Monthly Brownbag Sessions

Discussion and Answers to Real-World Issues

Many of you have been telling us (for years) that we needed to provide you the opportunity – via some sort of low key networking – to further develop and sharpen the consent-building skills that you first learned in one of our Consent-Building courses.

SAMPLE of a Brownbag Recording

Why Consent and NOT Consensus?

Join Us Each Month
on the Second Tuesday (10:00-11:30am PST)

Every month, we offer a 90-minute Brownbag workshop to people who have had some, or all, of our Systematic Development of Informed Consent (SDIC) training. Each month we will tackle a new, timely, and practical topic, and are always open to your suggestions.

To register, please contact us directly 831-373-4292 or via email Jennifer Bleiker (jennifer@ipmp.com).

Barring any national or major holidays, we will hold each Brownbag session the second Tuesday of the month, kicking the learning module off at 10:00am Pacific Time (1:00pm Eastern), going for 90 minutes, and ending as promptly as possible at or close to 11:30am (Pacific Time).

For about 60-minutes, we’ll give a presentation on the topic of the month, including advice on how you can deal with those challenges.

Then, during the last 30-minutes of the session you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions and/or bring up issues (relative to the topic at hand) that may be unique to you, but that everyone else who is in on the conference call will benefit to hear us do our best to answer.

On the whole, we have selected topics that regularly come up during the course or in one-on-one coaching sessions. Other topics are those that might be less obvious but ones people are likely to encounter at some point during their career, yet might need some help handling.

If you can't join us for the live presentation, you can also purchase a copy of ANY recording and related handouts directly from us for $250/recording (only $150 if you listened in to the "live" presentation of that Brownbag). If the topic you are interested in purchasing isn't listed in our online store, just email Jennifer and she'll get it to you.

Relevant and Timely Topics

As many of you know, we often coach agencies who are using the Consent-Building approach their staff learned in one of our SDIC courses, but who face a particular challenge of one sort or another. These coaching arrangements usually consist of us helping the client agency’s team deal with those challenges via a series of periodic (weekly-or-so) conference calls.

Although the public involvement challenges that agencies face are never exactly the same, there are certain patterns that show up again and again.

Whenever we coach an agency on a topic that we just know other teams in other agencies are also facing, we wish all of you could listen in on the coaching conference calls . . . because then all of you would benefit from it, and all of you would, thereafter, know how to deal with that particular challenge.

These monthly 90-minute brownbag sessions are an effort to share with the rest of you the advice we have given to clients on some of the public involvement challenges that – we feel – most of you will encounter earlier or later.

Upcoming Brownbag Dates & Topics . . .

June 11, 2013

Working with Unreasonable Citizen Participation Expectations?

Constructive public involvement -- we call it "Consent-Building" -- is what gets the stuff technical experts plan implemented. Without it, plans get shelved, stalled, delayed, torpedoed, etc.

To put it another way: Your skill in developing your public's Informed Consent will make or break your organization's effectiveness. i.e. Public Outreach is BIG stuff; it's IMPORTANT. We know; we've done the research! . . . BUT, some people -- out in the public AND inside agencies -- have RIDICULOUSLY UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS about Citizen Participation. Don't fall for that!

Don't become a victim of wrong expectations!

In fact, many of you absolutely MUST talk to your top administrators -- as well as you external stakeholders. You must talk them OUT of any unrealistic expectations.

Register Online, call us directly at 831-373-4292, or email Jennifer Bleiker at jennifer@ipmp.com

July 9, 2013

Do you have a strategy for dealing with 'ANTI-GOVERNMENT' sentiments . . . if and when they impact your work?

If the growing "ANTI-GOVERNMENT" headwinds that are impacting the work of a great many public-sector professionals are not (yet) affecting you, consider yourself lucky. But, more to the point: DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY FOR DEALING WITH "ANTI-GOVERNMENT" SENTIMENTS . . . If and when they DO reach you? Or, will you -- like a lot of your colleagues -- simply throw up your hands in helpless frustration? . . . We intend to show that you can do a lot better than that! We'll share with you the strategy that gets its strength from the very source that fuels Tea Partyers' anti-government anger.

One of the beliefs that makes so many people anti-government – and, therefore, maybe, anti- your agency -- is also the key for reversing that negative attitude. Tune in. We’ll show you how.

Register Online, call us directly at 831-373-4292, or email Jennifer Bleiker at jennifer@ipmp.com

August 13, 2013

Does Your Public Understand You Are a Problem-Solving Entity?

Now and then you will work on a project where it’s not enough that you communicate with the public about your plans. Now and then your outreach has to go beyond that by providing leadership . . . The leadership that’s necessary for the community at large to behave responsibly and fix the things that are broken.

Register Online, call us directly at 831-373-4292, or email Jennifer Bleiker at jennifer@ipmp.com

September 10, 2013

Transforming "NIMBY" and "Over-My-Dead-Body" to "Thank Goodness for Your Work!"

How do your various publics view your agency? If they're not GRATEFUL for your agency's existence, tune in to this session and learn how to create THAT kind of relationship.

Take a close look at the relationship between your agency and the various publics that are impacted by your work. There is, after all, the full RANGE of relationships, from ADVERSARIAL on one extreme to GRATEFUL ADMIRATION on the other extreme. Needless to say, working in an organization that has a relationship closer to the 'Grateful Admiration' side, is a lot more fun and rewarding. . . The thing that interests us most, and that we will cover in this session, is: WHAT CAN YOU DO to create that desired relationship, one where the public regards you with GRATEFUL ADMIRATION? . . . I know, it sounds almost too good to be possible; well, amazing as it may sound, based on our experience, it's primarily up to YOU!

Register Online, call us directly at 831-373-4292 or email Jennifer Bleiker at jennifer@ipmp.com

General Objective of the Brownbag Session

Our aim in choosing topics for these brownbag sessions is to respond to real world problems, challenges, difficulties, frustrations, questions, etc. that we hear from client agencies. For the most part they are issues that – we feel – we don’t give enough time to in our regular SDIC and CPO courses.

Most of them, in fact, are issues that one or more of our clients have asked us to help them deal with through a coaching arrangement. Because these issues are not unique to any one agency, or to any one discipline, most of you – if not all of you – can benefit from the lessons we’ve learned in dealing with them.

How Do I Sign Up?

You can sign up to take part in one, some, or all of the Brownbag sessions. (There is a discount if you sign up for six or more topics.)

The cost for participating in a Brownbag session is a flat registration fee of $179 regardless of how many of your colleagues listen in while sitting around your conference phone (i.e. you are charged only per line that calls in to the conferencing center).

In fact, it’s great if you gather a group around the table for the session. That way, the 90-minute session may spark an internal discussion that continues among you and your colleagues for a while.

Again, for the first hour of each session, we will expound upon the topic, offer our thoughts and experiences, as well as our recommendations about how to handle the pitfalls and challenges related to the topic.

Then, either intermittently or during the last 20-30 minutes of the session, conference-call participants – including you – will be encouraged to pose questions that we, then, will do our best to answer.

(Our store currently asks "How many people are you registering?" but it really needs to ask "How many lines in do you need to the session?" Until we can update the site, please bear with us.)

If there is a Brownbag topic you missed or need others to hear, <b>you can always purchase a recording</b> of it for $250. If you participated/listened to the "live" presentation at the time that Brownbag debuted, we offer you a <b>significant discount to that Brownbag's recording from $250 down to $150</b>.

To register, call us directly at 831-373-4292 or email Jennifer Bleiker at jennifer@ipmp.com