Architect and designer, Fred Dust was looking for a way to merge creation, social change and dialogue when he joined design firm IDEO, attracted by its collaborative design culture. He began to concentrate on constructive conversation which he discovered was critical to problem-solving in all sorts of different settings from schools, to non-profits and governments.

Now Dust has put all these lessons into his new book, Making Conversation. It offers readers a tool kit, outlining 7 essential elements for meaningful conversations. Joining the conversation is Seth Henderson from Aspen Institutes’s Better Arguments Project, a new national civic initiative created to help bridge ideological divides and help train Americans to conduct better arguments. The idea is that arguments don’t have to drive us apart but can bring us together and that the more Americans engage each other, the healthier and stronger our democracy will be.

BAP is a partnership between the Aspen Institute’s Citizenship and American Identity Program, the nonprofit organization Facing History and Ourselves, and Allstate.