You get by with a little help from your Twitter Friends, tweeting extensively from the Online Community Report gathering in Santa Fe. ocbf2008 – twemes.com. Thanks tweeters! There a lot of interesting stuff there. I haven’t looked, but I wonder if anyone talked about Slow Community?
Sharing my Birthday with ALL OF YOU
Today I cross the half century mark. I am turning 50 on a typical Seattle spring day – the birds are singing wildly, the tulips are waving in the morning rain and the sky is just lightening. I won’t be online much today, but already I wake to a queue of well wishes on my Skype and even – a first for me – a blog post birthday greeting from the warm and wonderful Holder – Change Management Blog: Happy Birthday, Nancy White.
I am blessed and happy to be alive. My sister called earlier in the week and asked how I was feeling. You know, in my culture, turning 50 can be intimidating – some morbid “one foot in the grave” theme. But I feel very alive, and that life is full of love, meaningful work, and always a learning path in front of me. So as I head out to the last day of the Seeds of Compassion with the Dalai Lama, I’ll be carrying all of you in my heart. Here is my birthday gift to you for being in my life, both visible and invisible – some flowers created by Seattle youth for the Dalai Lama yesterday.
A Slow Community Movement?
A couple of weeks ago, Peter Block said the qualities of successful community initiatives were, in his experience, being slow, small and underfunded. We all laughed, but looking around the room, his bravery in saying it seemed to resonate with many of us.
Have we been “communitied” to death? Has the abundance of choice, the speed with which commercial ventures have yet again jumped on to the “community” bandwagon anesthetized us to what “being together” as a community really is in our lives?
I was on a Skype call with a friend and colleague from Germany this morning and he was reflecting on how much he was enjoying working on an unfunded project. Used to the structure of organizations and businesses, he found the passion a wonderful, refreshing experience. I paused, then laughed and told him about hearing Peter Block. Something resonated. Bing!
Then, for fun, I said “what about a ‘slow community’ movement — like the ‘slow food’ movement?” We laughed, but again, that bell went off.
I thought I was joking, but now something is blossoming from that moment of humor. A few minutes later I read an email from Jay Cross recommending the article, Freedom to Learn :: Unitierra in Oaxaca by Gustavo Esteva. The article talks about the work of communities in Oaxaca who are eschewing schools and centrally designed learning experiences to take learning back into the hands of the community – on it’s own time, terms and tempo.
In the rush to colonize the possibility of community on the internet, with its characteristic speed and fleetness of metaphorical foot, we may have lost sight of the fact that some many of our most precious communities are slow, small and underfunded.
What kind of magic is this? What should we be paying attention to?
Is it time for a “slow community” movement? What would that look like to you? More importantly, how would it make your world a better place?
(Edit: Vanessa DeMauro had this thought in March. A good sign! )
Flickr: The Seeds of Compassion Pool
Today I head over to do graphic recording in the Compassionate Listening Room at Seeds of Compassion. I have been cruising flickr to encourage people to put their events into the The Seeds of Compassion Pool. I have uploaded the graphic recording team’s work from Friday and Saturday there (limited access for the recorders at Qwest field, but they did small drawings on paper) on my Flickr stream. Just to be clear, the images are the amazing work of Keith McCandless, Patti Dobrowolski, Steven Wright and Timothy Corey. (The one to the right is from Steven Wright.)
If you are not in town, there is streaming video of many of the events on the Seeds website.
Seeds of Compassion Begins in Seattle
I awoke before dawn to many birds singing, then a beautiful sunrise. An auspicious start for Seeds of Compassion , a 5-Day Gathering in Seattle with his Holiness, the Dalai Lama and a huge community of people who care about the role of compassion in the lives of children. This morning I attended the session on the Science of Compassion, and am currently listening to the live stream of this afternoon’s second science day. Archived materials are being translated into 24 languages. That is a mind-blowing, bridge-building commitment. (The image to the right is a close up of Tim Corey’s work)
Experiencing the Dalai Lama
You hear about this remarkable human being — of his warmth, humility and compassion. Even from high in the stadium stands, I felt this. Such humor too… his twinkle twinkled across the stadium. He spoke without pretension, took his time and radiated calm. While I was intellectually engaged with the offering of the panelists (and they came across very compassionate themselves), I found myself just experiencing his Holiness. Sometimes I could not understand with the amplification and echoes, but that didn’t seem to matter. It mattered that I was able to just be there.
Graphic Facilitation at the Seeds of Compassion
I’m also a Seeds volunteer over the next 5 days, helping with the graphic recording of many of the events and welcoming people to put their mark on paper in the Conversation Cafe room where people can debrief and talk with each other about their experiences over the 5 days. Today Patti Dobrowolski and Timothy Corey recorded. You can see photos here. Our full team also includes Keith McCandless, and Steven Wright. I am thrilled to be able to watch and learn from them, as well as provide a contribution to the event WITH them.
Today after the morning event ended, I hung out while Tim and Patti completed their charts. It was wonderful to see people look at them, remark at how it helps them remember what they heard, and their amazement that “they drew this DURING the presentation!” For me as a newbie practitioner of this art, it was immensely useful to see their two different styles and watch their final additions.
I’m looking forward to five days of learning, community and compassion. It seems a fitting entry point to my 50th birthday on April 15th.