The Interactivity Foundation (IF) focuses upon three major discussion areas: sanctuary project discussions designed to develop public policy possibilities in our selected areas of concern, public discussions of the contrasting policy possibilities presented in our...
Within the Interactivity Foundation, and as part of our continuing and internal development, we frequently discuss how to make our conceptual possibilities more “useful” for public discussion. And related to that ongoing discussion, we’ve had a number of recent...
Interactivity Foundation Project Discussions aim at generating contrasting conceptual policy possibilities with the hopes of expanding and enriching public thinking about a complex area of social and political concern. You might think of a “policy” as providing a...
Election time is probably the time when people hear and talk about policy the most. So you may feel that you have already heard way too much about policy debates in recent months. And you may feel—just like me—completely disgusted with all the negative campaign...
What are IF public discussions like and how do they differ from other type of policy discussions? IF typically organizes a discussion series—usually 3 or 4 meetings—for small groups of people to explore the possibilities in our reports. The possibilities in our reports emanate from the different concerns, beliefs, values, goals, and interests that Americans might have about an area of concern. They thus present contrasting possibilities that emanate from conceptual differences. We ask our participants to try to consider the possibility from the perspective of someone who might propose it before they begin to assess it from their own perspective.
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...
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...
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...
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...
A recent Frontline episode (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=bigimage&utm_source=bigimage_) exploring the vaccine controversy was fascinating and suggests several openings by which a couple of our less...