Thanks to everyone who contributed to this edition of the eBulletin. Please continue to share your news and updates from the field.

lars hasselblad torres
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editor@deliberative-democracy.net

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1 | IBM Launches Interactive Forum on the Future of Government Management
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What management issues will the new president face in 2009? What should he or she do about them? The IBM Center for The Business of Government would like your insights. These insights will be used to inform the Center's research efforts over the next two years as well as to inform the transition team of the winning presidential candidate. The forums starts with a forum on, "Reflections on 21st Century Government Mananagement," which contains essays by two distinguished public administration academics, Professors Donald F. Kettl, University of Pennsylvania, and Steven Kelman, Harvard University.

You are invited to read the essays and comment on them on through the Center's blog. The blog will be updated weekly with new questions each Monday. After the discussion period, there will be an opportunity to help prioritize the issues surfaced in discussion via a survey. The results of the discussions and surveys will contribute to the development of the IBM Center's research agenda later this year, as well as the Performance Coalition's dialog sessions planned for early 2008.

To download a copy of "21st Center Government Management" please go to:
http://www.businessofgovernment.org/main/publications/grant_reports/details/index.asp?GID=284

To visit the transition blog, go to: http://transition2008.wordpress.com/


2 | Virtual Workshop on Citizen Reporting of National Issues Forums
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On March 14, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. (Central Time) Marla Crockett, trained NIF moderator, veteran public radio and television journalist, and John Doble, seasoned reporter of public thinking based on National Issues Forums will lead a free online citizen journalism workshop for members of the Texas Forums and NIF network. The purpose of this workshop is to prepare volunteers to observe and report on NIF community forums. Participants will learn how to identify deliberation, listen for common ground and points that are unresolved, conduct post-forum interviews and write a quality report that will be used for the national report. For our first workshop, we will use the NIF Energy Issue as our guide.
To register and find out how to log into the Texas Forums virtual room, visit the Texas Forums Web Site (http://www.texasforums.org)

To order a copy of the Energy Problem issue book call 1.800.600.4060. A moderator guide and abbreviated issue guide is available at: http://www.nifi.org/discussion_guides/detail.aspx?catID=11&itemID=7743.


3 | An Invitation from the Center for Wise Democracy
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We'd like to invite you potential social investors volunteers to a special event, April 13-15, in Port Townsend, WA. This event is an opportunity to observe a Wisdom Council in progress, the third in a series convened by an alternative high school class. The Wisdom Council meets Friday night and Saturday, April 13-14. Observers will watch the proceedings on closed circuit video and, immediately following, have the opportunity to participate in a community gathering in the afternoon. On Sunday, participants willl meet with others interested in this social innovation, learn more about the Center for Wise Democracy, and explore ways to co-create an organizational model for a sustainable, democracy-changing effort.

Please get in touch with DeAnna Martin if you would like to attend deanna@wisedemocracy.org


4 | Deliberative Polling In Ireland and Italy
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There have been two recent international experiences with the Deliberative Poll technique pioneered by Professor James Fishkin of Stanford University. The most recent Deliberative Poll, "hearts and Minds," was held in Omagh, Northern Ireland on January 27. This exercise in deliberative democracy brought together a scientific random sample of parents to discuss public policy issues surrounding their children's education future. The Omagh Deliberative Poll -- which looked at issues such as facilities sharing, expanding the curriculum, and religious integration -- marks the first time a Deliberative Poll has been used in a deeply divided society. Watch a BBC report of the proceedings here: http://vodreal.stanford.edu/cdd/omagh.ram

A second Deliberative Poll was held late last year in Italy, where citizens of Regione Lazio participated in that country's first Deliberative Poll on health care, education and ethics in December. Gathered in the administrative building of Regione Lazio, 119 citizens discussed priorities for the region's budget and heard testimony from experts who helped them understand the tradeoffs around health and ethical finance.

Learn about both polls and more at: http://cdd.stanford.edu/


5 | Simon Fraser University Presents "Way of the Storyteller"
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What does it take to become a good storyteller? What might we do to cultivate our own capacity for storytelling and listening? These and other important questions about the place of storytelling in society will be addressed during Simon Fraser University's Dialogue Program on Friday, April 20 when renown storyteller Mary Gavan presents, "The Way of the Storyteller." Mary Gavan continues the Celtic tradition of sharing values and understanding through stories and through the interchange of listener and teller that occurs in dialogue.

For more information about these workshops, email dialogue-info@sfu.ca or call 604.268. 7694.


6 | Nexus for Change Conference: Advancing Participative Change Methods
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March 22 and 23 marks the Nexus for Change Conference in Bowling Green, Kentucky. The focus of the meeting will be to leverage the power of over 60 approaches to organization and community change as they tackle 21st Century Challenges. Each approach is broadly referred to as a large-group method/intervention, whole system change, or large-scale change process. Each shares two foundation assumptions: high involvement and a systemic approach to improvement. At Nexus for Change, organizers hope to tackle several issues, including: critical needs at local and global levels, expanding the reach of the methods around the world, design significant field research projects, and incorporate technology to leverage existing methods.

For more information please visit: http://www.nexusforchange.org/


7 | Second Edition of "The Change Handbook" Now Available
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The Change Handbook is a comprehensive guide to a wide range of methods of organization and community change designed for quick access to information from today's foremost practitioners of organizations and community change methods. The new edition describes more than 43 new change methods and includes new chapters on selecting a method, mixing and matching methods, and sustaining results. In the second edition, lead authors Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, and Steven Cady profile a total of sixty-one change methods, nineteen of which are explored in depth through case studies, answering many frequently asked questions that detail the roles and responsibilities of the people involved, conditions for success, and more.
For more information about "The Change Handbook," please visit: http://www.bkconnection.com/ProdDetails.asp?ID=9781576753798


8 | Comparing Online Models for ePetitioning
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Zebralog, a German nonprofit that helps governments and organizations make better use of tools for online dialogue, is leading the evaluation of a pilot project in edeliberation attached to the Bundestag. Zebralog was commissioned by the German Parliament's Office of Technology Assessment at the German Parliament (TAB) to conduct an evaluation of a pilot project designed to test the use of deliberative epetitions for parliamentary use and to define requirements for the public petitioning system beyond the year 2007. To date, the public response to epetition opportunities has been substantial: among the most publicised petitions, one that addressed the occupational situation of university graduates ("Generation Internship") attracted more than 48,000 signatories and garnered main stream media coverage.

The technical basis of public petitions at the Bundestag is a system that has been employed earlier by the Scottish Parliament and the local authorities of Bristol and Kingston in England. The study is run by Matthias Trénel (contact person) and Dr. Oliver Märker. They are supported by Prof. Dr. Volkmar Pipek of the Institute for Information Systems at the University of Siegen.

For more information about the study please visit: http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html


9 | eParticipation.com Launches iTV Service
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iCommunity.TV (http://icommunity.tv) is a new website launched by eparticipation expert Chris Haller and is envisioned as an online host for online dialogues. iCommunity.TV is a collaborative broadcast network for local news, built with the intention to promote video as a media for citizen reporting. As an aggregation platform iCommunity.TV ties into the popular video-sharing service Youtube.com, extends its offering by letting a broad audience georeference and sort video clips in news categories and offers multiple convenient ways to watch and subscribe to these custom channels (e.g. “Politics in Berlin, Germany”). All local feeds are available via KML and the page layout is adjusted to be conveniently viewed in Google Earth. iCommunity.TV is a service of eParticipation.com.

For more information please visit: http://iCommunity.TV


10 | Virtual Agora Project Results Available Online
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Peter Shane, Principle Investigator for the Virtual Agora Project and Joseph S. Pratt - Porter, Wright, Morris & Arthur Professor of Law at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Law and Policy Studies, has compiled a web site at http://virtualagora.org that provides brief summaries of the project’s methods and some of its key findings, as well as a discussion of its software development component and a bibliography of relevant writings. The Virtual Agora Project, launched in the Fall of 2002 at Carnegie Mellon University, sought to develop and test video, audio, and text-based tools to support collaborative information sharing and structured public discussion about civic issues. Full project results are available at the website of the political scholar Peter Muhlberger at http://www.geocities.com/pmuhl78.