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SEDL Health Care Survey

Anonymous — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:36:44 CST

Texas Healthcare Workers Wanted for Disability-Related Study
Are you a person with a disability who lives in Texas and works in health care? Or, do you work in health care with someone who has a disability? If so, researchers from the Disability and Business Technical Assistance Center, or “Southwest ADA Center” (www.dlrp.org), and SEDL, would like to interview you. Participants will receive a gift card of $25 for their time. You do not have to travel anywhere.
Please call Kathleen Murphy, PhD at 1-800-476-6861, or send email to dbtac@sedl.org

For more information you can also visit: (http://www.sedl.org/expertise/disability_research.html)

Higher Education and Community Engagement

TexasTaylor — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:43:18 CST

Ideas to explore in (note, I made up names just to have a placeholder. Organizers who decide to do any of these will likely change the name, nature and scope):

Higher Education Collaborating for Community: Bring in a guest speaker (perhaps Nancy Thomas) to speak and then host a luncheon with representatives from universities and community colleges
Higher Education Breakfast Clubs: There is already a core group representing four institutions that recently met for breakfast and will be meeting again in April. Perhaps groups of people with similar interests or schedules would decide to meet on a semi-regular basis to continue cross-pollination started at the "Collaborating for Community" event. This would be the basis for a learning community.
Symposium: Highlighting higher education community engagement activities similar to the University of Illinois symposium I blogged about
Day-long workshop on Innovative Community Engagement Projects in Higher Education

Who is in the Texas Forums network and beyond and might be interested in joining together to explore higher education and community engagement?

Hannah Gourgey, E3 Alliance and Adjunct Faculty UT
Thomas Darwin, UT Office of Professional Development and Community Engagement
Donald Christian, Dean of the College of Business, Concordia University and Thinking About Leadership Blogger
Patricia Wilson, Professor, University of Texas at Austin, Graduate Program in Community and Regional Planning, Faculty Associate in the Institute of Latin American Studies
Vicki Totten, Associate Academic Dean, St. Edward's University
Windy Lawrence, Assistant Professor of Communication, University of Houston Downtown
Marquis Williams, Austin Community College
Vanessa Sarria, Community Action Network
Dr. Betty Sue Flowers, LBJ Presidential Library

2.27.09 Spoke with Windy Lawrence. She is interested in bringing Nancy Thomas from The Democracy Imperative to Texas to speak in Austin and then in Houston. We need to write a proposal this weekend. We are looking at late April before finals.

08-09 Events

TexasTaylor — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:55:19 CST

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Testing

TexasTaylor — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:54:31 CDT

Medical records, MySpace and Facebook, and government are all issues that focus group participants suggested when I asked about privacy. While these issues seem unrelated, privacy is a large and nebulous concept that applies to almost every aspect of life. When asked, almost every person thought of a different facet. This made doing research on privacy challenging. In the electronic database EBSCO Academic Search Premiere, 6,753 results were returned when "privacy" was searched for as a subject. Some of the top results were articles about advertising, medical outsourcing, and Google. Knowing which of these articles would be helpful to post on the Privacy Framing Wiki was tricky. They could all be relevant depending on how focus group participants felt about the issue. I tried to use my best judgment and post articles that were fairly general or could give insight into our process of framing a discussion around privacy. I also worried about posting too many academic articles because they may not be easily accessible to librarians working in other environments. I considered posting the PDF of the articles, but then worried about licensing and copyright issues. Finding resources about the process of framing was also tricky. Most were overly simplistic or about a study where framing was used. Some were also written with a clear political agenda. Again, I tried my best to post potentially helpful articles. I enjoyed researching different methods of clustering ideas from the focus groups. The most simplistic way I found was to use tag clouds, such as TagCrowd, to cluster words from the groups. From this the main ideas of the discussion can be gathered. If this method is chosen for analyzing the content of focus groups, I think it makes the most sense to run a tag cloud for each group, pick out the key ideas from that groups, and then compare against others. This will give a general sense of the issues important to interviewees. Some of the other tools are more sophisticated and may yield greater results, but also require more time to learn how to use the software correctly. Conducting focus groups was a rewarding experience because it not only allowed me to add new perspectives to the mix for the project, but also exposed me to different opinions about privacy. It was difficult to know how much information from the focus groups to post to the wiki. Some people only posted a sentence snippet for each question. I wanted to make sure to post enough of an answer that if clarification or deeper meaning was needed, it could be drawn from the responses. Overall, it was difficult to work on this project without much guidance. I wasn't exactly sure what the other members of the project expected. This could be because the project wasn't far enough along to know yet. This kind of research is constantly evolving especially when relying on public opinion to shape the direction. Additionally, no other members of the wiki posted comments about any of the additions I made. I don't think the wiki was as collaborative as it could have been. Maybe comments and edits will pick up as the project progresses. It would be nice if the group held more regular meetings or more feedback was provided. This would have allowed me to gain a better understanding of the end goals. I hope my contributions to the project add value. I look forward to meeting at ALA Annual, if possible, to assist with the clustering and next steps.

Achievement Gap

TexasTaylor — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 11:04:32 CST

This space is for Texas Forums, E3 Alliance, Austin Voices for Education and Youth, United Way and other partners who join us to contribute their thoughts, research, questions, ideas, and record of this project.
This page may have to migrate to its own wetpaint site.

For more information about this project:

Framing the issue for Central Texas

I've set up a separate wiki to develop the localized version of this framework.

9.14.07: The guide is done. Here is is!!!

Getting Organized

What are the categories (pages) we need to set up for keeping track of this project?

forum schedule (calendar)
research / evaluation
reports from forums
partner contact information
materials

slide shows
links to issue briefs
graphics we can use for our issue book and web sites

This is our playground. Our web sites are our more formal face to the world. How do we keep this from being duplicative? What materials do we put here? Rough drafts that we want to put out for comment and then finalize and post to our web sites?

Should we start a wetpaint site JUST for Achievement Gap? Yep, Done here!
[1.18.08 We never migrated to the new site. I will try to delete it.]

Kettering Foundation research agenda:

According to Kettering:
"This research is designed to better understand what people do as a result of participating in forums that address the gap in achievement between minority and non-minority public schools studentst? How do forum participants rename the problem? How do they think the problem should be solved? What do participants say they are willing to do? Their hypothesis is that the renaming of this problem will be dependent on the socio-economic circumstances of the schools and the communities where forums take place. And since communities will rename the problem differently, there will be divergent views and strategies for how to address the problem."

BUT...There doesn't seem to be a research protocol for answering this question, nor are there adequate support systems for gathering the data and ensuring the consistency and quality of the data.

1. 18. 08 First six sites completed!!!
Final report on the project
Final report submitted to the Kettering Foundation

What now for Extreme Democracy

TexasTaylor — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 11:13:58 CDT

Thanks to Frank for agreeing to summarize our notes on this page and lead a discussion about next steps at our next meeting on October 1 at 7:00 p..m. Central Time in the TF OPAL Room.

Click here for summary and suggested agenda for the October 1, 2007 7pm CDT discussion.

_____________________

Civic Entrepreneurship

This is an idea originally posted on theKnight Foundation Ideas page:
I would like to organize a team of citizen scholars to study civic entrepreneurship with me. This may beseparate from the continuation of the Extreme Democracy series, but I offer it here as a possibility. (blog postings, full text of the fellowship)

These are a combination of ideas specific to civic entrepreneurship with some other interest areas that are only peripherally related! (It's the laundry list I gave the producer who invited me to be interviewed for a podcast.)

Social Entrepreneurship
Public Institutions and Accountability
Public Engagement
Citizen engagement
Citizen journalism
The role (potential) of social media / technology in democracy (“Extreme Democracy)
Libraries, museums, community foundations, public media and democracy
Art, documentaries and the community engagement components that “get us off the couch”
Technology in Democracy and public engagement (democracy online, e-democracy, etc.)
The gift economy and democracy
Distinguishing civic vs. social capital
What emerging democracies are doing that are instructive to us - invite my Russian colleagues to speak?
Literacy and civic capital (article in Library Journal forthcoming)
Telling the hidden American Story (Bradley’s “new” - I distinguish a bit differently)
Free Media – broad band saturation and my Fiber to the Library project in CA, also net neutrality from my work with Bill Moyers
Deliberative democracy

_________________________

Extreme Democracy Projects

Name change: I understand the reason for the name, but I don’t think it communicates well to the general public, and I think that it may frighten some.

Response: It wasn't the NAME that frightened me off, but the discovery that Extreme Democracy wasn't real
Democracy (i.e. where the people play the legislative role themselves). Fix that, and I think you'd attract a lot
more attention.

Conference: This project has never had a physical conference that I’m aware of. I think it’s time for one. I would propose that we host it here in Austin as we seem to have some energy around the subject. What type of conference? At this point, I’m torn between two extremes. One is a conference of those working in the various areas to exchange information, build collaborations and advance the state of the art. The other is one whose purpose is to teach others about the tools and how to use them.

Training/Seminars: This would be a vehicle to teach the tools, techniques and applications. It could be physical on web based. If we charged for these, it could provide some income for the effort. Maybe…if there is any real interest now. That’s something I don’t have a real sense of – just how much demand is there?

Book: We could organize and write a new book.

Book discussion series: Continue the format only with other books and articles. This would have to be a team effort if we wanted this to be a weekly series via the web. Probably about 5 or 6 people so that any one person would only handle one a month.

Discussion series: Same as above except it would be like a salon – open to any topic that someone wanted to bring up. Again, it would still need 5 or 6 people to moderate.

Interview series: Interviews via the web of people working on projects in the field. Again a team of people.

Collaboration: Collaborative development of the structure and processes to operationalize extreme democracy. Development of diffusion program.

Research: Research into the current and future utilization of the tools and techniques.

Organization: If we wanted to get more formal about this and be able to receive funding, we’ll probably need to form a nonprofit organization, association or a consortium. Or, make this a formal program of an existing one.

Multimedia Presentation: really slick mulitimedia presentation that effectively communicates the power of the technology.

Infrastructure: The social technologies don't really have an agenda although many people would ascribe an agenda to the technologies. But...as a Marshall McLuhan advocate, they do alter the way that we perceive, think and act. As McLuhan said, "The medium is message." And, indeed it is. Perhaps our role could be to provide the infrastructure for the technologies to be used for change. One way that could be done is to build the baddest web site around on the social technologies and their applications. This could be a resource for those with agendas or candidates or issues to use effectively in their pursuits. We would be contributing to the development of that altered perception...

Book Chapter: Write a chapter for the upcoming book - Handbook of Research on Electronic Collaboration and Organizational Synergy, Editors: Janet Salmons, Ph.D. and Lynn Wilson, Ph.D. They do not have a chapter on the use of technology in democratic processes, but would like one. It's a very short deadline, but I think we could get an extension (10/15). To find out more read the Guidlines.

Paul

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Structure for Extreme Democracy?

It seems to be that the structure for extreme democracy is composed of principles, goals, systems & tools, and applications.

We have in our definition of our American democracy – of, by and for the people. While I’ve said this many times, I’m still not quite sure what it means. But, it seems to be related to the goals. And, the three goals I see for extreme democracy are:

1. Democracy: Participative, deliberative, grass roots, collaborative, one to one, open democracy, or many other descriptive terms for a broader involvement (of the people).

2. Partisan: Political campaigns for people to represent us (by the people)

3. Advocacy: Activism, issues related goals (for the people)

These three sets of goals are vastly different.

Extreme democracy then has to have systems and tools to satisfy those goals.

The tools are all the social software programs in use and being developed to foster the applications - communications, collaboration, conversation, deliberation, attraction, affinity, documentation, research, etc.

For me, if I can gain understanding of this three dimensional matrix, then I can begin to develop strategies and plans for the dissemination of the parts. And, of course, it needs a set of principles to guide everything.

I’d really like to hear for you. What do you think of the structure? What are some more of the elements? How can we begin to complete the matrix?

Paul
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Systems

These are some systems to think about: There appears to be a matrix of possible social change. The approach can be tops down or bottoms up. Tops down is represented by the social entrepreneurship models. Bottoms up is represented by the extreme democracy models. But, you can also instigate social change by working to change people {inside to outside) or by working on systems (for example) (outside to inside). And, technology can be applied to all four of the resulting approach methods. This reminded me a change model that is interpreted through personality temperaments: SJ (sensor judge in MBTI) – guardians, NF (intuitive feelers) – idealists, SP (sensor perceptive) – artisans, and NT (intuitive thinkers) – rationalists. The change model says that there are four stages of change for groups of people – denial, resistance, exploration and commitment. The process starts with the denial; this is represented by the guardians of the past who fear the new. It then moves to resistance personified by the idealists who fear the disruption of established relationships. This is followed by exploration that is typified by the artisans who use their creativity to try many different options. The process ends with commitment personified by the rationalists who design the future. However, because of Gödel’s law, every system that has been rationalized and closed leaves residual errors, the process starts all over again. Somehow, these two systems are related but I can’t see it yet. The last system to consider is the seven capacities of the U movement from Presence. It follows the change process model somewhat. It doesn’t appear to have the guardian’s part. Suspending and redirecting are functions of idealists (poets). Letting go and letting come are functions of the artisans. Crystallizing, prototyping and institutionalizing are roles of the rationalist.

The U movement definitely is committed to an inside outside methodology. Some things to think about and talk about…

Paul
________________________________

A Summary of the Movement Action Plan (MAP) Model for Organizing Social Movements

From pages 17-25 of Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times, by Berit Lakey, George Lakey, Rod Napier and Janice Robinson, as posted on the TRAINING FOR CHANGE website:

http://trainingforchange.org/content/view/133/39/. T

he MAP model is set forth in the book Doing Democracy: The MAP Model for Organizing Social Movements by Bill Moyer with JoAnn McAllister, Mary Lou Finley and Steven Soifer (New Society Publishers, 2001: website: www.doingdemocracy.com/). Please note that the two graphics are scanned from this book.

The rich history of social movements means that we do not entirely have to make it up as we go along. We can learn from what worked and what didn’t, and the lessons from movements then inform the choices we make as we steer our organizations. The authors have learned a lot about the life cycle of movements from longtime organizer Bill Moyer, who worked with Dr. King on the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, was a major strategist for the anti-nuclear power movement, and assisted a variety of other movements and organizations. From his study and experience Bill has created a model of how successful movements achieve their goals, the Movement Action Plan (MAP). MAP is a development model; that is, it shows how movements evolve, step by step. Just as we think about human beings with a development model (infancy, adolescence, middle age), so also it helps us think about our social change work to have a framework of stages. Of course MAP is only one way of looking at social movements. We have found it useful, especially in understanding how to steer an organization through the ups and downs of a cause. Bill has kindly allowed us to summarize his model for this book, and we recommend that you read it with the history of your issue in mind. First, a word about models. A model airplane is a simplified version of the real thing. You wouldn’t want to fly in it, but it gives you an idea of what it’s like and can even by useful for certain tests. An architect often builds a model of a building before the real thing goes up with all its complications. Like all models, MAP is a simplification of a very complex reality, and helps us to face reality with more clarity and perspective. Bill’s model shows us how the development stages of a successful movement relate to public opinion, so before we get into the internal life of the movement, we’ll take a quick overview of the public. Before there is a social movement around a certain injustice, the body politic seems to be asleep. The toxic waste is being routinely dumped, for example, with office holders looking the other way and public opinion preoccupied with other things. This is stage one.

Then stress builds and the body politic wakes up. In stages two, three, and four, more and more of the public notices what’s going on, and the offices holders get busy reassuring the public that they are taking care of the problem and it’s OK to go back to sleep. In each of stages two, three, and four, the movement’s growth is in a different place. By stages five and six the majority of the public agrees with the movement that change is needed (the war should be stopped, or nuclear power is too dangerous, for example). There’s a debate though, about possible alternatives. Stage five is a letdown time for activists, and can be tricky; some movements just die in this stage instead of moving ahead to success. At last comes success, in stages seven and eight. Many office holders are proclaiming that they really wanted these changes all along, while some of the holdouts are being voted out of office. New groups are spinning off the main reform movement to start the process all over again. Most of the public is glad to stop talking about civil rights, or Vietnam, or nuclear power, and go back to their individual concerns (which, from an activist’s point of view, looks like going back to sleep!). Stage One: Business as Usual Only a relatively few people care about the issue at this point, and they form small groups to support each other. Their objective: to get people thinking. They do their best to spread the word and often try small action projects.

Stage Two: Failure of Established Channels A major reason why most of the public does not inform itself and act on an injustice is that people think (or hope) that established structures are taking care of it. "Surely the government is watching out for the safety of our ground water supply." "The government is researching AIDS." "Corporation scientists know which chemicals are dangerous in our workplace and which are not." In this stage the small groups challenge the established channels. They often do research, or get victims of injustice to file formal complaints. They may sue governmental agencies, or use any opportunities to appeal that exist in the regulations. Usually the activists lose, at this stage, but it is very important that they take these steps. Stage two is essential for change, since large-scale participation will not happen as long as people believe in the established channels. In fact, you’ll find that, by stage two, polls show fifteen to twenty percent of public opinion is leaning toward a change.

Stage Three: Ripening Conditions/Education and Organizing Now the pace picks up considerably, because many people who earlier did not want to listen become interested. The movement creates many new groups who work on this issue, largely through education. The groups send speakers to religious groups and union halls; they do marches through their communities; they hold house meetings and news conferences. Much of the content of what they say is refuting powerholders’ claims: "People start pollution; people can stop it," "Radiation is not really all that bad for you," "Plenty is already being done to prevent AIDS." This stage can take a very long time or a short time, depending on many things, but constant outreach, through education and forming new groups is essential for the movement to take off. By now, polls show twenty to thirty percent agree that there is a problem or an injustice.

Stage Four: Takeoff This stage is usually initiated by a trigger event, a dramatic happening that puts a spotlight on the problem, sparking wide public attention and concern. Sometimes the trigger event is created by the movement. In 1963 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., focused on Birmingham, Alabama, in a direct action campaign which filled the jails and highlighted the evils of segregation with vivid pictures of police dogs and fire hoses. The Birmingham campaign triggered a national and international response, which resulted in the passage of major civil rights legislation. Sometimes the trigger event just happens, like the near meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in 1979. Three Mile Island (TMI) precipitated massive nonviolent protest and propelled many new people into activity. Previous movement growth had been substantial, but TMI triggered a crisis atmosphere that brought depth and breadth to the movement. MAP shows that the takeoff stage needs the preparation of stages two and three. Nuclear power provides an example we can explore. Many years before TMI, the Fermi nuclear plant in the city of Detroit nearly melted down. A disaster similar or worse than TMI threatened then, yet there was no social crisis and spurt of antinuclear organizing. Why? Because there was no previous social movement challenging the normal channels (stage two) and no education and organizing (stage three). An event becomes a trigger event when a movement has first done its homework. Because of the high media profile in this stage, many people associate social change with stage four. Often one or more large coalitions form at this time. Celebrities join the movement, the powerholders are shocked by the new opposition and publicity and try to discredit the movement, and polls show forty to sixty percent of the public say they oppose the injustice or current policies. Activists often unrealistically expect a quick victory at this point and work around the clock. Long rambling meetings occur in which new people come and try to make decisions without the necessary procedures in place. The issue is seen in isolation from other issues. The objectives of stage four are to build and coordinate a new grassroots movement and to win over public opinion. Part of winning the public is connecting the demands of the movement with widely held values (like freedom, fairness, or democracy).

Stage Five: Perception of Failure There’s an old phrase: "Two steps forward, one step back." Stage five is the step back, in the perception of many activists. Numbers are down at demonstrations, the media pay less attention, and the policy changes have not yet been won. The powerholders’ official line is, "The movement failed." The media focuses on splits in the movement and especially on activities which offend public sensibilities. It is the excitement and lack of planning on stage four that create the sense of failure in stage five. By believing that success is at hand, activists can become disillusioned and despairing when they realize they aren’t there yet. Hoping the recapture the excitement and confidence of stage four, some groups create Rambo-style actions of anger and violence or become a permanent counterculture sect that is isolated and ineffective. Fortunately, a great many activists do not become discouraged, or if they do, accept it as part of the process. They treat it like rafters on a river who most of all love excitement of the white water, but also accept the slow times in between. Smart strategists lay out strategic, achievable and measurable objectives, and smart movements celebrate them as they achieve them along the way. The powerholders may try to crush the movement through repression at this point, even if they have felt constrained before by a civil liberties tradition. Even repression, however, can sometimes be responded to in the spirit of celebration, as a symptom of achievement.

Stage Six: Winning Over the Majority In this stage the movement transforms. Protest in crisis gives way to long-term struggle with powerholders. The goal is to win majority opinion. Many new groups, which include people who previously were not active, are formed. The new groups do grassroots education and action. The issue shows up in electoral campaigns, and some candidates get elected on this platform. Broader coalitions become possible, and mainstream institutions expand their own programs to include the issue. Until stage six, much of the movement’s energy was focused on opposition (to toxic waste, to war, to homelessness, etc.). In stage six, sixty to seventy-five percent of the public agrees on a need for change. There is no a vast audience ready to think about alternatives to existing policies, and the smart movement offers some. Mainstream institutions can be helpful at this point. One example comes from the anti-Vietnam War movement: universities responded to stage four with peace studies courses and departments, and during stage six many of the scholars involved began thinking about alternatives to the war system. The powerholders are not passive. They try to discredit and disrupt the movement, insist there is no positive alternative, promote bogus reforms, and sometimes create crisis events to scare the public. The powerholders themselves also become more split in this period. The dangers of this stage are: national organizations and staff may dominate the movement and reduce grassroots energy; reformers may compromise too much or try to deliver the movement into the hands of politicians; a belief may spread that the movement is failing because it has not yet succeeded.

Stage Seven: Achieving Alternatives Stages seven and eight could be called managing success. They are tricky, however, because the game isn’t over until it’s over. In stage seven, the goals are to recognize the movement’s success (not as easy as it sounds!)., the empower activists and their organizations to act effectively, to achieve a major objective or demand, and to achieve that demand within the framework of a paradigm shift — a new model or way of thinking about the issue. Goals or demands need to be consistent with a different way of looking at things: a new framework or paradigm. If a civil rights movement simply demands some changes of personnel in government, industry, or schools, it will get more women, people of color or lesbians and gays occupying functions that continue business as usual, including policies which oppress women, people of color, and gays. Social movements are usually much more creative than that, and project new visions of how things can be. A successful social movement, therefore, can gain objectives that, although grudgingly yielded by the powerholders, introduce a new way of operating and of being. Stage seven is a long process, not an event. The struggle shifts in this stage from opposing present policies to creating dialogue about which alternatives to adopt. The movement will have differences within itself about alternatives, and different groups will market different alternatives to the public. The central powerholders will try their last gambits, including study commissions and bogus alternatives, and then be forced to change their policies, have their policies defeated, or lose office. It’s not unusual for another trigger event to come along (the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown) or be created (the 1965 Selma freedom march in the civil rights movement), which gives increased energy to the cause and wins over still more allies. Each movement needs to develop an endgame which makes sense in terms of its own goals and situation. The fight against nuclear power is an example of change in which there was never a showdown in the United States Congress. Instead, the movement created enough obstacles in the U.S. market to result in a de facto moratorium on new plants, partly by showing them to be unacceptably costly.

Stage Eight: Consolidation and Moving On The movement leaders need to protect and extend the successes achieved. The movement also becomes midwife to other social movements. We saw growing out of the 1960s civil rights movement, the student movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, the farm workers union, the women’s movement, the American Indian movement, and others. The long-term focus of stage eight is to achieve a paradigm shift, to change the cultural framework. The paradigm shift the civil rights movement initiated is still a major part of the U.S. agenda thirty-five years later: diversity as a positive value. In the 1950s, difference was shunned and feared. The rule was to conform. Even rock and roll was attacked as "a communist plot," because it was different from prevailing pop music. Ethnic minorities were taught to be as white and middle class as possible to fit in — that was their only hope (and not a large one) for acceptance. The momentum of the civil rights movement and the movements it midwived continues today as an often intense struggle to see difference differently and to create the structures and processes that make diversity a strength in building community. While the movement is consolidating its gains and dealing with backlash from those who never were persuaded, the poweholders are adapting to new policies and conditions and often claiming the movement’s success as their own. At the same time, they may fail to carry out agreements, fail to pass sufficient new legislation, or weaken the impact of new structures by appointing people who are resistant to the change. A major pitfall awaiting activists in stage eight, therefore, is neglecting to make sure of institutional follow-through. In this stage, the movement not only can celebrate the specific changes it has gained, but also can notice and celebrate the larger ripple effect it has in other aspects of society and even in other societies. The U.S. movement against nuclear movement was inspired by the mass occupations of construction sites by German environmentalists. On this shrinking planet, we get to learn from and inspire each other internationally.

If You Think You’re Lost, Check the Map The course of the river is winding, and sometimes it divides and goes in unexpected directions. Maybe you feel lost; maybe someone wants you to feel lost. Notice that powerholders generally continue the policy you are campaigning against, even while they secretly are laying plans to announce new policies and to prepare the public to accept them. They deliberately hide their defeat from the public, understandably. When you give in to discouragement, you are accepting their definition of the situation. You don’t need to — a strategic framework enables you to define the situation. The last four years of the anti-Vietnam War movement provide our example. The U.S. government stepped up its bombing of Vietnam, exceeding all the bombing of Europe in World War II, and publicly stated its commitment to continuing the war indefinitely. This visible, aggressive policy depressed most antiwar activists, who thought that their ten years of effort had been wasted. Activists did not know that the U.S. government was at the same time quietly beginning to give up the war. The United States began peace talks in Paris with the North Vietnamese. It then gave in to two key movement demands: withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam and ending the military draft. Movement activists saw these moves as irrelevant plots that undercut the movement’s opposition. In the last years, the anti-Vietnam War movement became totally depressed. Then, suddenly, the war ended. Former government officials have acknowledged that the movement was extremely effective in ending the war. To activists at the time, however, it felt just the opposite! You’re likely to find yourself beached on that same shore with those activists unless you have a stable strategic framework to use when your work seems discouraging. Check out the MAP — it may keep you going long enough to win!

From: Oliver Markley, Inward Bound

Paul
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Training for Change

Since 1992 Training for Change has been committed to increasing capacity around the world for activist training. When we say activist training, we mean training that helps groups stand up more effectively for justice, peace and the environment. We deliver skills directly that people working for social change can use in their daily work.

http://trainingforchange.org/

Paul

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Diffusion of Innovation

innovators
early adopters;
early majority;
late majority, and
laggards

The result is an s-curve:

Paul

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To the extent that people are interested in discussing another book, Let me recommend Mousepads, Shoe Leather and Hope. I'm not sure if the book isn't different enough from what we've just discussed, or if I'm being too self-serving in promoting another book that I have a chapter in, but here are the details for anyone interested.

Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope

http://www.deaninternetbook.com

editted by Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter.

Aldon

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Web 2.0

Web 2.0: "A set of technologies and applications that enable efficient interaction among people, content, and data in support of collectively fostering new businesses, technology offerings, and social structures."

According to Forrester, it is composed of enabling technolgies, core applications and features, and behavioral shifts.

"Core applications and features are fostering new social behavior, business models and cultures."

Topic Overview: Web 2.0, G. Oliver Young, Forrester, 2007

Paul

__________________________________________

Collaboration Platforms

Topic Overview: Collaboration Platforms, Erica Driver, Forrester, 2007

Paul

__________________________________________

Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times

“Recognize that what you are doing is difficult, not just that you aren’t working hard enough or you are not smart enough. It is difficult.”

Develop an analysis of power: “Starhawk distinguishes among three kinds of power: power-over, power-from-within, and power-with.”

“Where there is fear, there is power.”

Focus your organizing on resources, not scarcity: “The suppressed anger, fear, and disappointment which most activist carry around can block us from perceiving resources that are right in front of face.”

Don’t forget that problems are the raw material of empowerment: “Social change leadership is a process of problem solving through which we gain the chance to tackle bigger problems (and also gain greater satisfaction through larger impact).”

“Problem solving, in short, is empowerment in action. Complaining about problems, on the other hand, dramatizes powerlessness.”

Provide services in a movement building context: “First, be clear whether your group wants to provide services to people or to organize them.”

“Second, make your choice about the mission in the context of the larger process of social movements. There is a history of grassroots groups agitating to change bad conditions, then getting grants to provide services to those hurt by the bad conditions. In the process, the group often loses its ability to fight for change in the structures that create the mistreatment in the first place.”

Ask the question: Who will pay?

When frustration mounts and you seem to be losing, go deeper: “…regard your frustration as a valuable symptom and pay attention to it. Frequently it’s a message…”

“As an individual activist, ‘go deeper’ means to connect vividly with your heritage.”

“On an organization level, ‘go deeper’ means to encourage community to emerge in the organization.”

“…the path to community is generally through a land called ‘chaos’. Therapist M. Scott Peck describes the process well in his book The Different Drum.”

“The chaos stage ends with a breakthrough into community – a stage of group development in which there is high productivity, high morale, and acceptance of cultural and personal differences.”

“Many activists don’t understand that individuals are rarely attracted to a cause as individuals – they are attracted as members of social circles.”

From: Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times, Berit Lakey, George Lakey, Rod Napier and Janice Robinson, New Society Publishers, 1995

Paul

___________________________________

Well, I'm not as thorough as Paul, but I did set up a blog called Citizen Campaign Watch (http://www.citizencampaignwatch.wordpress.com) that several people can use to comment on the election over the next several months.

We could also hold a citizens national caucus. (I think I may have already suggested that.)

____________________________________
The Federal Idea

Different cultures give a different prominence to the idea of the individual, but one can sense a growing feeling of impotence, everywhere, in the face of institutions and government, local and global. Democracy used to mean that the people had the power, but now that translates into the people have the vote, which is not the same thing. The vote is an expression of last resort, a useful reminder to our rulers of the source of their bread and butter, but hardly a way for individuals to influence what is going on around them. Moreover, in the institutions of everyday life, particularly those of business, the only people with the vote are those outside, the financiers or the governors. Those who work in them are effectively disenfranchised. Democracy has its limits.

If we want to reconcile our humanity with our economics, we have to find a way to give more influence to what is personal and local, so that we can each feel that we have a chance to make a difference, that we matter. We have no hope of charting a way through those paradoxes unless we feel able to take some personal responsibility for events. A formal democracy will not be enough. We have to find another way, by changing the structure of our institutions to give more power to the small and to the local. We have to do that, with all the untidiness which it entails, while looking for efficiency, and the benefits of coordination and control. But more is needed than good intentions to empower the individual to do what we want him or her to do.

The structures and the systems have to change to reflect a new balance of power. That means federalism. Federalism is an old idea, but its time may have come again because it matches paradox with paradox. Federalism seeks to be both big in some things and small in others, to be centralized in some respects and decentralized in others. It aims to be local in its appeal and in many of its decisions, but national or even global in its scope. It endeavors to maximize independence, provided that there is a necessary interdependence; to encourage difference, but within limits; it needs to maintain a strong center, but one devoted to the service of the parts; it can, and should, be led from that center but has to be managed by the parts. There is room in federalism for the small to influence the mighty, and for individuals to flex their muscles.

We think of federalism as applying to countries-the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Canada. Her politicians might not admit it, but the United Kingdom is really a federation of its separate regions, as is Spain, and, increasingly, even France, as its regions gain more autonomy.

The concept, however, goes beyond countries. Every organization of any size can be thought of in federal terms. Hospitals, schools, local government, and most charities are, if we look at them with federal spectacles, made for federalism, local and separate activities bonded in one whole, served by a common center. All businesses of any size have federal propensities, and a need to be all the things which federalism offers. Why has such a good idea not been so obviously popular? Few businesses are consciously federal, nor does history provide many, if any, examples of a monarch or a central power voluntarily moving to a federalist structure. The hard truth is that we are always reluctant to give up power unless we have to, and federalism is an exercise in the balancing of power.

The federal idea is an example of the second curve, but one which too few institutions or societies develop until they are forced to. It is a very different, and very uncomfortable, way of thinking about organizations. It is messy, untidy, and always a little out of control. Its only justification is that there is no real alternative in a complicated world. No one person, or group, or executive, is so all-wise and so all-sensitive to be able to balance the paradoxes on their own, or run the place from the center, even if people were prepared to allow them to. We have to allow space for the small and the local. Federalism relies on a set of Chinese contracts between its various parts and operates through doughnuts of varying size and shape, which leave, of necessity and of right, considerable space for local decisions. The goals of the parts have to adjust to the requirements of the whole, and vice versa. No one in a federal organization can have everything exactly as they want it. Therefore, it is an excellent example of putting the preaching of this book into practice, with all its difficulties as well as opportunities. Let us be clear, federalism is not the easiest of concepts to make work, or to understand. Yugoslavia is hardly an advertisement for the concept, nor is Canada. California is creaking under an excess of federalism from within and without. IBM proclaims its conversion to the idea, but may not be its most successful exponent in the years ahead. A federal Europe frightens many, and not just in Britain.

Nevertheless, we have to persevere because it is the best way to return some sense of meaning to our larger institutions, a way of connecting their purposes with their people. Much of the confusion and difficulty arises from a misunderstanding of what federalism is. A confederation, for example, is not the same thing as a federation. A confederation is an alliance of interested parties who agree to do some things together. It is a mechanism for mutual advantage. There is no reason for sacrifice or trade-offs or compromise unless it is very obviously in one's own interest. A confederation is not an organization that is going anywhere, because there is no mechanism or will to decide what that anywhere might be. The Confederation of Independent States, which replaced the Soviet Union, will never be an effective body. The British Commonwealth, another confederation, is a thing of sentiment and language, not a real organization. These are not the stuff of federalism . Confederations adapt when they have to, usually too late. They do not lead, nor do they build. They are organizations of expediency, not of common purpose. The British would like Europe to remain an economic confederation, a common market. Many in the rest of Europe want a more federal state, one with a greater common purpose, within which sacrifices and compromises are acceptable, one in which the rich are readier to help the poorer, one with common standards and common aspirations. What is true of Europe is also true of organizations. Alliances, joint ventures, and networks are the tools of confederations, arrangements of mutual convenience, inevitably fragile as the conveniences change. Organizations with a clear purpose will want to be federal, not confederal.

The distinction is important. The key concepts in federalism are twin citizenship and subsidiarity. They are old ideas, re-invented for today's world.

From: The Age of Paradox, Charles Handy, 1995

Paul

Oct 10, 2007 Chat

TexasTaylor — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:31:25 CDT

Welcome
Terry : Taylor, welcome home
fpaynter : Hi terry
fpaynter : Hi Taylor
Taylor on the Dell : solving an Achievement Gap problem
fpaynter : Once it's solved can you replicate the solution?
Schumann has entered the room.
fpaynter : Hi Paul
fpaynter :
Taylor on the Dell : Im back
Taylor on the Dell : or here to start with
Taylor on the Dell : checking the calendar
Schumann :
Taylor on the Dell : yep
Taylor on the Dell : American Library Association
Jon Lebkowsky has entered the room.
Jon Lebkowsky : Sorry I'm late
Terry : Welcome Jon
Jon Lebkowsky : Did y'all hear me over the mic?
Taylor on the Dell : Not terribly organized
Terry : yes
Schumann : yes
Jon Lebkowsky : How do you know it wasn't a quorum?
Jon Lebkowsky : If people understood the meaning of the name, it would be cool to keep it. But it's not well understood.
Taylor on the Dell : That was Rayne's question...what is the problem statement
Rayne has entered the room.
Rayne : Howdy!
Terry : Hi Rayne
Rayne : Howdy, Terry!
Rayne : sorry to be late, life interferes
Terry : That's what makes it interesting!
Taylor on the Dell : I think it says a lot for the relationships that have formed
Jon Lebkowsky : Loud hum on this end.
Rayne : or the passion and intention that some of us have for the topic, Taylor
Rayne : But isn't that part of the problem statement, that we are living in something that we cannot agree upon as a democracy?
Rayne : mic keeps cutting out, Jon
Taylor on the Dell : media literacy?
Taylor on the Dell : Yeah, Neil Postman
Rayne : so can we agree that democracy requires a sharing of information -- some of it is push (media), some of it is pull (acquisition, self-empowered education), some of it through deliberation?
Taylor on the Dell : And there are alternative forms of media and information that many people have not tapped into or do not understand
Rayne : yes, exactly
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: yes.
Taylor on the Dell : Is there a role in here for citizen journalism? being discriminating consumers of information as well as creating our own story?
Rayne : yes, Taylor, there is -- but I do have a conflict of interest here since I'm a citizen journalist. ;-)
Taylor on the Dell : so you can teach us how to read YOU!
Rayne : heh. actually, folks can read us quite well, it's the barriers that are the problem
Taylor on the Dell : we can invite them
Rayne : agh, yes, Jay should be here.
Rayne : I have been trying to encourage Marcy Wheeler to join, too...
Jon Lebkowsky : We did invite Jay to the earlier sessions, but he didn't make it. We could twist his arm.
Jon Lebkowsky : We could get Mark Dery.
Jon Lebkowsky : We could get Jimmy.
Rayne : Is this the On The Bus or the previous program?
fpaynter : Tish Grier would be happy to share her experiences I think
fpaynter : Assignment Zero
Taylor on the Dell : knew him in San Jose
Taylor on the Dell : way too far back for him to remember me (Dan Gilmore)
fpaynter : I have a domain name statewideview.com...
fpaynter : I have a project idea that will populate that domain
fpaynter : Wisconsin web publishing aggregation
fpaynter : messaging
fpaynter : gateways into the walled gardens like facebook
Taylor on the Dell : where it is, what it is, why it is important...the role of media in transparency, the role of technology in supporting the kind of media that leads to transparency in govt?
Rayne : but our challenging is also taking apart the cultural barriers that encourage people to be more active in voting for American Idol instead of voting for president or congressperson.
Rayne : media is part of that barrier, reinforcing the energy in the wrong direction
fpaynter : yes rayne
Rayne : why are people less torqued off today about the state of our democracy, than they were 35 years ago about Nixon and Watergate?
Rayne : Is it because the media has been so consolidated and utterly co-opted that the public no longer gets the truth?
fpaynter : yes rayne
Rayne : but once they learn to be more critical of media, what then?
Terry : People assume the media as a fact of life, They don;t challengs what they see
Terry : Don't chanllenge what they see
Rayne : another challenge we face is that so many potential voters are too young to remember what media is supposed to do, what it did during Watergate. They no longer have an institutional frame of reference to know the role of the Fourth Estate in providing information -- they don't have a benchmark upon which to build a new citizen-driven Fourth Estate.
Terry : very true
Jon Lebkowsky :
Rayne : Marcy Wheeler may join us in a minute if I can get her downloaded and in here.
Jon Lebkowsky : You're downloading Marcy?
Rayne : Sent her the link to the Forums, she'll need to download the plugin to get here.
Rayne : If the rest of you aren't familiar with her, she's the blogger who liveblogged the Scooter Libby trial, one of the first bloggers credentialed by a federal courthouse.
Rayne : Marcy also has a doctorate in literature, specializing in political dissent literature of France called "feuilleton".
Jon Lebkowsky : That's funny... I thought I clicked on the mic but I clicked on the speaker and muted it... so I didn't hear what Paul was evidently saying, and you didn't hear my speech... heh.
Taylor on the Dell : did you hear Frank? Should he repeat?
Rayne : heh. maybe that was the cosmos telling you to revise your comments first, jon.
Terry : Frank, can you repeat
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: I think it was better the first time, but o well.
Rayne : true -- they exclude themselves, and yet at the same time they also have help in the case of certain groups who are being deliberately disenfranchised.
Jon Lebkowsky : Rayne: there's never been a "democracy" that didn't disenfranchise voters, though.
Rayne : true, it's part of the creative tension, a dynamic of human nature to try constantly to game the system
Jon Lebkowsky : And the folks to disenfranchise voters often think t hey're doing the right thing... assuming that some people shouldn't vote, because they won't understand the issues.
Jon Lebkowsky : And there's something to that, which is why I'm stressing education and media literacy.
Rayne : perhaps -- and then there are the people who are just plain bigots. Right is only when it's right for them.
Rayne : true, we have used representative democracy when we cannot effectively advocate for our selves. But that is a component of our nebulous problem statement...
Rayne : we live in a time when nearly all of us have the means to advocate for ourselves, and representatives are now a means to barr our ability to do that.
Terry : Representatives who are open to and working for the constituants
fpaynter : elected officials are more responsive to their donor base than they are to their voter base
Rayne : Yes, Terry. And unlike the recent past, we can see when they are failing us very easily.
Rayne : fpaynter -- another component of the problem statement; the money games the system, too. Money has for too long been a substitute for actual speech; the one with the most money has the most political speech.
Marcy has entered the room.
Rayne : Hey Marcy!!
Jon Lebkowsky : Some argue that money IS speech.
Jon Lebkowsky : In this context, at least.
Rayne : Could we all do introductions and an explainer for Marcy?
Taylor on the Dell : But people are showing up and they are engaged and the school superintendents are thrilled - well, most of them.
Rayne : Marcy, you can either chat by clicking in the space below the text, or you can "grab" the mic by clicking on it and speaking into headphones if you have mic on them.
Taylor on the Dell : quick forum methodology
Taylor on the Dell : but some of it also requires developing the capacity, the habit and the culture
Rayne : I guess I should ask if Marcy could hear the last speaker.
Marcy : Yeah, I can.
Taylor on the Dell : you are absolutely right
Rayne : great.
Terry : Marcy, jump right in any time
fpaynter : too right paul
Rayne : Taylor, can you pull up the last slide?
Rayne : did my mic work?
Rayne : yup that's it
Rayne : and a round of introductions, please
Jon Lebkowsky : x marks the spot.
Taylor on the Dell : with Media Bloggers Association??
Marcy : No
Marcy : FDL had our own passes (mine was technically DKos).
Marcy : We had two passes for the courtroom (both through HuffPo) and mine in the media room (through DKos).
Marcy : I don't have a mike so I'll type.
Rayne : DKos = DailyKos
Rayne : FDL = FireDogLake.com
Rayne : HuffPo=HuffingtonPost
fpaynter : not the old left, the blue left
Marcy : I'm not sure the context, but one thing that comes to mind right away is something Suny Stony Brook is doing as they open a new journalism program. They've including a "how to read the news" program, that they hope to require every student to take.
Rayne : Three of the largest political blogs in the blogosphere, all on the left side
Marcy : I think that's one thing that blogs actually end up doing (at least, I've gotten in comments from people)--to teach people to read, which is something they're not getting in school.
Rayne : (Marcy's a mind reader too, as you can see.)
Rayne : we were just discussing political literacy via media.
fpaynter : a return to respect for principles of dicussion and debate
Jon Lebkowsky : Teach people to read - and write.
Taylor on the Dell : Like the Suny Stony Brook idea - could it be adapted here with Marcy as a kick off speaker?
Marcy : So how you engage? I don't know. But I think one of the things about blogging is the possibility that they can actually teach those reading skills;
Marcy : Taylor--Not sure what you're asking. My thoughts here are all coming from the keynote discussion at a conference at Duke a few weeks ago, on media and trials.
Schumann : How do you teach people to be present? Awake and aware...
Rayne : You call it deep reading, Marcy, and I think that's definitely a lost art for the bulk of the public.
Marcy : Schumann, I think one of the things you do is engage readers in topics that interest them; teach them to read a topic they like. There's a lot of interesting reading on consumer issues.
fpaynter : ]
Rayne : too funny, jon. we are listening to you.
Jon Lebkowsky : That was Frank.
Taylor on the Dell : This is a group that really likes to type
Jon Lebkowsky : heh
Taylor on the Dell : Always been that way, right Paul?
Schumann : yep
Rayne : I guess we're still in need of a problem statement -- we've identified part of the problem as an inadequate media, and a public that is uninformed both willinging and unwillingly.
Marcy : You'd probably want to take to Jane Hamsher.
fpaynter : thanx
Rayne : So what does the next step look like?
Taylor on the Dell : So Rayne, can you take a crack at the problem statement based on tonight's conversation?
Jon Lebkowsky : I don't know that it's inadequate media, Rayne.
Jon Lebkowsky : I think it's inadequate media literacy.
Marcy : What kind of media are you folks talking about? Just mass?
Rayne : Marcy, what do you think? we're talking about the media that the average American uses to inform political decisions
fpaynter : I thought about sending pachacutec a smoke signal...
Terry : Is it soley a media problem or a context problem with the people following it?
Rayne : We've got better tools, we've got better campaigns and applications, and yet the public is still not engaged or informed.
Marcy : I just re-read "Governing with the News" (Timothy Cook). He argues that the institutional nature of our media is one of the things that makes it very passive.
Jon Lebkowsky : I'm talking about all media, broadcast and citizen, etc.
fpaynter : I go back to my concern that we live a thorougly propagandized culture
Marcy : Cook does a lot of meta-discussion about the ways that the media replicates itself over and over.
Rayne : by institutional does cook mean by size or by corporate structure?
Schumann : Suggested topics: 1. impact of media on the way we perceive and think 2. media literacy 4 new media 5. using new media 6 what's needed
Jon Lebkowsky : How we get information and context, how we form our understanding of the world and events.
Marcy : I like his explanation, because it explains why we get really bad journalism from good journalists (something I saw a lot of in the Scooter Libby trial),
Terry : Jon, And how we use that information
Jon Lebkowsky : Right.
Jon Lebkowsky : RE Dean: the media had help from the campaign.
Jon Lebkowsky : I don't agree that one event tanked the campaign... there was more to it.
Jon Lebkowsky : He had already lost Iowa.
Jon Lebkowsky : And his organization was really having issues.
Jon Lebkowsky : But I digress.
Jon Lebkowsky : Not that the media didn't do a job on HD.
Rayne : Yes, he had problems, but the media piled on and sealed his fate.
Jon Lebkowsky : I think his fate was already sealed, though... but that's a discussion for another day.
Marcy : I've got mixed feelings about the cause of Dean's demise, but I think that until we find a way to actually engage people in new technologies, you're still going to have the cruddy filter (and poor judgment) of the media.
Rayne : And because of the reverb throughout the media, I genuinely don't think that the people in the campaign could "hear" the problems.
Jon Lebkowsky : Read Steven Johnson's piece in Extreme Democracy.
Jon Lebkowsky : He did a good post mortem on the Dean campaign.
Terry :
Rayne : So what do we want to do next?
Taylor on the Dell : Life will go on...
Terry : This discussion on the media issues was good
Rayne : The schism between the technical side of democracy and the information side of democracy needs be excised.
Terry : We have enough sopurces for extravisiting speakers, we should be able to learn from them or their mistakes
Rayne : We'ved talked for most of the last 13 weeks about the technical -- meaning the hands-on part of democracy -- but not the information side, the part that may even be more influential.
Taylor on the Dell : If you bring in Jay, give me enough time to promote to Texas Forums Network, please.
Rayne : Did you have any feedback on Assignment Zero, Marcy?
Jon Lebkowsky : Got an email today from Jay re Assignment Zero...
Jon Lebkowsky : just a sec.
Jon Lebkowsky :
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2007/10/09/what_i_learned.html
Jon Lebkowsky : That's his piece on what he learned from Assignment Zero.
Marcy : Do I? As in do I have an opinion? I respect the project, but I think one of the things they didn't consider (which Jay addressed in a post today) was existing communities. I would also say they didn't consider the language they used, which is one of the invisible barriers to participation. And finally, I don't think they thought in terms of nodes of interest.
Jon Lebkowsky : "Division of labor is the key creative decision in acts of distributed reporting. Grok the motivations or it can’t be done. Watch for ballooning coordination costs as ramp up succeeds. Where the small pieces meet the larger narrative the alchemy of the project lives. Shared background knowledge raises group capacity. Extant communities already coordinate well."
Jon Lebkowsky :
Marcy : In other words, I would say Jay put the cart before the horse, trying to put together a community that produced journalism, rather than going into an existing community and finding the appropriate journalism (and language) for that community.
Rayne : "nodes of interest"?
Marcy : Or trying to form a community with journalism.
Rayne : I think one of the other components that is not well understood is the organic nature of community.
fpaynter : bjc list?
Marcy : My instinct (and this is partly based on historical stuff) is that you've got to start with the community. But then that plays into the power of nodes in a network, so that should be a strength.
Schumann : I assume by the use of the word journalism we mean audio and visual...
Terry : Jon, you keep breaking up
Rayne : ah, power laws, Dunbar's number, all that in play in community organization...
Marcy : One of the important things about blogs like FireDogLake is they develop their own lanaguage (the word EPU is unique to FDL, for example. And that creates markers for taht community--that are inclusive if you know them, but not totally exclusive to those trying to enter that community.
Taylor on the Dell : what decisions still need to be made
Rayne : by meeting weekly we also reinforce our own sense of community around this issue...
Terry : yes, Rayne
Taylor on the Dell : If someone wants to write a paragraph, I'll get the word out to the TF network with a special nudge to those who were with us before.
Rayne : Marcy, are you working on any organized programs for educating the public on reading the media or political information?
Marcy : No, though I need to send an email to the head of the Stony Brook program.
Taylor on the Dell : I think that sounds fascinating
Marcy : He had asked for any help I could give, and I've been mulling that for a while.
Terry : can we get a copy of the public chat from tonight
Marcy : I'd love to see what was said before I came in.
fpaynter : Who can write the paragraph that Taylor needs to invite the TF network?
Taylor on the Dell : I'll do a cut and paste of the chat.
Rayne : Maybe that's the convergence -- that Stony Brook is looking to do this, and we see it as a need to further the development of democracy.
Jon Lebkowsky : I wonder if we shouldn't wait a couple of weeks to meet again. Personally, it's harder for me to meet next week because we're working on a big project for Maker Faire.
Rayne : Marcy, we won't have the audio, thought. Will have about half the context.
Schumann : I'm OK for next week but not the week after that.
Terry : Will be watching for it on wetpaint
Schumann : I thinkit's good to regualrily schedule meetings to let it find its own shape and not force it too quickly.
Schumann : Sort of live in the question for awhile
Schumann : but keep talking.
fpaynter : Shall we just book this room for Wednesdays 7 to 8:30 and see how it progresses?
Terry : Sounds good to me
Schumann : yes
Rayne : Central time, of course.
Terry : Thanks Taylor
Rayne : Yes, thanks, Taylor
Rayne : I'm going to try to draft something, will email it to Taylor

Extreme Democracy Projects

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:33:15 CDT

Conference: This project has never had a physical conference that I’m aware of. I think it’s time for one. I would propose that we host it here in Austin as we seem to have some energy around the subject. What type of conference? At this point, I’m torn between two extremes. One is a conference of those working in the various areas to exchange information, build collaborations and advance the state of the art. The other is one whose purpose is to teach others about the tools and how to use them.

Training/Seminars: This would be a vehicle to teach the tools, techniques and applications. It could be physical on web based. If we charged for these, it could provide some income for the effort. Maybe…if there is any real interest now. That’s something I don’t have a real sense of – just how much demand is there?

Book: We could organize and write a new book.

Interview series: Interviews via the web of people working on projects in the field. Again a team of people.

Collaboration: Collaborative development of the structure and processes to operationalize extreme democracy. Development of diffusion program.

Research: Research into the current and future utilization of the tools and techniques.

Organization: If we wanted to get more formal about this and be able to receive funding, we’ll probably need to form a nonprofit organization, association or a consortium. Or, make this a formal program of an existing one.

Multimedia Presentation: really slick mulitimedia presentation that effectively communicates the power of the technology.

Infrastructure: The social technologies don't really have an agenda although many people would ascribe an agenda to the technologies. But...as a Marshall McLuhan advocate, they do alter the way that we perceive, think and act. As McLuhan said, "The medium is message." And, indeed it is. Perhaps our role could be to provide the infrastructure for the technologies to be used for change. One way that could be done is to build the baddest web site around on the social technologies and their applications. This could be a resource for those with agendas or candidates or issues to use effectively in their pursuits. We would be contributing to the development of that altered perception...

Book Chapter: Write a chapter for the upcoming book - Handbook of Research on Electronic Collaboration and Organizational Synergy, Editors: Janet Salmons, Ph.D. and Lynn Wilson, Ph.D. They do not have a chapter on the use of technology in democratic processes, but would like one. It's a very short deadline, but I think we could get an extension (10/15). To find out more read the Guidlines.

Next Steps - Summary

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:32:02 CDT

What Now for Extreme Democracy?
The following is one way to break apart the rich material that has been provided on the Wiki over the last few weeks. It may seem inside-out to discuss it in the order presented on the following proposed agenda. Agenda item 0.0 then would seem to be to agree on or to re-order the agenda.
fp

1.0 Renaming...

Name change: "I understand the reason for the name, but I don’t think it communicates well to the general public, and I think that it may frighten some."

Response: "It wasn't the NAME that frightened me off, but the discovery that Extreme Democracy wasn't real
Democracy (i.e. where the people play the legislative role themselves). Fix that, and I think you'd attract a lot
more attention."

Suggestion: Real Democracy (see also: Real Democracy by Frank Bryan; and, Suppose We Had a Real Democracy in the United States? A Time for Imagination speech at UCI by Gara LaMarche)

2.0 Major Directions...

2.1 Projects -
Citizen Campaign Watch (Taylor)
Civic Entrepreneurship (Paul suggests this as a fork)
Other Projects (Paul groups these, but I've pulled some of them out into the "Study Group" or "Theory and Architecture" listing below)

2.2 Study Group -

2.3 Theory and Architecture - Paul
of, by and for the people
systems
Movement Action Plan (MAP)
Innovation
Web 2.0
Leadership

Theory and Architecture

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:28:41 CDT

Structure, systems and methodologies for the advancement of democracy...

Structure for Extreme Democracy?

Systems

A Summary of the Movement Action Plan (MAP) Model for Organizing Social Movements

Training for Change

Diffusion of Innovation

innovators
early adopters;
early majority;
late majority, and
laggards

The result is an s-curve:

Paul

_______________________________________

Web 2.0

Collaboration Platforms

Topic Overview: Collaboration Platforms, Erica Driver, Forrester, 2007

Paul

__________________________________________

Grassroots and Nonprofit Leadership: A Guide for Organizations in Changing Times

Study Group

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:08:28 CDT

Book discussion series: Continue the format only with other books and articles. This would have to be a team effort if we wanted this to be a weekly series via the web. Probably about 5 or 6 people so that any one person would only handle one a month.

Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope

edited by Zephyr Teachout and Thomas Streeter.
To the extent that people are interested in discussing another book, Let me recommend Mousepads, Shoe Leather and Hope. I'm not sure if the book isn't different enough from what we've just discussed, or if I'm being too self-serving in promoting another book that I have a chapter in, but here are the details for anyone interested.

Aldon

Discussion series: Same as above except it would be like a salon – open to any topic that someone wanted to bring up. Again, it would still need 5 or 6 people to moderate.

Projects

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:45:33 CDT

CIVIC ENTREPRENEURSHIP

fpaynter — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:13:58 CDT

Civic Entrepreneurship

Social Entrepreneurship
Public Institutions and Accountability
Public Engagement
Citizen engagement
Citizen journalism
The role (potential) of social media / technology in democracy (“Extreme Democracy)
Libraries, museums, community foundations, public media and democracy
Art, documentaries and the community engagement components that “get us off the couch”
Technology in Democracy and public engagement (democracy online, e-democracy, etc.)
The gift economy and democracy
Distinguishing civic vs. social capital
What emerging democracies are doing that are instructive to us - invite my Russian colleagues to speak?
Literacy and civic capital (article in Library Journal forthcoming)
Telling the hidden American Story (Bradley’s “new” - I distinguish a bit differently)
Free Media – broad band saturation and my Fiber to the Library project in CA, also net neutrality from my work with Bill Moyers
Deliberative democracy

_________________________

Knight Foundation Ideas

TexasTaylor — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:23:52 CDT

http://www.newschallenge.org/index.php

I've set this page up for people to post ideas about how Texas Forums forums could take advantage of the Knight opportunity. It will help if you put a line between ideas. If you have a really big idea, spin a page off of this and link to it. (It's really easy, just play around with it!)

CAN SOMEONE HELP?
Someone should take a look at the successful applications from the last round and summarize the kinds of things they funded. Patty, you may have already done that????
______________

From the Knight News Challenge website it seems to me that they are eager to get proposals about all kinds of ideas as long as the ideas are about creating an innovative technology, or an innovative use of technology, to use news or media of some kind, for the benefit of a geographic community. The community can be very local or as large as a state or a province. Most of the winners listed meet these stated criteria (definitely the "media" part), but not so much (in my view) the "local community" part... I think some are pushing that a bit.

My suggestion would be to start with something that someone has been wanting to do; in their community, or with some innovative technology, and put it into a proposal, rather than trying to think up a new idea to fit their criteria.

Citizen Journalism in Podcasting
Marla and I applied last year for a project we called, "Our Stories, Our Democracy in Action". We want to produce thirty-minute podcast magazines using stories submitted by citizens across the country. The podcast would have edited content (e.g., an interview with a citizen activist) with the full interview available online, and short pieces (e.g., a librarian giving a book review). Here is the proposal

_______________

E-democracy meets NIF
On 9.10.07, I met with Steve Clift (Ashoka Fellow, DoWire.org, e-democracy, and current Knight Foundation recipient) and Tim Erickson (e-democracy) and discussed possible collaborations. I suggested using e-democracy to create a moderated deliberation on the Achievement Gap and for forum organizers to collaborate and compile findings for a national report to Congress. While Tim has been active in the deliberation and dialogue arena, Steve's primary focus has been on Democracy Online projects. This would be an interesting intersection - a top e-democracy group paired with a top deliberation group.
_______________

Patty Dineen wrote this in response to my question to the Extreme Democracy group about how they want to continue:
Hi All,

As far as continuing goes—I would suggest continuing on the basis of experimenting with putting together a project, or some kind of effort aimed at trying something out. I know that sounds vague, but the thing that got me started thinking about this (besides the whole important question of how all this new and expanding technology can help us save our democracy) is that someone (which one of you was it?) in the conversation last time mentioned the Knight News Challenge and put up the link to it- http://www.newschallenge.org/main_e.html .

I’ve spent some time on the site since Monday night. They seem to be both serious, and completely open to all kinds of innovative ideas for using technology to inform and connect people in “communities.” At this point the deadline for this round of proposals is Oct. 15. By proposal they mean a fairly brief application that, if it makes an early cut, would be invited to elaborate. I put in a proposal for part of a Pennsylvania project I’m pursuing, but with my meager tech knowledge I’m not terribly optimistic. But it was fun thinking about it deeply enough to put it in writing.

I’m wondering if anyone in the discussion group might already have a project partly fleshed out that they’d like to have the group help with to pursue one of the Knight News Challenge grants? I think it would be interesting and fun to meet around a specific project, with a vision of something we’d be trying to help make happen at the end.

Just some thoughts.

Best to all,

Patty

______________________

From Taylor:

We could request funding to develop OPAL discussions. I'm thinking about soliciting you guys and others who are interested in being citizen scholars helping me with my Civic Entrepreneurship Fellowship. (Blog Postings, Full Proposal.)We could each take a piece that interests us (public institutions, innovation in governance, citizen journalism role in democracy, social entrepreneurship, etc. or a book on a topic that might be relevant or offer insight) and be responsible for leading a session. The archives and the conversations would form the basis for future workshops and my course. Who knows, we might even be writing a book together in the process.
____________________

What about a reporting project involving the 12 Achievement Gap sites that Kettering is assembling? Taylor and Marla will be in Dayton, OH meeting with this group September 20-21. Taylor will talk to David Moore, Collaborative Communications Group on 9.18.07.
____________________

Work with KERA and the new arts unit. Conduct workshops for arts groups in Dallas/Ft. Worth to create online content for web site. Use e-democracy workshops in St. Paul as model.
____________________
National Presidential Caucus on December 7. Citizen bloggers across country with mash-up (or is it an aggregator? are they the same thing?) similar to All American Presidential Forum.

Rep Presidential Watch Party

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 14:27:30 CDT

For September 27:
Video:
David Kobierowski <cleanair999@yahoo.com> e-mail on June 29, 2007: I can also film it for Pubilc Access TV...etc
Rudy Malveaux making a documentary comparing citizen voices to political rhetoric.

From Bob Cox, Media Bloggers Association, e-mail June 30, 2007:

PBS really liked how things came together with the bloggers. We had a great group on site and people really like the aggregated feed. And we did it all with less than a week's lead time (and in your case we had less than a day). We've been asked to do this again for the GOP event. Now we have 3 months to work on the next one and so take what we've learned and apply it to the September event. Maybe there will even be some sort of event for the general election. My hope is that we can directly integrate the feed into the PBS site (there was just NO time), do more promotion, get more bloggers involved and come with some creative ideas to expand on things like what you did in Texas - basically offering PBS satellite groups where lots of new voices are heard.

I would like to bring you more directly into the loop as we look at the fall - and maybe think about how you could help people elsewhere in the country involved so we do not end up with an East Coast/beltway bias.

I really love hearing that you were actually introducing people to blogging for the first time. That may be the best thing of all!

From Silona: Use Twitter (Per Jon, twitter not best choice because you have to register)
Liza, founder of culture kitchen set up a chat using phpfreechat this may be a better choice.

There needs to be a research component to this. Someone like David Ryfe analyzing what citizens are saying in real time and online. Can we develop a protocol that the sites can use to report on their in-person discussions and the collate the online discussions (twitter? blog?) in such a way that it is timed with the debate so we know what people are referencing.

Bloggers:
Lillian Stevens may blog

Dem Pres Forums debrief

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 08:18:45 CDT

E-mail Report from Mike Aaron (Carver Library) with responses from Taylor indented

Overall, the experience was good. We were welcomed, and I felt like we were offering a connection from the real world to the rarefied world of the debates. That said, I felt like we were disjointed from the Carver forum watchers, partly because the last minute nature didn't quite allow for a clear understanding of what we were there to do, which, in turn, precluded us from offering a clear explanation to the 20-25 people at Carver.
I made an announcement at the beginning, so that I believe the folks in the room had a basic idea of our role, but they didn't come to participate in a blog session, and I felt we were peripheral to the proceedings in the room.

The Carver library was a last minute site - primarily because they decided to join us and sent out publicity before we had a clear agenda and then the library director went to Washington DC for the American Library Association conference returning the day of the event. It was so exciting that they wanted to do this event and that they took the ball and promoted both events and did their own internal organization. The problem which you carried the brunt of was that there wasn't as much coordination as we would have liked.

When I made my announcement at the beginning, I related that I had a set of questions, and I asked for a volunteer to moderate a discussion. A woman named Margaret volunteered, and the group went through a rousing discussion of the questions, infused with a great number personal experiences.
Afterwards, Margaret approached me and said that she wanted to moderate next time we did something like this. I was focussed on other things, and didn't think that I should've gotten her name & contact info. . . which leads me to perhaps the one thing that I regret not doing, which was to circulate a contact list.

That's great that you had a volunteer and that she wants to do it again. Perhaps she'll show up next time! Also, the Carver library manager might know her. We can check. I think it's great that you got them to go through the questions. As noted earlier, we hadn't coordinated the agenda for the pre-forum and the questions were just an offer. I'm glad they took you up on it!

The blogging session itself seemed to me to be plagued by an odd lack of cause & effect, or perhaps a lack of sense of connection would be a better way to describe it. The blogs were being listed so quickly, and coupled with Tom's computer (which was connected to the projector) losing the page regularly, I was never quite certain that our material was making it to the web, or even how it fit in to the overall process of blogging the candidate forum.

I'm not sure that projecting the blog is very effective. Even if we only post the Texas Forums blog, it's difficult to read and distracting. We did it during the last election for the vice-presidential debate, but in that case, there were two candidates and the blog posting was primarily someone on factcheck.com debunking the statements of Edwards and Cheney! That was very effective and less chaotic.

During the actual candidate's forum, I was especially unclear of our role. I posted a couple times, but there was very little vocal feedback to the forum from the Carver group.

If we just worry about reporting on this as reporters who also have opinions, would that make it easier for you to know what to say in your posts?

As a final perspective, I think this was a great first shot. Due to the nature of technical issues and late request from the MBA, the mission and specific objectives were a little unclear.

Well woohoo, we've been asked to play again in September and to help recruit other sites for the purpose of getting a sense of how people are responding across the country. MBA was thrilled to have us participate and very impressed with what we pulled off at the last minute. They were in the same boat and going crazy, too! I was exhausted, that's for sure!

Perhaps some other stuff will occur later which seems worth sharing, but that captures the overall feel of it for me. I'm copying Taylor, and Jon Lebkowsky, who likely has some additional perspectives.

If anything more comes to you, feel free to add it here!

Regards & thanks for the opportunity.
Mike

E-mail from Jon Lebkowsky (Carver) with response from Taylor indented
One thing Mike didn't mention: there was a technical problem; for an hour or so we weren't seeing new posts appear on the aggregate page. I wasn't sure how to report the problem.

Yeah, it was frustrating that posts weren't showing up, but since NO new posts were showing up for a while, I could tell this was not a problem unique to us and figured that the organizers were probably going frantic with 20 in-person bloggers breathing down their necks.

My assumption was that we were there to blog the discussion before the forum and local responses to the forum while it was going on. Most of my posts were an attempt to capture the pre-forum discussion, and I think we could have done a better job if we had strategized before and come up with a plan that would segment coverage and avoid redundancy.

I agree, particularly based on my subsequent conversations with the Pres of MBA. They want ordinary citizens posting their own thoughts real time. We also had a mix of experienced bloggers like you and even those who make a living as journalists like Rod Amis. If we focus on just getting citizen feedback from some AND ask others to serve as reporters, then we'll avoid reduncancy. At least, the redundancy will only happen if a couple of citizens react in the same way, in which case that is useful.

I noticed that my friend Liza Sabater was in DC as one of the live bloggers there, so I pinged her and she invited me into a chat room on her site where several live bloggers were hanging out. I think it would be worthwhile for us to set up a backchannel like that next time we do this.

Silona suggested something like twitter and I think that's a great idea. We can offer both, but we'll have to prepare people with adequate information on how to do each of these. If this is not a sanctioned MBA activity, then we'll want to make sure we still have plenty of people blogging so we can maintain visibility with the national forum. It could be a back channel with someone with your experience monitoring various online communication, but it could also just be a chat among citizens in different locations.

From Jon: Twitter's fine for people to use individually; we were using it during this event. However it won't work as a backchannel because each Twitter member has a different set of friends, and focused conversation is not really what it's for or what it does best. Liza's chat room was pretty good; I assume it was the Drupal chat module. We could also use Opal, if none of the bloggers in our crew are using Macs. If everybody's comfy with IRC, I suggest we just make a room at Freenode.

Dem Presidential Forums Watch Party

TexasTaylor — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:19:23 CDT

OK so Media Bloggers Association will be credentialling bloggers for PBS and wants Texas Forums to be part of the network. Woohoo!

We will blog on Texas Forums and have one blogger at each site for Extreme Democracy Blog

TAYLOR'S TO DO:
Send to LancedotDutsonatgmaildotcom:

picture of the bloggers
2-4 sentence bio
RSS feeds of category: MBAPBSAllAmericanDem

Texas Forums = http://wordpress.com/tag/mbapbsallamericandem/feed/
Extreme Democracy = http://extremedemocracy.com/rss2pbs.xml

Description of two blogs:

Texas Forums Bloggers 
<a href=http://www.texasforums.org>Texas Forums </a>is an initiative of the <a href="http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu">LBJ Presidential Library and Museum</a> formed to help people in communities work through difficult problems through dialogue and deliberation and to find common ground for solving problems. Guest bloggers will be covering an hour-long public discussion and the reaction of the participants to the All-American Presidential Forum from two locations, the LBJ Library and the Carver Branch of the <a href="http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/default.htm">Austin Public Library</a>. <a href="http://texasforums.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/presidential-forum-watch-party-june-28/">More about the event...</a>
 
<a href="http://www.extremedemocracy.com">Extreme Democracy</a> 
<a href="http://www.texasforums.org">Texas Forums</a> and the <a href="http://www.centexwfs.org/">Central Texas World Future Society</a> are hosting weekly discussions on the concepts raised in the collection of essays, Extreme Democracy. Jon Lebkowsky, editor of Extreme Democracy will be blogging about the <a href="http://www.texasforums.org">Texas Forums</a> event at the Carver Library and Paul Schumann, founder of the<a href="http://www.centexwfs.org/"> Central Texas World Future Society</a> will cover the event at the <a href="http://www.centexwfs.org/">LBJ Presidential Library</a>. <a href="http://texasforums.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/presidential-forum-watch-party-june-28/">More about the event...</a>

Texas Forums Bloggers for LBJ Library (five needed - one per table reporting on the themed areas under discussion) Bold means added as author to TF Blog.

NOTE: Landon has a laptop he'll bring, but he wants to participate, not blog.

Rod Reyna: Texas Forums Moderator Team, on the Board, Envision Central Texas, Former Chair, Pflugerville Council of Neighborhood Associations, Precinct Chair/Campaign/Community Volunteer
John Fleming: John Fleming is a staff member of the Center for African and African American Studies with The University of Texas at Austin, College of Liberal Arts. He has lived in Austin for over 36 years. John is a freelance flutist/musician and co-owner of a music consulting business, Fleming and Fong. John is also the co-founder of the Austin Summer Flute Camp. John has worked extensively as a private lessons teacher providing flute and theory lessons to students within AISD and Pflugerville ISD assists Mrs. Daphne McDole and the Keys of Life program (www.kol-kidz.com). John’s community involvement has been with organizations such as Reading Is FUNdamental, KLRU and served as chair of the KLRU Community Advisory Board and former president of the University of Texas Longhorn Alumni Band Association.
Rod Amis bio: Rod Amis is a freelance journalist whose work appears at LeverageSocialMedia.com, Newsforge.com, Slashdot.org, ITManagersJournal.com, G21.net and other online publications. While primarily writing about technology issues, he has print and online experience in political and social commentary. Rod is African-American and proudly the son of an immigrant. He has been lauded as one of the top ten Internet journalists to read by About.com and written for publications in North America, Europe and Africa during his career.
Ann Stafford: A self-described social activist, Ann Stafford works in community affairs in the high tech industry. She serves on the boards of Hands on Central Texas, the Community Action Network, Envision Central Texas, RSVP of Travis County, and the community advisory board of United Way Capital Area. Ann is an alum of Leadership Austin and volunteer driver for Meals on Wheels, and was instrumental in the formation of the Austin Public Library Foundation. She and husband Benard have two smart, responsible and caring daughters who vote.
Silona and James (invited)
Extra Computer provided by Sherry Lowry
Brad Burnett: Brad is the Director of communication for the Student Government Association at Austin Community College. He agreed to blog at the last minute - actually offered to without an arm-twisting! Brad is studying Government and Radio / TV / Films with an emphasis on Radio.

Extreme Democracy Blogger for LBJ Library

Paul Schumann Bio: Paul Schumann is a futurist and innovation consultant. He helps people and their organizations discover future change and exploit that change through innovation.

Texas Forums Bloggers for Carver

Michael Aaron

Mike Aaron has worked in the Texas House of Representatives, the Office of the Attorney General, the Texas Alternative Fuels Council, Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, and currently works for Virtus Energy, a renewable energy consulting firm in Austin, Texas. He holds a BS in Advertising and a Master's of Public Affairs. Among his passions are democracy and dialogue
Mike Aaron has worked for Texas government (House of Representatives & Office of Attorney General), currently works in a for-profit renewable energy consulting firm (Virtus Energy), but considers himself a non-profit kind of guy, preferring to work for social justice. When he’s not working on his computer, he’s tromping around in the muddy pit of democracy and figuring out how to get a dialogue-based job.

Allaina Wilson <allaina@gmail.com>: Allaina Wilson has run the circuit as a political lackie. Catching political fever as a volunteer on various local campaigns led to a stint in Washington D.C. where she learned first hand the workings of the capital as an intern for an NGO. This life experience learning continued in New Hampshire where she campaigned on behalf of John Edwards during the last primary, gaining valuable knowledge of party politics. No longer working in the political sphere, Allaina continues to keep abreast of all the happenings in American politics from her home in Portland, Oregon.
Extra Computer provided by Mike
Computer and screen provided by Tom Moran

Extreme Democracy Bloggers for Carver Library

Jon Lebkowsky Bio: Jon Lebkowsky is an authority on social technology, web community, user experience design, technoculture, and effective web strategy. He has worked as a consultant, CEO, technology director, project manager, systems analyst, and online community developer. He is also knowledgeable of Internet policy and trends.

Other bloggers:
Matt Glazer: Matt Glazer <matt.glazer@gmail.com>: http://www.burntorangereport.com
e-mail from Matt on June 28: "I am sorry to say I won’t be able to make it tonight. Next time you doing any blog or alternative media event, please let me know."

Photographer for June 28:
Bonnie Kim Bonnie Kim <bonniekim.31@gmail.com>

For September 27:
Video:
David Kobierowski <cleanair999@yahoo.com> e-mail on June 29, 2007: I can also film it for Pubilc Access TV...etc
Rudy Malveaux making a documentary comparing citizen voices to political rhetoric.

Extreme Democracy Schedule

TexasTaylor — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 10:25:09 CDT

This seminar series is a discussion of concepts explored by the essays in the book.

Purpose: To explore the principles and technologies of Extreme Democracies, and to explore how these concepts and technologies are affecting our own social change efforts, our democracy, and the upcoming election.

Prerequisite: Participants are expected to read the essays discussed in each session and prepare comments or questions for discussion during each session. Copies of the book can be read free online at www.extremedemocracy.com, or participants can purchased a PDF download ($16.04) or purchase a printed copy ($28.00) on the same web site. Or it can be order from www.amazon.com ($28.00, lower if used). Participation in all of the sessions is recommended, but not required. Each session will be recorded and archived on the Texas Forums web site. (http://www.texasforums.org)

Structure: Where possible, each of the session will utilize the art of focused conversation – objective, reflective, interpretive, decisional. Through contributions from the authors and participants, the implications for the 2008 elections, as well as future elections, will be discussed. When possible, one of the authors of the book will be present in the discussion sessions. Each session will be moderated. Overall coordination of the series will be done by Paul Schumann and Taylor Willingham.

Medium: Texas Forums OPAL Online virtual meeting room (www.opal-online.org) - OPAL is an international collaborative effort by libraries and other organizations to provide web-based programs and training for library users and library staff members. Live events are held in online rooms where participants can interact via voice-over-IP, text chatting, synchronized browsing, and other functions. Everyone is welcome to participate in Texas Forums OPAL programs.

Price: Free

Registration: None required

Schedule: 12, 1 hour sessions, once per week, on Monday. The schedule begins June 11, 2007 at 7 pm CST.

Outline:
1. June 18 - Context: A presentation on First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea, Paul Woodruff, Oxford University Press, 2005 and The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak, Madison Books, 1982. This will provide the framework into which extreme democracy must exist. – Paul Schumann (Marla out)

Host: Taylor
Speaker: Paul
Technical Assistant: David Swedlow

2. June 25 - Overview & History of Development of Extreme Democracy: The book, Extreme Democracy, edited by Mitch Ratcliffe & Jon Lebkowsky, 2005, is itself a product of the processes advocated by the team who collaborated to bring the book into existence.( http://extremedemocracy.com/) – Paul Schumann will interview Jon Lebkowsky

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

3. July 9 - Emergence, Emergent Democracy & the Emerging Second Super Power: Discussion of the essays by Steven Johnson (Two Ways to Emerge and How to tell the Difference Between Them) and Ken White (The Dead Hand of Modern Democracy: Lessons for Emergent Post-Modern Democrats), pages 90 – 100 and a discussion of essays written by Joichi Ito (Emergent Democracy) & James Moore (The Second Superpower Rears Its Beautiful Head), pages 13 - 47 - (Paul out)

Host (Discussion leaders): Rod Reyna & Taylor Willingham
Speaker:
Technical Assistant: Lillian Stevens

4. July 16 - Extreme Democracy: An interview with Mitch Ratcliffe (Extreme Democracy: Deep Confidence in the People), pages 57- 66 – Paul Schumann (Marla and Taylor out)

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant: Rod Reyna

5. July 23 - Networks: Discussion of the essays by Clay Shirky (Power Laws, Weblogs & Inequality), pages 48 – 55, and Mitch Ratcliffe (Building on Experience), pages 67 – 89. (Marla out)

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

6. July 30 - Politics & Networks: A discussion of the essays of Valdis Krebs (It’s the Conversation Stupid!: The Link Between Social Action & Political Choice), Ross Mayfield (Social Network Dynamics & Participatory Politics), David Weinberger (Broadcasting & the Voter’s Paradox) & Danah Boyd (Social Technology & Democracy). Pages 112 – 190 (Marla and Paul out)

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

7. Aug 6 - Strategy & the Political Process: A discussion of the essays of Adam Greenfield (Democracy for the Rest of Us: The Minimal Compact & Open Source Government) & Ethan Zuckerman (Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower), pages 200 – 227 (Paul out)

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant: Rod Reyna

8. Aug 13 - DeanSpace: A discussion of the essays of Clay Shirky (Exiting Dean Space), pages 228 -240; Jon Lebkowky (Deanspace, Social Networks & Politics) & Aldon Hynes (What is DeanSpace?), pages 296 - 319

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

9. August 20 - 6.4 Billion Points of Light: An interview of Roger Wood (6.4 Billion Points of Light: Lighting the Tapers of Democracy), pages 241 – 265, by Paul Schumann

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

10. August 27 - Activist Technology: A discussion of the essays of Jon Lebkowsky (Virtual Bonfire: A Brief History of Activist Technology) pages 267 - 275, Jay Rosen (The Weblog: An Extremely Democratic Form of Journalism), pages 104 – 110, Britt Blaser (The Revolution Will Be Engineered: An Assessment of the Present and Possible Future of Net-based Political Tools) pages 276 – 295

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant: Rod Reyna

11. September 10 - Political Tools: A discussion of the essays of Adina Levin (Campaign Tools), pages 320 - 362 & Phillip Windley (eVoting), pages 191 – 198.

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant: Lillian Stevens

12. September 17 (Constitution Day) - Future of Democracy: A discussion among the participants

Host:
Speaker:
Technical Assistant:

Blog : The Extreme Democracy blog will be used to facilitate discussions between the sessions and explore . (http://www.extremedemocracy.org)

Other Project Support: The project will make use of other technologies to support interaction and discussion between the sessions and after the program is completed. David Swedlow will be the Lead Technical Manager. A technology person will attend all sessions to assist participants.

Archive: All of the programs and the Extreme Democracy blog will be archived. The audio, text messages and video of each session will be recorded and available on the Sponsor’s web sites. (See below)

Marketing: The Texas Forums and Central Texas World Future Web Sites will serve as portals to the Extreme Democracy Blog. Simple code with graphics and a link to the Extreme Democracy blog will be provided on these sites for other bloggers and web sites to copy and embed in their sites. Individual programs announcements, as well as the overall program will be marketed via e-mail, forums and blogs. It will also be announced in upcoming.org and meetup.org.

Target Audience: 20 participants in each session.

Sponsors: The Central Texas Chapter of the World Future Society (www.centexwfs.org) and Texas Forums (www.texasforums.org, an initiative of the LBJ Library (www.lbjlib.utexas.edu) , are sponsoring this series of seminars in cooperation with Jon Lebkowsky and Mitch Ratcliffe of the Extreme Democracy (www.extremedemocracy.com) project.

For ED Discussion Leaders

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 21:12:45 CDT

I’m thinking that we could use the ORID method to tease out where people want to start the conversation.

Objective: what did you read? Which of the essays most related to your interest?
Reflective: What stood out for you in the readings? What surprised you?
Integrative: How did that affect you? How does it relate to your experiences?
Decisional: What needs to happen next? What will you do with what you have now learned?

We start with a quick go around of the Objective and give everyone a chance to check the mike in the context of the content. Then throw out the reflective questions to collect a few ideas to explore more deeply. Spend most of our time with Reflection and Integrative, then end with Decisional question (perhaps last fifteen minutes).

ED Admin Notes

TexasTaylor — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:52:04 CDT

Publicity:

From Paul on 6.11.07: I just posted the announcement on the Extreme Democracy blog and the CenTexWFS blog. I’ve sent e-mails to the 700 people on the CenTexWFS mail list, and a reminder will go our tomorrow. I will follow up with a reminder the day of the meeting with just a description of the night’s program. I’ve sent e-mails to over 1,000 people on my e-mail list. Hope we get some people to attend.