Tag Archive for 'nbt09'

No Better Time Conference Report Available

Published by Tim on February 8, 2010 in Events. 1 Comment Tags: .

The report from last year’s No Better Time conference is now available: No Better Time: A 2010 Report on Opportunities and Challenges for Deliberative Democracy (PDF, 1.1 MB)

Executive summary

In July 2009, more than 250 campus and community leaders came together at the University of New Hampshire to talk about the “deliberative democracy” field, the tide of civic change on campuses and in communities, and what those changes mean for the practice and teaching of democracy. No Better Time: Promising Opportunities in Deliberative Democracy for Educators and Practitioners (NBT) was hosted by the Democracy Imperative (TDI) and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC), two organizations that work to promote best practices, research, and teaching for a strong democracy.

A number of factors made this conference timely: an historic election, increasing use of dialogue and deliberation in communities across the country, record-setting youth political engagement, a presidential administration that is experimenting with e-democracy to increase transparency and public participation, and a growing interest on campuses (without distinct ownership in any one academic department or administrative office) in teaching democratic principles and practices.

All of these developments seemed to highlight the need for more just, comprehensive, democratic systems and the need to educate and prepare citizens to be more effective participants in those systems. People working in these areas were asking questions about how to “embed” democratic principles and practices in the daily routine of campuses and communities.

The conference gave people a chance to make progress on these challenges as a field. The discussions seemed to coalesce around eight priorities for “embedding” democracy, and conference participants generated a number of plans, proposals, and new activities for moving forward in each area. For each of these priorities, we will give the context preceding No Better Time, summarize the conversation at the conference, and describe what has happened since.

Priority #1 – Rethinking what we call this work (see p. 7)

Priority #2 – Connecting deliberative democracy, advocacy and organizing, and social justice (p. 8)

Priority #3 – Preparing students more comprehensively for citizenship and leadership in a democracy (p. 9)

Priority #4 – Restoring higher education’s role as an agent for democracy and social change (p. 10)

Priority #5 – Fostering international exchanges and initiatives to advance global democracy (p. 12)

Priority #6 – Routinizing and democratizing evaluation and measurement (p. 12)

Priority #7 – Understanding and incorporating online tools for democracy and participation (p. 13)

Priority #8 – Working with the Obama Administration (p. 14)

From the email the conference organizers sent out this morning:

In response to the survey, many people expressed an interest in hosting a local conference like NBT.  So we created a “Step-by-Step Guide” that describes how No Better Time was organized. All of our work product is included, like those witty FAQs and clear instructions on leading a learning exchange.  This is available on line, at http://www.unh.edu/democracy/guidebook.html.
I’m starting to think we really need an appropriate event on the West Coast this year.

Connect the Dots National Student Conference: March 3-6, 2010 in Point Clear, AL

Published by Tim on January 19, 2010 in Events. 0 Comments Tags: .

This just in via the The Democracy Imperative newsletter:

We’re happy to start the New Year with this announcement: the students who attended the No Better Time conference last July were inspired to take the initiative and host their own event, Connect the Dots: Public Dialogue, Deliberation, and Community Problem Solving & Action. If you missed NBT, you might want to attend this conference.  And please send this out to students you think would be interested.
The conference, which is being hosted by the David Mathews Center for Civic Life, will be March 3-6, 2010 in Clear Point, Alabama. If you check the conference web site, you will find links to the conference schedule, proposed workshops, and registration information.  There will be workshops in models and methods of public dialogue and deliberation, facilitation, intergroup dialogue, leadership, social and political equity, Sustained Dialogue, National Issue Forums, organizing community-wide dialogue-to-change initiatives, issue framing, and more.
The call for proposals deadline is February 1.
We hope that campuses will send teams – and we’ll see you there
The conference goal is “to provide a forum for students learning about how to embed democratic practices in their everyday work and lives. These practices include public dialogue, deliberation, problem solving and action.”
The call for proposals lists the following areas of interest:
  • Public Policy Making
  • Community Building
  • Community Organizing
  • Community Values
  • Intercultural Engagement\Relations
  • Models & Approaches to Deliberative Democracy
  • Peace & Conflict Studies
  • Justice, Equity & Freedom
  • Leadership
  • E-democracy
  • Strong Communities
  • Civic Engagement

No Better Time was a great conference, and this “national student conference on public dialogue, deliberation, community problem solving and action” sure looks like an interesting follow-up.

Please leave a comment if you plan on going. Definitely leave a comment if you plan on doing something in the area of e-democracy.

“No Better Time” Session Notes Now Available

Published by Tim on September 6, 2009 in Deliberation, Events and Research. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Session notes and related resources from the “No Better Time” conference at the University of New Hampshire back in July are now available for download on their resources page.

Measuring and metrics was a hot topic that was discussed at the following learning exchanges:

  • Embedding Deliberative Practices in Local Democracy (session notes, PDF):
    This would need some further digging into, but lots of interesting tidbits and potential starting points for assessing impact and ROI, various ways to measure “embeddedness” over time etc.
  • Making the Case for this Work: Improving the Way We Collect, Report, and Explain Outcomes (session notes, PDF):
    The goals of this session were “to a) Identify where the field/participants are with regard to evaluation; b) Identify where the field/participants want to be with regard to evaluation; and c) Identify strategies to get the field/participants to that place (how are going to get there?)”
  • New Frontiers for Assessment and Measurement
    No session notes available, but check out “Impacts and Outcomes of Participatory Processes in Brazil and Canada” (download, PDF)
  • Renewing the Research Agenda (session notes, PDF)
    Only a brief outline here (“Assessment was the main theme. One view was that questions about what works, under what conditions, and why can be broken down into researchable parts and studied (quantitatively or qualitatively), with the gold standard being a randomized experiment.”), would be nice if someone could add some detail.
  • The “Downside” of Deliberative Democracy (session notes, PDF)
    Very little detail, except “doing ‘diagnostics’ and ‘assessment’ before planning a deliberative project” was discussed, apparently.

Please leave a comment if you have additional notes or comments you can share. Thanks!

Intellitics at “No Better Time” Conference, University of New Hampshire, July 8-11, 2009

Published by Tim on July 7, 2009 in Deliberation, Events and Research. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

I’ll be taking the red-eye to Boston tonight on my way to what looks like a great conference: No Better Time: Promising Opportunities in Deliberative Democracy for Educators and Practitioners

The conference is hosted by The Democracy Imperative and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium.

From their website:

What are the conference’s objectives?

Deliberative democracy has reached a critical point in its development. Over the last fifteen years, shifts in citizen capacities and attitudes have led to a dramatic proliferation of citizen participation and deliberative practices, and in 2008 they helped to produce an historic presidential election. On the heels of these changes, new opportunities for educators and practitioners are emerging in communities, in government, and on campuses. The primary goal of “No Better Time” is to take stock of these developments and to consider future directions for educators and practitioners in teaching, research, and in citizen‐centered initiatives.

We know what we want to happen: colleges and universities will make democracy central to their academic, governance, and public missions; researchers, practitioners, and other leaders will learn together better in order to improve the practice of deliberative democracy on the ground; educators will ensure that all graduates understand and know their responsibilities in a just, free, equitable society; students will become skilled in the arts of dialogue, deliberation and public reason, conflict management, and collaborative decision and policy making; the gap will close between researchers and practitioners and theory and practice…

We don’t know all that needs to happen to make these aspirations a reality. And we think that by bringing together a lot of smart, dedicated, and experienced people, we can figure it out. Convening people who care about deliberative democracy, learning from each other about what works, mapping out and prioritizing activities, and providing the space for innovation and collaboration; these are the objectives of this conference.

About 250 people are attending.

Below are some of the sessions I’m looking at (many run in parallel, so sadly I won’t be able to attend them all):

  • The “downside” of deliberative democracy (Alice Siu, Stanford University; Mary Jacksteit, Public Conversations Project)
  • Deliberative democracy in federal agencies (Roger Bernier, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Leanne Nurse, Environmental Protection Agency)
  • Embedding deliberative practices in local democracy (Terry Amsler, Collaborative Governance Initiative, League of California Cities; Will Friedman, Public Agenda; BongHwan Kim, Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, City of Los Angeles)
  • Funding and fostering democracy: What have foundations learned about the field, and what do they want to know? (Stuart Comstock-Gay, Vermont Community Foundation: John Esterle, Whitman Institute; Chris Gates, Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement; Dick Ober, New Hampshire Foundation)
  • Renewing the research agenda (Jim Fishkin, Stanford University; Archon Fung, Harvard University; Peter Levine, CIRCLE)
  • A tech-savvy citizenry: New media for public participation, policy deliberation, and social change (Joe Peters, Ascentum; Brad Rourke, blog.bradrourke.com)
  • Embedding deliberative practices in national democracy (Carolyn Lukensmeyer, AmericaSpeaks; Pete Peterson, Pepperdine University and Common Sense California)
  • Making the case for this work: Improving the way we collect, report, and explain outcomes (Tina Nabatchi, Syracuse University; Kristen Cambell, National Conference on Citizenship)
  • Choosing, combining, and adapting deliberation models and methods (Martin Carcasson, Colorado State University; Jim Fishkin, Stanford University; Sandy Heierbacher, National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation; Joe Peters, Ascentum)
  • Participatory budgeting in local government (Malka Kopell, Community Focus; Harris Sokoloff, University of Pennsylvania)

Quite the line-up, eh?

A lot of pre-conference reading material is publicly available on the conference wiki.

For those wanting to follow the conference from a distance, the tag for this conference is nbt09 (or #nbt09 on Twitter).