Thank you to Morgen Schuler

Nancy White speaking at Ignite 27 (and doing a side angle yoga pose)
Photo by morgen schuler morgenschulerphotography.com

Earlier this year I presented at Ignite 20, here in Seattle. (Video here. Slides here.) I was delighted to come across some photos by Morgen Schuler of morgenschulerphotography.com on Flickr. I asked Morgen if I could use her shots and she graciously said yes. She and Kris Krug are two photographers who have captured me on film, unlike most others. So I am delighted to share her work with you. (Hint to my sons – a new family portrait would be a lovely 30th Anniversary gift to your parents!)

Here they are! THANKS MORGEN!

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10 Brilliant videos on the Art of Hosting via Chris Corrigan

10 Brilliant videos on the Art of Hosting « Chris Corrigan.

This is too good not to repost… and gives me a slight sense of respite for not posting in so long. (Many thoughts and stories, little time…) [Edit on Octo 8. Great catch by Stephen Downes to clarify we are talking about hosting of human gatherings, not websites!]

Over the past few years Jerry Nagel and a group of practitioners in Minnesota have been working deeply with the Art of Hosting in the state.  The Bush Foundation, who has supported a lot of this work, helped create 10 fantastic videos on the Art of Hosting and some of the methods of the process.  You could look through these and get a great foundation in what it’s all about.  Enjoy!

1.  Art of Hosting – introduction: https://vimeo.com/72614471

2. AOH Community Conversations for the common good:https://vimeo.com/40679035

3. AOH Four-fold Practice: https://vimeo.com/69785461

4. AOH Harvesting: https://vimeo.com/69785465

5. AOH Collective Story Harvest:https://vimeo.com/69798732

6. AOH Chaordic Path: https://vimeo.com/69785462

7. AOH Chaordic Stepping Stones:https://vimeo.com/69798731

8. AOH Circle Process: https://vimeo.com/69785464

9. AOH Open Space: https://vimeo.com/69798729

10.  AOH ProAction Cafe: https://vimeo.com/69798730

 

Here is one example:

The Art of Hosting – Four-Fold Practice from Kevin McKeever on Vimeo.

A Focus on Online Facilitation During International Facilitation Week

peterblockquestionTim Bonneman blogged yesterday about the International Association of Facilitators “International Facilitation Week.” He pondered…

I wonder if anyone is planning any events related specifically to online facilitation.

I started to comment on Tim’s blog, but realized the length of my response suggested I blog here and link back, so here goes…

Hiya Tim,

I think this is an excellent idea and, alas, for me, the timing sucks. I have put a red line on my to do list promising myself not to bite of anything else. (I’m doing an action research project on how to usefully evaluate the socio-technical stuff associated with organizations’ “collaboration platforms!!” And yes, i bit off WAY more than I should have! See this previous post)

But I think your idea is really good and that there is a network of people out there that would benefit from a week of distributed connection, learning and reflection.

Online facilitation practice has  diversified since I jumped in in 1996. Some of those sub areas have matured. For example, the practices around “online community management/facilitation” have had great stewardship by folks such as the Online Community Roundtable (Shout out to Rachel Happe and friends) and others, and there have been really interesting developments in the facilitation of learning online (see Tony Carr’s work and kudos for pulling together some seminal work around facilitation of learning at University of Cape Town in South Africa). There new generation of online community people who are (re)discovering practices us old timers used back in the early online facilitation days, and adapting and expanding them in new ways and for new contexts.

The proliferation of tools, particularly tools that enable connection outside of bounded groups (such as Twitter, Facebook, and previously the emergent networks that were formed BETWEEN blogs and commentors) has led us to an era that is not just about online group facilitation, but online network stimulation and facilitation. June Holley’s work in network weaving (which to me is still a lot about bounded groups but working in unbounded spaces) is an example.

These tools have also greatly expanded the possibilities of dispersed collaboration, but  I have to say, this seems like an area where a few have succeeded (some wildly) and many have been left with grand dreams that turned to empty promises. I think this is because we are talking about facilitating both between people and between organizations and their politics, policies and structures. So we have a blend of facilitation and organizational development, if you will.

So the field is rich for reflection and ripe for dreaming.

Nancy

How do we evaluate the strategic use of collaboration platforms?

The earthHey smart people, especially my KM and collaboration peeps, I need your help!

I’ve been trolling around to find examples of monitoring and assessment rubrics to evaluate how well a collaboration platform is actually working. In other words, are the intended strategic activities and goals fulfilled? Are people using it for unintended purposes? What are the adoption and use patterns? How do you assess the need for tweaks, changed or deleted functionality?

I can find piles of white papers and reports on how to pick a platform in terms of vendors and features. Vendors seem to produce them in droves. I certainly can fall back on the Digital Habitats materials in that area as well.

But come on, why are there few things that help us understand if our existing platforms and tool configurations are or are not working?

Here are some of my burning questions. Pointers and answers DEEPLY appreciated. And if you are super passionate about this, ask me directly about the action research some of us are embarking upon (nancyw at fullcirc dot com)!

  • How do you do evaluate the strategic use of your collaboration platform(s) and tools in your organization?
  • What indicators are you looking for? (There can be a lot, so my assumption is we are looking for ones that really get to the strategic sweet spot)
  • Does the assessment need to be totally context specific, or are there shared patterns for similar organizations or domains?
  • How often do you do it?
  • How do we involve users in assessments?
  • How have the results prompted changes (or not and if not, why not)?

Please, share this widely!

THANKS!

Working in Complex Spaces from my Favorite Curmudgeon

Earlier this week Chris Corrigan pointed to a great blog post from one of my favorite curmudgeons, Dave Snowden (Dave, yes, I think a cacophony of curmudgeon’s is perfect!) on the heuristics of complexity.  Dave wrote in (Of tittering, twittering & twitterpating) the following:

We need to draw a fine line between legitimate experimentation and slipping into magpiedom and the legitimacy probably depends on the degree to which there is a coherent narrative around the core activity.

Aside from that I made a serious of points that apply more generally, as well as to the foresight community who were my primary targets. They included:

  • The whole success of social computing is because it conforms to the three heuristics of complex systems: finely grained objects, distributed cognition & disintermediation
  • I an uncertain world we need fast, real time feedbacks not linear processes and criticism includes short cycle experimental processes which remain linear.
  • The real dangers are retrospective coherence and premature convergence
  • Narrative is vital, but story-telling is at best ambiguous
  • Need to shift from thinking about drivers to modulators
  • You can’t eliminate cognitive bias, you work with it
  • Extrinsic rewards destroy intrinsic motivation
  • Messy coherence is the essence of managing complexity

I suggest you read the whole post for context (and humor).  I could ruminate on any of these, but I have my peeps coming into town starting today for the Seattle KM4Dev Gathering (Dave, we’ll still try and tempt you!) so I’ll just say this one is my focus for the week: “Need to shift from thinking about drivers to modulators.”

As we explore next week the practice of “managing knowledge” for international development, this could be a cracking good opener… Now I need a visual. Any ideas?