Category: Monday videos

Monday Video: Small Gestures Are Worth It

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Via Bernie DeKoven on Google+ comes this fabulous video about how the South African hamburger chain, Wimpys, rolled out their new Braille restaurant menus. Bernie has the talent for finding things that make me smile, but this one goes deeper as well.

I was tempted to use U2’s amazing video of their song about Martin Luther King (1984) as for my “Monday Video” as today is the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday here in the US. But I like the actions of the Wimpy video. Actions that speak, as they say, louder than words. Watch first:

 

The opening bit is “small gestures are worth it.” In all my years facilitating and leading, the story of the ACTION almost always comes back to small gestures. It may be big or small ideas that get us going, but the small gestures get us there.

My early geographical community leadership work found legs when I learned things like mirroring to better hear and understand what others were saying – usually with a small gesture that started with eye contact, leaning in to listen, and paraphrasing to work towards understanding. When I first started facilitating online around 1997, the simple act of welcoming and reciprocating opened up the magic of text based asynchronous conversation. As I returned to more face to face meeting facilitation, again the gestures of showing that I was listening, of helping make the act of “being heard, seen and loved” central to group interaction proved powerful. More powerful than any method or tool.

I’m sure you have stories of the power of small gestures. I’d love to read them in a comment or through a link. 😉

Sometimes small gestures take the tiniest amounts of thought and energy. Sometimes they are deep, profound gifts (like placing sesame seeds on a bun to spell in Braille.) What I know, is they are worth it. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Planning and Evaluating Your CoP (amplifying and other good stuff)

Today JeffJackson tweeted an embedded link to this YouTube video from the USAID KM Impact Challenge video I did with them earlier this year.  I know – I posted this already, but Jeff’s note gave it a twist. And having hung out recently with Alan (aka cogdog) Levine in Tasmania last week, I am attending to his principle that in social media, we ADD value. We don’t just retweet, rebroadcast, etc. Jeff added value.

Here’s his note: “Check out @nancywhite ‘s Full Circle Associates on Communities of Practice (CoPs). Great way to review and consider how you develop your #PLN and #AltProDev.” Wow, I had not thought about this from the perspective of a PLN (personal learning network) but it sure does work. Thanks Jeff, for helping me see another perspective.  I used the same communities of practice framework the last three weeks in my workshops in Australia about teaching and learning online. We weren’t talking about CoPs, but the framework is useful. (More on that in a subsequent post, currently in edit stage!)

For a refresher, here is the video.

Nancy White discusses various aspects of strengthening CoPs, mechanisms to measure their effectiveness and improve our understanding of how people are participating in CoPs.

To access the two items referred to in the video, please visit:

Promoting and Assessing Value Creation in Communities and Networks: a Conceptual Framework:
http://wenger-trayner.com/resources/publications/evaluation-framework/

The Activity Spidergram
http://fullcirc.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/SpidergramWorksheet2011.pdf

Monday Video – Jim Denevan’s Dance of Drawing

Today’s Monday video is a visual gift from Jim Denevan, an artist who takes the word “drawing” and turns it into a meditation of movement, beauty and empherality.   KQED Spark – Jim Denevan – YouTube.

In the world of learning, knowledge management, organizational development, we see solutions that are “scalable” and “sustainable.” But the gems, the breakthroughs, the insights, are most often a fleeting moment when something changes. We can’t capture that in a knowledge base, or “cook” it into a course design. It is lived, in the moment. It becomes the thing we reflect upon as we seek to apply it. But it is ephemeral.

For those wanting an additional visual treat and one that relates to community and conviviality, look at Jim working with tables at a meal. He says (and I strongly agree) “The table is a magnet for stories.”