This post is especially relevant to two groups of you readers:

People who will be at the American Planning Association Conference in Phoenix this week, and
People who don’t like ugly and unproductive public meetings.

We realize that there’s probably more of you in that second category than the first. Read on for more!

Della Rucker will be presenting a Deep Dive workshop on Tuesday morning, April 5, called

Manage the Ax-Grinders: Do Better Public Participation

This is an expanded version of a training that that draws from her years of experience running high-tension public meetings. It’s based on a chapter in the Wise Fool book, Crowdsourcing Wisdom: A Guide to Doing Public Meetings that Actually Make Your Community Better (and won’t make people wish they hadn’t come).

Here’s what Della will be doing:

This Deep Dive will cover two related topics: how to manage public meetings to defuse confrontation and enable fair participation, and how to re-organize the public participation process, when feasible, to avoid problems and create a better experience in the first place.

Both sections of the workshop will use a combination of discussion, role-playing, and analysis to highlight how different meeting management strategies change the behavior and experience of participants.

The session will be at 9:30 and last until about noon. Check the conference agenda for location.

If you’re not going to be there, but you think this might be useful for your organization, staff, members, or others, send Della a message at della.rucker@wiseeconomy.com. You will never dread a public meeting quite so much ever again!