Tag Archives: generating possibilities
What makes IF reports unique?
By: Ieva Notturno
First, IF reports neither make recommendations nor aim for consensus. Most of the public policy reports produced today end with a list of things that must be done to avert Armageddon. It is true that IF reports often include lists of ‘possible implementations’, but they are—as the title suggests—mere illustrations of how a conceptual possibility Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged conceptual possibilities, Discussion Reports | Leave a comment
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Development of Possibilities in “Difficult” Policy Areas
By: Dennis Boyer
Despite warnings from colleagues and apoplectic reactions from partisans of various stripes, I have been working during the last year to see if it is possible to develop general starting points for discussion of climate change. These efforts first came together as I followed an informal group engaged in study and discussion of what might Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged citizen discussions, conceptual possibilities, contrasting possibilities, discussion process, Public Discussions | Leave a comment
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IF Discussion Reports as Lightweight Batons
By: Adolf Gundersen
IF’s public discussion Reports are akin to the curricular materials that all teachers rely on—with two critical differences. First, citizens–no less than experts—have a say in what IF Reports say. Second, and even more importantly, the end of IF Reports is to serve as an object of exploratory group discussion rather than individual study. This Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged citizen discussions, conceptual possibilities, Discussion Reports, Public Discussions | Leave a comment
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Citizen Staff Work Reports
By: Mark Notturno
One of the core aspects of IF is that the policy possibilities in our discussion reports are not developed by politicians and policy wonks, but by citizens for their fellow citizens. Our project facilitators are charged with seeing that our panelists focus upon conceptual possibilities (the ‘what-to-do’) instead of practical possibilities (the ‘how-to-do-it’), and with Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged civic engagement, democracy, governance | Leave a comment
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CONCEPTUAL CHECKLIST–For Reference During Sanctuary Projects
By: Adolf Gundersen
IF Fellows maintain a more-or-less continual conversation about how to improve sanctuary projects so that they produce Public Discussion Reports better able to spur truly exploratory public discussions. A perennial focus of our discussions is with making sure that the policy possibilities in the Reports contain real contrasts. Contrast can be heightened in many ways, Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged conceptual possibilities, discussion process, Project Discussions | Leave a comment
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Social Psychology: A Public Policy Blind Spot?
By: Sue Goodney Lea
A recent NOVA episode (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/money/) pits the rational actor theorists within the discipline of Economics against the behaviorists. As a sociologist, I’ve always been more partial to the behaviorists’ approaches (like Gladwell and the Freakonomics folks) since I think that they better interpret the complexity of human behavior that both drives and reacts to economic endeavors. Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged civic engagement, conceptual possibilities, democracy | Leave a comment
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What is Possible about a Policy Possibility?
By: Dennis Boyer
One of IF’s ongoing tasks is to find the most useful scale and tone for the possibilities in its reports. While we have learned a great deal about how to present possibilities and discuss them, we are still grappling with a number of questions about the relation of our work product to our goal of Read more »
Posted in Perspectives | Also tagged citizen discussions, civic engagement, conceptual possibilities, Public Discussions | Leave a comment
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October 7, 2009
Using IF with a Group of Faculty
By: dswoboda
I wanted to share my recent experience about using the IF process with a group of faculty at my institution to discuss changing general education requirements. When I attended the 2009 Summer Institute, I considered how to implement IF into venues other than classroom settings or citizen discussions such as meetings of faculty committees or Read more »
Posted in Education | Also tagged educational implications, facilitation, higher education | Leave a comment
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September 11, 2009
Dealing with Personalities
By: mgettings
I’m into week two of my IF-oriented course, and I’ m learning more everyday. On Tuesday we had our first official IF-style discussion. I had to bite my tongue often as I suspected, and allow them to generate ideas. I could think of half a dozen objections to each of the ideas they proposed, and I Read more »
Posted in Education | Also tagged art, conceptual possibilities, participation, shy participants | Leave a comment
If An Idea Does Not Sound Absurd, Then There’s No Hope For It
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