Experience

Recent Public Consultation Experience

Jason worked on the following projects as part of Lura Consulting, February 2008 to September 2009

Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Rondeau Bay Barriers & Benefits Research (2009)
Conducted a face-to-face community research survey investigating resident and cottager attitudes and behaviours related to phosphorus loading in Lake Erie.

Waterfront Toronto, Future of the Gardiner East Environmental Assessment (2009)
Provided key input into the strategy and implementation of the GardinerConsultation.ca e-consultation website and also the web based consultation management tool used by the team.

City of Toronto, Ashbridges Bay Treatment Plant Environmental Assessment Approved Undertaking (2008-2009)
Lead author and coordinator of the Public Consultation & Communications Plan.

Portlands Energy Centre, Community Liaison Committee (2008-2009)
Lead coordination of the committee including the implementation of an innovative Questions and Answers document to provide a single source for up-to-date answers to questions discussed in all previous committee meetings.

Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and City of Toronto, Transit City (2008-2009)
Logistical management of multiple public open houses and wrote reports based on feedback received from participant comments.

Region of Peel, Mississauga Road Widening Class Environmental Assessment (2008-2009)
Worked with the Project Team to design and carry out an effective consultation and communications plan to engage with the stakeholders impacted by the project.

City of Toronto, Toronto Yards Consolidation Study (2009)
Wrote final public consultation report. 

Ontario Ministry of Environment, Wind Turbine Noise Interpretation Document Workshop (2008)
Facilitated group deliberations and authored final report.

Waterfront Toronto, Lower Don Lands Infrastructure Study Municipal Class Environmental Assessment (2008-2009)
Co-facilitated public forums and authored summary reports.

Region of Peel, Peel Hanlan Feedermain Class Environmental Assessment (2008-2009)
Crafted and implemented the consultation and communications program that included stakeholder interviews, multiple public open houses, and a plain language community newsletter.

City of Toronto, Lawrence Heights Revitalization Study (2008)
Carried out stakeholder interviews and facilitated roundtable discussions at community forums towards development plans for this priority neighbourhood.

City of Brampton, Brampton Response to the Provincial Growth Plan (2008)
Helped the City of Brampton design, implement and facilitate a public awareness and engagement program, which included public communication materials and a series of public meetings.

City of Pickering, Pickering Indicators (2008)
Co-facilitated an innovative half day workshop with diverse stakeholders to recognize their priorities and collect their feedback on numerous ideas presented to them.

 

Previous Clients

YMCA Canada (2007)
Conducting stakeholder engagement as part of a web upgrade planning process.

Transportation and Land Use Coalition of the Bay Area, California (2007)
Authored RFP for web site overhaul and consulted on vendor selection.

Centre for Social Innovation (2006)
Provided Dotmocracy group decision-making technique training.

Voluntary Service Overseas Canada (2006)
Consulted on technical on migration of web sites.

Ontario Council for International Cooperation (2006)
Facilitated a large group decision-making process as part of their annual Youth Symposium.

Canadian Co-operative Association (2005-2006)
Planned and implemented the redevelopment of CoopZone.coop.

Social Innovation Canada (2004-2006)
Designed and implemented an online group decision-making tool set and web site.

Toronto General Hospital (2005-2006)
Researched and consulted on public engagement system selection and implementation for the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation.

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public (2005-2006)
Selected and oversaw the implementation of a multi-site custom Drupal development and content management framework for Ashoka.org sites.

Sierra Club of Canada (2003-2006)
Provided web development, consultation and training for various Sierra Club of Canada web services, including mailing lists, extranet and content management system.

City of Toronto (2005)
Co-facilitated advanced Dotmocracy based community consultation meeting for the City of Toronto concerning Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market.

The Ontario Network of Employment Skills Training Projects (ONESTEP) (2005)
Provided strategic direction for web services.

Green Party of Canada (2003-2005)
Developed the "Living Platform" wiki system for the Green Party of Canada's collaborative policy development in 2005.

VoluntaryGateway (2003)
Conducted two day training course for 17 different NGO leaders using four different web systems for voluntarygateway.ca

Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment (CPCHE) (2002-2006)
Designed and developed a shared content management for Healthy Environment For Kids . ca

Read Client Testimonials and Quotes from Peers

 

Workshops & Presentations

Upcoming Workshops

2008 Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation
Consensus document workshop and ongoing Dotmocracy wall.  October 22-25, 2009 in Toronto. Learn more about this excellent conference

Recent Workshops & Presentations

BikeCamp TO (Toronto, 2009)
Facilitated a plenary Dotmocracy process to capture priority action ideas from the day's discussion.

The Grove Community School, Toronto District School Board (Toronto, 2009)
Consensus decision making training for future school council members. Co-facilitated with Simone Arsenault-May. View workshop slides and download the handout

Change Camp (Toronto, 2009)
Facilitated a Dotmocracy session on "Next Steps" in parallel with closing ceremonies. View results

Learning Democracy by Doing Conference (Toronto, 2008)
Presented (in Spanish) as part of a panel on "Participatory democracy and learning in Venezuela". Hosted by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation (Vancouver, 2007)
Presented a poster session on "The Reality of Venezuelan Communal Councils"

Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Ministry of Popular Power for Participation and Social Protection (Cumana & Caracas, Venezuela, 2007)
A series of Dotmocracy training workshops for community facilitators.

National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation (San Francisco, USA 2008)
Presented Dotmocracy process as part of the facilitation techniques showcase.

World Social Forum (Caracas, Venezuela, 2006)
Jason was invited and hosted by the Venezuelan Servicio Autónomo de la Propiedad Intelectual (SAPI) to give a workshop in open source software development and to demonstrate his Dotmocracy process.

Building Strong Communities Conference (Toronto, 2005)
Participated in a panel on participatory democracy techniques.

Client Testimonials and Quotes from Peers

Testimonials from Clients

“Jason is passionate, multi-skilled and knowledgeable about tools and techniques that engage people in decisions that affect their lives. He has created Dotmocracy - a tool that enables majority opinions to float to the surface without conflict. He is friendly and personable and would be a great asset to your organization's community engagement team.” 

Sally Leppard
Founder and CEO, Lura Consulting

 

"I had the pleasure of working with Jason Diceman on multi-stakeholder consultation regarding Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market. Jason’s use of advanced Dotmocracy was particularly useful for avoiding conflict at a large public meeting and for generating a great number of ideas in a short period of time. His facilitation and skill in working with the public was excellent and the meeting was highly productive. I would be pleased to recommend him as a facilitator or public engagement consultant."

David Nagler
Senior Public Consultation Coordinator, Public Consultation Unit, City of Toronto

 

"Jason Diceman played an important role at certain points in the Public Engagement Project, helping us to select and implement public engagement software and hardware. Most specifically, he helped us pilot the use of hand-held survey devices and software in real-time settings for instant polling and reporting of audience opinions."

Laura Heller
Project Manager Public Engagement Project, Centre for Global Health Innovation, Toronto General Hospital

 

"We were so thrilled to have Jason facilitate a consensus decision making workshop for our community. Jason's expertise and professionalism are combined with a genuine warmth and passion to help give organizations important skills for becoming more democratic and efficient.  Jason was engaging, funny, warm and organized.  His workshop fit the needs of our organization perfectly and his ability to bring passion, energy to his work and simultaneously stay grounded is very impressive.  I highly recommend hiring Jason Diceman for your organization."

Kim Fry
Co-chair, The Grove Community School

 

"Jason is a wonderful resource on facilitation techniques for group decision-making. I've been impressed for years by his commitment to dialogue and deliberation, and have referred many colleagues to his Dotmocracy tools."

Gillian Kerr
President, RealWorld Systems

 

"The Centre for Social Innovation was extremely excited to partner with Jason Diceman to present his introduction to Dotmocracy. The event generated a lot of interest among our audience and was one of the best attended and most highly rated workshops we've held. Jason delivered the workshop with expertise and good humour, encouraging the group to work together in real time using the Dotmocracy process. This was the perfect strategy for explaining the process and encouraging all participants to delve deeply into this unique and promising facilitation technique. Dotmocracy is an excellent way to make decisions within a large group, facilitating equal contributions among all participants and ensuring that the final results are truly reflective of the group."

Eli Malinsky
Program Manager, Centre for Social Innovation

 

"I was really impressed by Jason's facilitation skills throughout his workshop. I thought that he was really good at reading the energy in the room and keeping it up when needed. What struck me was the ease with which common ground could be identified with such simplicity (and places of tension, for that matter). I was a little worried that it would not be an engaging process because there wasn't as much discussion as usual, but I felt engaged, listened to, and invigorated by how much was accomplished."

Kirstin Beardsley
Communications & Research Officer, Developing Human Resources in the Voluntary Sector

 

"I've been Dotmocracized twice and loved every minute! An excellent energizing way to bring interactive brainstorming to a whole new level. A process that gets EVERYONE involved! One of the things that I appreciated the most about Jason's facilitation technique is his "energizing style" and his ability to be inclusive of everyone."

Kathy Marshall
Executive Director, WomenSpace

 

"I am very appreciative of how user friendly you made the [web] training and of course the time you took to explain everything in non-techy terms."

Beth De Long
Executive Director, Pillar - Voluntary Sector Network

 

Quotes from Peers

"Jason is an up and coming large-group deliberation consultant and facilitator who demonstrates innovative approaches, diverse insight and sensible implementation in a variety of environments. I look forward to following his career in Canada and beyond."

Sandy Heierbacher
Director of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation

 

"Jason Diceman is a dedicated and skilled practitioner who excels in creating opportunities for people to reach understanding and agreement on complex and challenging issues. I highly recommend him for any such undertaking."

Dr. Joanna Ashworth
Director, Dialogue Programs, Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University

 

"Jason Diceman is a promising civic entrepreneur who has developed new democratic governance strategies as close to home as Toronto and as far way as Venezuela. This breadth of experiences, combined with his natural curiosity and commitment, make him an effective and enjoyable person to work with. He is particularly innovative in his thinking about ways to combine different media for engagement - online tools, video, face-to-face meetings - and ways to help groups of people make decisions (such as his dotmocracy voting process) on the basis of their deliberations."

Matt Leighninger
Executive Director, Deliberative Democracy Consortium, Washington, DC.
Author of The Next Form of Democracy

 

"Jason is an innovator. He brings a combination of expertise, enthusiasm and excitement to his work."

Tim Woods
Senior Partner, The Deliberation Network

 

“I've met Jason a few times at conferences and found him energetic, committed to participation, eager to help, respectful, and determined to have a positive influence on the world. I've asked him questions about online discussion and dialogue tools and techniques and he seems to have a LOT of insight to share, with subtle understandings about how to match tools to the needs of the group. It's nice to meet a consultant who blends passion with such subtlety of insight.”

John Miller
Facilitator and ToP Trainer, ICA Associates Inc.

 

"A definite asset to any engagement team."

Sandra Zagon
Co-Chair, Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2)

 

"Jason is a firm believer in the power of dialogue and deliberation and, more importantly, he is among those who walk the talk - his willingness to share his Dotmocracy tool with everyone is just one example of both his commitment to public participation and his ability to make a valuable contribution to this field."

Manon Abud
Partner, Ascentum Inc.

 

"I have found Jason's insight on public engagement to be very useful."

Jose Reyes, ACP, MCIP
Policy and Land Use Supervisor, Rocky View Municipal District, Albert, Canada