Jason works to empower citizen sector organizations with simple methods for facilitating constructive consultation, deliberation and decision-making among their many diverse stakeholders. He assists in the planning and implementation of large participatory meetings that lead to clear outputs, the design of affordable and effective community engagement processes and the selection and set-up of easy to use Internet tool sets.

Along with having a full knowledge of various engagement methodologies, Jason has created his own innovative paper based Advanced Dotmocracy materials and techniques for conducting efficient polling and participatory decision-making within large numbers of people in a variety of face-to-face and out of meeting environments.

Jason has presented workshops across Canada and the USA, researched consensus cultures in eco-villages in Denmark and spent six months in Venezuela investigating their evolving participatory democracy.

Jason works full-time for Lura Consulting, and volunteers as a board member of the Canadian Community for Dialogue and Deliberation (C2D2). He is also a senior associate with the Deliberation Network, an active member of both the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation, and the International Association for Public Participation, and a certified National Issues Forums moderator.

Recent Workshops & Presentations

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

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

2006 National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation (San Francisco, USA)
Presented Dotmocracy process as part of the facilitation techniques showcase.

2006 World Social Forum (Caracas, Venezuela)
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.

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

Recent Clients

YMCA Canada (In progress)
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, Canadian partner (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 (2005/06)
Planned and implemented the redevelopment of CoopZone.coop.

Social Innovation Canada (2004/06)
Designed and implemented an online group decision-making tool set and web site.

Toronto General Hospital (2005/06)
Researched and consulted on public engagement system selection and implementation for the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation.

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public (2005/06)
Selected and oversaw the implementation of a multi-site custom Drupal development and content management framework for Ashoka.org sites.

Sierra Club of Canada (2003/06)
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 (2003/05)
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

Education

Masters in Design for Interaction (2002)
The School of Communication and Creative Industries at University of Westminster (London, UK)

Honors BA in Radio and Television Arts (2001)
Ryerson Polytechnic University (Toronto, Canada)

Masters in Multimedia - one semester, exchange program (2000)
Karlstad University (Karlstad, Sweden)

Download Jason's C.V. in PDF format

Contact

E-mail:
jason@cooptools.ca

Phone:
416-538-co-op (2667)
1-866-519-co-op (2667)

Skype:
JasonDiceman

Networks:
LinkedIn, Razoo, NCDD, Igloo

Home base:
Toronto, Canada.

Links

Dotmocracy - Facilitators resource site.

Jason's Photos on Flickr - Snap shots from my work and travels.

Jason's Videos on YouTube - Short clips from the past and my time in Venezuela.

Publications

Dotmocracy Handbook
An easy to read facilitators guide to the Advanced Dotmocracy process for large group decision-making. August 2006

Consensus Decision-Making Booklet (646 KB PDF)
A thorough explanation and collection of suggestions for consensus facilitation. April 2004

Choosing Open Source: A guide for civil society organizations
Co-authored with Mark Surman. January 2004

Ideal Public Discourse Technology (912 KB PDF)
130 pages on how to critique and design mass communication technology to support democracy. April 2001