IF reports and the public discussions of them are generally thought of as conceptual and horizonal in the sense that they attempt to be anticipatory and transcend specific problems and particular solutions. A former panelist from the “Democracy Project” approached...
I feel like we have come a long way in our public discussion efforts, but still need development of some further sense of how we could learn from them. James Schneider has set up some structure for tracking discussions, but it does not seem like we are utilizing it...
The Fellows’ recent discussion of “going public” issues again reminded us of the many ways in which we can get our “product” and process out into circulation in the broader governance conversation. We have something to offer and it makes little sense to “hide our...
Opportunities for discussion of IF materials present themselves in a variety of settings that are not directly organized by IF. Organizations are often looking for public interest programming and are accustomed to scheduling presentations at luncheons, conferences,...
Part One of this perspective focused on some issues relating to the scale of our reports (meta or more bounded), their relation to specific deliberative constituencies (tailoring or meeting demand), timing as a matter of discussion relevance, and capitalizing on...
IF’s initial developmental plans for its policy possibility reports included the loosely described phase of “going public”. This left the door open to a number of potential approaches to getting the reports themselves and the underlying deliberative process before...
Wisconsin’s ongoing protests provide many interesting lessons for a former advocate-turned deliberative practitioner. How does a facilitator/alternative dispute resolution professional come to find himself carrying a sign and singing songs of solidarity? Was I, as...
A recently concluded “developmental” discussion of energy possibilities reinforced many of the lessons learned about the benefits of repeat participation of those familiar with IF process and materials. That same discussion series also reinforced the developmental...
No, this is not a “how to” on furniture design. It is more in the spirit of how to cross-recruit for both IF project panel discussions and citizen discussions of IF reports (though much of this would work in deliberative discussion generally). My “bench” is that...
IF’s ongoing experience with public discussion has provided us with many lessons learned about what works for our facilitators and our participants in discussing conceptual policy possibilities. As practitioners in the deliberative field, these lessons learned...