Send Beth Kanter to Cambodia

Many of you who read this blog know my friend and fellow activist blogger, Beth Kanter. As usual, she is up to good again. Help her go to Cambodia to be part of the Cambodian Bloggers Summit. Part of her heart is there already. Chip in and ChipIn will match 50%! Cambodia Bloggers Summit: Help Young Cambodian Bloggers Join the Global Conversation. She has an August 10th deadline, but reduce Beth's stress and donate today! She is really worth it!

Critical Evaluation of Information Sources

Via TeachandLearn's twitter today, a link to a clear, useful guide on Critical Evaluation of Information Sources . The site is from the University of Oregon Libraries and maintained by Ted D. Smith. Thanks, Ted! I also like that at the bottom of the page Ted leaves his email and the date the page was last modified. Nice role modeling, Ted!

One of the things that always comes up when I'm working/playing/talking with people about online resources is how to find GOOD and reliable resources. I am not a fan of blocking services that schools use. I'm a fan of building the skill of critical evaluation. I think it is a SURVIVAL skill in today's world. So lets learn early and often!

Tags: critical_thinking

Cool Online Communtiy Manager opening in Dubai

Via Mike Seyfang comes a link to a very interesting online community manager job, noted by Laurel Papworth Job: Community Manager - Dubai. She says "The gang at MBC are awesome - this just might be the Online Community manager job of the year - please post this job and link to them? " Here is a snippet of the job - which IS based in Dubai, so please note this. Apply here.

And Seth, yes, this is a job of the present!

MBC are a Middle Eastern TV and Media company - I think they have 150 million viewers, with a music channel and some others, - and a focus on 'New Arab' Women. This is really important project, in my eyes - the opportunity to mix social media with social good. My understanding is that iMatter is a project to work with Arab women in a blogging, wiki, forum environment. Social Media giving everyone a voice: imatter is an online community attached to MBC4. It provides information about MBC4 programs, but its main purpose is to provide a safe platform for Arab women to communicate about issues that are important to them, and to express their views freely.

The imatter Community Developer will work within the New Media department of the MBC Group, but will have a soft reporting line to the MBC4 channel marketing manager.

The purpose of the role is to provide support to develop the imatter online platform into the Arab world’s most popular online female community, to develop alternative revenue streams and to enhance the perception of MBC Group as the Arab world’s leading broadcaster and entertainment pioneer.

Jobs of the Present

In my world, where online groups, communities and networks are the air we breathe, there is a buzz about Seth Godin's post Jobs of the future, #1: Online Community Organizer. It is easy to say yes, of course. But there are some other realities worth bringing into view.

First, this is not a job of the future, it is work of today. Yes, I said work, not job. Because community organizing is going to be part of MANY jobs. In fact, there will be few jobs that are just community organizers. It will be a skill, like the ability to write and communicate, that smart employers will be looking for.

A couple of years ago I started doing a talk called the "8 Competencies of Online Interaction." I was passionate about it because I truly believed - and believe now - that our ability to communicate, to nurture group formation and action using online tools is going to be an important 21st century skill. I bemoaned that the college my youngest son was going to had nothing even on their radar 2 years ago about these issues in their communications or business programs. (Hm, I wonder about today.)

The difficult thing is that organizations are still unlikely to invest in people to do community organizing, building, nurturing and facilitating beyond those businesses who are in the online community business.

Why?

I could venture a few guesses. "Community" is still a soft squishy word. Sometimes community is the WRONG word! Our ability to understand the tangible benefits of our groups and communities is spotty at best. But most of all, I think there is a continuing unrealistic expectation that if you put up interaction software, things will just happen in your organization. I think it is truer today that they DO happen outside of orgs, but inside we don't always value them enough that people can give them the time and attention it takes to create value, to make them fruitful.

I'm not sure what this means. I need a vacation and I'm about to go offline for a week and do just that, so I am not holding myself to completeness or clarity of thought in this post. But I didn't want to let the opportunity slip by.

See ya in a week.

Tags: onlinecommunity, onlinefacilitation

Bloggers in a Bag

Flickr: Search John Pederson's photos

While I'm again working too hard to blog, I share this lovely photo set from those creative Edublogger folks. They sure do know how to have fun. Look at all those EduBloggers in a Bag!

dotOrganize report on NPO use of new tech

From Struggle to Strategy � Introduction:

"By conducting surveys and interviews over a nine-month period, the dotOrganize team has charted the state of online technology in the social change sector.

This report compiles insights from more than 400 social change groups, technology providers, and nonprofit technology capacity builders, examining the needs of organizers working to utilize new technologies, and offering recommendations for how to meet those needs more effectively."

Barbara Ganley's New Anti-Bog

The amazing Barbara Ganley, has a second blog. It feels like it is springing up from the creativity she has been nurturing in her original edublogging blog, BGBlogging. (In)Decisive Moments-: Waiting for Cassis.

I love beauty. Thanks, Barbara.

Technology for/and/by Community

Here are yesterday's D2LFusion slides, via Technology for/and/by Community � SlideShare. I think the conference organizers recorded the talk, but I did not ask. I will try and get to annotating the slides soon, or maybe recording an audio, because these slides really can't stand alone...

Tags: Fusion07D2L, technology_stewardship

Global JAM on Online Communities for Social Innovation

Back home and buckling down on the next set of activities -- one is lending a hand for the Global JAM on Online Communities for Social Innovation. If you are interested in social change and innovation, I encourage you to participate in this (FREE) event coming up next week. The "price of admission" is filling out a survey by the 15th, so jump on this now! Here are all the details...

July 18-19, Global JAM on Online Communities for Social Innovation

You are invited to the first Global JAM on Online Communities for Social Innovation, July 18-19 . A JAM is an online discussion that is time limited, asynchronous, moderated, and subsequently analyzed.

The goal of this event is to collectively identify technology requirements for effective online communities to better support those working in social change and innovation. The intention is to share what we learn quickly and broadly.

Online communities are changing the work we do and how we do it. They are creating new avenues for learning and innovating. They drive new models of leadership.

Today's technologies while plentiful are not inventoried, and overall not adequate for the needs of the social sector. The goal of this JAM is to help the sector use online community tools more effectively and to help technologists to build more appropriate tools. Through this discussion we hope to create a shared vision of our collective future for online communities for social change and innovation.

Participants will include leaders of nonprofit, NGO, public sector and grantmaking organizations, researchers and academics, technologists, and consultants from around the world. All use or plan to use online communities for social innovation.

We hope you will join us in this important conversation. The "Price of Admission" is completing the short survey at http://tinyurl.com/36cqk7 by July 15.

The JAM will be analyzed and synthesized in the form of a "white paper" that you will have the opportunity to participate in writing. You will receive a final copy, though we imagine it to be more of a living, changing piece. The paper will list all the JAM participants (unless you do not want to be identified).

You will have access to the JAM site, kpublic.net, shortly after you have completed the survey. The JAM agenda, discussion topics and structure, and other details can be found there.
The JAM is sponsored by the following Organizations: Knowledge in the Public Interest, Impact Alliance, OneWorld, PACT Latin America, Kabissa, Full Circle Associates, and The Learning Catalyst.

D2L Staff Geeking Out at the Duluth Airport

D2L Staff Geeking Out at the Duluth Airport
Originally uploaded by Choconancy1.

I think half the waiting area is filled with D2L staff. I could not resist taking a picture

Tags: Fusion07D2L!

Leaving Duluth

DSC_0380
Originally uploaded by scottfeldstein.

Well, I'm sitting in the airport, surrounded by Desire2Learn staff, all heading home after their user community gathering. I did a keynote this morning on "Technology for/and/by Communities" (slides and resources here.) I saw the beautiful aerial bridge, but Scott Feldstein got a MUCH better picture, so I had to link it to the blog.

It was fun to do a workshop yesterday with Will Richardson, have a F2F conversation with Stephen Downes (more about groups and networks and a fascinating side track into the phrase "taking responsibiity" which I need to chew on more before I blog),, meeting F2F a former Online Facilitation workshop participant, Jason Barr, meet lots of new people and see a user community in action.

Watching people talk about their experiences with the D2L elearning platform echoed what I talked about this morning about technology stewardship, about the intertwining of technology and community. It was a nice "click" for me, and I hope it was for the folks in the audience. It was an EARLY talk!

I have continued to feel pangs for not blogging, but there should be some time in the coming week, as well as a focus on the Technology and Communities book, client work and some vacation planning. It looks like Bogota, Columbia will be my next work trip, so the year of lots of travel continues. Does that make it the year of barely blogging?

Well, time to fly... adios, Duluth!

Tags: Fusion07D2L, Duluth, technologystewardship

What I haven't been blogging about

I heading into my last crazy week... then some time to slow down, take some vacation, and hopefully, get back into a regular blogging schedule. As my friend Bev said "I miss my blog." But there are priorities.

Here is a small peek at what I have not had time to blog about... (And for those heading to D2Learn, see you there!) These are in addition to things I tagged in del.icio.us. So much cool stuff, so few hours. There are conversations I wanted to be part of, and to those of you who expected me, I apologize.

Here ya go...

https://www.pdfonline.com/track.asp
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rolling_your_own_online_office.php
http://internettime.ning.com/forum
http://www.handson-om.net/hoom-organic-management-college.htm
http://www.handson-om.net/v2-drawing-organic-sense-1.htm
http://www.says-it.com/seal/shieldscroll.php
http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2007/06/27/learningconversation/
http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/trust_friendship_and_maturity_in_online_communities/
http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2007/06/one_of_the_many.html
http://machianations.blogspot.com/
http://www.socialcomputingmagazine.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=401
http://www.socialcomputingmagazine.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=243
http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/06/24/viewing_america.html
http://www.flightstats.com/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/140
http://www.crisscrossed.net/2007/06/26/a-learning-story-my-way-to-web20/#comment-50
http://www.travbuddy.com/widget_map_facebook_confirm.php?next=2&auth_token=0b99001e502c9d609234eb9683945a73
http://pavellawrence.blogspot.com/2007/04/cultural-literacy.html
http://connectedintelligence.wikispaces.com/
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/2007/06/reporting_on_sin.php
http://www.pebbleroad.com/article/using_wikis_on_the_intranet_the_british_council_case_study/
http://www.cogmap.com/home.php
http://libraryclips.blogsome.com/2007/06/28/pb-wiki-moving-forward/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivations_for_Contributing_to_Online_Communities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Community_of_Practice
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lynetter/sets/72057594139269787/
http://whatisthemessage.blogspot.com/2007/07/training-oneself-to-notice.html

58 Second Identity

Take a quick peek at Tomas's 58 second bio.

It makes me think of identity in a whole new light. What is your 58 second bio?