalances between the chair and participants.

There are many techniques that have been used at the community level, state level, and even national and international levels to engage citizens in tough issues as equal participants in dialogue and deliberation. These techniques often provide people with background info on the issue from a variety of perspectives, involve people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and are designed to handle disagreement and conflict in order to generate new and useful data for policymakers and/or help people decide how they want to take action on the issue themselves.

I invite you to check out the video playlists posted at www.youtube.com/profile?user=sheierbacher&view=playlists . Watch a few of the videos in the playlist "dialogue and deliberation in action" and you'll get the sense of how meetings involving citizens and decision-makers can best be held today.
sandy 9 months ago
Thanks for mentioning the Public Engagement Principles, Colin! I'm going to add a new post about the principles now, and I think I'll borrow some of your text. :)
sandy 9 months ago
I like this idea in theory. But I blanched when I read "require federal agencies to use online dispute resolution technology to handle questions, complaints, and interactions with citizens reacting to open government activity." I'd need some caveats to vote for this one. I could support requiring agencies to be equipped, trained, or capable to use online ADR technology, but to require they use online ADR technology to handle interactions with citizens seems like a huge mandate.