Full Circle Associates

Some of us from the Online Facilitation Yahoo Group have been trying to envision a floating online learning knowledge fair about online facilitation. Andy Roberts was the first to blog about it. Here is what he wrote:

by Andy on the December 13th, 2006

Some disillusion with academic conferences surfaced in recent discussions, together with the idea of unconferences, DIY and open space events. Now on the onlinefacilitation yahoogroup the idea of holding an online conference about online facilitation seems to be gaining enough groundswell of support to actually take place.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but a time horizon of 3 or 4 weeks in January/February 2007, free registration, simple platform with discussion space and wiki space seem favoured. So far nobody has tried to turn the online conference into a series of telephone calls, so I’ll be committing myself to playing an active role. The planning stage is taking place on Nancy White’s wikispace so there’s still time to help shape the future event if you are interested in collaborative decision making, and that would be the place to keep informed of developments. See you next year.

Here is the link to follow: onlinefacilitation » Online Conference on Online Facilitation

Nothing has gelled very far yet - such is the case with great ideas with not quite enough energy. But some fun things are emerging. I don't think we'll have our act together to do something in the Jan/Feb time range, but here is what IS happening. Besides the wiki...

1. We've started a Google Calendar with existing online events that relate in some way to online facilitation, many of which are free! You can find it at the bottom of this post. There are some great things to participate in over the next 3 months.

2. Via Chris Carfi, we have set up a Haystack social networking widget so you can join this floating thingamabobber we are trying to imagine into being! You can join this haystack here by clicking "Join."


3. Want to visualize the participants on a map? Connect via tags? Another piece of connective tissue is an Attendr site. (The instructions are a bit obtuse, but if you are interested in knowing more, post your email and I'll send an invite!)

I'm not sure what will happen yet, but if you are curious, join us!