How D&D Can Help Communities Adapt to Rapid Change Since the 1960s, the US Department of Justice has provided peacekeeping services via its Community Relations Service (CRS) for community conflicts and tensions related to race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, and disability. In 2015, the heads of the CRS and the National …
The Surprising Power of Community-Based Journalism I just completed my first community outreach event on electricity. If you’d have told me a year ago that I’d be doing this, I’d have laughed. Like most people, I only even thought about electricity when it was out. Electricity seemed like a tedious subject best left to experts. …
“Stop the madness for constant group work. Just stop it!” pleads Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. Group work, she claims, stifles some of the most insightful and creative thinkers and inflates the influence of extroverts. To generate the best ideas, workplaces and schools need …
Facilitating Introverts: Eliciting the Gifts of the Quiet Ones Read More »
Why the European Citizens’ Initiative merits radical reform On the 1st of April 2014, the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) turned two — its unfortunate birthdate determined by EU translation services. Called the first transnational tool of “direct participatory democracy” and “digital democracy” in history, the ECI is a complex procedure by which a million EU …
This article is from the upcoming publication “An ECI That Works!” to be released on 15 April 2014 by The ECI Campaign. In 2010-2011, I campaigned for a citizen-friendly ECI regulation and then left the EU before it went into effect. Below I compare what I and others thought would happen with the ECI to …
What didn’t happen with the European Citizens’ Initiative…and what did Read More »
Face-to-face events like public meetings and consultations are, with good reason, at the heart of much public engagement. They provide a dedicated block of time and a common space to learn about, discuss, and gather community input into public issues. However, no matter how well designed the event, such gatherings are pointless if nobody shows …
Engaging on the Edges: Creative Street and Online Engagement Read More »
Methods, Tools, and Resources for Harvesting The articles on this blog primarily focus on civic engagement and democracy. Although I rarely write about it, I also design and facilitate meetings and events. As much as possible, I try to link the two — e.g., designing community conversations to inform public policy. The process to design …
Occupy Targets Participatory Budgeting in Chicago My first thought was “how clever of the conference organizers to welcome us with street theater”. At the entrance to the Second North American Participatory Budgeting Conference, held last month in Chicago, stood a half-dozen casually dressed people wearing photo face masks and holding hand-written signs with questions like …
The Story of Aurora Community Study Circles. Last week a small but dedicated group of Chicago area dialogue & deliberation (D&D) practitioners traveled through a heavy snow storm to Aurora, IL to meet with Mary Jane Hollis, creator of the Aurora Community Study Circles (1996-2007). Our original goal was to learn about her approach to …
Transforming a Community with Sustained Dialogue Read More »
I honestly didn’t realize just how ambitious trying to understand the use of dialogue & deliberation for civic engagement in Chicago actually was until a veteran facilitator exclaimed “wow, you’ve taken on a mighty big project!” After all, at first, I couldn’t find much happening in the Windy City. As the project progressed, it certainly …
Surveying the D&D Territory of a City: Lessons from Chicago Read More »