Report on Coffee Party World Café #2: “Advocacy and Dialog”

The world café was held by phone on Tuesday, 5/18/10 from 8-10pm Eastern, using the Maestro Conference platform, and hosted by CT Coffee Party “point person” Ben Roberts. Thirty people registered for the call. At least nineteen joined it, but about six dropped out before the breakouts began due to an unfortunate, if brief, period of dead air caused by technical problems with Maestro Cafe’s data processing server.

Participants included CPM “point persons,” local group organizers, “rank and file” CPM members and some non-members. A number of participants were also experienced in various aspects of dialog and deliberation. Political leanings were about 50% “liberal,” with the remainder split between “libertarian” and “none of the above.” No one self-identified as “conservative.”

The theme of the café was the potential tension between the CPM’s twin goals of issue-based advocacy and the fostering of broad-based “transpartisan” dialog. An initial poll found that the group was evenly split on the idea that there was a tension involved in this combined mission, with the preference being to focus on dialog among those who felt that this was problematic.

The discussion used three breakouts, exploring three successive questions:

  1. What experiences (or thoughts) do you have regarding combining broad based dialog and advocacy?
  2. If the CPM decides to tackle the issue of immigration, what processes might it use to facilitate dialog and to develop advocacy positions?
  3. What principles might the CPM adopt to address the challenge of combining advocacy and broad-based dialog?

Suggestions for principles that emerged from the third question included:

  • Inclusiveness - Everyone is welcome.
  • Emphasize “perspective-taking.”
  • We hear each other and give everyone a voice.
  • Use “behavior-based principles and rules.”
  • We ask rather than assume.
  • Be respectful.
  • Use a moderating structure to create a“safe” environment
  • Give people a space to disagree and discuss differences.
  • Promote civil discourse
  • Use democratic voting to determine advocacy positions
  • yeas
  • neas
  • and abstentions
  • Focus on knowledge building of the group
  • Accept diverse sources of information and points of view
  • Create standards for credible sources of information
  • Provide for all civil viewpoints to be considered
  • All members should leave a meeting with new, or expanded, understanding
  • Create a formalized and vetted sanctioned body of credible information
  • issue specific
  • possibly assembled at the national level
  • neutral in origin (non partisan)
  • peer reviewed
  • evidence based where possible
  • above reproach
  • information can be graded in terms of reliability as well
  • “Humility”
  • Whatever is being discussed, the immediate stakeholders should be involved [This principle was illustrated by the suggestion that for both the Tea and the Coffee parties, very few members have actually lost their houses, health insurance, or jobs – groups should be diverse and include the stakeholders]
  • Speak from experience
  • Speak to solution rather than blame
  • “Be hard on ideas, soft on people”
  • Rigor around facts – ask“how do we know?” [Counter misinformation, on the one hand, but also encourage the group, whatever it is at the time, to seek out correct/verifiable information together about a perceived issue in a non-threatening and loving way]
  • Dialogue means that we come away with more information than any one person could have brought
  • We meet to create learning, clarity, and understanding in order to bring about effective action
  • Identify common ground first – common ground before conflict
  • The Coffee Party champions civic participation and the process of democracy – it is committed as a movement to the process and to inclusion of everyone
  • Listen without waiting to speak.

Themes patterns and insights in addition to the Principles:

At least a few comments identified the concern that the CPM currently has the outward appearance based on its websites, as well as the general reputation, of being a liberal advocacy group. A participant reported a concern “that if the CP ‘moderates’ an event, that it would be subject to accusations of liberal bias” due to this reputation.

Some other comments on themes and insights included the following:

“Our conversation could have gone on for quite a while. With each circling of the topic, we drilled deeper into the issue and we had not reached the bottom before time had run. Therewas also incidental discussion of the possibility that a split vote might disenfranchise significant numbers of members. No consensus emerged on that. Also, some discussion of language and the meta messages that may or may not be evident, again, no consensus, per se.”

“People recounted how we were compelled to become more politically active in response to the existing sorry state of political affairs and that has shaped our experiences. The challenge of being in conservative circles and still finding a way to express a different point of view was discussed. There is a need to bring all concerned parties in as equals to have good dialog.”
“Sometimes issues need to be reframed to take us out of typical right/left traps (immigration might be one of these). The idea that some issues are too divisive to address effectively was also floated. The ideas of Citizen Juries, Dilemma Analysis, and Powerful Questions were offered as possible models for dealing with difficult issues. The point was made that sometimes there is not a right and a wrong answer, that the best option lies in the middle. It was also suggested that a dialogue maintained to specific standards of civility and deliberative honesty would prevail in reaching the widest possible cross section of those willing to engage in a civil political process and by virtue, render the best possible solutions.”

“There was a discussion about the need for protocols and techniques to enable discourse such as Everyday Democracy’s study circles, World Café, and other techniques and resources available from NCDD (and other organizations) such as powerful questions, basic information, citizen juries, dilemma analysis. NCDD was a hot topic discussed as a resource in both groups.”

“People did not see an inherent tension between civility and advocacy and everyone rated the need for civility as one of the biggest draws to the coffee party specifically. Two people seemed to put particular emphasis on civil discussion above everything else, while the rest seemed to rate it as important and necessary to advocacy.”

“Our biggest challenge is getting that moderate person motivated to participate. How do reach that person?”

“What I found very interesting was this issue of elitism... at times it came across almost as the opinion that there are no experts and that all opinions should have the same weight. I would be inclined to disagree with that, but if there are others in the "movement" likely to share that perspective it is something to think about. I think it might almost take a nice syllogism to put it in perspective. I wrote down as a question to myself: can people advocate without deliberation? In other words, are opinions and decisions made in a "void" or in intellectual isolation truly "valuable", "helpful", "reliable", "trustworthy"? Of course every word has to be chosen carefully. Perhaps moving backward from the goal: The Coffee Party strives to support policies which result from: 1. research 2. direct experience (empirical data?) 3. reflection 4. deliberation 5. trial by fire, i.e. challenges from varying perspectives and which are supported by the majority and which strive to benefit the majority of American people.”

Another theme concerned Transparency at the national level:

- How are decisions made at HQ?
- How does “national” decide what moves forward up the chain?
- How can we know what’s happening across the country?
- Be clear on the purpose of the meeting.
- How are discussion panels selected? Need to be balanced? Articulate criteria for selection.

Conclusions:

Overall, there was a positive assessment of the call, including this comment: “[m]et some great people and becameaware of some new resources that I'm really excited about. I feel much more hopefulright now,that's a good thing.”

Not surprisingly, the value of broad-based dialog that includes diverse participants and opinionswas strongly affirmed. At the same time, there was limited experience in the group with a single organization combining the promotion of such dialog with a core mission of political activism, suggesting that the CPM is embarking on relatively new and challenging terrain. The principles suggested by the group emphasized the need for creating a safe (“neutral?”) space for all ideas to be heard and for dissent to be acknowledged. Another key theme was the need for providing/developing credible sources of information.

The questions posed for the café led to some exploration of the “big tent” challenge (i.e. how diverse a membership does/should the CPM have and how do we achieve that?). But this inquiry may perhaps have been limited due to an assumption by the participants that, as a general rule, the CPM’s specific advocacy positions would emerge out of the dialogic processes in which the groups engaged,rather than as directives issued by the movement’s organizers. A future discussion might more directly explore this, perhaps with the question of whether or not the CPM (or its organizers) is being perceived as a “liberal advocacy group” and if so, why and what our response might be.

In terms of the process itself, Maestro Conference proved to be a good platform for conducting such discussionsdespite its glitches. The world café format was well received and successfully generated a positive and productive collaborative environment as well as an opportunity for participants to make potentially useful connections with one another.

On a more technical note regarding hosting strategies, holding three breakouts of thirty minute each within a two hour time frame proved workable even with the inevitable delays in getting fully under way, (not to mention the challenges posed by the tech breakdowns). An initial ten minute period of introductions and polling (plus an invitation to join the call up to ten minutes early for informal chat) allowed for an orderly start to the call. Having each of the final breakout groups conduct a harvest independently, rather than attempting this with the group as a whole, also allowed for an efficient use of time. The use of scribes whose email summaries could then form the basis for this report was also very helpful.

Recommendations:

As a general tool for the CPM, this call validated the world café format and Maestro Conference platform as a useful means of exploring core issues and of bringing together people from diverse backgrounds, locations and roles within the movement. As a next step, it is recommended that a series of calls be used to help develop insights and suggestions for the drafting of the new Declaration of Principles. It might also be interesting to explore the use of the Maestro Conference platform as a means of conducting virtual CPM group meetings, either as adjuncts to physical groups or as a means for those who are geographically isolated to gather regularly.

Thanks again to everyone who participated and especially to the “scribes,” who recorded the harvesting phase of the final breakouts that provided much of the primary content for this report.

Ben Roberts

Coffee Party CT “Point Person”

Newtown, CT

May 20, 2010