d1doherty

Ideas Posted

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d1doherty

Consider revising our calendar to iron out some of the wrinkles. For example: http://theabysmal.wordpress.com/ "theAbysmal Calendar seeks to replace the Gregorian as our global calendar only, and doesn’t seek to replace it for those who wish to continue using it. Principally, theAbysmal Calendar serves as an elegant tool by which to facilitate conversion from one Calendar system to another."

A society that works well, is made up of layers of social systems that work well. We agree to arbitrarily move our clocks forward & back annually, and leap a day every 4 years, why not adopt a more elegant calendar to help us adapt to globalization and simplify daily life?

theAbysmal is one of many proposed calendar reforms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_reform

Comments (0)Legal & Policy Challenges, calendar reform

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d1doherty 9 months ago

ivanjmd,
I agree that trend following is not leading, however I hope the best leaders would address the essential needs of the population. I believe the proposed idea is meant to help leaders identify those needs and engage the population in addressing them. This would be a form of servant leadership...where the people feel that solutions are of their own making.

d1doherty 9 months ago

David, Edward,
I am alive to tell you there is rational life outside Roberts Rules :) I use/teach a variety of group process and decision-making models. Most democratic organizations adopt Roberts Rules as their guiding principles for good reasons considering what was going on in politics 200 yrs ago. Thank G*d Mr. Roberts brought "civility" to democracy.

FFWD to 2009

Edward said "what Wisdom Council suffer from is the assumption that people will be willing to work together and to reach unanimity when they are totally different and coming from different settings, background and experiences."

That is precisely the purpose and outcome of a Wisdom Council (WC). I have both observed and facilitated groups of 12 strangers with conflicting opinions who came together, discussed challenging issues and arrived at a consensus statement which they shared in a public meeting. Dynamic Facilitation is the process tool that made it work.

I respect that your experience with deliberative groups may have been less satisfying. I agree that a coherent model helps move a group to their intended goal. It works best when the event is convened by the people, not by those with strongly vested interests. In fact, in the latter case, by definition, it would not be a WC).

Pick the tool for the job...I use Roberts Rules to make a formal, debated decision, and when a group wants to explore a big, messy issue I choose Dynamic Facilitation.

There is lots of good theoretical discussion here. The only way to test our assertions is to do a head to head comparison...online/F2F...RR/DF

d1doherty 9 months ago

davidfarrar,
You said "if a CDC member made a motion, and if the motion is seconded and a vote of the entire CDC is taken in the affirmative) a request to further explore an area of concern with a dynamic facilitator's would be generated."

In a face-to-face CDC a question can be tested without the formality of Roberts Rules, however online, as you suggest, a more formal decision tool adds accountability and clarity given the lack of non-verbal communication cues and asynchronous time frame.

In our CDC planning group we found for some decisions a 50% +1 vote was too blunt. We experimented with a graded decision process. Once the question was put before the group we voted on a 5 point scale
-2 unacceptable
-1 prefer no
0 neutral
+1 prefer yes
+2 essential

In this way, if the balance of votes were on one side we could proceed. But if any votes were in extreme opposition to the consensus, we would explore the concerns to see how they could be addressed. In this way we avoided having the situation of 49% unsatisfied members on a key decision, and we were not bogged down by requiring 100% consensus.

After RR's virtual motion/2nd, a graded voting system would work online too.

d1doherty 9 months ago

inbox,
You asked "So it's random before you start filtering people, or you screen for acceptable people then choose some randomly? "

The purpose of random selection in the citizens' council process is to reduce selection bias. In theory every member of the community should have an opportunity to be chosen. A community could be a workplace, a neighbourhood, a city, state, etc. In reality one attempts to get as close to that as possible (e.g. limitation of the voters list or phone book). In this way the group symbolically represents the voice of the community. The more councils, the closer to the truth this becomes.

d1doherty 9 months ago

davidfarrar,
I agree, online tools are a useful adjunct to face to face dialogue.
- a benefit of online is 24hr access over time and across distances, with a written record of ideas and information for others to read
- a benefit of face to face is we get to meet our neighbours and the subtleties of non-verbal communication allow us to read emotions as we mutually shift attitudes and commit to action.

d1doherty 9 months ago

Perhaps this idea would be more appropriately titled
"Opt out Organ Donation" since the current system is opt-in, and your are not really saying it should be mandatory. In countries where they use the "Opt-out" system the rate of organ donation appears to be greater. http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/04/08/f-transplant.html

d1doherty 9 months ago

Given the negative response I think the substance of this idea is misunderstood. The idea of national town hall meetings is a great way to get people involved and connect the people to their elected representatives.

Robert's Rules are useful for formal decision making meetings if the meeting is chaired fairly and the participants understand the rules (e.g. "Why can't I ask a question?!")

However, there are a number of more open discussion/dialogue systems that facilitate broader discussion and consensus-building, such as Dynamic Facilitation, Wisdom Councils, Open Space Technology, World Cafe, etc.

I agree that some shared protocols would help forward the quality of online discussion. For example, so far on this forum people are offering thoughtful responses, compared to many negative comments on youtube and other social networking forums.

If we separate the idea (town halls) from t he process (Robert's rules), would this idea find more favour?

PS - one definition of brainstorming is to "post ideas without judgement". In this case replies should forward the initial idea, not trounce it.

...loving the conversation! --DD

d1doherty 9 months ago

I have facilitated a number of citizen dialogues and am always amazed at the quality of solutions that emerge on really hard topics such as racism, religion, the environment, world hunger, violence, etc. Experts provide valuable information, yet regular folks seem to have a common-sense wisdom about how to solve big problems.

For example we were discussing pollution...it seems so big and complex...then one person said if the effluent from every city, corporation and farm was required to be the same quality as the water intake, there would be very little water pollution. That is the kind of idea that could grow into a sustainable national policy, and be managed at the individual level.

The only thing I really have control over is my own behaviour and the conversations I have in my circle of influence. I have found that citizen dialogues are a powerful tool for propagating change conversations, and coming up with practical solutions.

d1doherty 9 months ago

Random selection is an effective way to get an unbiased opinion from a population. Politicians are vulnerable to lobbying so have difficulty hearing the real voice of the people compared to those who are the loudest or most influential. Randomized polling is one way to get a representative voice that can be added to the criteria for making important decisions.

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