December 12, 2012NH Listens, Delphi Technique and Dr. Bruce MalloryYou just never know where a tap on the shoulder might take you, but the last person I ever thought would do that to me was Dr. Bruce Mallory, the head of the Carsey Institute and NH Listens. I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Bruce Mallory for the first time on July 31, 2012 at a meeting in Laconia, NH. It was a facilitated meeting that employed the Delphi Technique. Dr. Mallory and several of his staff members met with me again on a sunny, warm day in August to talk about NH Listens and how conservatives felt about that organization. At that second meeting I said that NH Listens uses the Delphi Technique in their facilitated meetings and Dr. Mallory denied it. I picked up the conversation again on the morning of December 9, 2012 when I used the Contact Form at the NH Listens website. Here's what I sent: I would like a list of all upcoming listening sessions that NH Listens plans to hold. Why isn't that list published on this website? The meetings are open to the public, right? If so, then they should be listed here weeks in advance. Do you get public money to facilitate these meetings? If so, it should be widely publicized here when and where the meetings will be held. The following morning Dr. Mallory's #1 right-hand woman, Ms. Michele Holt-Shannon, responded very professionally via email. She Cc:d Dr. Mallory in the reply to me. Here's what Michele had to say: Dear Tim, I was grateful for the response, but I felt as if she was avoiding the issue as I could not readily locate a calendar at the NH Listens website that clearly showed upcoming events, where they would be held and at what time. She said they were posted, but posted where? I replied to her email with the following, making sure to hit Reply to All so Dr. Mallory was in the loop. Here's what I sent: Michele, This is where is started to get interesting. At this point, Michele stepped aside - or was told to stand down - and Dr. Mallory jumped into the fray. He replied to me with this email: Greetings Tim, So I couldn't let Dr. Mallory off the hook, right? You wouldn't accept that reply without a rebuttal, correct? I thought so. Here's what I send back to Dr. Mallory: Bruce, Yes, you can clearly see the shields being raised. Yes, I'm being provocative, but after all, NH Listens is a publicly funded group. If you decide to accept that money, then there are consequences. One of the consequences is the public deserves clear answers to questions. Dr. Mallory, as you can see, is an expert at dodging questions. But that makes sense, at least to me. When you have something to hide, you dodge questions, you ignore them or you hope the person asking the questions just gets frustrated. Can you anticipate Dr. Mallory's response to my last email? I know I did. I was positive he was going to not answer my questions. What a shame. It could have been done in a private forum, but now he forced it to go public. Here's what Dr. Mallory shot back to me. You can tell he made the decision that he's not going to play nice. Tim, Respectfully, I won't comment on the Delphi technique since we don't use it, never have, and have no plans to. I understand that you have a different perception, but that's what makes the world go 'round. The principles that NH Listens operates from are found at http://nhlistens.org/how-it-works. --Bruce By now you pretty much can predict my response in this escalating Q and A session. Here's what I send back to Dr. Mallory: Bruce, Once again, the key structure of Delphi, in case you're not aware of it, is: So there you have the facts. You tell me. You're the Court of Public Opinion. Does NH Listens use the Delphi Technique when it facilitates a meeting out in public? Of course it does. The sad thing is Dr. Mallory doesn't have the courage to admit it. Why do you think that's the case? Please feel free to comment below.
Posted by Tim Carter at December 12, 2012 7:39 AM Comments
Using Facilitated meetings in the private sector business meeting is great to brainstorm ideas. But, it should never take the place of the communication between the elected and the constituent. The Listening sessions are promoted by an educational system that is stacked with Social Progressives, who's goal is to dismantel individual thought and replace it with communitarian thought. This process is all they know, the process is at odds with the system they live under, who's sole purpose was created to secure individual rights and to protect the individual from the larger Mob. The facilitators will tell you that they have the listening sessions to assure every individual has a voice, but people already have the ability to speak, to complain, to lobby their government. What the facilitated meetings accomplish, is to steer a group. This steering concept or technic is not new, but is very effective and is used primarily to be deceptive. If the University of New Hampshire spent State taxpayer money to educate instead of manipulate, I believe the process of solving societies problems would commence immediately. What we are left with is the answer; the goal of NH Listens is not to educate, it is to promote a planned and regulated form of governance that was already deemed a dismail failure by our ancestors. Posted by: Ed Comeau at December 12, 2012 10:23 AMTHANK YOU FOR THIS VALUABLE INFO. As they begin their tour of the NH public schools, we will now be equipped with this knowledge to counter this manipulation technique! Posted by: MOMwithAbrain at January 3, 2013 3:26 PMAttended one in Pembroke last night. The NH "listens" certainly employed the delphi technique and they were quite aggressive, especially Michelle, who had no problems shushing adults. There was a plant in my group and the facilitator seemed to know how to write things down in a way that DID NOT match the dialogue. Pretty sure they knew I was in opposition to ANYONE restricting my water or property rights, and they also presented "climate change" as undisputed fact, and included graphical renditions of Evidence. The data in their handout was old outdated and out of context. I'm sure they will be working to fix that! Posted by: NotCluelessinNH at April 17, 2013 1:27 PMPost a comment
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