Category: online facilitation

Heading Back Down Under: Part 1 Australia

In late March through mid-April I’m heading to New Zealand and Australia to learn, lead and co-lead workshops and generally CONNECT. The Australian batch comprises at least two different things. Here is the first, which I’m doing with the fabulous Matt Moore.

Here is the description and information:

Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne Workshops

Five years ago, the job title “online community manager” was rare. It was an addition to someone’s existing job, or they simply volunteered. Today, every organisation has or wants an online community (whatever that means). We are working both with bounded communities and broad, diverse networks. We need to be more deliberate in how we integrate community strategies into the heart of our organizations, how they impact our real work, and how they shape our organizations.

Smart organizations are asking:

  • What new strategies are emerging for the use of communities and networks?
  • What are the emerging practices of community & network management?
  • How do we work with both externally and internally facing communities?

Join us as we take a practical and forward looking examination of community & network practices. This in-depth, one-day workshop is aimed at practising online community managers and will tackle issues such as:

Upfront and personal. Social media offers new opportunities to work with customers, citizens and other external stakeholders. With social media employees can collaborate with each other in new ways. How does employee work flow change with greater external stakeholder contact? What does this mean for geographically distributed virtual partnerships? How do we avoid creating more work for ourselves than we can handle?

Multi-membership and it’s evil twin, platform proliferation. The heaven and hell of our context today is that anyone can create a space for a community or network, and technologists are inventing new ways to support these groups every day. We have more opportunities than people have time, attention and capacity to engage in. What does this mean for organizations’ online strategies? For the people stewarding both technology and process? How do we balance the needs of our community members for both variety, usefulness and consistency in this complex environment? And to repeat an important question, how do we avoid creating more work for ourselves than we can handle?

Format

Our format will be deep engagement with no more than 25 participants. We’ll offer some pre-reading prior to the workshop, then dig in with a blend of presentation, demonstration and practice. Our goal is to attract the smartest and most engaged community managers and online thinkers, so significant time will be allowed for participants to learn from each other and co-create solutions. Your output for the day will be a set of strategic questions to take back to your organization for planning your online engagement trajectory, ideas or “sketches” of potential experiments or actions, and a deeper connection with other practitioners.

Bring your mobile or smart device (or borrow one!) — “social sharing” is encouraged. Tweet, blog, Flickr etc. We do ask that everyone be explicit if they say something they do not want made public.

Coffee, lunch and snacks (including chocolate) will be provided. An optional, no-host drinks and social dinner will follow to support continued conversation. We encourage you to join us for the evening’s informal part of the day. We all know that’s where the really interesting conversations emerge!

Who Should Attend

Practicing online community managers, facilitators or similar functions. Technology stewards who provision and support technology for communities or networks. Organizational leaders with responsibility for online interaction goals or processes. While this is not an introduction to online communities or online community management, motivated and interested participants with less experience are welcome if they come in the spirit of a deep dive!

Your Workshop Hosts

Nancy White is an internationally recognised online facilitation expert-practitioner. She has worked with organisations as such as: The United Nations; Australian Flexible Learning Network; Boeing; the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research; IBM; and the World Bank. She is co-author of Digital Habitats with Etienne Wenger and John D. Smith. Nancy blogs at http://fullcirc.com/wp/ as well as teaches, presents and writes on online facilitation and interaction, social architecture and social media . Nancy confesses to online interaction, learning and chocolate addictions.

Read about Nancy’s 2009 Australia visit.

Matt Moore has worked developing face-to-face and virtual communities with organisations such as IBM, Oracle and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. He is currently a director of Innotecture and occasionally teaches at University of Technology Sydney.

Costs and Registration

All the workshops will be held in locations that are easily accessible from the CBD of each city. Each workshop costs $500+GST per participant. Please use PayPal to book with Visa/MC or contact us for alternative payment options.

Sydney (Monday 4 April 2011): Book now
Brisbane (Wednesday 6 April 2011): Book now
Melbourne (Monday 11 April 2011): Book now

If you pay and then subsequently cannot attend, we cannot provide you with a refund but an alternative participant from your organisation can be nominated.

Debrief: the role of visuals in online community management

Today I was a guest of the Community Roundtable, sharing some ideas about the role of visuals in online community facilitation and management. This is the first of two such gatherings this month. The second will be in the context of online learning for the Knowplace event next week. Screenshot of shared drawing

We used my free Vyew.com space plus Slideshare.net (since my visual slides created a humongous file size and I was too lazy to break it apart.) I like Vyew’s white board, simple set up and the ability to easy make every participant a collaborator with access to the white board tools.

I offered a bit of context on the general role of visuals in group processes, then some stories about translating those ideas online. After that, the fun really began as we drew together. First I asked them to draw without talking. Then there is a little tool in Vyew where you can make your cursor invisible, so people could not tell WHO was drawing what.  I asked them to activate that feature. Then we debriefed. The comments ranged from feeling free to collaborate on an image, to struggling a bit with the tools, to drawing off by oneself in a corner. Some liked the anonymity, some didn’t. Then we talked about how such exercises could be used, particularly in a work context where this might otherwise be seen as frivolous.

Afterwards my hosts, Rachel Happe and Jim Storer were kind to offer (and allow me to share) their feedback. I appreciate that in return for my time in being their guest.

Rachel’s Notes:

I thought it went very well given that most of the people on the call were completely new to the idea of drawing online or together.

The different chairs as an opener gave people a framework/context that they could relate to in order to get started.

I thought the slides plus the playing were a bit hard to fit into an hour but given that I was surprised how active people were – most people seemed to jump right in and unlike the phone, people didn’t have to take turns so everyone – even if they were not collaborating per se – could participate right away which is often really hard to get them to do verbally even if you do call on them and give them time on the call.

Intentionally cutting off talking was also interesting – kind of an odd sensation since I rely so much on getting explicit confirmation from people. Really interesting to watch how collaboration unfolds without voice.

It’s definitely given me some things to think about for our own use.

Jim – other thoughts?

Rachel

Jim’s Notes

Great session! I was trying to observe and participate, which was a bit challenging. I eventually just gave in and participated. Gave me a lot of ideas on how to introduce people to one another. Since using tools like that feels a little silly, it breaks down conventions and barriers pretty quickly. I loved to see how people co-created with each other.

Too much to digest so soon… I wish more members had joined in. They would have enjoyed it.

Thanks again Nancy. I just wished I’d had a chance to tell everyone how I started following you back in 2002 (I think) when I first found your Online Community Toolkit. 🙂

I’ll return with the debrief after the Knowplace event on the 23rd!

Here are the slides:

Thinking About Visuals in Online Communities and FacilitationView more presentations from Nancy White.

What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?

The topic and practice of facilitating online meetings and webinars is cropping up all around my work and play life. People are asking a) when to use online meetings and b) how do to them – WELL! I am in the midst of preparing some resource materials, so I’d like to ask for your favorite resources. And to kick it off, here is a little three minute introduction Chahira Nouira of UN University in Bonn and I made this morning. We had tried Wetoku but the images weren’t so great, so we reverted to Skype and my Flip Camera. Keep it simple!

YouTube – What does it mean to facilitate an online meeting?.

Don’t forget, please share your best online meeting facilitation tips!

Useful Books on Online Community Building

Back in January, Meredith Farkas had a great post talking about how she was planning to teach Web 2.0 with Web 2.0 tools. I love reading people’s reflecting and “thinking out loud” about their work. I learn a ton from these posts. So first, thanks, Meredith.

I appreciated that Meredith was going to facilitate learning by doing and talking with people doing community. She also  noticed the lack of useful books about books on online community building. Here is a snippet from her post and the response I left in her comments. Any other recommendations?

via Teaching Web 2.0 with Web 2.0 | Information Wants To Be Free.

I made a lot of changes to the topics covered in the class in light of how much Web 2.0 technologies have changed. I’d originally wanted to teach a class on online communities, but I couldn’t find enough good readings (or a textbook) for an entire course (now that Nancy White, et al.’s new book on Digital Habitats is out, it might be easier to do). I decided instead to focus more on online community-building in the course and am spending two weeks on it. I’m also having three guest speakers who run online communities: Frances Roehm of Skokie Net, Jessamyn West of MetaFilter, and my hubby, Adam Farkas, of ODwire. I know there are a lot of other topics I could have covered (cloud computing, mobile technologies, mashups, etc.), but I’m pretty happy with this semester’s lineup and I look forward to read my students reflections and discussions on these topics.

My Response:

Meredith, I’m looking forward to seeing your course unfold with a large group – I find the diversity of conversations in a larger group VERY stimulating, even if more work!

As to books about online communities. Your observation about the gap is astute and the gap is there for a reason. If you look at the cycles of attention around online community you have the first significant rise after the publication of Howard Rheingolds “Virtual Community: Homesteading…” (By the way, the full text is available free online, thanks to Howard)

Then we had a few more great offerings from Amy Jo Kim, Cliff Figallo and Jenny Preece. There is also an excellent edited book by Smith and Kollock “Communities in Cyberspace.” They and Preece, I think, opened the door to academic interest and study of online communities.

From this initial start there were some other books, mostly aimed at what we now know were naive expectations about early forms of online communities for business application. There was a lot of hoopla.

THEN came the dotcom crash. “Build it and they will come” was realized as a pipe dream. And the interest in online communities subsided. (And I’d say for more than economic reasons – the limitations of software, the adoption rates for going online, etc.)

With the emergence of what we now call “Web2.0″ and “social media” (which, by the way, have their roots back into the 60’s and the history is a VERY fascinating online community and network story unto itself and an example of the interplay between technology and community – we explore it a bit in the start of Digital Habitats), and the increase use of the internet, another wave of “online community” emerged. This one was more diverse.

There was the “online community” associated with buying things prompted by the longevity and success of Amazon (ratings) and eBay (reputation) and more sophisticated applications that allowed businesses to tap into the people side of retail.

There was the “online community” associated with social networks. Here is where I’d say this is not online community and that the differentiation – or more accurately, the continuum between individual, community and network — really started to emerge. I’ve been writing a lot about this continuum on my blog and in my slide decks (choconancy) if you are interested. I won’t bore you now.

This has, in my mind, not only extended the possibilities of how we interact together online for a purpose, but also diversified design and facilitation approaches – something I don’t think books are addressing. You find this juicy stuff these days in Twitter chats with the #KMers and #lrnchat and others. It is still a distributed discourse – which is both fascinating and time consuming.

If you want to see some of the other books I’ve find useful, you can find them here.

References on Lurking

I was asked about some useful references on lurking and lurkers this week, so I thought I’d refresh  myself with a few that I like. (I’ve written about ithere on the blog quite often over the years!)

Personally, I’m of the school of thought that lurking is a form of legitimate peripheral participation, that in most cases, if everyone actively participated we’d be overwhelmed, that we often and appropriately lurk offline and that lurking is not always “take and no give,” that people do in fact take what they learn one place and often use it and contribute elsewhere. It is more generalized reciprocity.

First, is an old discussion summary from the Online Facilitation list from 2003, compiled by Chris Lang which still has value to me. You an find it here   TIPs for Facilitating Lurking

Second is another distillation of conversation, this time from CPSquare. Download file.

Of course, this has been studied in the academic community, such as this paper on why lurkers lurk, from Jenny Preece and Blair Nonnecke (pdf prepub).

Finally, some fine blog posts on lurking by friends and colleagues. (Edited to add more links March 30)

My bottom line is one’s approach to lurking is context dependent. If full participation is a stated requirement (as in a job or a course) one must find ways to facilitate and enable that participation. The larger and more open the group, the more lurking is a natural and expected behavior.

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