Every year, MIT CCC students, staff, and collaborators head to Cape Cod, MA for three days to delve into research discussions and learn, imagine, and share with one another outside the constraints of everyday work life. 

This year, we were joined by Josh Flax (CCC senior advisor), Claudia Chwalisz (CEO & founder, DemocracyNext) and Andrew Heyward (CCC senior advisor), who each led a workshop. Josh focused on mediation and negotiation skills as a means to resolve conflict; Claudia on Citizens’ Assemblies as the next democratic paradigm of citizen participation, representation, and deliberation; and Andrew on leveraging language analysis to facilitate connection and shared understanding across diverse audiences. Longtime CCC collaborator and designer Elle Luna facilitated and structured the brainstorming sessions throughout the three days. 

Following the workshops, we broke into smaller teams to ideate and pitch a new research direction, app, or service inspired by the discussion. The room was filled with energy as each team presented a two-minute pitch of their idea and received feedback as students and staff rotated around the room. 

We returned to MIT this week with plenty of new ideas, great memories and CCC sweatshirts. 

Special thanks to Heather Pierce (CCC’s head of operations and administration) and Leila Carter (CCC’s administrative assistant) for pulling off a fantastic offsite. We’ve only been back in Cambridge for less than a week, but we’re already thinking about next year.