Dear friends, it is with sadness that we begin the new year with the news of Cole Cambell's passing. Cole Campbell was a leading voice in the field in of public journalism and his talents and energies in service of bringing about a more deliberative democracy in the United States will be missed. Cole left us on January 5th as the result of an automobile accident in Reno, Nevada where he was Dean of the Donald W. Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada. Please visit DDC member Patty Dineen's reflections on Mr Campbell's life at the d-d.net blog: http://www.deliberative-democracy.net/blog/?p=187

A heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to this edition of the eBulletin.

lars hasselblad torres
editor@deliberative-democracy.net

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1 | [Deliberation] New Orleanians Give Resounding Endorsement to City-wide Recovery Plan
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On January 20, nearly 1,300 New Orleanians gathered for Community Congress III, a large-scale public meeting that took place simultaneously in New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. This unique interactive meeting designed and facilitated by AmericaSpeaks connected New Orleanians at home with friends and neighbors who have not yet made it home through the use of Internet webcast technology to create a collective opportunity to review and give final input on the draft Unified New Orleans Plan before it is sent to city leaders. More than 90% of participants approved of the draft plan, lending support to the city's recently commissioned "recovery czar."

Access the UNOP website and a copy of the preliminary report at: http://unifiedneworleansplan.com

2 | Critical Perspectives reviewed by Harvard Educational Review
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[From Americans for the Arts] Critical Perspectives: Writings on Art and Civic Dialogue, edited by Pam Korza and Caron Atlas and including an introduction by Lucy Lippard, was featured and reviewed in the fall 2006 issue of the Harvard Educational Review. Comprised of 12 essays from three Animating Democracy Lab projects, Critical Perspectives deepens understanding of arts-based civic dialogue work through the engagement of multiple writers -- arts writers, a journalist, community participants, anthropologists, a sociologist, a storyteller, historians, and project directors -- as they approach each project from their unique vantage points.

Read the full review here: http://www.hepg.org/her/issue/4

3 | Charter 88 and the New Politics Network Launch "Talk Democracy"
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[From Unlock Democracy Newsletter] Unlock Democracy has teamed up with the Electoral Reform Society, Hansard Society and Make Votes Count to launch Talk Democracy. Talk Democracy is an open space for people to share their views and co-ordinate their work in the area of democratic renewal and reform. As well as providing users with a series of forums on topics ranging from electoral reform through to citizenship education, we have also provided a space for people to promote activities and initiatives for things going on in their part of the country.

Visit http://www.talkdemocracy.org.uk/talk to register.

4 | Demos [NY] Hosts Paul Loeb, Author of "Soul of A Citizen"
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Demos will hostPaul Rogat Loeb, author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time and The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, in a discussion of ways to overcome barriers to engaging our fellow citizens. The discussion will take place Thursday, February 1 at 12:15 at the Demos offices in New York City. The late Susan Sontag called Loeb "a national treasure" for his work on courage and conscience. Of The Impossible Bill Moyers wrote, "This book can even make one hopeful about the future despite so many signs to the contrary." And Arianna Huffington writes, "Put away your Prozac and pick up The Impossible Will Take a Little While."

Learn more and register online at: http://www.demos.org/page179.cfm

5 | Communication Across Cultural Difference in a Democracy: Australian Scholars Will Study Muslims and the Mainstream
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This research effort headed by Professor John Dryzek and Dr Bora Konra will study the relationship between Islamic communities in Australia and the wider society in the context of ideas about cultural difference and democracy. The degree to which Australian Muslims develop a sense of belonging and social responsibility towards mainstream society is directly linked to the level of their inclusion as well as participation in Australia's multicultural scheme. The main claim to theoretical innovation of the proposed research is the role of social learning in deliberation in a diverse and democratic society. The empirical substance will consist of interviews with both Muslims and non-Muslims, with a view to mapping and analysing discourses about difference and democracy in Australia. The knowledge generated can then be deployed to identify exactly how communication across difference can be promoted in this kind of case.

Research will be conducted between January 2007-January 2010 at the Australian National University. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council.

6 | Conference Call Invitation: Learn About Austria's Award-winning Wisdom Council
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[From Wisdom Council News] Learn about the Wisdom Council process being organized by a regional planning office in Europe. On Thursday, January 25 at 9:00PST Manfred Hellrigl will share the story of their first Wisdom Council event in Wolfurt. From just this first effort the Wisdom Council was awarded a national prize of $30,000(!) for protecting the environment(!). In addition to Manfred's presentation and some question and answer time, you'll hear from others interested in implementing Wisdom Councils from around the country and abroad.

To join the call dial 1-620-782-8800 and enter the Participant access code 3962642#

7 | "Great Expectations" to Address How Philadelphia Might Become "The Next Great City"
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[From Americans for the Arts] The University of Pennsylvania's Project on Civic Engagement has launched a major initiative called "Great Expectations: Citizen Voices on Philadelphia's Future," which features a series of public forums and mayoral-election-related events to identify key issues Philadelphia needs to address in order to become "the next great city." A joint project of the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board and the university's Project on Civic Engagement, Great Expectations is bringing together hundreds of civic leaders and citizens to participate in more than two dozen forums scheduled regionwide at community centers, churches, hospitals, college campuses, and public libraries.

Learn more about "Great Expectations:" at: http://www.fels.upenn.edu/greatexpectations.htm

8 | The "Flattening" of Politics: Personal Democracy Forum at the 4th Annual Conference
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Hear a cast of unruly characters -- Thomas Friedman, Arianna Huffington, and Steve Urquhart along with stars of the political blogging world -- discuss how voter-generated content, new tools, and new campaign arrangements are changing the face of electoral politics in the US. Got questions about what Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama's announcements for candidacy via the web means for politics and media as usual? Bring those and a friend to this year's Personal Democracy Forum, May 18 at Pace University in New York City.

Learn more online at: http://www.personaldemocracy.com/conference/2007

9 | Art of Hosting Workshop on Public Engagement
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The newly formed Canadian Institute for Public Engagement is developing a series of learning events that support capacity development for individuals and organizations. CIPE is pleased to announce that their next event, "The Art of Hosting" workshop -- will feature several internationally acclaimed practitioners who are also accomplished engagement instructors. The workshop will be held just north of Ottawa, Ontario in early March. Space is limited and registration is on a first come first served basis.

For more information visit http://www.instituteforpublicengagement.org or email Richard Delaney, President, at richard@instituteforpublicengagement.org

10 | Deliberative Democracy in California
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February 23-24, 2007 Pepperdine University will host "Deliberative Democracy in California" cohosted with Common Sense California (www.commonsenseca.org), with additional sponsorship by New America Foundation. According to organizers, early successes in the practice of deliberative democracy show great promise, warranting a closer examination of deliberative democracy and how it might be useful in improving public policy in the Golden State.

The program will include presentation from pioneers in the field, including Dr. James Fishkin, director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University, Dr. Carolyn Lukensmeyer, director of AmericaSpeaks in Washington, D.C., and Dr. Steven Rosell, president of Viewpoint Learning in California. The program will also feature a report from the citizens assembly project in British Columbia.

For more information, email christina.ramirez@pepperdine.edu

11 | A Facilitator Training Guide from the Study Circles Resource Center
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[From StudyCircles.org] The Study Circles Resource Center has developed a second edition of A Guide for Training Study Circle Facilitators. The purpose of the guide is to enable trainers to prepare skilled facilitators to lead respectful and productive discussions that link to change on some of today's most pressing public problems. While the guide is designed to prepare leaders to facilitate study circle discussions that support and strengthen community change, it can also be used in training people to convene public meetings or workplace discussions of any kind that use small-group dialogue.

Learn more about the guide and order your copy here: http://www.studycircles.org/en/Article.496.aspx

12 | Experiments in Democracy on NPR's "Open Source"
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[From the Participatory Budgeting Discussion List] On October 25th, the NPR radio show Open Source featured a special show on "Experiments in Democracy,", with participation from Launi Guinier, Shoni Field (of the BC Citizen's Asembly), Daniel Kemmis (former mayor of Mizzoula, Montana), and participatory budgeting scholar Gianpaolo Baiocchi. According to the show's producers, back in September they, "introduced the idea of doing a show about race, class and voting with Harvard Law professor and voting rights activist Lani Guinie [and...] had an amazing conversation with Professor Guinier. A conversation that, as it turned out, had almost nothing to do with race and class. Instead, we spent an hour talking about "experiments in democracyâ" -- small but radical, hyper-local examples of people re-defining democracy to be more about civic participation and less about a few minutes in a voting booth. Specific examples she cited included a citizen assembly in Vancouver that redesigned British Columbia's election system, deliberative citizen roundtables in Los Angeles, and participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Hear the radio program at: http://www.radioopensource.org/experiments-in-democracy/

13 | New "Energy Problem" Discussion Guide from Kettering Foundation
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National Issues Forums and the Kettering Foundation have developed a new discussion guide for communities called The Energy Problem: Choices for an Uncertain Future. Like other National Issues Forums issue books, it is designed for small groups to deliberate on a difficult public question, in this case the choices before us as a nation when it comes to energy. The conversation is meant to go beyond left/right idealogies and get at the values we hold and why we hold them.

The issue book can be ordered for a nominal fee at http://www.nifi.org/discussion_guides/detail.aspx?catID=6&itemID=7743 and an abbreviated version is available herehttp://www.nifi.org/stream_document.aspx?rID=7786&catID=6&itemID=7784&typeID=8.

14 | "Digital Democracy" Working Group Chosen for National Science Foundation Support
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[From Moritz Law School News] A National Science Foundation-funded initiative to "build and sustain an international digital government research community of practice" has agreed to provide support for an international "digital democracy" research group to be co-chaired by Peter M. Shane and Stephen Coleman of the University of Leeds. Professors Shane and Coleman believe that the IWG will be the first formal research group under transatlantic leadership to focus on the use of online consultations to improve the quality of democracy. The IWG will study, specifically, how to evaluate the policy and other social impacts of government-run or government-supported solicitations of public input via the Internet with regard to public policy.

Learn more by visiting: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/news/newsrel.php?ID=147

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Lars Hasselblad Torres

editor@deliberative-democracy.net

For more news of interest in the field, please visit the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation at http://thataway.org/index.php/?cat=40