Category: community

eDayz 09 – Rocking in Adelaide

Something about the learning folks in Adelaide just lights me up from the inside out. It was a pleasure to be able to be part of the EDayz09 conference were many of the people I met during my tour in 2006 were present. You know its going to be fun.

Thursday Michael Coghlan met me at the airport (how FUN is it when a real person meets you AT THE GATE these days! Shocking and wonderful) then trundled me into town and dinner with Brad Beach and John (whose last name seems to evade me – so sorry John!) where we had some great S. Australian wine fueled conversations that helped me prepare and contextualise for the next day’s keynote.

Facing my AudienceFriday it was off to E-Dayz where I was going to use the springboard question “Should we be using community in learning anymore?” into an exploration of the continuum of me, we and the network as an essential bed for both social and situated learning. The venue was a big, steeply raked theatre style and I felt I should sing and dance. Literally! But I controlled myself. The slides are below, audio is here and video here. Kerry Johnson did an amazing job live streaming the entire event and will get us the video URL

Should We Use Community EDayz09 Keynote

View more presentations from Nancy White.

In the afternoon I ran a much more informal workshop, originally intended as follow up from the keynote, but when we started, I made a couple of offers for options, one of which was to explore the role of visuals in our work. We did Johnnie Moore’s paired drawing exercise and I then gave the option on topics. MORE VISUALS. This went on for the full 40 minutes and I was so grateful to be able to play in that space as we looked at specific applications of the use of visuals in online learning.

All in all it was a great day. There is so much more I could write, but the days are flying and I need to get this posted. Darn, tho I missed talking with Graham Wegner, whom I’ve followed on Twitter for some time!

Canberra Countryside and Communities

hanging with Leigh and Sunshine

Wednesday I hopped on a plane to Canberra to spend some time with the creative and energetic Leigh Blackall and Sunshine Connelley, their two magnificent pooches, Lego and Mina, and spend an afternoon with some communities of practices folks in national government here in the capitol city. After I arrived, Leigh and Sunshine took me out to the beautiful Murrumbaidgee River, about 30 minutes outside of town. We swam in the river and had a nice BBQ dinner in the warm afternoon sun. The water was just cool enough and the current not too strong to allow us to wallow in the shallows. It was a perfect antidote to being in planes and conference rooms, well peppered with conversation.

Thursday, we headed again out of town to Braidwood. Man, I could fall in love with this town. Between the Bread Dojo bread (Matt, you are an amazing baker), the beautiful setting and community spirit, one could be tempted to bid on the old hotel and pub up for auction. heh! Then we high tailed it back to town, allowing me to walk into my appointment just on time and have a great afternoon talking about the ideas surfaced in Digital Habitats and wrestling with the challenges of working in a government organization.

Then it was off to the airport and on my way to sunny and unseasonably warm Adelaide! Mike Coglan met me and we then went out to dinner with the energetic Brad Beach and John (whose last name I did not quite get. Mike as has a great shot of Brad here. You can see John here.)

Online Community Workshops in Sydney

Sorting community issues

Tuesday saw Matt Moore of Innotecture and I at the Australian Technology Park facilitating two half day workshops on online communities. The morning was a small group focused on the newer practitioner, and the afternoon added a diversity of experienced and energetic online community managers and designers.

The morning’s small groups enabled us to go into details with each person and what they wanted to do online. This idea of the continuum from the individual, through bounded communities and out to networks again permeated my thinking and input, priming my pump for Friday’s keynote at Adelaide’s EDayz09. More on that later…

In the afternoon, Matt and I decided to use some exercises to help raise the range of issues associated with advancing an online community by looking at current states of people’s communities, how they got that way and possible positive and catastrophic futures. Frankly, there were some good starts to conversations, but the diversity of the group and the speed at which we went through the exercise did not completely satisfy me – nor I suspect, many of the participants. Matt later reflected that we just made it too complicated and I think he was right. When you have advanced practitioners, the key is to let them share and compare.

I’m always torn when I’m “giving” a workshop. Matt and I have tons of things we can “present” and “talk” about, but that goes counter to a lot of what we preach in terms of participatory processes. Yet content gives an hand hold, an affordance, an anchor to focus conversations. I think we need to get the mix — so we are refining for Melbourne next week where we’ll run the same pair of workshops again on Tuesday.

For me, the highlight was again meeting all the great, interesting and intelligent people and hearing their stories. I look forward to more.

 

George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior

George WashingtonThis is worth a quick quote and a pointer to George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior from Foundations Magazine

Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly. It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find. They all have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Fussy or not, they represent more than just manners. They are the small sacrifices that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together.These rules proclaim our respect for others and in turn give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem.

When I wrote about communities and networks, I mentioned about giving up a bit of the “me” in service of the “we.” I think this is related. Click into the link and read the rules. I bet at least some of them will resonate for you.

Communities, networks and what sits in between

Last month in Rome Robin Good took me to a park, put me in a funny little bicycle car and we drove around the park recording our conversations. Robin asked me about the differences between communities and networks and this 3 minute recording captures my views. Nice job, Robin! I continue to be focused on the space between communities and networks, thinking that this is the sweet spot for so many things people are trying to do. Maybe you AREN’T looking for a community, eh?

Online Community Building Strategy: Nancy White On Networks, Groups and Technology Choices