Abstract
The history of the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative (TDI) traces both a literal and a metaphorical movement from analog to digital. In a literal sense, TDI has morphed from piles of paper to an array of online tools and digitized data, much like the transition from phonographic records to streaming music. In a metaphorical sense, TDI has come to be centered on lightly facilitated, dialogue-based workshops organized around responses to Toolbox instruments. This chapter provides a narrative history of TDI’s development. It describes several of the pivotal moments that have made TDI into what it presently is as of the writing of this volume. The goals are to describe TDI and to offer lessons for groups that have a structure and trajectory similar to that of TDI.