I've been developing, training and consulting on decision communication technology for 20 years, for the first 15 years in a corporate setting.  Five years ago I was invited by Carie Fox, an Institute Roster member in Portland, to work on a fast moving, high-tension County-level public engagement dispute.  It was a baptism of fire but the process and the technology we deployed to support it delivered a success.  I discovered that there are a bunch of core principles that have been developed in the crucible of ECR that are missing from a lot of corporate decision making processes.  I also discovered how important the issues that ECR is addressing - even when it's about sewage disposal!  

Since then we've partnered on a bunch of federal projects, with Carie leading on the assessment and project design, bringing me in to co-design how the technology can support, sustain and (sometimes) expand the process.  In doing this we discovered that we each have very different, but very complementary areas of expertise.   Lots of things that each of us can do that the other can't, but a heck of a lot we can do together.  A key to our growth was knowing that we have a long term business partnership, that we each can rely on when the going gets tough (which seems to happen a lot in this ECR world!)   More collaborations and partnering is what this network is all about.  Philip Murphy