Tom Atlee will be presenting at this week’s NCDD Confab Call. From his blog:

I’ll be doing an online dialogue in the 2-hour National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Confab Call on Tuesday, January 17th at 2pm Eastern (11am Pacific). Ben Roberts, a principal in both weDialogue and Occupy Café, will be facilitating the call on the Maestro conference call platform (which enables questions, voting, breakout groups, etc.).

Tom will cover various themes from his new book “Empowering Public Wisdom: A Practical Vision of Citizen-Led Politics” (to be published in August 2012), including this question related to e-participation:

• What is gained and lost in the choice between online and face-to-face citizen engagements? Do conference calls and video conferencing have a potential role to play in formal citizen deliberations? Is it actually possible to have quality online deliberation among ordinary citizens – especially if they are randomly selected? What do we need to know and do in order to achieve high quality online deliberation?

Great question, and I look forward to the conversation. Our short answer is that a combination of good process, skilled facilitation and the appropriate technology can make high-quality online deliberation possible, whether stand-alone or in combination with face-to-face.

Head over to Maestro to RSVP for this event.

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) and the Deliberative Democracy Consortium (DDC) have put out a joint response to the recent White House call for input.

It’s very solid, so please make sure to read it in full: Strengthening the Public Participation Elements of the Open Government Plan (PDF). Especially noteworthy is a list of resources that show in detail the benefits of “planned, structured participation”, namely:

• Raising the level of civility and trust in public discourse
• Reducing government costs through closer public oversight and better understanding of citizen needs and attitudes
• Creating more realistic budgets, either by raising “tax morale,” building support for spending cuts, or both
• Generating new policy ideas and tapping the problem-solving capacity of citizens
• Breaking through legislative gridlock on high-profile policy questions

You are invited to sign the document in support. From the blog post:

Though we didn’t have the time to put a draft out to the whole field before the deadline as we would have preferred, we welcome you to add your feedback here via the comments field. And if you or your organization support what we submitted in the joint statement, please add a comment signing on with your support! We’d love to show the White House that groups in our field are indeed “seconding” the statement.

Sign here.

The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD) is hosting their first-ever summer fund drive.

From the announcement:

Since 2002, the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation has served as a hub, a resource clearinghouse, and a facilitative leader for our dialogue and deliberation community. Together we have been the catalyst for extraordinary connection and progress across our field. NCDD is at a critical juncture, however, as foundation support has declined in recent years. We are turning to you to help ensure that NCDD remains viable and continues to serve these valuable roles.

The fundraising campaign is scheduled to go through August 10, 2011. The goal is to raise $10,000.

Intellitics has been an organizational member of NCDD since July 1, 2008 (prior to incorporation, actually). Being part of this network, we continue to benefit in many ways (and we don’t hesitate to say so).

We just gave $250, and so can you.

Here’s the video from the Online Engagement panel at NCDD 2010 Austin (see slides). My 9-minute opening remarks start at around 14:45.

Asked about the one big issue or question the panelists were grappling with I stated the following (minimally edited, starts at 35:15):

The main challenge that my company is working on is how to support good, authentic process on the web. I think there is a rich body of knowledge in face-to-face interactions and group process and facilitation and good public participation, and a lot of the tools that we see today are still fairly limited in supporting some of these more advanced processes. And in most cases it’s not the tool’s fault because they were never designed to support this kind of very structured thing in the first place. Facebook was not designed with the intent to support public participation. But I think that’s gonna be our biggest challenge.

There are certain pieces that I think the technology is very good at and greatly surpasses the face-to-face setting, and then there are other pieces that, frankly, people are much better at: asking the right questions, knowing when to slow down and take a detour is still not really easily automated.

Thanks for watching!

I prepared a few slides for my opening remarks on Friday’s panel on Online Engagement at the NCDD 2010 Austin conference (you may notice a bit of overlap with my PACE presentation).

Please note that these slides are intended for conference attendees and may not work as well out of context. I may share another version over the coming weeks that includes notes.

Thanks to my co-panelists Gary Chapman and Phil Tate for the conversation and to Diane Miller for moderating.

Based on NCDD’s Core Principles of Public Engagement, the hand-out material at NCDD 2010 Austin includes this tongue-in-cheek list of things not to do:

• Do everything at the last minute
• Gather the people that are easiest to gather
• My way or the highway
• Trust us — We know how to solve this
• Keep your cards close to your chest
• Don’t expect to make a difference
• Work in silos and ignore those who don’t vote

Works like a charm all the time.

Together with Brian Sullivan, founder and CEO of CivicEvolution, I am preparing an afternoon session for the upcoming NCDD 2010 NorCal conference:

Online Public Engagement

Learn when and how to incorporate online tools into your public engagement game plan as we review a few case studies. Understand the promises and limitations of different tools for online public engagement and the importance of managing expectations, setting realistic goals and measuring your progress. The goal of this session is to give you a framework for evaluating your online public engagement options and making smart choices.

We only have 80 minutes and a lot of ground to cover. I look forward to hearing what questions and real-life challenges the attendees will bring to the table. Should be fun!

Tom Atlee, founder of the non-profit Co-Intelligence Institute, just sent this invitation to his network about the upcoming NCDD events. With his permission, I’m re-posting it here.

Dear friends,

I view the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) as one of the most important groups supporting the emergence of democratic participatory wisdom to help societies evolve and thrive in the coming century.

I want to encourage everyone in my U.S. networks to seriously consider attending one of NCDD’s budget-friendly one-day regional events coming up during the next two months:

• Denver, Colorado – The Wellshire Inn on Friday, October 22, 2010
• San Francisco, California – De Anza College on Friday, October 29, 2010
• Boston, Massachusetts – UMass Boston on Friday, October 29, 2010
• Austin, Texas – St. Edwards on Friday, November 5, 2010
• Portland, Oregon – Concordia University – November 13, 2010

All five events will focus on the rise of public engagement. The Co-Intelligence Institute is partnering with NCDD and others in the Denver and Portland events, which will be attended by CII board members.

In addition to tapping into local knowledge and innovations, these regional events will build on what has been learned since early 2009 from NCDD’s involvement in the White House’s Open Government Initiative, and through efforts like the NCDD-sponsored creation of the Core Principles for Public Engagement
http://ncdd.org/rc/item/3643. (One of my proudest achievements was being a major catalyst in the highly participatory formulation of these principles — accessing the wisdom of the whole field on behalf of the whole field.)

With the increase in national and local attention to open government and public engagement, members of the dialogue and deliberation community are focusing in on three critical topic areas:

• Quality Public Engagement: What is quality public engagement and how do we educate others about it so it becomes broadly adopted?
• Online Engagement: How can online technology enhance public engagement?
• Collaborations that Work: How can we strengthen connections between public administrators, engagement practitioners and the public?

NCDD’s regional events will focus on connecting practitioners, community leaders and public managers locally to help build knowledge and capacity around these three topics.

To find out more and register, go to

http://www.ncdd.org/events/

If you are in the Pacific Northwest, we may bump into each other at the Portland NCDD event.

For some of my thoughts on the potential role of public engagement, see “Expanding ‘Public Participation’ in Hard Times”
http://co-intelligence.org/PublicParticipationExpand.html .

Blessings on the Journey.

Coheartedly,
Tom

Endorsements don’t get any better than this.

As part of its Fall 2010 conference series, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) is organizing local events in Denver, Boston, San Francisco Bay Area, Austin and Portland (read about the long list of sponsors here).

In addition to the Bay Area event, I just signed up for Austin (November 5, 2010 at St. Edward’s University in Austin, TX). From the event flyer (PDF):

From Chaos to Collaboration: Raising the Bar in Public Engagement

Join public sector representatives, interested citizens, and public engagement practitioners in this one-day workshop to explore practical strategies for successful public engagement.

Topics will include:

• Quality Public Engagement: what does it really take, from design to implementation?
• Online Tools: what new tools are available and how do they support effective engagement?
• Collaborations that Work: how can we strengthen connections between public administrators, engagement practitioners and the public?

I’m excited to be heading back to Austin. I know the organizing team there is putting in a ton of effort.  Should be a great conference!

If for whatever hard-to-believe reason you’re still on the fence, maybe this discount code “15offby10-8″ will win you over. You’ll save $15 off the regular rate of $85 when you register. But hurry, this offer is only valid through October 8, 2010 (this Friday).

Hope to see you there!

The National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) just announced a series of regional one-day events for later this Fall. The Bay Area event is scheduled for Friday, October 29, 2010 at De Anza College in Cupertino, CA. From the website:

The events will build on what we learned in the past year and a half from our involvement in the White House’s Open Government Initiative, and through efforts like the creation of the Core Principles for Public Engagement. With the increase in national and local attention to open government and public engagement, members of the dialogue and deliberation community are focusing in on three priorities:

• Learning how to use online tools and technology more effectively, to help people discuss contentious issues and have a greater impact on policy decisions.
• Engaging and working with public officials, and working within government structures in more effective and sustainable ways.
• Educating more public managers about what constitutes quality public engagement and how to connect with public engagement organizations and practitioners.

Our fall one-day events will connect practitioners, researchers, and public managers locally around these three priorities. NCDD feels that building knowledge and capacity in these three areas will better position members of our professional community to successfully navigate new opportunities that are emerging in open government and online engagement so they can make a greater impact in their communities.

This will be a great opportunity to meet fellow NCDD members from up and down the West Coast. Intellitics will be there.

After a longer period of downtime, one of the most comprehensive resources in the area of dialogue and deliberation is back in business. From the blog post: NCDD resources are back online (all 2,392 of them!)

The Resource Center describes and categorizes close to 2,400 resources — including many dialogue guides, D&D methods, online tools, case studies, videos, higher ed programs, articles, NCDD publications, and more.  It’s up on the new ncdd.org site (we’re transitioning from thataway.org to ncdd.org) so you can see the new, simpler, cleaner site design while you’re at it.

Check out the many manuals and guides, organizations and programs as well as journals and newsletters.

Our local IAP2/NCDD group is doing another lunch webinar this Friday, June 4 at 12 noon:

About the Stakeholder Score Webinar

Environmental sustainability efforts not only reduce company risks, but are emerging as a source of competitive advantage. Sustainability is increasingly central to the operations and ongoing reporting of companies, and increasingly corporate executives are seeking meaningful ways to involve relevant constituencies.

Stakeholders engaged in a constructive manner can help companies identify and resolve a wide range of risks and new opportunities. The Stakeholder Score — a free best practice guide and evaluation tool — is designed to address exactly these issues. The Score consists of thirty-nine questions, each addressing one factor that can improve a company’s stakeholder engagement process. Broadly, the questions focus on such issues as:

• What are the key sustainability issues on which companies need to engage with stakeholder groups?
• What are the most effective engagement methods?
• How should stakeholder engagement be addressed in CSR reports?
• How can you benchmark stakeholder engagement?

The Stakeholder Score can be used by corporate social responsibility practitioners to guide their stakeholder engagement and CSR reporting, or it can also be used by any stakeholder who wants to evaluate a company’s engagement program. The Score was developed in collaboration with The Environment Council, a UK-based nonprofit organization.

In this webinar, you will hear from Corinna Kester, author of the Stakeholder Score. She will give an overview of how stakeholder engagement is used by corporations and will discuss the Stakeholder Score and how it can shed light on the quality of a company’s engagement.

The webinar is open to guests. Leave a comment if you’d like to attend, and we’ll send you the dial-in information. Thanks!

Towards the end of last week’s Open Gov West conference/unconference in Seattle, WA a series of follow-up meetings on the West Coast was announced, the first of which is scheduled to happen in San Francisco, CA the week after next:

San Francisco OGW Meetup: April 12th 6-8 PM

We’re continuing the conversations from the Open Gov West conference by taking them on the road to meetups across the West Coast.

Open Gov West brought together a diverse range of government folks, electeds, nonprofits, citizens, and technologists on March 26th & 27th. Recomendations on open gov funding, standards, and policy were made, partnerships were launched, open gov ideas were formed.

Hear from San Francisco-based attendees of Open Gov West and hear their reports back from OGW, engaging local open government folks in the conversations and ideas that came out of the conference. Reportbacks start at 6:30 PM and finish at 7 PM. Doors open at 6.

Network with others involved with “gov 2.0″ and “open gov.” Explore ideas for applying lessons from OGW in San Francisco and meet great people to partner with on open gov projects.

This might be a good opportunity to discuss a potential Bay Area event of the same caliber. A bunch of people and I have already been tossing around ideas for doing something later this year with a special focus on participation.  Since neither IAP2 nor NCDD will be doing any major conferences this year there may be room for a sizable local/regional event.

I would like to see an open government event that includes participation as the core component that it is and not as an afterthought (though Open Gov West was certainly the best I’ve seen so far in that regard).

Looks like I finally get to attend one of the many events on Gov 2.0 and Open Government:

Open Gov West

The greater Northwest and Cascadia region is buzzing with innovative technology and civic engagement organizations, and a number of governments throughout the area have already launched open government directives. Hosted by the City of Seattle and Knowledge as Power, Open Gov West is bringing these leaders together to facilitate regional collaboration and share best practices across open government initiatives. Join us March 26 & 27 at Seattle City Hall!

The two-day event follows a hybrid format: day 1 will be a traditional conference, day 2 an unconference “with a spine of pre-determined topics”.

It’ll be my first time in Seattle, and there are plans under way for an NCDD dinner (watch their listserv for updates) as well as a get-together of local IAP2 members.

If you’re involved with NCDD or IAP2, please consider attending the conference. The thing about most of these Gov 2.0/OpenGov/Transparency etc. conferences and unconferences lately is that the public participation community is usually not very well represented.  So this is a great (and inexpensive) opportunity to increase mindshare for this field.  It would be great to see a few participation veterans turn out so we can maybe do a session together.

In other exciting news, I’ll be accompanied by our newly hired student intern from Germany. We’ll properly introduce him once he arrives in the Bay Area later this week.

Should be a fun trip!

Caroline Lee, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lafayette College in Easton, PA, and Francesca Polletta, Professor of Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at UC, Irvine, have just released the results of a survey they did in September/October 2009 and which garnered responses from more than 400 practitioners: The 2009 Dialogue and Deliberation Practitioners Survey: What is the State of the Field?

From the about page:

We conducted the survey as part of two separate research agendas, both of which focus on multi-method analysis of issues in the dialogue and deliberation field. Caroline Lee has completed four years of fieldwork at dialogue and deliberation conferences, trainings, and courses– and is interested in testing the extent to which the perspectives and themes she is surfacing inductively are shared across a broad group of practitioners. Francesca Polletta is interested in building on earlier findings on gender in a study of online deliberation. We plan on comparing our survey results to the insights emerging from other qualitative and quantitative methods. This triangulation of methodological strategies seeks to strengthen the validity of research findings by accounting for the limitations inherent in every research method.

A few tidbits I found interesting:

• According to “Q21: Methods Used Most Often in Current Practice”, 25% or respondents are reporting frequent use of “onine/digital media”. That’s pretty cool!
• According to “Q23: Term that best describes the people and organizations currently leading D&D efforts”, 57% of respondents prefer “Community of Practice”
• According to “Q23: Most important challenge facing the D&D community, based on challenges defined by NCDD conference attendees”, 20% of respondents mention “Demonstrating to powerholders that D&D works”

The full results are available on the website and are available for download (PDF).

Update (02/03/2010): There is now an official NCDD list at http://twitter.com/ncdd/ncddlist (already much more comprehensive than ours, so we recommend you follow it instead!)

* * *

And while we’re at it, why not create a list of Twitterers who are members of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD)?

Here it is: @intellitics/ncdd

I had the distinct pleasure to attend NCDD’s past two conferences (in 2006 and 2008). It is an organization made up of so many great people, it’s truly amazing. So if you find following the conversations on Twitter worthwhile, consider supporting NCDD and become a member (at complete bargain rates, too, considering the value).

If you’d like to be added, just send me a direct message. Or leave a comment below in case I’m not following you yet (make sure to include your Twitter handle).

In a post on the White House blog today, Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology Officer and the Associate Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, follows up on some of the questions that went unanswered during the FAQ on Tuesday: Answering Your Questions on the Open Government Directive

Russ Gaskin of Washington, DC commented: [W]ould like an example of what citizen participation might look like under this directive.

Russ, I expect citizen participation initiatives to build on the outburst of creativity and experimentation we’ve seen in this space in the first 10 months of this Administration.

For example, Open for Questions gave Americans across the nation a direct line to the Administration to ask exactly what they wanted to know about the Administration’s efforts to get the economy back on track. Openinternet.gov enriched the official record on net neutrality with more than 22,000 comments.   Across the country and online, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has been seeking the best ideas for the next generation of school reform through his Listening and Learning Tour.  A Health IT Online Forum is currently drawing on the expertise of stakeholders on the front lines of healthcare delivery to uncover new strategies to accelerate the adoption of Health IT.  And, just yesterday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy launched the Public Access Policy Forum to better understand how the Executive Branch might best enhance public access to peer reviewed papers arising from all federal science and technology agencies.

Of course, I would be remiss not to mention the unprecedented three-phase public consultation process  (brainstorming, discussion, drafting) that shaped the Open Government Directive itself.   You can learn more about the Open Government Initiative public consultation process and other innovations in participatory decision making in the Open Government Progress Report to the American People and in the White House Open Government Innovations Gallery.

At the same time, I hope that all of you will engage in the agency public consultation processes that will shape their Open Government plans. I know that Washington does not have a monopoly on the best ideas and want your ideas for how we can make participation opportunities more meaningful for citizens.

Earlier this year, a number of organizations in the participation field collaborated on several occasions to provide the White House with detailed input on exactly this question — how to make participation meaningful. The following two efforts were probably the most notable:

• The Public Engagement Principles (PEP) Project was launched in mid-February 2009 to create clarity in our field about what we consider to be the fundamental components of quality public engagement, and to support Barack Obama’s January 21st memorandum on transparency and open government.  The following principles were developed collaboratively by members and leaders of NCDD, IAP2 (the International Association of Public Participation), the Co-Intelligence Institute, and many others. — PEP website, PDF download (1.6MB)
• Strengthening our Nations Democracy II. On August 2-4, 2009, “experts and advocates for strengthening our nation’s democracy” came together to create new momentum and plans for bringing together the emerging democracy reform movement behind a common set of priorities. At the second Strengthening Our Nation’s Democracy conference, participants shared what they have been learning from their work across the country, and rolled up their sleeves to create collective recommendations and action steps. — PDF download (1.1MB)

Unlike the eight Open Government Data Principles, a set of guidelines developed two years ago by the Open Government Working Group (see meeting notes) which are reflected in the Open Government Directive almost verbatim, the above mentioned recommendations on participation were not explicitly included in the Directive. It remains to be seen to what degree they’ll be found in the Open Government Plans that are now being crafted at the agency level.

Back in February, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), along with a number of other established associations and organization in the field of dialogue, conflict resolution and public participation, launched a collaborative effort to craft a set of principles for public engagement that would inform the Open Government Directive currently being worked on by the Obama administration.

After two months of insightful discussions, the final version of the Core Principles for Public Engagement Document (PDF, 144 KB) has now been released. It starts:

In a strong representative democracy, citizens and government work together to build a society that protects individual freedom while simultaneously ensuring liberty and justice for all.  Engaging people around the issues that affect their lives and their country is a key component of a strong democratic society.

Public engagement involves convening diverse yet representative groups of people to wrestle with information from a variety of viewpoints all to the end of making better, often more creative decisions. Public engagement aims to provide people with direction for their own community activities, or with public judgments that will be seriously considered by policy-makers and other power-holders.

The more any given public engagement effort takes into consideration the following seven Core Principles, the more it can expect to effectively build mutual understanding, meaningfully affect policy development, and/or inspire collaborative action among citizens and institutions.  These seven interdependent principles serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality.  Rather than promoting partisan agendas, the application of the Core Principles creates the conditions for authentic engagement around public issues.

The Seven Core Principles

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

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.¹

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.

————-

¹ In addition to reflecting the democratic ideals of liberty, justice, and freedom for all, the term “common good” refers to things that optimize the well-being of all (like a traffic light in a dangerous intersection) or conditions that serve to benefit all involved (as in a consensus agreement focused on cleaning up the water supply).

There’s also an expanded version that goes into more detail:

PEP Expanded Text

Although we are not seeking endorsements for the expanded text under the principles and their one-sentence descriptions, the text under the headers “In high quality engagement” and “What to avoid” was developed alongside the basic seven principle, in a highly collaborative and transparent manner.  The purpose of the expanded text is to illustrate and breathe life into the principles, and should accompany the list of Core Principles whenever possible.  The expanded text can be tweaked or revised for a variety of different audiences.

Intellitics is proud to be among the group of initial organizational endorsers.

About a couple of weeks ago, the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD) — in collaboration with a few other organizations in this field — launched the Public Engagement Principles project, an effort to craft a recommendation for the Obama administration as they work on the Open Government Directive. From the NCDD website:

Get involved in the Public Engagement Principles project, a collaborative effort to see if our broad field can present a united front to the Obama administration. We are starting by developing and describing a set of core principles or criteria for quality public engagement that are broad enough yet meaningful enough that we can all endorse. Help us get there!

Here’s how Sandy Heierbacher, NCDD’s director, introduced the project:

We are facing an unprecedented opportunity in the fields of public engagement, conflict resolution and collaboration. President Obama has demonstrated his commitment to participation, transparency and openness in his administration in numerous ways we’ve all taken note of

There are a number of established associations and organizations in the U.S. that unite professionals and promote the practice and principles of consensus, dialogue, participation, collaboration, conflict resolution and other means of achieving largely the same end.

We suspect that many of these groups will try to communicate with the administration about how to best move forward, but we are concerned about the fact that although most of us speak the same basic language to describe this work, we tend to use many different dialects. This could weaken each of our cases, and overwhelm members of the administration rather than support them.

Rather than each of us contacting the administration separately with mixed messages and various levels of success, we believe we could make a greater impact working together. Can we collaborate or unify to present a collective source of principles, practices, talent and resources that this administration and nation will need in the next four years?

The discussion forum has quickly become a treasure trove for anyone interested in making public engagement work. The list of over a dozen tried and tested sets of principles from around the world as well as the conversations about which pieces are generally applicable or how they should be framed in the context of a guideline or recommendation to the administration is a valuable asset in and by itself and I hope NCDD will preserve the results.

Here’s the latest revision of the public engagement principles:

CRITERIA FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The following principles describe high quality public engagement in public conversation on public issues.  While each is distinct, they overlap considerably and reinforce each other in practice.  They serve both as ideals to pursue and as criteria for judging quality.  Their proper use is to generate authentic engagement in public problem-solving, collective creativity, and social healing.  They are not designed to promote partisan agendas.

1. Preparation – Consciously plan, design, convene and arrange the engagement to serve its purpose and people.
2. Inclusion – Incorporate diverse people and ideas to lay the groundwork for quality outcomes and democratic legitimacy.
3. Collaboration –  Support organizers, participants, and those engaged in follow-up to work well together for the common good.
4. Learning – Help participants listen, explore and learn without predetermined outcomes — and evaluate events for lessons.
5. Transparency – Promote openness and provide a public record of the people, resources, and events involved.
6. Impact – Engage official and public attention and follow up — in context — so that each participatory effort actually makes a difference.
7. Participatory Culture – Promote programs and institutions that sustain quality public engagement and advance democratic principles and competence.

Tom Atlee did a lot of the integration and synthesis work on this.

I want to start a conversation about how these principles can best be applied to online participation efforts and tools.

As mentioned earlier on Twitter, we’ll be presenting Zilino at NCDD’s D&D Marketplace this October.

Here’s the outline I just submitted:

Zilino — Your Friendly E-participation Engine

Introduction to Zilino, a new web application for group problem solving and decision making. Highly interactive discussion of some of the key concepts behind Zilino, our roadmap for future releases as well as the ideas on everybody’s wish list.

Should be fun.