Harvesting what we already know about collaborative experiences and empowering groups to create collaborative guidelines Dear collaborative discussion friends, Welcome to the Collaborative Discussion Project Newsletter. In our first newsletter, we highlighted two...
Pre-program surveys Dear collaborative discussion friends, We are kicking off the new year with our first Collaborative Discussion Newsletter, highlighting a new Collaborative Discussion Toolkit activity each week. We have heard your feedback! Our open source...
Several Interactivity Foundation fellows have been selected to present at the National Council on Dialogue and Deliberation conference taking place in Reston, Virginia from October 17-21. On Friday, October 18, IF fellows will present: “Beyond the Crossfire:...
“Quite often good things have hurtful consequences. There are instances of men who have been ruined by their money or killed by their courage” Aristotle Actions have consequences. Whatever we do in both our private and public lives has consequences. The policies...
I am currently taking a special topics course on Citizenship Learning, Participatory Democracy, and Social Change. Even before starting the course, I knew I would be able to link much of what is studied in the class to things I have learned through my involvement...
One of the things that the Interactivity Foundation does is to teach people how to think about public policy possibilities. This will sound patronizing only if you misunderstand why, what, and how we do it. I heard an interview with former Supreme Court Justice...
Once you have a basic understanding of the policy possibility---what it says and what it doesn’t---the next step is to understand why someone might actually propose it. In order to do this, you will typically need to go beyond the description of the policy...
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.
Owen Coyle, a friend of over thirty years duration, passed away a week ago and the time since has been filled with memories of political collaborations and stories shared about our other adventures. The collaborations started with sharing the same office at the...