On this Saturday, June 26, 2010, 3,300 citizens in nearly 60 different locations across the country held a conversation on fiscal strategy. Like many other countries around the world, the United States needs to take action on its federal deficit and chart a course for a sustainable economic future. The event that took place on Saturday holds out the hope – through successful demonstration – that such a strategy can be effectively designed in coordination with the real sentiments, values and choices of the citizenry. The results of this massive citizen deliberation can be viewed at:

http://usabudgetdiscussion.org/our-budget-our-economy-june-26/

The United States is a very large and geographically dispersed democracy, and many people (including many Americans) have wondered whether it is possible to effectively use citizen deliberation to inform and shape policy in such a country. There is no road map for doing so, and very few models to follow. Instead, those who believe it is possible have had to exhibit great courage of conviction and perseverance, along with great ingenuity and creativity, in order to forge experiments that would prove the possibility and it’s effectiveness.

And in addition to those designing and conducting the experiments, others have had to share the vision and take risks to fund and support these experiments. Not only have these experiments required financial support, they have required uncountable hours of volunteer time by experienced professional facilitators who play the key role in the micro-conversations that, by means of the technical infrastructure, become a single national conversation.

This was the grandest experiment yet by AmericaSpeaks – working closely with their vast network of experienced facilitators and their key methodology partners, like CoVision – and the results were excellent. For us at CoVision, not only is this important as a step toward a better fiscal future for the United Sates, but just as critically, it is a step toward a better process for policy making in our own country, and hopefully a model for other nations and states as well.

We hope this paves the way toward greater adoption of this process.

Mad social scientists trying to build a citizens’ democracy

As with any experiment this convening required materials, a method, and a specific environment. The whole experiment can be seen more clearly as the combination of eight different necessary elements. Listed as number six below, the CoVision methodology played a key role among many others.

So how was this done? What were the constituent parts?

First they needed the basic building blocks of such a conversation – the citizens themselves – demographically representing the greater population of the country

This essential element was carefully and painstakingly gathered over many weeks in many different locals throughout the country – with respect to the individuals, and great attention to their demographic accuracy

Second, they needed an environment that allowed the people to deliberate together in a constructive, respectful and open-ended manner – allowing them to express their own views and to listen to and appreciate each others’ (sometimes differing) views

This environment was set up by the experimenters based on many successful experiments in the past – ten citizens seated at a round table, guided through their discussions by experienced facilitators

Third, the experiment required a dynamic subject – something that was absolutely crucial to the life of the participants and to the future that they are creating for their children and grandchildren

For years AmericaSpeaks has worked to create an opportunity to discuss the shared economic future of our country

Fourth, they needed a structure for talking about this subject

A great deal of time and energy and focus went into shaping a non-partisan mapping of the issue and its potential solutions, and a sequence of discussions to allow the people to work toward a shared understanding and toward the beginnings of consensus on how to take action

Fifth, they needed a way to conduct the experiment across the country simultaneously,

Satellite broadcast, webcasting and Skype were skillfully interwoven to create a media experience that tied together meeting sites in 19 cities around the country and 40 smaller community groupings.

Sixth, the experiment required that it be a “national conversation” – with every sequential discussion building on the thoughts and expressions of all of the citizens from every part of the country

A state-of-the-art computer interface running over the internet allowed each deliberating table group in every area of the country to instantly send their thoughts and ideas to the central site in Philadelphia. And a carefully designed and orchestrated 23 person “Theme Team” was able to synthesize everyone’s ideas in real time, creating a single conversation that stretched across the country.

Seventh, the experiment required that all of the people be able to express their preferences on the issues they were deliberating about – in order for everyone to know where the group as a whole stood, and what level of consensus was built.

Voting technology was employed that enabled people at every site to send in their preference at once and see immediate counts of how the whole group had voted

Eighth, the groundwork had to be in place so that the outcomes of the national conversation would directly impact elected representatives - who are in the position to act on behalf of the will that was expressed in the conversation.

Special care was taken to cultivate the support and buy-in of key people in these roles all across the political spectrum.

The careful execution of all of these elements by a small group of dedicated deliberation scientists – using highly detailed planning informed by their earlier experiments – set a stake in the ground for future efforts to shape government policy that accurately reflects the desires of the public it serves.

Posted by Karl Danskin

The CoVision method is not about the use of technology, it is about the use of a “Micro-breakout” format. What distinguishes the CoVision methodology most from other large group methodologies are two things: the use of brief, very small group “micro-breakout” discussions in the plenary room; and the rapid synthesis of the input from those discussions into a digestible synopsis that can be immediately shared with the whole group and responded to from the stage.

Technology enables this methodology, but it is a mistake to think of it as primarily a technological method. The dramatic results that can be achieved through the CoVision method depend on understanding how to effectively exploit the “micro-breakout” discussion and synthesis capability. Understanding the technology is not what produces breakthrough results in meetings.

What people think of when they approach CoVision about supporting a meeting are the computers at every table and the network running in the room. These make it seem like a technical method, different from other large group methods where computers aren’t present. But the experience for the participants that is significant and different in a CoVision meeting is not typing into a computer (a very routine action for most people nowadays). The difference is getting to talk with their peers about the content of what is being presented to them. And then getting to hear what the group as a whole thought of what was presented. And then getting to hear the presenter respond to the group’s thoughts. These unique participant experiences are the hallmark of the CoVision methodology – these participant experiences define the method and distinguish it from all other large group methods.

The power of these “micros-breakouts” is that they are simple and fast enough to be used frequently throughout the meeting. This creates the opportunity for the participants to “chew on” what they’ve heard rather than having it stream in one ear and out the other all day long. Although the whole group stays in the plenary room, and time is used very efficiently, the experience for the participants is more like a meeting where they get to leave the room, have group discussions, and reconvene to share their insights. That means that participants stay refreshed, focused, and in an elevated mood. Their experience is that of contributing, rather than passively absorbing.

Yet the speed and simplicity of these “micro-breakouts” allow the leadership to pursue a rigorous and useful agenda. In most cases, even with al of the advantages of this method, the conveners are able to cover the same topics they would usually cover in a standard “presentations plus Q&A” format. For the leadership, the unique experience of the CoVision methodology is not that people are typing into computers (or texting in on their phones, etc.), but rather that they get to find out what the participants are saying about what has been presented. And further, that they have the opportunity, within a rigorous and packed agenda, to respond to what the participants are thinking and move the alignment forward.

While it is obvious and true that other large group methodologies don’t use technology as an enabler, focusing on the technology to try to understand the value of the CoVision method is a mistake. No other methodology allows for multiple, rapid “micro-’breakouts” that roll up into whole group awareness and a back and forth dialogue with presenters from the stage. These experiences are the defining attributes of the CoVision method, and the criteria for deciding on its usefulness for a particular engagement.

Posted by Karl Danskin

We were recently introduced to a sort of “human energetics model” that may put some perspective on meeting design issues. The tool is called Five Dynamics (www.5dynamics.com) and we learned about if from a friend and client who was responsible for the design of a senior leadership meeting we supported at the end of 2009.

The brief version of Five Dynamics is that it breaks the Performance Cycle of any project, initiative or strategy into five stages: Explore, Excite, Examine, Execute, Evaluate.

First Dynamic – Explore: Perceiving; option-oriented thinking

Second Dynamic – Excite: Inspiring; energizing others

Third Dynamic – Examine: Planning; building structure

Fourth Dynamic – Execute: Acting; turning the plan into reality

Fifth Dynamic – Evaluate

The principle of the Five Dynamics application is that each of these stages requires a different kind of energy and focus from the individuals who are seeking to accomplish the project, initiative or strategy. The Five Dynamics tool is used as a way to diagnose individuals and teams to see in which stages it is easy for them to focus their energy, and in which stages it takes some conscious effort to become comfortable and effective.

The first three Dynamics are the crucial ones to look at in meeting design, because you must complete these stages effectively in order to Execute with excellence.

The 1st Dynamic marks the beginning of the Performance Cycle, when new ideas, creativity and open−mindedness are required. This dynamic is most effective when participants think broadly, considering more ideas, information, connections and possibilities.

The 2nd Dynamic takes new ideas and insights, identified during 1st Dynamic, and builds a collective energy and excitement around them. This Dynamic should foster increased unity within the team that can increase efficiency and provide foundational support for action over the long term. The setting for this Dynamic is positive, warm and light, involving camaraderie, sharing and enthusiasm

The 3rd Dynamic subjects the now energized idea or ideas to a thorough refining and critical review process. The focus is on avoiding and/or mitigating omissions, mistakes and potential weaknesses. At this stage, the team focuses on how the idea can be effectively integrated with existing budgets, timetables and operational standards. Institutional data is used.

Most organizational meetings are being held in order to be able to best accomplish the fourth Dynamic: execution. But from a meetings design perspective, how do you get people there? How do you best prepare them to execute?

In designing a meeting, there can be a tendency to skip over the first two Dynamics and just bring everyone together for the third Dynamic: Examination – where the group is presented with the facts and the rational and asked to help in operationalizing the strategy.

This sort of meeting can look like a list of presenters, giving data to the group through slides, and asking briefly for questions at the end. The main activity of the participants is to absorb all of the details, examine them, clarify anything that is confusing, and then go back and apply it all to execution.

What can easily be lost are the opportunities for innovative thinking of the first Dynamic – Explore, and the stimulation and interaction of the second Dynamic – Excite.

What do the first and second Dynamics look like in meetings?

The first Dynamic engages people with the possibilities of any given vision or direction. People project into the future finding it inspiring and new. New ideas are entertained, and old ideas are combined in new ways. Fresh perspective, even on a well worn topic, catalyzes innovation. Participants are given the opportunity to come away with a different vision than the one they arrived with.

The second Dynamic engages people with each other. Together, the group starts to develop a collective understanding and vision – and it is stimulating and fun! Alignment builds out of numerous small conversations. People get to express their thoughts and feelings, and they get to hear the thoughts and feelings of their peers; misunderstandings are identified, commonalities come to the fore. The participants deepen their sense of themselves as a unified group or “team”.

Designing solely from the third Dynamic –Examine – is what makes meetings feel like dull, heavy obligations. To inspire innovation and nurture the formation of a real “team”, designers may need to focus equally on the first and second Dynamics – Explore and Excite. All three of these Dynamics are essential to the real goal of the meeting – Execute.

The results of incorporating all three dynamics can be quite stunning. Most participants not only find it useful and relevant to spend time in innovative and interactive activities, they find it prepares them better for leading their own teams.  After the meeting, execution means taking their own people through a whole performance cycle. A meeting that is able to incorporate the Explore and Excite Dynamics naturally “cascades” out through an organization, because it catalyzes and nurtures behavior across all of the stages of the Performance Cycle.

When meetings are designed to address all three Dynamics – Explore, Excite and Examine – participants literally tell us they are the best leadership meetings they have ever attended, even in one case across a thirty-year career.

Posted by Karl Danskin

The difficulty of democracy is how to let people deliberate, and yet come to a common voice. This is inherently a problem of scale – the more people you have (and the less time they have together), the more likely you are to give up either the opportunity for the individual to express him/herself, or the experience of the group coming to a deliberated group decision.

To overcome this difficulty, AmericaSpeaks, a small non-profit with a vast and growing network, has created a methodology for taking essential democratic processes to scale.
They have been the true visionaries in this field. Over the last ten years they have sought out and secured the laboratories, and they have conducted the experiments, so that those coming after them have a model for enabling large numbers of citizens to engage in deliberative democratic processes – processes as essential to a democracy as voting itself.

A “21st Century Town Meeting” allows all the participants to spend most of their time in small group discussions with other citizens. And AmericaSpeaks uses technology to allow the participants to understand the essence of what is going on in all of the other discussions in the room. By exploring the subject in small groups and then gathering together and distilling the small groups’ thoughts, the full group is able to generate short lists of actions, opinions or values. And with the technology, they can come to a group prioritization of the list (i.e. everyone has a vote).  Without these kinds of processes, enabled by a smart use of new technology, large town hall meetings generally involve simple question and answer sessions, with participants playing mostly a passive listening role.

Leveraging meticulous design, and the scalability of the technology, AmericaSpeaks is able to accomplish this kind of small group discussion leading to whole group decisions (e pluribus unum) with thousands of citizens at a time. Their’s is a blueprint for realizing democracy in very large groups.

AmericaSpeaks has also been at the forefront of designing democratic processes that preserve the face-to-face immediacy of discussions between small groups of citizens, and yet include groups that are geographically dispersed. This is not a model of individuals sitting at their own computers, typing questions in to a distant leader or expert. Rather it is the same model – of small group discussions leading to whole group decisions – that they pursue in large meeting halls. In this case, they leverage the internet to provide dispersed groups with access to the technology that is used so effectively in the room. The result is that there is no geographical barrier to these fundamental democratic processes.

http://www.americaspeaks.org

Posted by Karl Danskin

We just returned from supporting the Advancing Futures for Adults with Autism National Town Hall in Chicago on Friday. This meeting brought together professionals, family members and policy makers to have a conversation and agree on strategies for providing services over the next two decades to the more than one million youths who are diagnosed with autism and who will soon be moving into adulthood. This is a situation of enormous impact for our society that will require a nation-wide response.

More than 1,000 people participated in the meeting, using three different “modes”.

Chicago was the central site. By concentrating about 30% of the participants there, we were able to provide a focal point. Important leaders in this process were there, along with dignitaries (the Mayor and Mrs. Daly), and the press. The live presentations took place in Chicago. The participants, seated at tables of ten, discussed the issues and sent their thoughts in over networked computers. They voted their priorities with keypad polling devices.

15 satellite sites around the country provided a national scope, assuring a presence in every region. Each site had a good sized group of participants. They watched the presentations from Chicago on large screens at their site through a webcast. They also held their discussions at tables of ten, sending in their thoughts to the central site, and voting with keypads, just like in Chicago .

And “virtual tables” allowed equal access for any individuals who wanted to participate from their homes or offices around the country. They participated in small real-time conversations that made them equal members of the conversation being held in Chicago and the satellite sites. They watched the webcast on their own computers, broke into small groups of 5 or 6 participants on a special conference call platform to have discussions and send in their thoughts, and voted with keypads on their computers.

CoVision’s integration of these three participation modes allowed all of the participants to share the same experience and be part of the same conversation and agenda setting.

They all
•    Listened to the same information being presented
•    Spent time in small group discussions about the issues and sent in their ideas and feedback
•    Got to see the rolled-up themes from the whole group’s discussions
•    Had the opportunity to set priorities by voting on the results of their discussions
•    Heard feedback from experts/leaders
•    Got to see the real-time priorities of the whole group

At the end of the day, the group had eight prioritized strategies in the areas of funding, staffing, housing, employment, training and community-life. They also had the experience of hundreds of conversations and thousands of practical, in-the-trenches ideas on how to begin implementation of this nation-wide agenda. Maybe most significantly, they were able to see themselves as a large, whole, action-oriented community. And they have momentum for educating and transforming society to incorporate adults with autism in a more constructive and beneficial way into the future we all share together.

Posted by Karl Danskin

As part of a continuing trend of work in Europe, we recently got invited to bring our CoVision engagement methodology into a Cocoa Innovation session for the Dutch government in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Stakeholders from around the world participated in a three hour think tank /brainstorming session to develop innovative solutions for transforming world cocoa production into a certified and sustainable system.

This session was part of a larger day-long symposium on sustainable trade … BUT the conveners couldn’t afford to fly us to Europe for a three hour session. So the challenge was … could we, somehow, deliver any form of our method from California?

We worked out a unique combination of technologies that allowed us to facilitate the interactive processes of the meeting in real time (which for us was midnight to 3am) from our homes in California.

The technology design involved us watching and listening to the meeting in real time via internet based video and audio – it felt like sitting at a side table in the middle of the room – and conversing with the facilitators at their table in the front of the room over audio headsets. We could all view the ideas that small groups in the room were inputting. And we could work with a Theme Team in Haarlem to help craft a distillation for the participants to discuss. Finally, through use of participants’ laptops and the high bandwidth internet available in the meeting room, we were able to keep costs exceedingly low (and the carbon footprint too) — making this particular collaboration possible.

The process design was very similar to how the methodology would be applied in any brainstorming session where we were present in the room. And the design conversations leading up to the meeting were also similar, focusing on the same principles, concerns and solutions that would arise in any design setting. In the actual meeting, our visual and audio connections, combined with seeing the participants’ input screens, allowed us to follow the flow of the meeting and to suggest process modifications as the meeting unfolded (with the usual falling behind in the agenda schedule, etc.).

For us, this was an exciting milestone: combining existing technologies in new ways in order to make our methodology more available to organizations and efforts (like the Cocoa Innovation session) wherever in the world they need to meet. This sort of international remote support/facilitation was a first for us. But we’re curious! … have you heard of anything similar, or a situation where something similar would be workable (and helpful)? Let us know.

Posted by Karl Danskin

Twitter has emerged in the last year as a “back channel” for participant communication in certain types of group settings, notably conferences. As people hear stories about how a new discussion channel can be added to a learning conference, and how people were able to stay in touch with conference proceedings from home, they begin to ask themselves, “Should we be using Twitter in our organization’s meetings?”

Twitter isn’t the only new kid on the block, rather it’s the most widely used of the new technologies that make it easier than ever for participants to have a “voice” – to actually participate – in settings in which they were only mute observers in the recent past.

Over the last eighteen years CoVision has developed and practiced a methodology for engaging participants’ “voice” to build alignment and create innovative solutions in large organizational meetings. The blossoming of technologies that enable hearing that “voice” today is truly encouraging. Meeting designers are beginning to consider giving their participants that ability to be responsive. If you are thinking in those terms, here is a simple framework that can be helpful.

Effective Use of Participation Techniques in Organizational Meetings

Meetings in which the participant has little chance to respond, and which are not designed well or facilitated, risk becoming boring and unproductive for the participant – at best, it’s business as usual. Moving from the lower left quadrant upward – designing and facilitating the meeting well – that meeting becomes much more interesting and effective.

Giving participants the ability to respond in a meeting can also alleviate the boredom and drowsiness of one presentation after another. Moving from the lower left quadrant to the right, participants get a chance to respond to the proceedings, but often for purposes that are light and entertaining. Without a skillful design that is focused on the objectives of the meeting, this new response-ability can produce unfocused input that risks diluting, obscuring or even derailing those objectives.

In our experience, the ideal design provides a robust channel for participant response throughout the meeting, that is designed well into the detailed process flow. Moving from the upper left quadrant to the right, adds repeated opportunities for feedback and collective understanding that is focused on accomplishing ambitious organizational objectives (objectives that actually depend on that robust participation channel in order to be realized).

When people ask “Should we be using Twitter in our organization’s meetings?”, what they’re really asking is, “Will it be more productive if our participants are able to respond to what they’ll be hearing?” The answer from our perspective is an emphatic “Yes!” But it would be a mistake to consider participant input as a “back channel”, or to use it merely to “build a little excitement” in the room. The ability for participants to respond, and the ability to respond back to their collective ideas seriously, are the keys to achieving high levels of understanding and alignment within a group. And break-through results come by focusing that capacity on the organization’s most critical issues.

If you’re considering any particularly important meetings, and increasing the ability for participants to respond in them, call us to help you explore your many options.

Posted by Lenny Lind
Direct: +1 415 810 8194

“We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children.”
Native American Saying

So who’s going to suffer the cataclysms of Climate Change? What I hadn’t fully realized is that 46% of the world’s population is under 24. That means they are facing the projections of catastrophe within their lifetimes. And they are children of the internet, It is easy for them to see that averting disaster will take coordinated global action, no single nation-state has the power to reverse the direction we’re headed in – it will take all of us (and them) working together.

But the dilemma for the world’s youth is that they have no voice at the table. Although they make up half of the world’s population, their age means that they have virtually no representation at crucial Climate Change negotiations.

Just two weeks ago, we traveled to Seoul, South Korea to support the TUNZA International Children and Youth Conference. The August 20th meeting was part of a larger engagement to bring a loud, focused, coordinated voice of world youth into the UN International Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. They hope to gather one million signatures from youth around the world which they can present at the conference. The motto of this engagement is “Seal The Deal!” (in Copenhagen). www.sealthedeal2009.org (new window)

This engagement started with a website on which youth could post their thoughts about what the Youth Petition to the Copenhagen conference should contain. All of this input was rolled up into a two-page document that expressed what actions world youth wanted from national governments, from world citizens and from the world’s youth. The August 20th meeting in Seoul brought together 600 youth between the ages of 10 and 24 from around the world to review, strengthen and endorse the petition. They were joined by youth around the world participating in small groups from their own countries. These remote participants were able to view a live webcast of the meeting in Seoul, and to send in their own thoughts and edits to the group that was editing the petition in real time in the meeting room in Seoul.

The meeting convened at 2:30pm in Seoul, but that meant it began at 10:30pm in Cuernavaca, and 6:30am in Athens. The whole distributed group worked together for 3 1/2 hours and in the end (2 am in Cuernavaca, 10 am in Athens) they hammered out a final version of the petition that had everyone’s endorsement. The process was unprecedented and wonderful to be part of, and it caught wide accolades and coverage in the world press. (In the US alone, it was covered by the NYT, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post and USA Today.)

Check out a brief video here. (new window)

The question that this engagement starts to answer is: How can you come to meaningful consensus effectively and affordably on a world-wide scale, in order to begin crafting world-wide solutions? The answer lies in good design. A key factor is effective leveraging of new technologies and possibilities of the internet. But to make that leveraging effective, the design has to take into account what can be accomplished at each stage of the engagement, and pick the tools and the processes that will have the most impact. The design process has to be responsive throughout. (We ended up changing the final deliverable from the Seoul meeting at a highly charged lunch meeting the day before the meeting.) Effective design makes the costs manageable for even far-reaching engagements, because the design team is relatively affordable, and if they can foresee the needs of the participants and put everything necessary into place, the engagement can be executed with technological options that are in reality very affordable.

So how will all of this turn out? This engagement is a significant step toward international cooperation and problem solving. Now the task ahead is collecting the one million signatures. The group’s website is www.uniteforclimate.org. (new window)

You can read the final World Youth Petition here: TUNZA_Youth_Statement.pdf (new window)

Or click here to check out a brief video: unep.covision.com/video (new window)

We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors,
We borrow it from our children.

Posted by Karl Danskin