I.F. Launches Partnership with Inclusive Dubuque

January 20, 2015 / Adolf Gundersen / Blog, Education, Public Discussion Blog

In December 2014 I.F. launched a partnership with “Inclusive Dubuque” (I.D.), a city-wide, network-based initiative involving upwards of 30 civic groups, major businesses, and institutions of higher learning. I.F.’s principal role will be to train facilitators. The partnership presents I.F. with an historically large opportunity: the chance to infuse an entire medium sized city with … Read more »

Read More civic engagement, democracy, learning by doing

‘The Best-Laid Plans…’

February 2, 2012 / Ieva Notturno / Blog

“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 that we enact on the local, state, and national levels affect individuals, groups, … Read more »

Is Online Relevance Killing Diversity?

October 18, 2011 / Ieva Notturno / Blog

I was somewhat naïve and, like many other people, believed that information flows on the Internet are still like the wild, wild west. But the reality is very different. If you and I google the same term—but differ in age, political views, gender, and browsing history—we would get different results. What’s so bad about this?

What Does It Mean to Develop a Policy Possibility?

September 8, 2011 / Ieva Notturno / Blog

What does it mean to develop a policy possibility? And why do we spend so much time doing it in our sanctuary projects? Most IF projects follow the same discussion process: the panelists first develop concerns that Americans may have about the issue; they then select the concerns that they think would be the most … Read more »

On Wisconsin

March 14, 2011 / Adolf Gundersen / Blog, Education

At its best, democracy isn’t just “rule by the people” or even “rule of, by, and for the people.” It’s rule by people who listen to each other. Wisconsin’s Republican leadership has turned a deaf ear to one house of the state legislature, muzzled the other, and muted the public unions. As a professional … Read more »

What’s a Conceptual Policy Possibility?

November 8, 2010 / Jeff Prudhomme / Education

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 sort of rule of action—in this case a rule for some collective or social action. Thinking about … Read more »

There are policy discussions and then there are policy discussions

November 4, 2010 / Ieva Notturno / Blog

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 ads, and their denigration of their opponents’ policies. The worst … Read more »

The Questions We Ask

September 17, 2010 / Ieva Notturno / Blog

At the dawn of western philosophy Socrates was asking questions in the Athenian agora. The whole of western thought has arguably been developed in search of answers to the questions he asked. But our understanding of philosophy and science has developed not so much in response to increasing evidence for the answers we have given, … Read more »

Citizen Staff Work Reports

July 6, 2010 / Mark Notturno / Blog

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 »

Posts tagged "democracy"