There are various schools of thought among IF facilitators about which kind or type of conceptual possibility might serve as the most useful starting point for these explorations.  Some think it’s best to start with the most provocative possibility, in order to get participants engaged in the discussion.  Another view is that it’s wise to begin with the first possibility listed in the IF discussion Report, since those who produced it carefully considered which should come first.  Still another approach is to open up the discussion with a “gateway” possibility, i.e. one that quickly attunes participants to the fullest range of conceptual questions at issue in the Report.  A final tack might best to “follow your group” and begin with whatever they seem most interested in–or whatever might most challenge them.

Personally, while I think these is some wisdom in all of these suggestions, I also think it’s far more important to start slowly than to get the starting point right.    And by that I mean pausing to review the short versions of all of the possibilities in the Report before discussing any one in depth.  I think there’s a lot to be gained by spending a few minutes having discussants take a careful look at the forest before they start exploring individual trees.   Here are some of the specific benefits–in ascending order of importance–that result from pausing for a comprehensive, if brief, look at the full range of possibilities in an IF Report before discussing individual possibilities:

• greater appreciation for and attention to the content of the Report
• enhanced grasp of the nature and degree of contrast among and between the possibilities in the Report
• greater openness to interactivity between conceptual possibilities (whether actually represented in the Report or not)
• dampening of the (natural) tendency to “vote” on individual possibilities as they’re discussed
• muting of advocacy, debate, argument
• setting the stage for an exploratory approach to discussion (by reminding discussants that there are multiple possibilities)

Given all of these advantages, and the small time investment required to achieve them, my advice would be have public discussion participants look first at the forest, then at the individual trees.

IF discussions encourage participants to think broadly about a topic, promote multiple perspectives, and at times contribute ideas or opinions that they believe someone who is very different from them would possess.  Under these circumstances, it seems like it would be contradictory to also stress the importance of recognizing self-interest, but it may actually be a very important component of a successful deliberation.  Understanding one’s own motivations and desires can obviously help a citizen articulate their own points, but it can also serve another important purpose; to help someone realize and appreciate the perspectives of others. 

There are different types of participants in all deliberations.  Sure, there are those who will try and talk until their face turns blue while attempting to get their points across, but there are also those citizens who fear that sharing ideas based on their own self-interests will create some kind of conflict in the discussion.   Sometimes I think facilitators inadvertently create an atmosphere where people are afraid to express self-interest because, like some participants, they fear that the discussion will become too aggressive.   Taking all of this into consideration, it might be a good idea for a facilitator to encourage or at least explain the positive aspects that incorporating self-interest into discussion can bring.

Scheduling an event and selecting a topic is very time consuming. In order to avoid going back and forth between people, IFers have come up with ideas such as to let students write down their available time slots and interested topics on pieces of papers, so that the organizer can combine them and make a decision.  Many times, the organizer has to sacrifice a few people and make compromises. However, with doodle.com scheduling an event is much easier and more efficient. Participants’ demand can be maximized in this way. Here is how:

When you click into www.doodle.com you will see a blue button “schedule an event.” Once you click on that, you can put in the event title (such as “IF Boston August Discussion”) and tentative location for the discussion. You can also write a brief description about the discussions if you have not informed the participants yet. Entering your name and email address will be helpful here.

Once you click “next,” you will see a calendar, which allows you to put in potential days to organize this event. Usually including both weekdays and weekends will work the best. Too few options will end up with less mutually agreeable times and too many options will make people select less. With my past experience, 5-7 dates will be ideal.

Once you’ve select your dates, you can click “next.” You will be able to specify time slots for each date. Or you can simply enter time slots for the first date and click “copy and paste first row.” Make sure your time slots can potentially accommodate people who have to work during the day and also keep the meal time in mind. It is extremely important that the facilitator herself/himself can make it to all the time slots you’ve put in.

Once you are done, click “next” and select “basic” to “finish” and your event is now scheduled. All you need to do is copy and paste the link provided saying “Send this link to anyone you wish to invite” to the emails you will be sending out to the participants. It is always a good idea to fill out the survey first yourself to see if it works. I would recommend checking all the time slots (since you’ve only put time slots you are available on the list). This, in economics terms, is setting an “anchor.” Participants, therefore, will be more likely to enter more slots.

Here is an example what the participants will see: http://www.doodle.com/rgderxx7h45i6ni2  You can click on the same link to check participants’ responses or you will receive an email after each respondent has answered if you’ve entered your email previously.

I also provided a list of topics for the participants to choose using survey monkey (many of you are already using). Again, setting an anchor by selecting all works well based on my experience: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/X236V78

You will be surprised by how many people actually have access to the internet nowadays, especially the student body. The entire scheduling process probably will take you ten minutes and you will get the maximum out of it. Some phone communication is still needed before setting up the doodle as you will need to know around which days there might be people available for discussions.

I hope this can save some of your time and make your scheduling more efficient.

Best,

Taiyi

I heard an interview with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor earlier this month. She talked about the importance of civic engagement in our democracy and her concern about the state of policy discussions in America. She was particularly concerned that people are not being taught how to think and evaluate policies. (And let’s face it, no one is born with it.) Indeed, we are not taught how to think about policy in our schools, our universities, or our increasingly polarized media. This poor civic knowledge and engagement weakens American democracy.

Jay Stern, the founder of the Interactivity Foundation, wanted to address this concern by facilitating and encouraging the development and thoughtful consideration of contrasting policy possibilities. We explore and develop a wide range of contrasting conceptual possibilities for public policy pertaining to our areas of concern in our sanctuary projects, and we then organize and facilitate discussions of them among the general public. The facilitators who conduct these discussions do not tell you what to think about policies pertaining to food, property, genetic technology, or work; which possibilities you should or should not support; or which congressman to call. They focus instead on the process of thinking carefully, critically, and seriously about the possibilities themselves. They focus, in other words, upon understanding the different concepts, principles, beliefs, values, interests, and goals that might motivate different policies; understanding how they relate to the possibilities themselves; exploring their possible implementations; and exploring their intended and unintended consequences (for more see Mark Notturno’s four part series on ‘How to Evaluate an IF Policy Possibility’). And they try to do this for each of the conceptual possibilities that we present in our reports.

But it is not an easy process. It is, first of all, very difficult to think conceptually. Most of us are focused upon the more practical everyday world and are unaccustomed to thinking about abstract concepts, principles, beliefs, values, interests, goals, and the reasoning behind them. And it is even more difficult to carefully and critically and seriously consider ideas that are fundamentally different from our own—especially because they just seem to be outright wrong.

But we do not try to show you that possibilities are either right or wrong in IF discussions. We do not try to change your mind. We simply provide a forum in which you can discuss—as opposed to debate—the different policy possibilities with your neighbors, and explore the possible ways of approaching important issues to our society.

To participate in a debate is to compete—to try to win an argument and defeat an opponent’s position. To participate in improvisation is to serve—to try to generate something new by sharing with others. Colbert talks about this in his recent Northwestern University commencement speech:

Now there are very few rules to improvisation, but one of the things that I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if they are the most important people in the scene, you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them. But the good news is that you’re in the scene too. So hopefully to them you’re the most important person, and they will serve you. No one is leading, you’re all following the follower, serving the servant. You cannot win improv.

And, I would add, you cannot “win” an Interactivity Foundation discussion. But if you participate as if your discussion partners are the most important persons in the room, you’ll pay more attention to the ideas they bring up and you’ll try to help flesh them out and develop them. And if everyone is serving each other like this, the result will be new ideas coming into the discussion, perhaps ideas that no one individual had fully foreseen.

Colbert says, “life is an improvisation. You have no idea what’s going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.” Making things up may sound like something fake or childish, like you’re just playing. But play can be serious and the means of creation. It can mean making something new, generating something, bringing something to be that wasn’t there before. And that’s what we’re after in an Interactivity Foundation discussion. Like improv we’re interested in creating something new, rather than knocking something down, as in a debate.

So if you’re wondering about how to participate in, or even facilitate, an Interactivity Foundation discussion, think about how you can serve the others in the discussion. Think of each other as the most important persons in the room. By paying attention to each other, following and playing with each other in this way, you’ll be on the way to building something together, creating something new.

For the closing segment of Colbert’s speech (though the whole thing is worth watching), check here: Closing Segment of Colbert\’s Commencement Speech 2011

–Jeff Prudhomme

Before IF’s public discussions even begin, facilitators can do a lot to ensure that discussion has a truly democratic character.  They can work to stimulate interest in public discussion among those who might not already appreciate it—or even know what it is.  This kind of outreach is likely to be ongoing and largely informal, but it’s critical.  So is getting the word out to all who might be interested, not just those with easy access to familiar modes of communication. Facilitators can and should do more than open the door to public discussion.  That’s their minimal responsibility.  They should make sure that people know what’s behind it.  IF’s mission isn’t just to hold discussions among those who happen to be right at hand, or easiest to invite, it’s to broaden the circle of those included.  That takes work, at least as much as actually directing the flow during a meeting.

Once public discussions are underway, the democratic work of the facilitator becomes more obvious, and is usually well-appreciated by all but the most talkative participants.  The catalogue of tasks includes the usual ones of ensuring that all get a chance to speak and that conversation remains civil.  But it really goes beyond that, because to qualify as “democratic,” a discussion must be among persons who treat each other as equals.  The facilitator can’t force that attitude on people, but can enforce behaviors that exemplify, reinforce, and sustain it.  In the end, it’s up to the facilitator to make sure that people not only have a chance to speak, but listen to each other.  And notice that, when they do, the discussion is likely to be far richer.  In this way, to promote “democratic” discussion is also to “enhance” it.

1. Facilitation is critical in public discussions of IF Citizens Staff Work Reports.  There is nothing “magical” about IF facilitators.  They are, however, trained and experienced in the IF Discussion Process, which is both highly interactive and centrally concerned with exploration and development.

2.  Small groups are likewise crucial.  Truly interactive discussion cannot take place once a group grows beyond a certain number of participants.  (In our experience the optimal number ranges from five to seven, though may go as high as a dozen.)  Additionally, while small groups operating in public cannot fully replicate a sanctuary setting, they can encourage creative and collaborative thinking by minimizing some participants’ feelings that they must “play to a crowd.”

3.  IF public discussions feature interactive discussion.  One measure of the usefulness of public discussion of IF’s Citizens Discussion Reports is the extent to which citizens engage in truly interactive discussion.  Small groups and IF facilitators cannot guarantee active, open, and collaborative discussion—but they can do much to foster and encourage it.  Emphasis on exploration and development also tends to promote interactivity in discussion.

4.  IF public discussions involve exploratory and developmental discussion.  In some cases exploration and development can be thwarted by a lack of focus, in others by advocacy or a felt need to come to a practical decision.  Here, too, starting with small groups and having an IF facilitator present help prevent these problems and ensure that discussion remains exploratory and developmental.  And just as an emphasis on exploration and development tends to promote interactivity, discussion marked by real interactivity will tend to be more exploratory and developmental.

As IF’s experience with small group public discussion of its Citizens Staff Work Reports continues to accumulate, this list will almost certainly be further developed and elaborated: the items already on it will be further refined and developed; perhaps other items not already on it will be added.

* For an earlier, expanded, version of this essay, see essay IF-2 at: http://www.interactivityfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Public-Discussion-paper.pdf

I found a recent example of this in Atul Gawande’s account of different programs designed to slow the accelerating costs of healthcare. Gawande’s New Yorker article, ”The Hot Spotters: Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care?,” recounts efforts to address the so-called “hot spots” of small numbers of very needy patients who generate a lion’s share of costs. In one case he describes, the health plan designers decided to increase co-pays for individuals as the way to reduce costs—reasoning that patients might slow their use of healthcare services if they had to bear a greater portion of the costs. This is a fairly common line of reasoning nowadays. It appeals to the notion of greater individual accountability for one’s own healthcare expenditures. If you have to pay a greater share of the costs, then you’ll think twice about whether you really need to go to the doctor. Makes sense, right? Yet in the case described by Gawande, costs continued to rise just as fast as before. It turns out that by shifting a greater cost burden to some of the most at-risk patients, especially retirees living on a fixed income, this led those patients to cut back on their medications and other services. By failing to keep up with more routine care or regular medication, the patients’ health degenerated and they ended up needing far more costly care.

The purpose of sharing a story like this with an IF panel is not to criticize a given policy approach. It’s to encourage the panelists to think about the different human situations that a policy might feed into. It’s to help them imagine how the policy might unfold differently for different groups of people, a reminder that we need to think beyond ourselves and how we might act. It’s to help us remember that consequences often unfold in ways we don’t intend. Often we have set beliefs about social realities or human behavior and we imagine things might simply evolve as we’d plan or predict. Having some examples of unexpected consequences, especially examples drawn from outside the topical area of a given project, can help to enrich panelists’ exploration of consequences.

–Jeff Prudhomme

Playing around with these different metaphors also can serve as a kind of imaginative warm-up for generative thinking. Often it’s hard for panelists to shift from thinking analytically in terms of exploring an area of policy concern to thinking generatively in terms of creating diverse policy responses to that area of concern. By engaging their imaginations in this way, panelists might find it easier to make connections and begin to construct policy possibilities that embody divergent visions of the policy area.

One way to get panelists moving in this direction is to have them generate a list of possible metaphors or analogies that express what an area of concern could represent or mean. In some cases this might work in regard to the whole topic or area of concern under discussion. For example, with the Genetics Technology project, panelists focused on generating metaphors for these technologies. With the project on the Future of the Family, the panelists generated different metaphors for “family” or what family might represent for society. With other topics, where the topic is more diffuse, it might work to focus on some key aspects of the policy area. For example, in the project on Civic Discourse (Helping America Talk), some of the metaphors focused on the phenomenon of discourse itself—exploring different visions of what the interchange of public discourse might mean. Other metaphors focused more on the content of that interchange, exploring, for example, different ways to think about what “information” or “knowledge” could mean (that is, the information that citizens might need to make informed democratic decisions).

One part of this exercise is for panelists to focus on generating a multiplicity of different metaphors. They can think of this as asking themselves, “What are different ways to convey what this topic represents?” or “What are different ways to picture the way this topic (or this reality) functions in our society?” It’s important for panelists not to get stuck on just one motif. Exploring different metaphors like this can help panelists avoid just thinking of one basic vision of the policy area (and what it represents) and then sketching out binary opposites in terms of policy approaches toward it.

Another part of this exercise is for panelists to explore how a given metaphor can lead to sketching out very different policy implications.  At first this may seem counter-intuitive. For example, with the Genetic Technology project, one of the most prominent metaphors was to think of these technologies as “playing God.” It seemed obvious, at first, to most panelists that the policy implication of this was to say that “playing God” is a bad thing to do—so the policy should be to prohibit or greatly restrict these technologies. Upon reflection, however, others pointed out that from another perspective people might feel called upon to be “god-like”—so “playing God” should be something we do. The policy implication of this would be to throw ourselves whole-heartedly into the development and use of these technologies. Similarly, in the Civic Discourse project, the metaphorics of “information as power” led to some policy notions of expanding participation in that power (universalize and expedite access to information, so the power is shared more equally in a democratic society)—and some policy notions that sought to consolidate or restrict that access to that power (restrict access to information to allow the government to govern more efficiently).  With every metaphor that comes up, panelists can almost always discover different ways to unfold the metaphor from the standpoint of different perspectives, perspectives they’ve likely uncovered in their earlier discussions.

To get panelists started, I’ve often found it helpful to bring up some metaphors from policy areas other than their own. This usually gets them moving. It gets them thinking about the big picture of what this area of concern (or some aspect of it) could mean. Once they get moving, the panelists can usually generate a lot of different metaphors, which in turn serve as a rich starting point for generating a diverse range of policy possibilities. If panelists try this out, they’ll likely find that playing around with these metaphors can give them a good start toward generating a number of contrasting policy approaches.

–Jeff Prudhomme

Some differences and similarities between the public and classroom discussion processes stood out for me. For example, in the public discussion, it was very difficult to find common understanding of some of the key terms and concepts required for discussion. In the classroom discussion, student groups built common understanding of topic concepts more organically and seamlessly through assigned readings – readings they used to frame questions and possibilities. In contrast, participants in the public discussion, many of them who were not college students, found the written document on Genetic Technologies read prior to discussion “too abstract” or “difficult to understand”. In addition, many struggled to accurately understand certain concepts such as “genetic susceptibility” or interpreted terms participants used in unique ways, making building common discussion ground problematic – especially in comparison to how classroom discussion got going.

One big similarity between the public and student discussion groups was how empowered participants reported they felt from thinking about problems on a conceptual level. Participants in the public discussion really enjoyed talking to fellow citizens and even more liked listening to others’ perspectives. Nobody had ever asked for their opinion or ideas before, they said. I did hear this sentiment from students in the IF course I taught, but not as frequently or with such veracity. At the same time, I am not sure what some of the citizen discussion participants will DO with the ideas they generated, whereas I know that the discussion process that occurred in the course I instructed last semester was a life-changing event for a few students.

What I now know that I didn’t know before is how important the facilitator is to a good discussion, and that to learn how to facilitate, you have to facilitate. Facilitating a public discussion opened my eyes to the value and difficulty of facilitating a good discussion – whether it is in ‘public’ or in the classroom.