I don’t think I’ve ever been a guest blogger before, but starting today I’m doing a series on communities of practice on Darren Sidnick’s blog. I met Darren in Lisbon this summer at the EFQUEL conference. So here is the first one! (And waving to all of you from a coffee shop in Aukland, New Zealand!! Pictures soon!)
Darren Sidnick’s Learning & Technology: Communities of Practice (CoPs) with Nancy White
Author: Nancy White
Crap free computers
It is getting to be that time again — computer replacement. I have let my replacement cycle get out of synch and am going to have to replace both my desktop and my laptop, but the laptop is more mission critical. I’m currently keeping my laptop together with tape and prayers.
My Mac friends chide me to go Mac. I dread Vista, but I am also fed up with the religious zeal part of the Mac/PC debate. Apple has just business practices that are just as awful as Microsoft. Yes, there are design and usability issues. But I work mostly in international development where most people cannot even consider Macs due to price differentials, so I’m mostly working in a pee cee world. If money were no object, I’d have both, but hey, that is not realistic.
What has been driving my delay has been Vista-Fear so I was happy to read these two ZDnet articles, the first on
crapware free PCs from Sony – which might put me over the edge for Sony’s higher cost, and the second on removing crapware from other PCs.
I am glad there is a chink in the ever growing trend of preloaded crapware on new computers. And I have a new appreciation for ZDnet, which I had not read in a while. So many good things to read, so little time.
How do you title a book well?
We are down to the little things to finish up our book, which is currently titled “Stewarding Technology for Communities of Practice.” Some of the feedback we’ve gotten from our friends is that the title is… well…. BORING!
Today we sat and brainstormed on the phone. We are struggling to come up with something more interesting. Our requirements are that the title express what the book is about, and if we get clever, we have to get REALLY clever. Half-clever just won’t do. If we go with some clever title, the subtitles will most likely be something like “stewarding technology for communities of practice…”
To give you an example of our challenges, here is the result of our brainstorms!
- A-mazing
- Beyond geekiness
- Bridging the tech divide:Stewarding technology for communities of practice in the connected era
- Bridging worlds; stewarding technology for communities of practice
- Building community homes…
- Communities on steroids
- Community bridge builders of the 21st century
- Compass and a friend: stewarding tech…. (ref to orientations)
- Community lighthouses I’ve known and loved and navigated by
- Connect me, baby….
- Connecting the tech dots for communities of practice
- Creating a new practice
- Creating community landscapes
- Dial me in baby
- Exploding communities Image of fireworks, big, expanding outwards
- I’m not such an idiot
- It’s all local….
- Kinship to a nest builder:
- Landing on planet technology
- Landscaping
- More than magic:…..
- Nestweb
- Nestwebs
- Net nests
- 6 twigs, spit and the web: stewarding tech….
- New affinities….
- New nests for communities
- No @#$%^ing way
- Nova
- One foot on the dock
- Over our heads: stewarding….
- Painting our own reality:….
- Putting a bow around your community
- Putting your eggs in the right basket
- Rain dance
- Realizing a flock of doves
- Ship ahoy!
- Six twigs and a prayer
- Stewarding tech…. (Ref to orientations)
- Straddling
- Steward be nimble, steward be quick, Stewards jump over the community stick
- Stewarding Tech for CoPs: weaving community nests in the 21st century
- Straddling
- Tech to connect
- Techsavant
- The insider job
- The nerd and the socialite
- The secret life of community technology stewards
- The social geek
- The Tao of tech stewardship
- Throwing pots
- Tieing it all together
- Walking a maze
- Walking the tech maze
- Weaving community nests in the 21st century
- Webnests
- Webs to nests:
- Yeah! Stewarding technology for communities
- You want me to do what? A guide to stewarding….
- Zen and the art of community tech stewardship
- When Tables Sprout Wings: stewarding technology for communities of
practice in the 21st century - When Communities Sprout Wings: stewarding technology for communities
of practice in the 21st century - Beyond Imagination: stewarding technology for communities of practice
in the 21st century - Connected Communities: stewarding technology for communities of
practice in the 21st century
Photo Credit:
From workplace courses to global conversations
A few months back, Josien Kapma and I were invited to write an article for the Dutch publication,
Leren in Organisaties. We had a good time co-writing using Google docs, a little skyping and slowly iterating back and forth. We had FAR more we wanted to write and had to edit out a lot, making us both appreciate how rich the topic is of moving beyond the formal workplace training model and blending it with the rich and ongoing learning we experience in our global communities and conversations.
The journal is not yet online, so we have permission to share it with you. You have two options:
- artikel-leren-in-organisaties1 for the PDF
- If you need a lighter bandwidth version, text only here.
Photo Credit:
FAO/CGIAR KS Workshop II Agenda
I’m very happy to be involved in the second iteration of the Knowledge Sharing Workshop, this time with FAO joining forces with the CGIAR ICT-KM group to offer the workshop. We’ve learned from our first version and have just ginned up the agenda for the second offering. You can see it here –> FAO/CGIAR KS Workshop II Agenda – Google Docs. Take a peek and let me know what you think?
Right now the course is offered to members and partners of FAO and the CGIAR. If you work in development and are interested but are not a member or partner of FAO, leave me a note. If we have openings close to the start of the workshop (first week of September) I’ll let you know.