Category: community indicators

Bringing Home Beauty and Wondonga Friends

Thanks to Geoff Young (@gsyoung), the vibrant and ever perapatetic host a few weeks ago at Wondonga TAFE, my Christmas presents will soon be moving from Australia to the US.

What I love about these two paintings, beyond their beauty, is that we found them in the student gallery at Wondonga TAFE as part of an Aboriginal show. So not only will our home be blessed by their beauty, but we have the pleasure of directly showing our gratitude to the students by buying them. I can think of no finer way to spend my travel money, and more important, ongoing time and attention than to the beauty of their art. Thank you Geoff for getting them to us and send our deep gratitude to the artists.

Our two new paintings from Wondonga TAFE students.

Instagram.

I might add a word about Geoff. Not only is he a Tweet-Meister, but he clearly is working social media and open education magic at his TAFE. Way to go, Geoff!

Noodling on my fOSSa presentation

October is a month on the road… and one stop is Lyon, France, where I’ll be presenting at the third edition of the fOSSa Conference taking place from October 26 to 28, 2011.

What is fOSSa? From the organizers:

The aim of the fOSSa (Free Open Source Academia Conference) is to reaffirm the underlying values of Open Source software: innovation & research in software development.

While the first edition aimed at providing valuable information on the Open Source model at large, the second edition focused specific key-aspects of FOSS such as development, innovation & research, community management & promotion, public sector, and education. The third edition will address in an open-minded style about
– what tech people are actually doing and innovating?
– which are the upcoming issues & challenges in the open development context?
– how open activities, collaboration and knowledge sharing is beneficial to academia, education & industry?

fOSSa 2011 program includes talks about Education, Online Community Management, New Innovating Development & Contribution Paradigm, Openness and OSS trends.

fOSSa days are open to everyone and registration is free !
more information @ http://fossa.inria.fr

So what am I going to offer? Here is my first draft: Twittering: Frittering or Connecting?  The role of transversal connections in online communities and networks.

As humans, we have a long history of working in groups: families, local geographic communities, work teams. Today online technologies allow us to connect broadly using networks of all kinds. We might think of these as deep (groups) and broad (networks). The question is, how do we keep these two forms usefully knitted together? How do the emerging technologies work together as a useful habitat, and when do they actually make things harder? What are the online and offline implications? Lets explore the place of the “transversal!”

I picked up the word “transversal” from Etienne Wenger’s talk a few weeks ago at the Rome Share Fair. It resonated with my observations about the disconnect we seem to experience between high level conversations in a domain and practice, between the breadth of networks and the intimacy of smaller groups. So I grabbed the word and I’m running with it, along with his term “social artist!” Yum. Plus I’ll weave in technology stewardship. So maybe this is about roles, eh?

This week I also have a fabulous case to illustrate many of the ideas I’m thinking of sharing, the #Canlis4Free treasure hunt in Seattle. I took a ton of screen shots and uploaded them today.  But does one dare talk about one of the more exclusive Seattle restaurants when in the home of some of France’s finest cooking? Mmmm….

Message From Meetup/Community Thoughts

KM4Dev members

I thought this was worth sharing as I know many of you, dear readers, are as passionate about community as I am. Plus I’m preparing for a round of gatherings of communities that are very significant in my life in the coming weeks. In that spirit considers what triggers us to connect. What has catalyzed significant community engagement for you?

To: nancyw at fullcirc dot com
Subject: 9/11 & us

Fellow Meetuppers,

I don’t write to our whole community often, but this week is special because it’s the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and many people don’t know that Meetup is a 9/11 baby.

Let me tell you the Meetup story. I was living a couple miles from the Twin Towers, and I was the kind of person who thought local community doesn’t matter much if we’ve got the internet
and tv. The only time I thought about my neighbors was when I hoped they wouldn’t bother me.

When the towers fell, I found myself talking to more neighbors in the days after 9/11 than ever before. People said hello to neighbors (next-door and across the city) who they’d normally ignore. People were looking after each other, helping each other, and meeting up with each other. You know, being neighborly.

A lot of people were thinking that maybe 9/11 could bring people together in a lasting way. So the idea for Meetup was born: Could we use the internet to get off the internet — and grow local communities?

We didn’t know if it would work. Most people thought it was a crazy idea — especially because terrorism is designed to make people distrust one another.

A small team came together, and we launched Meetup 9 months after 9/11.

Today, almost 10 years and 10 million Meetuppers later, it’s working. Every day, thousands of Meetups happen. Moms Meetups,Small Business Meetups, Fitness Meetups… a wild variety of 100,000 Meetup Groups with not much in common — except one thing.

Every Meetup starts with people simply saying hello to neighbors. And what often happens next is still amazing to me. They grow businesses and bands together, they teach and motivate each other, they babysit each other’s kids and find other ways to work together. They have fun and find solace together. They make friends and form powerful community. It’s powerful stuff.

It’s a wonderful revolution in local community, and it’s thanks to everyone who shows up.

Meetups aren’t about 9/11, but they may not be happening if it weren’t for 9/11.

9/11 didn’t make us too scared to go outside or talk to strangers. 9/11 didn’t rip us apart. No, we’re building new community together!!!!

The towers fell, but we rise up. And we’re just getting started with these Meetups.

Scott Heiferman (on behalf of 80 people at Meetup HQ)Co-Founder & CEO, Meetup New York CitySeptember 2011

Do something, Learn something, Share something, Change something – Meetup.

Living Example of Community Q&A Power

Bees, by kokogiak on Flickr, CC some rights reserved

From the wonderful and amazing Seattlefarmcoop : Seattle Farm Co-op comes evidence of the power of online communities and networks. Look at the time stamps.

8a. bee swarm
Posted by: “heatherleagr” (email revmoved)
Date: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:37 pm ((PDT))

My bees just swarmed!  I caught them and they have successfully moved into their new hive.  I wonder if it is too late for them to build up enough to make it through the winter, or should I combine them with their old colony.  Any beekeepers out there with suggestions?  thanks, Heather

________________________________________________________________________
8b. Re: bee swarm
Posted by: “Andres Salomon” (email removed)
Date: Thu Aug 18, 2011 10:51 pm ((PDT))

Personally, I’d combine them with the old colony.  There *are* still drones flying (at least outside of my hives), but they’re dwindling.
It would take a lot of luck (and heavy flows) for the old colony’s queen to mate, and the new swarm to build up quickly enough to put away 40lbs of honey for the winter.

However, if the old hive has a huge amount of capped honey and you’d like 2 colonies, you could transfer food stores to the swarm hive. Recombine or purchase a new queen if the virgin queen fails to mate.

Oh, and keep an eye out for afterswarms!

When the domain — what people care about — is clear, the repetoire of a community can be nimble and powerful.

Monday Video: What is (A) Community?

Essential Arts – Blog – What is a Community?.

What is a Community? from Essential Arts on Vimeo.

Here are some visions of New Orleans and Seattle, plus a critical question that Essential Arts is addressing through our program Bilocal, which also pairs NOLA and Seattle writers and artists. Support us this month via Kickstarter!. (Nancy’s note – I never posted this till months later. Sorry!)