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This is our topic for today: the way things move and spread, somewhat chaotically, across a network. Some examples to whet the appetite: Infectious diseases jumping from host to host within a population Memes spreading across a follower graph on social media A wildfire breaking out across a landscape Ideas and practices diffusing through a culture Neutrons cascading through a hunk of enriched uranium

Welcome to Conversation Café! Conversation Cafés are open, hosted conversations in cafés as well as conferences and classrooms-anywhere people gather to make sense of our world. At a Conversation Cafe there is nothing to join, no homework, no agenda, just a simple process that helps to shift us from small talk to BIG talk, conversations that matter. Hosts are key to successful Conversation Cafes and we are here to make hosting easy, rewarding, and fun for you.

Code for America hosted Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu for a discussion of their recent book, "Gardens of the Democracy." In it, they challenge Americans to approach the world not as a machinery that needs to be perfected but as a garden that needs constant attention, discretion, and periodic weeding. The book argues that since society and technology have fundamentally changed, so must our notions of citizenship and democracy: turning "the machine" into a garden. 

The way we work is changing forever. A host of technologies-from automation to digital platforms for coordination of tasks-are reinventing not just what people do to earn a living but at a much deeper level how we organize to create value. The landscape of labor economics is in upheaval. Solutions won't come from any one agency, discipline, or company. It will take collaboration, broad public engagement, smart policy, and an openness to reinventing old economic models. The IFTF Workable Futures Initiative is a call-to-action for policymakers, platform developers, corporate strategists, activists, and of course other workers of all kinds, to join us in blueprinting these positive platforms for the future of work. The time is now to grapple with the challenges ahead, develop sustainable solutions, and create a future of work that is workable for everyone.

California piloted the first statewide open data portal, GreenGov.data.ca.gov, with data sets and results from the GreenGov Challenge, a code-a-thon built around sustainability data sets hosted on the pilot site. GovOps is now moving the open data portal to an open source platform (DKAN) to ensure the longevity of continuous efforts to make government more open and efficient.

E-Democracy.org builds online public space in the heart of real democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy. Starting with the world's first election information website in 1994 in Minnesota, today we host over 50 local Issues Forums in 17 communities across three countries - New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to these "online town halls" and our "community life" forums we promote civic engagement online around the world.

In Slow Democracy, community leader Susan Clark and democracy scholar Woden Teachout describe how citizens around the country are breathing new life into their communities. Large institutions, centralized governments, and top-down thinking are no longer society's drivers. New decision-making techniques are ensuring that local communities-and the citizens who live there-are uniquely suited to meet today's challenges. In Slow Democracy, readers learn the stories of residents who gain community control of water systems and local forests, parents who find creative solutions to divisive and seemingly irreconcilable school-redistricting issues, and a host of other citizen-led actions that are reinvigorating local democracy and decision making.

Welcome to the World Cafe Community of Practice! This is a place where World Cafe practitioners and supporters can share their experiences and learn from each other, a place for those new to the World Cafe to ask questions, and a place for us all to experience deep and meaningful conversations about those things that really matter to us. Pull up a chair at the World Cafe Community table that calls to you.

This site is designed for people interested in complex systems and complex dynamical processes. Complexity Explorables hosts different collections of interactive illustrations of models for complex systems in physics, mathematics, biology, chemistry, social sciences, neuroscience, epidemiology, network science and ecology. Topics include pattern formation, synchronization, critical phenomena, chaotic dynamics, evolutionary dynamics, fractals, collective behavior, reaction-diffusion systems and more.

In 2008, Tina Roth Eisenberg (Swissmiss) started CreativeMornings out of a desire for an ongoing, accessible event for New York's creative community. The concept was simple: breakfast and a short talk one Friday morning a month. Every event would be free of charge and open to anyone. Today, attendees gather in cities around the world to enjoy fresh coffee, friendly people, and an international array of breakfast foods. Volunteer hosts and their team members organize local chapters that not only celebrate a city's creative talent, but also promote an open space to connect with like-minded individuals. The growing archive of past breakfast talks is humbling. From design legends to hometown heroes, speakers are selected by each chapter based on a global theme.

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, at a virtual event co-hosted with the National Academy of Public Administration, Results for America will release the 2020 Invest in What Works Federal Standard of Excellence, an annual review of how federal agencies are using evidence and data to get better results for young people, their families, and communities.

Google Refine is a power tool for working with messy data sets, including cleaning up inconsistencies, transforming them from one format into another, and extending them with new data from external web services or other databases. Version 2.0 introduces a new extensions architecture, a reconciliation framework for linking records to other databases (like Freebase), and a ton of new transformation commands and expressions.

Hosting conversations that matter.General Information Using seven design principles and a simple method, the World Café is a powerful social technology for engaging people in conversations that matter, offering an effective antidote to the fast-paced fragmentation and lack of connection in today's world.