You’re Invited to the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation

The 2006 NCDD conference will take place in San Francisco, California August 4-6, with pre-conference trainings on Thursday, August 3rd. If you are dedicated to solving group and societal problems through honest talk, quality thinking and collaborative action, we invite you to join us at this innovative gathering.  The conference will be held at the Renaissance Parc 55, a beautiful hotel in the heart of downtown San Francisco.

Members of the rapidly-growing dialogue and deliberation community regularly engage and mobilize millions of people across the globe around today's critical issues.  The National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation and our biennial national conferences bring together practitioners, scholars, trainers, artists, activists, teachers and students from all of the various streams of practice that exist in this critically important field.  NCDD’s conferences and resource-rich website (at www.thataway.org <http://www.thataway.org/> ) are crucial to the development of this emerging field of practice, and we welcome you to join us if you haven’t already.

NCDD conferences encourage conference attendees and planners, together, to continue developing this growing field of practice—a field that has the potential to solve many of society’s most pressing problems.  The conference provides opportunities for networking, experiencing different methods, sharing learnings, hearing from leaders in the field, learning about new research, building skills in this work, and exploring key issues facing the field.

- What can you expect from the 2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation? -

As you can see from the conference schedule posted at http://thataway.org/conference/schedule.php, we will be utilizing some of our plenary sessions to take you through a collective planning process to help determine where the D&D community should go from here if we are to become the far-reaching field or system-improving movement we hope to be.

At the same time, you will be exploring the same questions in a more personal way about how you got where you are in dialogue and deliberation work, what the trends are that affect your work today, and what’s next for you.

You won’t have to sit through a lot of speeches and panels at the 2006 NCDD conference.  The closest we come to a “keynote speech” is our Reflective Panel, a well-received process we developed for our 2004 conference which models dialogue while enabling conference participants to hear from key leaders in the field.  Four of our five panelists are confirmed, and we are excited to say that you will have the opportunity to hear from the following amazing people:

1.  Juanita Brown, Co-Founder and Creator of The World Café

2.  John Gastil, professor and researcher at the University of Washington’s Department of Communication and Co-Editor of the recently-published “Deliberative Democracy Handbook.”

3.  William Isaacs, author of “Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together,”

Founder of Dialogos, and Co-Founder (with Peter Senge) of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT.

4.  Leanne Nurse, Program Analyst at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the leading federal agency in public participation

Another innovative plenary we are planning for this year’s conference is a “D&D Methods Showcase.”  In the span of about two hours, you will have the opportunity to hear numerous brief 10-minute presentations by leaders of innovative methods such as OrangeBand and Conversation Café.  This session gives you the opportunity to develop a basic understanding of leading and up-and-coming D&D methods while meeting some of the most creative people involved in this work!

In addition to these plenary sessions, you will have the opportunity to select from 40 high-quality workshops that enable you to focus on the issues, challenges, and questions most relevant to your work.  You will enjoy numerous opportunities to experience how the arts (graphic, performing, etc.) can enhance dialogue and deliberation.  You will have multiple opportunities to network and develop relationships with others who do dialogue and deliberation work or research.  And we fully expect that you will leave inspired not only by established leaders in the field, but also by the highly innovative efforts initiated in the San Francisco Bay area and elsewhere.

- And Consider Our Stellar Pre-Conference Trainings on August 3rd -

We're also very excited to offer the following selection of pre-conference trainings at the conference.  Full-day pre-conference trainings are only $125, and half-day trainings are only $75 (or $125 for both)!  If you are not planning to attend the conference, you are still welcome to participate in the trainings.  Bay area folks interested in learning and skill-building are particularly encouraged to take advantage of these great trainings.

Full-Day Pre-Conference Trainings:

1. Choosing Deliberative and Dialogue Techniques that Work (Janette Hartz-Karp, 21st Century Dialogue) 2. The World Café: The Art of Hosting Conversations That Matter (Ken Homer and Nancy Margulies, The World Café) 3. Tailoring Dialogue To Cultural Contexts, A Collaborative Exploration (Meenakshi Chakraverti, Public Conversations Project) 4. Compassionate Listening: Bringing Our Hearts To Dialogue and Deliberation Work (Rachel Eryn Kalish, M.C. and Susan Partnow, The Compassionate Listening Project)

Half-Day Pre-Conference Trainings:

1. Fast Forward Framing for Critical Issues (Carole and Craig Paterson, National Issues Forums) 2. Taking Dialogue & Deliberation to Scale (Ashley Boyd and Janet Fiero, Ph.D., AmericaSpeaks)

Learn more about the pre-conference trainings (and the innovative BrainJam!

on technology and D&D, which is only $50) at http://thataway.org/conference/sessions/preconference.php.

We also encourage conference participants and others in the Bay Area to attend a unique training offered by the Global Facilitator Service Corps

(GFSC) on Monday and Tuesday, August 7-8, right after the conference. GFSC’s Disaster and Crisis Intervention workshop for experienced facilitators, called Facilitating Psycho-Social Reconstruction, prepares participants to train and mentor other professionals working in direct recuperation efforts, and to design and deliver a DCI workshop to address the needs of a local population in affected areas. Learn more about this 2-day training opportunity.

- Register Now -

Registration is only $300 until June 26, so be sure to register soon at http://thataway.org/conference/registration/index.php (the fee is $450 after the 26th).  If finances are an issue, scholarship applications are online at http://thataway.org/conference/scholarships/index.php.

The 2006 conference is funded, in part, by the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Whitman Institute, and by leading dialogue and deliberation organizations including the Forum Foundation, the Public Conversations Project, and the Study Circles Resource Center.

If you have questions, or if you are interested in exhibiting, co-sponsoring, or just staying informed as planning progresses, email conference director Sandy Heierbacher at sandy@thataway.org and let her know.

We hope to see you in San Francisco!

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A few of the nice things people said about the 2002 and 2004 conferences…

“We were able to connect with many people working on similar types of engagement, share experiences and learn from each other. It was also very stimulating to see the broad range of interests in the field of dialogue and deliberation, and better understand the connections between them.”

- Judy Watling and Nandini Saxena, Canadian Policy Research Networks

“The setting was beautiful, the range of speakers impressive and the care for the diversity of participants was sincere. Attending the conference was very replenishing for me. What a gift!”

- Susan Partnow, Let's Talk America

“NCDD has cultivated a broad and emerging field by making it possible for diverse threads of practice to learn from each other. Its mode of working is respectful, inclusive, and practitioner-oriented. Everyone who believes that dialogue and deliberation are key to transforming people, relationships, and society--including political systems--can benefit from being part of NCDD and its next conference.”

- Martha McCoy, Executive Director of the Study Circles Resource Center

“I have been raving about the conference ever since I got back home to Durango. I have been attending professional conferences for over 20 years and this was the most fulfilling of any of them to me! Thanks for all your work to organize such a stellar event.”

- Lauren Patterson, Program Evaluation

“It was a fine, fine conference for us. This is one of the exceptional, distinctive communities in America.”

- Libby and Len Traubman, Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue of San Mateo, California

“I wanted to thank you and all the organizers of the NCCD conference for a great event, very well organized and especially sensitive to everybody's needs and concerns. It was a great experience for me and it benefited greatly our work. I hope to continue building these relationships and learn from all those extraordinary experiences and people involved in dialogue.”

- Marc-Andre Franche, United Nations Development Programme

“The 2002 NCDD conference was the most amazing conference I've ever attended…. This is a big diverse field, bubbling with vitality.  And NCDD is bringing it all together.”

- Tom Atlee, Founder of the Co-Intelligence Institute

“You all were amazing -- I’ve never had a more exhilarating experience at a conference.  Nourishing to mind, body and soul!”

- one participants’ comments on the 2004 conference satisfaction survey 

“I just wanted to let you know what an amazing conference it was in Denver.

It deepened my understanding of D&D and I met many wonderful people.  I believe events like this help strengthen and grow, not only the D&D community, but the work of conflict resolution and democracy world-wide.  It was the best organized conference I have ever attended.  You and those that helped you did an amazing job.”

- Stephan Gilchrist, Portland State University

“I must say that my attending the national conference this past fall was life altering.  The conference really gave me a sense of direction and purpose for the work I’d like to do as well as the vision I have for a more just and sustainable world.”

- Matt de Caussin, Intern, Denver District Attorney’s Office

“Thank you for putting on such an amazing conference.  I thought the conference was absolutely phenomenal.  I learned a lot, and I think even more importantly, realized that I am / we are part of a community!”

- Priya Parker, Sustained Dialogue Campus Network

“I met more people that I will follow up with at this conference than any in my 30 years of professional experience.”

- Stephanie Nestlerode, Omega Point International, Inc.

“Thank you for the incredible work you are doing in creating opportunities for those of us involved in this work to meet, communicate and inspire one another in so many ways.”

- Glenna Gerard