Thanks for being a part of our group! And thanks Steve for setting up the
listserve for us.
I'm looking forward to collaborating on a "Building Online Infrastructure
for Dialogue and Deliberation" proposal for the NCDD Catalyst Award. Draft
submissions are due on November 25th, so we've got time to get it right but
no time to waste.
Here are some initial thoughts about things to do in the near term:
- Send an invite to join our group to the NCDD list, so that anyone who
wasn't on the initial email has an opportunity to participate. A draft
invite will arrive in an email to you later today.
- Schedule an initial call/video conference to discuss what we want to
accomplish and how we want to go about doing it.
In the meantime, perhaps we could take a moment to introduce ourselves to
the group? This would give us a chance to get to know each other, and
allow future members to read this thread to discover who's already on the
team.
So... let me start.
I grew up on Air Force bases, moving every few years, eventually to 11
different locations by the age of 18. The most memorable places were
Alaska and England, where I learned a love for the outdoors and an
appreciation for differences. I went to college at Miami University in
Ohio, where I majored in philosophy. I moved to Oregon after graduating
and have been here since, though I'm making the move north to Seattle in a
couple of weeks.
I've earned a living in the financial services industry since 1995, which
has the merit of allowing me enough free time to pursue my passion of
creating online tools to engage people in changing their communities and
the world. The idea for DemocracyLab hatched on November 3rd, 2004. The
election had not gone the way I thought it should, and the media was
telling us that America voted its values, which was why we were getting
four more years of the same policies. That made my head hurt. I started
to wonder if there might be a way to engage people online in political
dialogue, and in the process map out the connections between the values
they hold, the objectives they seek to accomplish, and the actions they
advocate. My thinking was that the data from the dialogue would be
analyzed to determine where there's consensus, where disagreement occurs,
and to identify opportunities for creative problem solving. After a year or
so of working through the idea with friends, I incorporated DemocracyLab as
a nonprofit organization and we received 501(c)(3) approval from the IRS in
2006. It's been a long road and a lot of work, but I've never been more
optimistic about the possibility of realizing this vision than I am right
now.
My hope for our work together isn't to get everyone to buy into my vision
for a specific online engagement tool, but rather to work towards creating
an infrastructure that will support multiple methods of engaging people in
online dialogue. I'm looking forward to hearing everyone's ideas and
working together to make this project a success!
Cheers,
Mark