Category: Monday videos

Monday Video: 4 Perspectives on CoP Evaluation

I often have a “deer in the headlight” look when someone asks me about evaluating communities of practice. I think that is because I have some stereotype in my head about evaluation. But in fact, when I let my common sense kick in, I know of and use many evaluation approaches. I guess I never called them “evaluation approaches.” Recently my friends Etienne Wenger, Bev Trayner and Maarten deLaat wrote a lovely paper on “Promoting and Asessing Value Creation in Communities and Networks.” It is lovely because in many ways it gives voice to the “common sense” practices I’ve used and seen around me. And it gave me confidence to say yes to an interview with the KMImpact Challenge earlier this year. The video came out today. Besides sounding like I’m on speed… what do you think? How do you evaluate your communities?

via Nancy White of Full Circle Associates on CoPs – YouTube.

Monday Video: A mini-course on network and social network literacy

From the inimitable Howard Rheingold!

A mini-course on network and social network literacy – howardrheingold’s posterous.

I’ve become convinced that understanding how networks work is an essential 21st century literacy. This is the first in a series of short videos about how the structure and dynamics of networks influences political freedom, economic wealth creation, and participation in the creation of culture. The first video introduces the importance of understanding networks and explains how the underlying technical architecture of the Internet specifically supports the freedom of network users to innovate.

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!)

Monday Video: Conformity

Via Howard Rheingold, Face the Rear: An Illustration of Social Influence rings true like a bell. I love playing with “elevator etiquette” by not standing the way the group is. Last month at eLearning Africa in Dar es Salaam, our hotel had one elevator out, and tons of people moving in and out of their rooms on the same schedule. Yup, crowded elevators. I was on the 7th floor of my 13 floor hotel and each morning as I sought to descend, the door would open showing me a packed elevator. Overpacked according to standards here at home. Body to body. But everyone seemed quite comfortable, if hot. But I had to switch my tactics (because the lights were burnt out on the stairs, so that was a tricky option as well.) I hit the up button, got on as the car was going up in the morning and rode down 13 to 1 on the ever filling car. In the back. In the corner. Watching — you guessed it — how people behaved. How they accommodated a suitcase. What Africans did vs colleagues from Europe or North America. So when I saw this video, I was hooked. Watch the video. Then one more comment at the end…

When I think of group dynamics both face to face and online, there is this dynamic of conformity. It is stronger in some cultural contexts and in my experience, stronger F2F. But it also exists online — despite all the talk that people act with less inhibitions online. Some people do. Not everyone. 😉

And for my US friends, Happy Fourth of July!