a conference on ideas, techniques and technologies for building community dialogue.   Sydney 30 November 2007.

The  conference will help explore ways to better engage our communities in articulating their interests, ideas and ideals.

 welcomes anyone with an interest in community dialogue, including journalists, social change activists, community and charity organisations and academics with an interest in political participation, media, technology and social change.

explores ways to better engage our communities in articulating their interests, ideas and ideals.

In our increasingly diverse and global society it is vital that communities talk to each other. Voting and watching the 6 o’clock news are not enough to make a healthy democracy. It is the conversations we have—be they face to face , through the media or other technologies— that demonstrate our critical and active engagement with the big issues facing our communities and country. These conversations lie at the heart of community development and social change. Not only do they create a sense of identity and belonging, but they allow society to adapt to the challenges and opportunities it faces.

As newer and newer technologies develop, we need to harness the opportunities they create.  Not just for talking to existing friends and posting holiday photos but to build community and community dialogue. Opinion columnists and media advisors should not be the only ones to set the tone of our public conversations.

But this then raises the question – how? What are the best techniques to build dialogue? What are the success and the un-success stories? And how do we ensure that talk is meaningful and productive, with diverse participation and audiences?

And with all the talk and text, it is easy to get lost, down in the weeds of conversation. What is the bigger picture we are operating in? As practitioners, participants and researchers, do we have an end goal in sight? What assumptions underpin our commitment to building community dialogue?

• explore ideas, techniques and technologies in the field of independent media, citizenship-building and inter-community dialogue;

• look at the possibilities of new technologies, models of social change interventions and emerging forms of citizen participation; and

• provide a space to explore new ideas and possibilities, bringing together diverse organisations that care about the quality of citizen participation in our dialogue systems.