When we think of policies in this way, we move policy discussion from province of technocrats to the everyday realm of democratic citizens. Of course, in an IF project we’re not talking about telling the sort of detailed stories you might find in a novel or even a short story. We’re talking about providing a basic storyline for the public actions that might be taken by our society in dealing with an area of public concern. That’s what we have in mind with calling these “conceptual” policies—we’re focusing on the basic storyline, not nuanced plot details. Such a storyline might tell essentially who would do what—and why—letting us know the motivations for the actions and the thinking or values behind them.

Setting out a basic storyline like this can help to make clear the orientation our society might take toward an area of concern. A story presents for our consideration a way of being, a way of orienting ourselves to possibilities. If we think of describing policy possibilities in this way, we might find it easier to leap into the task of imagining them. And once they’ve been generated, we might also find it easier to share them with others, if we approach them as essentially different stories our society might tell.

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

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

The exploration of consequences can also help a panel to uncover deeper conceptual connections among the various possibilities they’ve developed. Sometimes when a group is looking through the lens of a given policy approach, they realize that the world they’re describing basically matches what they described with a different possibility. The panelists might realize that what appeared to be two or three distinct policy approaches, actually amount to the same basic policy approach, embodying the same philosophy of action. What initially appeared to be two or three different policies could be rewritten as one, perhaps at a deeper conceptual level.

This very thing happened in recent project discussion. I won’t go into the topic, since it’s part of a current sanctuary discussion. But it was interesting for all of us to see the lights go on during the meeting. We had just worked through the consequences for one possibility and had started in on the next, when someone remarked, “these seem to be the same consequences as we were just discussing.” Someone else responded, “it seems like these policy ideas are basically getting at the same thing, so maybe there’s some way to combine them.” A half hour later there were similar observations about a third possibility. We ended up the session with a sense of how these three possibilities could be combined—and with a sense of how the new unified possibility could be presented in more conceptual terms.

–Jeff Prudhomme

In the Helping America Talk project on civic discourse, the panelists developed a couple of policy ideas that relied on the broad notion of incentives and disincentives. One policy idea relied on the supposition that the quality of public deliberation could be improved if the participants faced the prospect of gaining or losing something based on the quality of the ideas they brought forward. If the ideas they contributed to the public discussion turned out to be genuinely useful, then there ought to be the prospect of some kind of reward. The panelists brought up the notion of a financial reward, but they also talked about the importance of social recognition. They pointed out that reputation tracking systems (such as one finds in online social networks) could be one means of fostering this sort of accountable public thinking with the prospect of social acclaim as a reward for “being right” or thinking well, or a loss of social status as a penalty for “being wrong.”

At the time, more than a few of the panelists thought these ideas, especially of non-financial incentives, might not go over very well in subsequent citizen discussions. They worried that their fellow citizens might see this approach as unrealistic. But a recent public radio story, “Gamifying the system to create better behavior,” indicates their incentive ideas might have been on the right track. The story recounts how Sweden has set up a successful positive reinforcement program to encourage safe driving. They have speed cameras that catch speeding automobiles, but the non-speeders are also caught being good: for safe driving your tag number is put into a lottery to win a portion of the fines paid by the speeders.

This sort of “game playing” approach, or “gamification,” is intended to help people engage in civic space as active and thoughtful problem solvers, just as they’d engage in a game. The  incentives need not be primarily financial—and not even financial at all.  Gabe Zicherman, who has written on this gamification approach in marketing, uses the acronym “SAPS” to explain the hierarchy of incentives to which people respond:

SAPS stands for Status, Access, Power and Stuff. Zichermann says those are things people want in their lives as rewards — in that order. “It turns out,” he says, “that cash isn’t that good of a reward. Status is a fantastic motivator for getting people to do stuff.”

So the next time Interactivity Foundation discussion panelists start thinking of policies with incentives and disincentives, that’s a good time to remember the value of positive reinforcements rather than just negative ones. And it’s a good time to remember that it’s not all about the money. It turns out that money, or material reward, is likely not the most powerful motivator for civic behavior. It’s a good time to encourage panelists to think broadly about what might really motivate us as democratic citizens to act in certain ways.

–Jeff Prudhomme

The dangers of influence.  The Columbia Mission Management Team had members in positions of greater authority who exerted influence over the deliberations of others. In the actual working of their group, a person in a position of authority would express a strong position and then ask for others to respond. This preliminary expression of authority essentially closed off the exploration of alternative possibilities. Technically speaking, Interactivity Foundation discussion panels don’t have members with authority over others. However, some participants, perhaps by sheer force of personality or by speaking from knowledge on a given topic, can accrue authority within the group. This isn’t bad in and of itself. However, discussion panels need to be wary about the tendency of such expressions of authority to shut down or close off the group’s explorations.  It’s important for outspoken panelists to be sensitive about their behavior and how it can preemptively close off the discussions—and how this can lead a group to think poorly.

The need to embrace diversity and dissent. The Columbia Mission Management Team failed in part because they stressed the need for consensus. The group essentially started with a set conclusion—that even if there was a problem (from a missing panel during the launch), there was nothing that could be done about it (a mistaken assumption). This meant the Mission Management Team shut down contrasting points of view, since the main task was just to establish and reinforce consensus for this position. This stymied the ability of others in the group to come up contrasting possibilities of what could be done before Columbia tried to land (it broke up on re-entry). Our discussion panels similarly need to embrace dissent and divergent perspectives in order to open up their group exploration of useful and contrasting policy possibilities—regardless of whether these possibilities are perceived as a matter of popular consensus.  Further, the panels need to be careful to keep an open mind rather than starting with a preconceived limitation about what is or isn’t possible.

Of course, the life-and-death consequences of the Columbia disaster is a stark contrast to the low risk endeavor of an Interactivity Foundation sanctuary discussion project. It’s a good reminder, however, of what it takes for the groups in our projects to think well.

Exactly what makes a policy possibility worthwhile to discuss is another question. But there are some very old policy possibilities that are worth discussing. There are, indeed, many old ideas in other fields—such as history, philosophy, and mathematics—that are worth discussing over and over again. This is especially true in politics. And it also holds true for public policy possibilities. This is because public policy possibilities emanate from the values, beliefs, goals, and interests that people have. They may have been first proposed years ago. But people may not know about them or may have never considered them seriously. ‘Don’t involve yourself in expensive foreign wars’ is a policy idea that can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. But each generation has to rediscover it for themselves.

IF creates opportunities for people to engage in a thoughtful and civil exploration of governance concerns and policy possibilities that are sometimes as old as the hills, but are often fundamentally different from what our public discussion participants believe ought to be done. We value ideas and policy possibilities that address governance concerns that are ‘over the horizon’, that are more conceptual in nature and have a long-term perspective. But we also think that our current policies—or the ‘status quo’—are worth discussing. And we understand that what is status quo for one person may be uncharted territory for another—and that a major concern for one person may not even be worth discussing for another.

Many policy wonks in DC talk as if the only policy possibilities that worthwhile to discuss are those that advocate their own concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests. They are always quite ready to tell you what is and is not worthwhile to discuss. We aim to explore and developed a wide range of contrasting policy possibilities for public discussion. If one of our project panelists regards a certain governance concern or policy possibility as worthwhile to discuss that, from our perspective, makes it worthwhile to discuss.

I’m not quite sure whether this is a new and original idea, but I think it’s a good one even if it’s not.

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

My answer was three-fold. First, the panelists get intellectual enjoyment from their discussions. Our discussion process focuses on the generation, exploration, and development of contrasting conceptual policy possibilities. This is a very creative process, and many panelists find it enjoyable. Second, the panelists often acquire a deeper and fuller understanding of the area of concern as well as a deeper and fuller knowledge of the possibilities for public policies pertaining to it. Third, the panelists perform a public service for their fellow citizens. Our reports are prepared by citizens for other interested citizens to discuss. They are doing staff-work for the public—just like the people on senate, congressional, and military staffs do staff work for our senators, congressman, and military leaders—and it helps to improve our democracy.

This is my perspective about what is in it for our panelists. But what is yours? I am especially interested to hear what former panelists have to say. (You do not have to identify yourself, we honor our confidentiality agreements).

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