Mar Ruiz of Spain has been posting a series of questions and answers she has cultivated with people who have been facilitating online for a while. I wanted to answer the question she posed, but I can’t seem to get a blog comment to stick, so I’ll do it here and hope the trackback works! From:mar ruiz: life & interests: Nancy White: "No se puede moderar en una red sin límites ". The gist of our conversation was the differences in facilitating in a network, vs bounded community context. The blog post, in Spanish: Nancy White: "No se puede moderar en una red sin límites " Y esta es la respuesta de Nancy White, pionera en esto de dinamizar comunidades: "Hay un número asombroso de las similitudes y diferencias, que me parece fascinante. Pero ya que la pregunta es sobre las diferencias, aquí están mis tres mejores! 1. Ahora se trata más de redes sin límites que de comunidades delimitadas, lo que cambia fundamentalmente lo que queremos decir por "construcción de la comunidad y la moderación." No se puede moderar en una red sin límites. Puedes influir. Puedes estimular las conexiones de red. Puedes hacer lo que June Holley llama "network weaving  ("tejer en red") - pero no se pueden gestionar las redes. 2. Las comunidades delimitadas deben tener mayor número de propuestas de valorque antes porque la gente está recibiendo una gran cantidad de lo que quieren y necesitan en las redes abiertas (es decir, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc). No quieren tener que entrar en algún otro lugar. Por lo tanto la integración de las actuales identidades digitales (y contraseñas) es más común, pero esto también hace que se rompan algunas de las distinciones de las comunidades anteriores. Se convierte todo en algo borroso. 3. Es más difícil entrar en conversaciones más profundas en el mundo en red, mientras que al mismo tiempo, tiene un alcance más amplio y potencialmente mayor diversidad y por ello mayor riqueza." La verdad es que leyendo esto, me he quedado con las ganas de saber…¿y cuáles son las similitudes? Por otro lado entiendo que ambos necesitan de profesionales que lo dinamicen y procuren contenidos. Hace días leía en twitter que sea quien sea el Community o Social Media Manager, por favor, que sea un profesional: "Los peligros de que tu primo (o "ese chavalito que parece que sabe") se encargue del #socialmedia en tu empresa http://bit.ly/KnYxtF #comma vía @commaradas" At the end, Mar asked about the similarities! Here is my answer, Mar: Both communities and networks give us access to the experience and resources of HUMAN CONNECTION. Thus they are both critically important. Learning how to work with the dynamics of these different forms is therefore valuable!   Edit: see this related post from Jessica Lipnack on the challenges of scaling collaboration! The web makes it possible for, in effect, infinite numbers of people to collaborate. But how do you collaborate with infinite numbers? You don’t. You can’t. Thus network thinkers are trying to solve this problem. INSITE, the European Union’s program on innovation, sustainability, and information technology, is including this issue as a worktrack in its Masters of Network symposium later this month in Venice.

Long Post Warning! I was reminded by a post from Alan Levine reflecting on a course he taught this past Autumn (Looking Back on ds106 - CogDogBlog) that I had promised a reflective post on the Project Community course I co-taught Sept- November at the Hague University of Applied Business with Maarten Thissen, Janneke Sluijs, Shahab Zehtabchi, Laura Stevens and technology stewardship by Alan himself. It is easy to let the time pass, but all those ideas and observations tend to fade away. So after a few bites of fine holiday chocolates, it is time to dive in. (This will be cross-posted on my course Tumblr blog which feeds into the overall course site.) What was it? Course Goal: Here is the text from the course description: The intersection of technology and social processes has changed what it means to "be together." No longer confined to an engineering team, a company, a market segment or country, we have the opportunity to tap into different groups of people using online tools and processes. While we initially recognized this as "online communities," the ubiquity and diversity of technology and access has widened our possibilities. When we want to "organize our passion" into something, we have interesting choices.  It is time to think about a more diverse ecosystem of interaction possibilities which embrace things such as different group configurations, online + offline, short and long term interactions, etc. In this course we will consider the range of options that can be utilized in the design, testing, marketing and use of engineering products. My shorthand is that the course was an exploration about how online communities and networks can be part of a designers practice. When and how can these forms be of strategic use? You can review the whole syllabus here - and note that we tweaked it as we went! The students were all international students and this was one of their first courses in the Design Engineering Program. Some did not have strong English language skills, and the course was in English. The Design: Let me start by saying this was designed as an OPEN experience, but it wasn’t a MOOC or anything like that. Maarten had asked me to design the course, building on a set of learning goals previously used for this course, but to translate the ideas into practice by DOING much of the course online. While the class met F2F once a week and had access to the Netherlands based faculty, we engaged, worked and explored together online. This stuff needs more than theory. It requires practice. And by practicing and learning "in public" rather than on an institutionally protected platform, students could tap into real communities and networks. If there is one thing I harp on when I talk to folks in Universities, it is the critical importance of learners connecting with real communities and networks of practitioners in their fields of learning BEFORE they leave school. These connections are fundamental to both learning and developing one’s practice out in the world. I also wanted to focus on some sector to help us think practically about using networks and communities along the design process and avoid grand generalizations, so I suggested we use design in the international development context. This fit with my background, network (to draw upon) and experience. I was leery of stepping into the more distinct world of commercial product design about which I know NOTHING! What quickly became a huge lesson for me was that many of the students had little knowledge about international development, Millenium development goals, etc. So we all had a lot to learn! The other aspect of the design was to bring three elements together: sense making discussions about the subject matter (synchronously in class and asynchronously on the class website), insights from weekly "guests" shared via 5-10 minute videos (to bring a variety of voices), and action learning through small group experiences and team projects. I know there are strong feelings about team projects, but building collaboration skills was part of the course learning objectives, so this was a "must do." And we spent time talking about the how - -and reflecting on what was and wasn’t working as a vector for learning these skills. The Resources We knew we wanted real examples, a variety of sources and we wanted multimedia. Many of the students are speaking English (the class language) as a second, third or fourth language, so the use of visually rich media was important. What we did not count on was the lack of time to USE the resources. A typical pitfall! Readings and examples .  We collected a wide range of resources on a Google doc - more than we could ever use. We then picked a few each week as assigned readings, but it became clear that most people were not/did not make time to read all of them. So when I felt something was particularly important, I harped on it and the on-the-ground team asked people to read it during the weekly class meeting.  The examples we used more in an an ad-hoc manner as teams began to develop their projects. Videos- from faculty and guests. For example, here is my Introductory video and the other guest videos can be seen in each weekly update. All the interviews I did (via Google Hangout) can be found here. The students final project videos are here. I have not done an analysis of the number of views per video, but since they are public, I can’t sort out student vs. external views. That said, some of the videos have fewer views than the number of enrolled students. Go figure! Visitors - I had hoped to bring people in live, but we quickly discerned that the tech infrastructure for our online/F2F hybrid meetings was not good enough, so we brought people in via recorded videos and encouraged students to ask the guests questions on the guests own blogs and websites. There was just a wee bit of that… Technology stuff… The Course WordPress site: It is online, so of course, there is technology. Since there was no appropriate platform available from the hosting university (we  did not consider BlackBoard appropriate because it was not open enough and we did not have programming resources to really customize it.) So I called my pals who know a lot about open, collaborative learning configurations - Jim Groom and Alan Levine, some of the amazing ds106 team. Alan was ready and willing so he was roped in! Alan built us a WordPress base with all kinds of cool plug ins. You will have to ask Alan for details! He has been doing this for a variety of courses, and blogs about it quite a bit, so check out da blog!  The main functions of the course site included: providing a home for weekly syllabus/instructions, a place to aggregate student blogs, and a place to link to course resources.  Alan set up pages for each week and taught the team how to populate them. (Edit: Alan wrote a post with more details on the set up here. Thanks, Alan! ) Tumblr blogs: Instead of a multiple user WordPress installation, Alan suggested that we use the very easy to set up Tumblr blogging platform and then aggregate into the site. Again, I’ll leave the detail to Alan but the pros were that some students already had Tumblr blogs (yay!), Tumblr could integrate many types of media (strong w/ photos),  and it was easy for people to set up. The key is to get them to set them up the first week and share the URL. Alan set up a form to plop that data right into a Google spreadsheet which was also our student roster, as well as a great Tumblr guide. The main con was that the comments via WordPress were dissociated with the original posts on Tumblr, so if you wanted to read the post in original context, you missed the comments. There were tweaks Alan implemented based on our team and student feedback, mainly to make it easier to comment on the blogs (in the WP site — Tumblr is not so much about commenting), and to help make new comments and posts more visible on the main site though the use of some sidebar widgets. I liked the Conversational views but I also found I needed to use the admin features to really notice new posts and comments. Plus we had to do a lot of initial comment approval to get past our spam barrier in the first weeks. Each faculty had a Tumblr blog, but in truth, I think I was the main member actively blogging… I also used tags to filter my general reflective blogging with "announcement" posts which provided student direction. I tried to comment on every student’s blog at the beginning and end of the course. Each of the other team members had a group of students to follow closely. I chimed in here and there, but wanted to make sure I did not dominate conversations, nor set up the expectation that the blog posts — mostly reflective writing assignments - were a dialog with me. Students were also asked to read and comment upon a selection of other student’s blogs. At first these were a bit stilted, but they got their text-based "conversation legs" after a few weeks and there were some exchanges that I thought were really exemplary. Google Docs: We used Google Docs and spreadsheets to do all our curriculum drafting, planning and coordinating as a faculty team. I need to ask the team if they would be willing to make those documents public (except for  the roster/grading) as a way to share our learning. Would you be interested in seeing them? Meetingwords.com: Synchronous online meetings for large groups create a context where it is easy to "tune out" and multitask. My approach to this is to set up a shared note taking site and engage people there to take notes, do "breakout" work from smaller groups and generally offer another modality for engagement and interaction. We used Meetingwords.com and Google docs for this, later sharing cleaned up notes from these tools. I like that Meeting words has the shared note taking (wiki) on the left, and a chat on the right. It is based on Etherpad, which was eventually folded into Google docs. So we were using "cousin" technologies! As one of the team noticed, chat is also a great place to practice written English! Blackboard: Blackboard was used for enrollment and grading as I understand it. I never saw it nor did I have access to it. Live Meetings: Skype, Google+/Google Hangouts: We considered a variety of web meeting platforms for our weekly meetings. We did not have access to a paid service. We tried a few free ones early on and had some challenges so started the course with me Skyping in to a single account projected on a screen and with a set of speakers. Unfortunately, the meeting room was not idea for the sound set up and many students had difficulty hearing me clearly. This and the fact that I talk too fast…. We then decided we wanted to do more with Google Hangouts, which the faculty team used in early planning meetings. At the time, only 10 active connections were available, so we both used it as we had Skype with me connecting to one account, and later used it for smaller team meetings, breakouts and, with each team in a separate room, we could have one account per team with me. Sometimes this worked really well. Other times we had problems with dropped connections, noise, people not muting their computers etc.  In the end, we need to develop better live meeting technology and meeting space for future iterations. That was the standout technical challenge! You can read some Hangout Feedback from the first group experiment here. Team Spaces - Facebook and…: Each project team was asked to pick their own collaboration platform. Quite a few chose Facebook, and an overall course group was also set up on Facebook. One team chose Basecamp, which they liked, but after the 30 day free trial they let it lapse. Other team spaces remained a mystery to me. I think their tutors knew! When you have multiple platforms, it would be good to have a central list of all the sites. It got pretty messy! Twitter: I set up a Twitter list and we had a tag (#commproj12, or as I mistyped it #projcomm12!) and asked people to share their Twitter names, but only a few in the class were active on Twitter. In terms of social media networks, Facebook was clearly dominant, yet some of the students had not been previously active on any social networks. It is crucial not to buy into assumptions about what age cohort uses which tools! I did use Twitter to send queries to my network(s) on behalf of the class and we did have a few fruitful bursts of interactions. Email - yeah, plain old email: Finally, we used email. Not a lot, but when we needed to do private, "back channel" communications with the team or with students, email was useful. But it was remarkable how this course did not significantly add to my email load. Times have changed! Overall, I think the students had a good exposure to a wider set of tools than many of them had used before. Our team was agile in noticing needed tweaks and improvements and Alan made them in the blink of an eye. That was terrific. I wonder if we could get a couple of students involved in that process next time? We also knew and expected challenges and used each glitch as a learning opportunity and I was grateful the students accepted this approach with humor and graciousness — even when it was very challenging. That is learning! What happened? What did I learn? Beyond what was noted above, I came away feeling I had been part of a good learning experience. As usual, I beat myself up a bit on a few things (noted below) and worried that I did not "do right" for all of the students. Some seem to have really taken wing and learned things that they can use going forward. Others struggled and some failed. I have a hard time letting go of that. There is still data to crunch on page views etc. Let’s look at a few key issues. Team Preparation & Coordination (Assumptions!): I designed the course but I did not orient the team to it at the start. We had little time together to coordinate (all online) before the course began. You don’t even know how many students there are until a few days before the start, and THEN tutors are allocated (as I understand. I may have that wrong!) Maarten was my contact, but I did not really know the rest of the team. My advice: get to know the team and make sure you are all on the same page. We’ll do that next time! That said, I am deeply grateful for how they jumped in, kept a 100% positive and constructive attitude and worked HARD. I could not wish for a more wonderful, smart, engaged team. THANK YOU! And I promise I will never again assume that the team is up to speed without checking. PROMISE! The Loud (and very informal) American: As noted above, our live meeting tech set up was not ideal. So when I was beamed into the weekly meetings, I was coming across as loud, incomprehensible and fast talking.I was grateful when the teaching team clued me in more deeply to the challenges based on their observations in the room. That was when we shifted from large groups to small groups. I think I was much more able to be of use when we met at the project team level. I could get to know individual students, we could talk about relevant issues. And I could then weave across the conversations, noting when something one group was doing was related to another group’s work. Weaving, to me, is a critical function of the teaching team, both verbally in these meetings, and across blog posts.  This ended up being a better way to leverage my contributions to the students. That said, I did not connect with all of them, nor successfully with all of the groups. We need to think through this process for next time. On top of it, I’m very informal and this group of international students mostly came from much more formal contexts. Talk about a shift as we negotiated the informality barrier. During the course we also had to address the difference between informality and respect. At one point we had one learner anonymously insert an inappropriate comment in the chat and our learning community intervened. Language, Language, Language: Writing backgrounders and instructions in the simplest, clearest language is critical. I can always improve in this area. We do need a strategy for those students who still have to strengthen their English language skills. I worry that they get left behind. So understanding language skills from the start and building appropriate scaffolding would be helpful. Rhythm of Online and Face-to-Face: Unsurprisingly, we need more contact and interaction early on and should have scheduled perhaps two shorter meetings per week the first three weeks, then build a blend of small and large group sessions. I’d really love to see us figure a way that the small group sessions are demand driven. That requires us to demonstrate high value early on. I think a few of the early small group meetings did that for SOME of the students (see this recording from our hangout), but not all. The F2F faculty team has suggested that we do more online and they do less F2F which I think, given the topic, is both realistic and useful. Student Self-Direction and Agency: There is a lot of conditioning we experience to get us to work towards satisfying the requirements for a grade. This seems to be the enemy of learning these days, and helping students step out of "how do I get a good mark" into "how do I thrive as a learner and learn something that takes me forward in my education" is my quest. At the start of the course, we tossed a ton of ideas and information at the students and they kept seeking clarity. We declared that "confusiasm" was indeed a learning strategy, and that generating their own questions and learning agenda was, in the end, a more useful strategy than hewing to a carefully (over-constructed) teacher-driven syllabus  That is a leap of faith. With good humor, some missteps on all sides and a great deal of energy, most of the group found ways to start owning their learning. This was manifest in the changes in their reflective blog posts. I was blown away by some of the insights but more importantly was how their writing deepened and matured. I hypothesize that it was important to get comments and know they were being "heard." It is always an interesting balance for me. No or not enough feedback dampens things. Too much and the learner’s own agency is subverted to pleasing the commentors vs working on their own learning agenda. I was intrigued to watch students get used to the new experience of writing in public. Few of the students had this experience. I’d love to interview them and hear what they thought about this. Especially those who had comments from people outside the course (mostly folks I linked to from my network — and I’d like to do more of that. ) It is my experience that an open learning environment fosters learning reciprocity, both within the class cohort and with professionals out in the world. I’d like to deepen this practice in future iterations. There is also the problem of making too many offers of activities. Each week there was a video, a discussion around a key topic, 2-3 activities, reflective blogging and, after the first few weeks, significant group work. The design intent was that these things all worked together, but some weeks that was not so clear. So again - simplify! Keep the bits integrated so the learning agenda is served, moving forward. We also had some ad hoc offers like helping co-construct a glossary and adding to the resource page. That had just about ZERO uptake! Abundance has its costs! We did get some good questions and some of the students were note taking rock stars at our live meetings. Speaking of that, a few of our students were rock star FACILITATORS and TECHNOLOGY STEWARDS. Seeing them in action were perhaps the most satisfying moments of the whole course for me! Student Group Projects: The project teams were designed around the five parts of design that the program uses. With 9 groups of 5-6 students (one group was alumni who only marginally participated) that meant some topics had two teams while others had just one. Alan set up the tags so it was easy for teams with shared topics to see each other’s blog stream, but I’m not sure the students picked up on/used that. A clear learning was that we needed to help people see the whole as well as the parts, and the projects could have been designed to be interlinked. That would add more coordination, but if we picked a clearer focus than "helping an NGO" and maybe even worked with an actual NGO need identified up front, the projects might have had a bit more grounding in reality. I’m not sure we set up the five design areas well enough. That warrants a whole other blog post. To both understand the concept, put it in the context of a real NGO need and then create a short video is a tall order. It took the teams a number of weeks to really dig in to their topics and establish their own collaborative process. And of course that put a lot of pressure on video production at the end. I think the single most useful design change I’d institute is to have a required storyboard review step before they went into production. Then we could have checked on some key points of understanding before they produced. A second production element came to light — literacy about what is acceptable use of copyrighted material. This relates to good practices about citing sources and giving supporting evidence for conclusions. There is always a space for one’s opinion, but there is also useful data out there to inform and support our opinions. I think I’d set the bar higher on this next time, and do it early - with good examples. Student Response: I have not seen the student evaluations and really look forward to seeing them. I expect some sharp critique as well as some satisfaction. I personally know we learned a lot and can really improve a subsequent interaction. I am also interested to understand how this experience lands within the institution as they explore if and how they do more online elements in their learning structure. I smiled often when I read comments from the more social-media literate/experienced students and wondered how we could leverage their knowledge more as tech stewards in the future. Here is a comment we loved: Geoffrey - "the world is freakin bigger than facebook." Alan wrote something in his ds106 reflection that resonated for me in Project Community. This is not about revolutionizing education or scaling some thing to world changing proportions, it is not even about us changing students, its showing them how to change themselves. I see in their writings new awarenesses of media, of the web, of their place in it, I see unleashed creativity, I see an acceptance of a learning environment that pushes them to reach out and grab their own learning.  Next time? First of all, I hope I get invited back to participate next year. We challenged ourselves and learned a lot. I think we can build on what worked and certainly improve many things. And from this, make it less work for the team. We learned a lot about the online/offline rhythm and from our team debrief, I sensed a strong inclination to do MORE online. But we also have to simplify things so that we can spend most of our time co-learning and facilitating rather than "explaining" what the course, the assignments and the projects were about. Clarity, simplicity — two key words for another round! If you made it all the way through this, do you a) have any questions, b) insights or c) find something you can use the next time you design a course? Please share in the comments! Artifacts: Course site Student’s final group project videos My Tumbler blog Aggregated Faculty blogs My Screenshots of the course WordPress.com’s "annual report" for the site Later Added Interesting Connections: As I find some cool things related to this post, I’ll add them here. So expect more add/edits! A visual from Giulia Forsythe on strategies in large classes http://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/8261536706/

Last month I finally got a chance to use a facilitation activity called Zoom which I found on the Wilderdom’s Game resource page — a great resource!  I deeply appreciate that they put the "copyleft" designation on all their resources. THANKS!  As I learned and read facilitation ideas from other sites, I realized I should share some of my experiences as well. Here is the description from Wilderdom’s resource page (which also includes all instructions - I’ve attached a pdf copy at the bottom for taking to an event, but please DO visit their page!): This game is based on the intriguing, wordless, picture books "Zoom" and "Re-Zoom" by Istvan Banyai which consist of 30 sequential "pictures within pictures".  The Zoom narrative moves from a rooster to a ship to a city street to a desert island and outer space.  Zoom has been published in 18 countries. The Re-Zoom narrative moves from an Egyptian hieroglyphic to a film set to an elephant ride to a billboard to a train. I’ve done similar activities, but I love the multicultural perspective of Istvan Banayi’s books, so now I’ve stocked up on multiple copies of both ZOOM and RE-ZOOM, and have on my to do list to break them down and put into protective pages. I left the last set with my colleagues at ICRISAT in Hyderabad. I am also keeping my eye out for used copies, because I like the idea of leaving the book pages behind for groups to use with OTHER groups they work with. Viral facilitation and collaboration! We did the exercise with a large group of social scientists who work in different parts of the world. Most of their work is done in smaller teams, but there was a real need to connect as a whole team as well. It was very interesting to observe the exercise. First we started with the version where you can’t show your card to anyone else. The group didn’t make much progress finding their order. Imagine if we had tried the "no talking" version! With the "no show" round, I asked if they were ready to show and see if they got it. There were some totally confident and others totally sure they did not have it. So I asked them to put themselves in order (again without showing the cards) and then we’d check.  Uh uh, not even close. Then they used visual clues to reorder the series. This is where a few individuals really went to work and the rest of the group stood back. It was an interesting shift in agency. When there was a higher degree of "not knowing," more of the team participated in working the solution. When we debriefed, I did notice a shyness to share some of the observations people gave me individually as the power dynamics in the group made some of these things harder to say. I try not to be the voice for others in the room, so I had to represent my observations as just that — my observations. But I need to think more critically how to handle this during the debrief. Here are a few angles on our play together…   Resources from Wilderdom, copyleft - please share with attribution out of kindness! Zoom ZoomAnswerSheet

Very cool tool that convers RSS feeds into videos. Thanks Alan, for the link! via Wibbitz - Text to Video.

…at a restaurant! From: Foodtography: Seattle Is Not Jumping on the NYC Train of Banning Cameras at the Table. The context is Brian Canlis, co-owner of Seattle’s iconic Canlis restaurant, talking about how to deal with disruptions. In this case, the disruption is people taking flash pictures of their food! Substitute "customer service" with "facilitation." Think about how we handle disruptions when people are meeting and working together… Has he ever told someone to put the camera down? "Yes, if it intrudes on the table next to them having a good time? Absolutely, I’ll do something! But I’m not going to ban it! I’m gonna look at, how can I find a new way to make this guest really happy? So if their flash is upsetting a table next to them, I’m going to invite them back to the kitchen, invite them to the wine cellar. Do you want to take pictures down there, because it’s bright and beautiful. Offer to send them my photos because I take photos of all our food here, for the website." Brian is certain that excellent customer service can solve any problem and he thinks completely banning photography at the table is just lazy. "It seems like such a short sided, ego driven, silly thing to do. You’re getting in the way of people having fun. Canlis is an altar to our guests. They’re the whole reason we’re here and the whole restaurant revolves around them. I think restaurants that are doing bans like that are altars to the chef. The guest is asked to come in and revolve around them." When we facilitate, we want to move the "action" forward to create the conditions for groups to accomplish their goals. A pile of rules may only constrain. A creative perspective on a challenge may open up whole new vistas of understanding and work. Invite — a terrific word — these new perspectives, rather than blocking perceived disruption. Nice example, Brian. Thanks!

Scenario design in elearning: Two types of feedback.

I cannot resist sharing this story of parenting, leadership and love. Relationships are long term. Our commitment to them can seem/feel/look invisible and it is wonderful when someone figures a way to make it visible.  I can’t quite suss out the identity of the author and this is 8 months old (with millions of hits, it seems, so I’m late to the party. ) Anyway, apropos of nothing other than love, I give you… Via: Photo Album - Imgur. I graduated High School this week. When my Dad said he had a present for me I thought I was getting some cheesy graduation card. But what I received was something truly priceless. Following the ceremony he handed me a bag with a copy of "Oh the Places You’ll Go," by Doctor Seuss inside. At first I just smiled and said that it meant a lot and that I loved that book. But then he told me "No, open it up." …On the first page I see a short paragraph written by none other than my kindergarten teacher. I start tearing up but I’m still confused. He tells me "Every year, for the past 13 years, since the day you started kindergarten I’ve gotten every teacher, coach, and principal to write a little something about you inside this book." He managed to keep this book a secret for 13 years, and apparently everyone else in my life knew about it! Yes the intended effect occured… I burst out in tears. Sitting there reading through this book there are encouraging and sweet words from every teacher I love and remember through my years in this small town. My early teachers mention my "Pigtails and giggles," while my high school teachers mention my "Wit and sharp thinking.." But they all mention my humor and love for life. It is astounding to receive something this moving, touching, nostalgic, and thoughtful. I can’t express how much I love my Dad for this labor of love.

I am frequently asked about "the best collaboration" platform or "the best web meeting" tool and I am always at a loss to offer a clear, specific answer. The reason? Context. Each group works off of a different set of base tools in their day to day work/life and it is always disruptive to ask them to change or add. One of the biggest disruptions is the flow across tools made difficult by many usernames and passwords (most of which I personally forget!) So I was intrigued when I saw mention of this technology which bridges across tools using one’s mobile phone number. Vobi - Online Collaboration That’s Kicked Off By Phone Calls | TechCrunch. Thinking specifically of people I work with in international development contexts where mobile phone access and usage is more frequent and pervasive than desktop and laptop computers, I wondered if this technology can also serve as a gateway to a variety of mobile apps. I love this ideas of technologies that are "bridges" between other technologies. The more we can work seamlessly, the more time and attention we have for the other aspects of collaboration — such as paying attention to each other, getting work done and getting RESULTS!! What bridges/affordances have you noticed lately?

I’m preparing for what might be a challenging facilitation gig this month involving a very complex domain, diverse perspectives, at least three languages and rooms where the tables are nailed to the floor. I actually love the first three things. The tables nailed to the floor asks for every bit of my creativity and ability to improvise with space, sound and time. So in preparation, I’m keeping my radar attuned to things floating in front of me. This is how I get inspired. It is like a magnetic field for ideas. Here is what came across the radar today, via a link from the Applied Improvisation Network‘s Facebook Page. Lives In Progress: Listening And Acceptance: Improvising Our Way To Relationship With The Pre-Contemplative Person. Acceptance of their offer, even if it is tinged with hostility or hoisted by layers of defensive projections about me and what I represent to them, is absolutely essential to engagement with the group. Acceptance of their offer is most often acceptance of their worldview, which most of us will freely share with others who listen without judgment. That is the hard part. To listen without imposing our will on another person even when it seems abundantly clear that their worldview can wind up killing them. Listening and acceptance of the offer of another person’s worldview are power tools in the improvisers toolkit, the builders of meaningful connection. Because why should anyone collaborate with me about a difficult, usually painful and conflict-inducing process of change if I fail to understand the way they see their story? How can I become a part of someone’s story - and no amount of intellectualizing or information-giving influences a person’s choices unless the new message and the messenger become part of his/her story - if I set myself apart from it? The author, Jude Treder-Wolff. goes on to quote Daniel Pink, from his new book, To Sell is Human. "The first principle of improvisation-hearing offers-hinges on attunement, leaving our own perspective to inhabit the perspective of another," he writes. "And to master this aspect of improvisation, we must rethink our understanding of what it is to listen and what constitutes an offer." Digging into the meaning of improvisation exercises designed to cultivate these skills, he concludes that "once we listen in this new, more intimate way, we begin hearing things we might have missed. And if we listen this way during our efforts to move others, we quickly realize that what seem outwardly like objections are often offers in disguise." (p. 192) Then, of course, the magnetic field continued to strengthen and I came across a couple of Facebook posts from the amazing Kat Koppet, who probably doesn’t know that I regularly open her book (Training to Imagine) to some random page and, with that magnetic field, find inspiration and knowledge. She posted a scan of a letter that Robert Lowe sent her which contains some amazing advice to us that resonates with this idea of listening and acceptance. With permission, here are the two pages of the letter.   In my work with international development agencies, people are passionate about solving global problems, feeding the world, saving the planet. With this passion can come an almost blinding form of advocacy, to be heard, to be validated, that can cripple listening, idea creation and collaboration. We SO want to be right and solve the problem, but this can become the problem. There is so much value placed on data, on solutions that we forget to listen for context and meaning. So I’m going to think hard, or maybe better yet, open my mind to what possibilities I can weave into my next engagement that seek space for listening and acceptance as the ground for working really hard, well and with joy on tough, intractable problems. Any advice to share?   Edit, just a few minutes later… I see this Tweet from Linda Stone:

Click on the link and read the whole post — it is short. My friend Tim Merry has taken to saying that we can’t do community engagement we can only do community. Or not. I think this is a compelling idea. Engagement is meaningless now as a term. We are seeking real community, a genuine sense of being in this together. Whether it is public policy or building infrastructure you have the choice to do it to people or do it with people. Just using the word "engagement" is not enough. Time to put real power behind the idea of community. via Community engagement is dead « Chris Corrigan. I have a little inkling that the practice of deciding what not to do is related to Chris and Tim’s insight. But I haven’t quite chased down the thought yet. Ideas?

There are a pile of good lessons on presentation preparation in Jessica’s blog post,  Endless Knots: In the future, now: presenting virtually, but I appreciated all the layers around virtual collaboration, about walking the talk at every level when we talk about sustainability, virtual teams and collaboration. Sweet! Thanks, Jessica! Here is a snippet, but click in to read the whole thing. OK, so what was so special about this? I always vet my presentations with clients and usually have a back-and-forth to fine-tune. This was the most global preparation I’ve ever done and I say this having done quite a number of these virtual presentations. And by the time we were done with all the preparation, Karl, Jacobina, and I felt like a team.

I love this piece on the front of the Learning Creative Learning MOOC from MIT. In Mitch Resnick’s intro his final word is about learning through mistakes. Yeah, baby!

Yesterday I was grateful to attend a panel presentation by Beth Kanter (Packard Foundation Fellow), Paul Shoemaker (Social Venture Partners), Jane Meseck (Microsoft Giving) and Eric Stowe (Splash.org) moderated by Erica Mills (Claxon). First of all, from a confessed short attention spanner, the hour went FAST. Eric tossed great questions for the first hour, then the audience added theirs in the second half. As usual, Beth got a Storify of the Tweets and a blog post up before we could blink. (Uncurated Tweets here.) There was  much good basic insight on monitoring for non profits and NGOs. Some of may favorite soundbites include: What is your impact model? (Paul Shoemaker I think. I need to learn more about impact models) Are you measuring to prove, or to improve (Beth Kanter) Evaluation as a comparative practice (I think that was Beth) Benchmark across your organization (I think Eric) Transparency = Failing Out Loud (Eric) "Joyful Funeral" to learn from and stop doing things that didn’t work out (from Mom’s Rising via Beth) Mission statement does not equal IMPACT NOW. What outcomes are really happening RIGHT NOW (Eric) Ditch the "just in case" data (Beth) We need to redefine capacity (audience) How do we create access to and use all the data (big data) being produced out of all the M&E happening in the sector (Nathaniel James at Philanthrogeek) But I want to pick out a few themes that were emerging for me as I listened. These were not the themes of the terrific panelists — but I’d sure wonder what they have to say about them. A Portfolio Mindset on Monitoring and Evaluation There were a number of threads about the impact of funders and their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) expectations. Beyond the challenge of what a funder does or doesn’t understand about M&E, they clearly need to think beyond evaluation at the individual grant or project level. This suggests making sense across data from multiple grantees -> something I have not seen a lot of from funders. I am reminded of the significant difference between managing a project and managing a portfolio of projects (learned from my clients at the Project Management Institute. Yeah, you Doc!) IF I understand correctly, portfolio project management is about the business case -> the impacts (in NGO language), not the operational management issues. Here is the Wikipedia definition: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is the centralized management of processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage a group of current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. The objectives of PPM are to determine the optimal resource mix for delivery and to schedule activities to best achieve an organization’s operational and financial goals ― while honouring constraints imposed by customers, strategic objectives, or external real-world factors. There is a little bell ringing in my head that there is an important distinction between how we do project M&E — which is often process heavy and too short term to look at impact in a complex environment — and being able to look strategically at our M&E across our projects. This is where we use the "fail forward" opportunities, the iterating towards improvements AND investing in a longer view of how we measure the change we hope to see in the world. I can’t quite articulate it. Maybe one of you has your finger on this pulse and can pull out more clarity. But the bell is ringing and I didn’t want to ignore it. This idea also rubs up against something Eric said which I both internally applauded and recoiled from. It was something along the lines of "if you can’t prove you are creating impact, no one should fund you." I love the accountability. I worry about actually how to meaningfully do this in a)  very complex non profit and international development contexts, and for the next reason… Who Owns Measurement and Data? Chart from Effective Philanthropy 2/2013 There is a very challenging paradigm in non profits and NGOs — the "helping syndrome." The idea that we who "have" know what the "have nots" need or want. This model has failed over and over again and yet we still do it. I worry that this applies to M&E as well. So first of all, any efforts towards transparency (including owning and learning from failures) is stellar. I love what I see, for example, on Splash.org particularly their Proving.it technology. (In the run up to the event, Paul Shoemaker pointed to this article on the disconnect on information needs between funders and grantees.) Mostly I hear about the disconnect between funders information needs and those of the NPOs. But what about the stakeholders’ information needs and interests? Some of the projects I’m learning from in agriculture (mostly in Africa and SE/S Asia) are looking towards finding the right mix of grant funding, public (government and international) investment and local ownership (vs. an extractive model). Some of the more common examples are marketing networks for farmers to get the best prices for their crops, lending clubs and using local entrepreneurs to fill new business niches associated with basics such as water, food, housing, etc. The key is the ownership at the level of stakeholders/people being served/impacted/etc. (I’m trying to avoid the word users as it has so many unintended other meanings for me!) So if we are including these folks as drivers of the work, are they also the drivers of M&E and, in the end, the "owners" of the data produced. This is important not only because for years we have measured stakeholders and rarely been accountable to share that data, or actually USE it productive, but also because change is often motivated by being able to measure change and see improvement. 10 more kids got clean water in our neighborhood this week. 52 wells are now being regularly serviced and local business people are increasing their livelihoods by fulfilling those service contracts.  The data is part of the on-the-ground workings of a project. Not a retrospective to be shoveled into YARTNR (yet another report that no one reads.) In working with communities of practice, M&E is a form of community learning. In working with scouts, badges are incentives, learning measures and just plain fun. The ownership is not just at the sponsor level. It is embedded with those most intimately involved in the work. So stepping back to Eric’s staunch support of accountability, I say yes AND the full ownership of that accountability with all involved, not just the NGO/NPO/Funder. The Unintended Consequences of How We Measure Related to ownership of M&E and the resulting data brings me back to the complexity lens. I’m a fan of the Cynefin Framework to help me suss out where I am working - simple, complicated, complex or chaotic domains. Using the framework may be a good diagnostic for M&E efforts because when we are working in a complex domain, predicting cause and effect may not be possible (now, or into the future.) If we expect M&E to determine if we are having impact, this implies we can predict cause and effect and focus our efforts there. But things such as local context may suggest that everything won’t play out the same way everywhere.  What we are measuring may end up having unintended negative consequences (this HAS happened!) Learning from failures is one useful intervention, but I sense we have a lot more to learn here. Some of the threads about big data yesterday related to this — again a portfolio mentality looking across projects and data sets (calling Nathaniel James) We need to do more of the iterative monitoring until we know what we SHOULD be measuring.  I’m getting out of my depth again here (Help! Patricia Rogers! Dave Snowden!)  The point is, there is a risk of being simplistic in our M&E and a risk of missing unintended consequences. I think that is one reason I enjoyed the panel so much yesterday, as you could see the wheels turning in people’s heads as they listened to each other! Arghhh, so much to think about and consider. Delicious possibilities…  Wednesday Edit: See this interesting article on causal chains… so much to learn about M&E! I think it reflects something Eric said (which is not captured above) about measuring what really happens NOW, not just this presumption of "we touched one person therefore it transformed their life!!" Second edit: Here is a link with some questions about who owns the data… may be related http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=59975 Third edit: An interesting article on participation with some comments on data and evaluation http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-people-affected-by-problem-have-to.html Fourth Edit (I keep finding cool stuff) "Who Counts: the power of participatory statistics." Edited by Jeremy Holland with an Afterword by Robert Chambers. NYTimes "Can Big Data From Epic Indian Pilgrimage Help Save Lives?" The public health project is part of a larger pilgrimage by Harvard scholars to study the Kumbh Mela. You can follow their progress on Twitter, using the hashtag #HarvardKumbh.  

Experimentation: chocolate cakes and communicators | Full Circle Associates. Keeping on my reblogging of this St. Paddy’s day treat. This year I used a different recipe, and then altered it for a slightly healthier version. Chocolate Guinness Cake Ingredients 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 3/4 cup natural (not Dutch-processed) cocoa powder - I upped the antioxident power to 1 cup. I love chocolate… 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 sticks plus 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened - I used one stick of butter plus 3 tbs and 3/4 cup pumpkin puree 2 1/4 cups firmly packed light brown sugar - I used just over a cup of coconut sugar 3 large eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups Guinness stout (do not include foam when measuring) 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans - I added a bit more nuts, plus 3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut Confectioners’ sugar for dusting Method 1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Grease the bottom and sides of a 9-by-3-inch round cake pan or springform pan. Dust the pan with flour. 2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, and set aside. 3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Gradually add the brown sugar and beat at high speed until very light and creamy, about 3 minutes. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients in three additions, alternating with the stout in two additions and mixing just until blended. Add the pecans and mix just until combined. Remove bowl from the mixer stand and stir a few times with the rubber spatula to make sure the batter is evenly blended. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. 4. Bake the cake for 70 to 75 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes. I cooked mine for 70 minutes in a convection oven.  5. Invert the cake onto the rack and cool completely. With the springform pan, I just slipped the bottom out. This cake is delightful served warm. 6. Just before serving, dust the top of the cake lightly with confectioners’ sugar. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. I did consider making the cream cheese frosting from the NYTimes version, but I resisted. Have a bit of Guinness with your cake as a beverage choice, or a nice cup of coffee!   From: http://www.leitesculinaria.com/recipes/cookbook/choc_guinness_cake.html

I use this improvisational co-drawing exercise a LOT and get asked about how to do it. I learned it from Johnnie Moore who learned it from  Alain Rostain. It is very simple. So as a quick refresher…here is a quote from Johnnie’s blog… again! The exercise is simple: you’re going to draw a face, together. It won’t be a familiar face (probably) but one you’re making up between you. You need a pen and paper (we made do with a paper napkin from the cafe we were in). Once you’re ready, you work silently. Resist the urge to discuss the picture as it develops and don’t comment on each other’s ideas. You probably won’t be able to suppress laughter though. The first person draws just one feature of a face. It’s up to you what it is: it could be an ear, an eye, a nose, a tattoo, an eyebrow… whatver. Rule of thumb: when you lift the pen off the paper, you’ve finished your turn. And remember, as you’re working silently, don’t explain what you’ve drawn. Then your partner takes the pen and they draw a feature. It may be another ear/eye whatever, or it could be something else. Whatever it is, you then get the pen and carry on. Even if you’re not sure what it is they’ve drawn. If you don’t know what on earth your partner has drawn, don’t ask! Just carry on adding features as best you can. Keep going like this for a few turns, each adding a single feature with each turn. When someone gets the pen and hesitates about what to do, this means the face is finished. So that person now puts down the first letter of the name of this character. Keep adding letters until someone hesitates - when that happens, you’ve finished. And again, don’t comment on what your partner writes, whatever you may think! Here are some sample pictures And a quick video-in-action…

Creative Commons from the wonderful Roland Tanglao via Flickr The title of the article, Talent Isn’t Fixed and Other Mindsets That Lead to Greatness, drew me in. Here is the opening paragraph. According to Stanford University’s Carol Dweck, the psychologist behind the much-praised book Mindset: The New Psychology for Success, the attitude that we bring to our creative work—and to mentoring our juniors—can play a huge role in shaping just how much of our inborn talents we realize. One of the most important things that I think I offer the individuals and groups I work with is to notice their contribution, their creativity, passion, persistence -> whatever the quality. The article calls this people’s "inborn talents." I think it is more than inborn, but I won’t quibble… I call my role or function "holding up a mirror."  Helping people see for themselves their power and agency. But that is an oversimplification. So it seems useful to consider how we give feedback — it matters. Take a look at some wise words from Stanford University’s Carol Dweck. Could you give me an example of how that language would actually play out if I were giving someone feedback? A fixed mindset approach would be saying something like: "This project turned out amazing. You’re a genius. I knew you had the talent. This is proof of it." As opposed to a growth mindset approach of, "Wow, this project turned out fantastically well. I loved the way you mobilized the team, the way you kept everyone focused, the way you brought it to fruition, the way you made everybody feel the ownership." These are things you can replicate and that you should replicate the next time. Whereas, when I say, "You’re a genius!"…how do you reproduce that over and over? And what about when you need to give someone criticism? Or point out an area that needs work? As I mentioned, when you are giving criticism, you need to carefully critique the process someone engaged in and discuss what skills they need to learn and improve. But I’ve also fallen in love with a new word—"yet." You can say to someone who fell short: "You don’t seem to have this," but then add the word "yet." As in, "You don’t seem to have these skills…yet." By doing that, we give people a time perspective. It creates the idea of learning over time. It puts the other person on that learning curve and says, "Well, maybe you’re not at the finish line but you’re on that learning curve and let’s go further." It’s such a growth mindset word. The "yet" thing is interesting and it reminds me of the power of "Yes, And," from improv. Interesting that searching for a link took me back to the 99U site! Look at this. It both cases, I don’t think the feedback is limited ONLY to specific feedback — I really liked what Dweck said in response to the first question. But also having some lack of clarity also leads to possibility. Thus Roland’s fuzzy mirror photo inspired my thinking a bit more. Clarity on feedback, and possibility going forward. How’s that? How do you give feedback? Photo from my friend Roland Tanglao.

nancy and charles tapping into each other Via Johnnie Moore (thanks!) comes something that is remarkably akin to the Liberating Structures approach I’ve been diving into deeply. 2 degrees of separation - 100%Open. And so recently, we’ve prototyped an exercise at various workshops and events called ’2 degrees of separation’ that has worked so remarkably well that a) I wanted to share it and b) see if anybody can help prove exactly how it works. The way we have run it to date is as follows: In a room of at least 30 people, ask everybody to think of a project or problem they are working on right now where what would really help them is to be introduced to a specific person or organisation. Invite people to then take it in turns to shout out the name of who they are trying to reach, and also to briefly introduce themselves (if necessary) and why they want this introduction. Ask the whole group if anybody knows that person or organisation directly, or might know how to reach them, and if so to raise their hands. If so, just point them out to each other so they can chat afterwards and repeat the process a few times. We’ve now done this exercise 3 or 4 times with group sizes varying from about 30 to nearly 100 and every single time we’ve been able to make a productive connection. And whilst I thought it would probably work I am struck how well it has worked so far.

From a Facebook post the students in Eric Tsui’s class at Hong Kong Polytechnic sent me this amazing thank you note. (Paper version, I’m told, is on the way!) Now THIS is a great community indicator. I get up early and late to deliver online webinar guest presentations. Rarely do you get this kind of feedback. I love it. Click the images to see more detail! Thank Eric and to all in your class. I’m smiling in Seattle.  

Community indicators are everywhere, including embedded in how we design and participate in our online spaces. Read the whole blog post, ok? Creating delightful, inviting spaces is simple, but not easy. Unfortunately, we often make it unnecessarily complicated. I don’t expect most workspaces to have wide open, reconfigurable spaces with natural light on two sides and moveable whitewalls and furniture. But why can’t all workspaces have signs like this? How many actually do? via Eugene Eric Kim » Three Simple Hacks for Making Delightful Virtual Spaces. I love the word "delightful!" Thanks, Eugene! (And Katie, the community person at the Standford D School!)

Ah Seth, we know the troll of which you speaketh in your blog post,  Seth’s Blog: A field guide to the Meeting Troll. In response, here are the people I want to invite into the circle. (See, I even avoided the word "meeting" as we have so many coded "dirty words!") Come into the circle with me. You are curious. "Not knowing" is an asset, not a deficit. You ask AMAZING questions. You are playful. Risk taking is in your repertoire. You love creating opportunity for yourself and others. Love is an operational word here… You love solving wicked problems… I can see the glee on your face. You bring and SHARE your chocolate (oranges, carrot sticks, croissants, coffee, etc.) You create space, not only fill it.When you occupy space, it is always with genuine presence and  contribution. You don’t hide behind your words. Or your positional power. You explain your acronyms (this is important to me- I work in international development!) Failure is a learning opportunity for you. You help me mine the learning from my failures. You seek multiple perspectives to learn from your failures. You discern when something is simple and when it is complex and act accordingly. This includes knowing when to STOP doing something. You are not fearless, but you do not shy away from fear. You trust me. I trust you. We know how to honor and forgive.

Spot on, Scott! It is not enough to be just OPEN! Still, it brought to mind lessons learned numerous times at Northern Voice and Open Ed, that "open" isn’t the same as "inviting," and that if organizers really do want to grow a movement, real care has to be paid to how we bring newcomers into the fold. via BC Open Data Summit Report.

Choconancy1 posted a photo:

Lurking, or the practice of entering into online spaces to read, but not to post or "visibly participate" has been a perennial topic wherever and whenever online interaction comes up. I was combing through some old resources in preparation for a series of brown bag gatherings I’m leading in the next few months, and came across this gem of a summary from the Online Facilitation group (now mostly dormant) that I’ve hosted since 1999! I am recopying the notes here as a more visible, accessible archive. This is Chris Lang’s compilation of a discussion that took place on the Online Facilitation Listserv July 25-August 8, 2003.  He wrote: "Please excuse my editorial license—the postings can be found in their completeness in the archives at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinefacilitation/messages" Alas, some of the links are now dead. I’ve tried to find substitutes where possible. See also References on Lurking from 2010 on this blog! The subject of the discussion was originally how to deal with "lurkers", but a variety of other terms for it were suggested: "wall flower", "non poster", "legitimate peripheral participation". For easy indexing, I have divided stuff into 54 pieces in 7 categories: 4 Other Resources 5 Considerations on Naming the Phenomenon 6 Arguments That Facilitators Should Try to Increase Posting 20 Ways to Increase Posting 10 Arguments That Facilitators Should Not Try to Increase Posting 4 Ways to Figure Out How Many are Reading But Not Posting 5 System Changes to Physically Allow Greater Participation 4 Other Resources Understanding lurkers http://www.centrinity.se/Conferences/Nerladdning/000231AE-80000001/00A03C2A-001E85B5.9/ This is a one page document, identifies three main types of lurkers and gives specific strategies (alas, link is dead - nw) Involving Lurkers in Online Discussions http://www.teachingonthenet.org/articles/involvingLurkers.htm Comments from lurkers, in the context of courses that include an online discussion component. Here, the questions are mostly about whether to penalize lurkers and whether to make contributions to the discussions a strict requirement. Shedding light on Lurkers in Online Discussions http://www.ifsm.umbc.edu/~preece/paper/16%20Shedding%20Light.final.pdf A little old (1999), based on a study. Again, understanding why people are not posting is key to selecting the appropriate strategies to make them post more. (This link is working for me… a cached file) (more from Preece and Nonnecke on lurking here, here and here. There is a nice article from Kate Crawford: Listening, not Lurking. NW) Let’s get more positive about the term ‘lurker‘, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onlinefacilitation/files/LurkerProjectCoPWorkshopSPring03a.doc (A copy can also be found here for those who are not members of the Onfac list http://www.groups-that-work.com/GTWedit/GTW/lurkerprojectcopworkshopspring03rev.pdf) MacDonald, J.., Atkin W., Daugherity F., Fox, H., MacGillivray, A., Reeves-Lipscomb, D., Uthailertaroon, P. (2003) CPsquare Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop : The Value of Lurking, Resistance to Lurking, Why Lurkers Lurk, The Importance of CoP Context, Methods for Helping CoPs and CoP Members Flourish, Measuring and Defining LPP: Questions and Ideas 5 Considerations on Naming the Phenomenon  "Lurker" is a negative word isn’t it? We’ve given it negative connotations for some reason. But some people don’t like being called "wallflowers" either. But if in this context we just accept the word "lurker" as meaning someone who is part of a virtual group but doesn’t participate, are you ok with it? But to use the term ‘lurking’ with its disparaging connotations in the same breath as ‘appropriate environment’ is at least rather oxymoronic. I know it’s been done to death, but it’s a matter of ‘call me a lurker, and I’ll hide even deeper. I personally find the term "lurker" extremely offensive, objectifying and insulting. I can not believe that an "educated" list such as this can not be more sensitive to the "labels" they use. I believe it would be kinder to use the term "non poster" or come up with a kinder gentler term that gives the non poster credit for his passive participation. -Kathleen Johnson There are negative connotations for just about every noun, verb and adjective. I don’t believe that lurker carries the pejorative weight of degree, of say, a racial epithet and even there are degrees of escalating severity and consequences. I can certainly see evidence to the contrary that use of a racial epithet is not likely to lead to less participation, IRL there are those who would become confrontational and ask for redress. "Learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process that we call legitimate peripheral participation. By this we mean to draw attention to the point that learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. ‘Legitimate peripheral participation’ provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. It concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice. A person’s intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. This social process includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills." from p. 29, J. Lave, E. Wenger. Situated Learning : Legitimate Peripheral Participation, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990. The way ‘Legitimate peripheral participation’ has begun to be used…(Nancy’s take on it!) … that being on the periphery is OK and that there is an always changing pattern of how we choose to participate and learn in a group. If the topic is near and dear to me, I move towards a more active role, closer to the center. If it is of less interest or I feel I don’t have something substantive to contribute, I remain more of an observer on the periphery. My self-placement from the periphery to the core may have to do with newcomer/old-timer status, or it may have to do with interest, expertise, available attention. 6 Arguments That Facilitators Should Try to Increase Posting  …in my opinion, if you join a community, you have an obligation to "give back" for all the jewels you’ve taken away. Once again I qualify that statement with the caveat that no one is expected to reply to every topic. But when you feel you have something to offer-go for it. Full participation (two-way interaction) is critical when: - making a (shared) decision that will affect the group - gathering feedback from an intentionally-diverse stakeholder group - attempting an innovation through collaboration - the member is officially representing a minority interest group (by number or specific point-of-view, or interest area) - the member represents an assumed responsibility (2 definitions: either updating the status of a task, or representing a point-of-view about which many others make assumptions.) "A community thrives on "giving back" behavior and widespread participation in community building efforts." "The law of reciprocity applies to lurking, learning, and linking to more lurking and learning. One can be a recipient for only so long. Fairness dictates that one needs to give back something of comparable value. The giving back does not have to occur in the original forum." We are all peripheral participants at some time or another, so I think we should also be active participants at some point or another. It’s ok to be a Peripheral Participant, but it’s also good to give back to the community. My question is how to understand in any group the role of legitimate peripheral participation and how to make the POSSIBILITY of moving from the periphery to the core available without unnaturally FORCING it because legitimate peripheral participation may be the right thing at the time for any individual. In a list like this, I feel invitation alone (a thought provoking post, a request to self introduce) is sufficient and that if someone wants to stay on the periphery, that is totally cool. IN a virtual team where each members contribution is critical to goal achievement, legitimate peripheral participation becomes something I’d pay more attention to and actively work to bring the full team closer to the "center." -Nancy 20 Ways to Increase Posting In a face-to-face meeting, the facilitator will ask the group from time-to-time if there are any comments from people who haven’t spoken yet. The same technique works just fine online, too, with some graceful welcoming language. — Arnie Anderson Use introductions. It is important, however, that the community then express an interest in them right away. Imagine if subject headers not only listed the abbreviation for the email group, the kind of post, and the name for the thread, but also the number of the post on that thread. For example, "Subject: [of] 1 TIP - Non-Posters" could indicate that this is the first post in the "Non-Posters" thread of the onlinefacilitation group, and this is a TIP thread. If I knew it was the first post, then I wouldn’t be afraid that I missed previous posts. Have group members partner-up and get to know each other. It can be easier to participate in a group when you know you’ve got a friend there. It can be important to have a peer, rather than a professor, to go to. In the community I run, I find that a telephone call can be enough to turn a non-poster into a talker. Sometimes the "voice to voice" connection makes the community seem more real to a non-poster, enhancing her investment in the group. Set up a discussion about "Why aren’t people participating in this group?" This establishes that you care, and makes it explicit that it is not wrong for non-posters to post. But be careful-if you make this threatening, it could drive people away! Sometimes stop and ask the whole group what they have learned or gained. This gives people a second chance to jump in. On several of the Listservs of which I am a member, I used to conduct lurker amnesty day. Calling attention to the lurker behavior and providing an avenue for them to de-lurk is often enough to bring them out. The ploy is not without controversy with some folks who object to the connotations associated with "lurker". It will often bring up a discussion on group values around participation in the discussion. Still, lurker amnesty day has always been effective-meaning people do come forth and post for the first time. (But Artur warns: Talking about "lurkers" is not usually "good facilitation" because after that some lurkers will participate more - but many others, lurkers and not, will quit.) Make sure there are shared expectations about what/how people interact in the group, and who is supposed to be posting. Sometimes as organizers and facilitators it seems obvious, but when I’ve checked my assumption about people’s understanding, I’ve often been very surprised at how "unobvious" it is. One thing that can keep me from posting is that I haven’t read all of the previous postings, and I’m afraid to post something that has already been addressed. Threads help, but this wiki is even better because it sorts the threads-just like brainstorming around a flip chart  Read without TOO much judgment There are quite a few groups where I am lurking 99% of the time and suddenly someone will post something that will trigger me to post a response. If you can find that something for these women, they might start with one post and be encouraged to continue (especially if they get a warm welcome and supportive feedback from the group and the moderator). — Barbara Fillip  Express interest in them. Ask someone by name if there’s something they want to talk about. - Ann In the work I do online, we explicitly use anonymous discussions for some issues. This is not so much a trust issue as 1) a way to flatten the playing field and 2) an encouragement to participate. If the emphasis of the exercise is on gathering group data, rather than who said what, AND if there is an expectation that the group wants as wide-as-possible input from different kinds of stakeholders, then we find there is a great deal of participation. I sent a two-question survey to all the participants. The first question (check all that apply) asked them why they were not participating, and the second asked the participants to suggest something I could do to make the experience more useful to them. - Barbara I contacted a couple of participants based on what I already knew of their area of expertise and ongoing involvement in projects that we needed to discuss this week. -Barbara One of the suggestions is to find a way to reduce the number of postings. This may sound counterintuitive but sometimes if there are too many messages or messages are too long, a good number of participants will find it difficult to keep up with the flow of the conversation and then it’s difficult for them to jump in. As Rolf put it "I pick up new ideas and insights, but the volume of messages is just too high to really feel like ‘replying’ here."  Nancy’s light touch facilitation allows a wide variety of ways of participation (as do we the members). I think that projects aiming at increasing participation are more likely to succeed if they target people who are already active participants in other communication forums, online or off, rather than attempting to increase the posting volume of those who have shown a preference for little or no posts. Don’t let people hide in corners. As Noreen put it: "once you get a spot in the corner it is four times as hard to walk up to someone and make conversation." 10 Arguments That Facilitators Should Not to Try to Increase Posting 1. Artur wrote: IMHO there are no lurkers! No one is "hiding" to prepare to "assault" our knowledge or to profit from those who share. In public lists the "public" that subscribe may have many reasons for staying in the list and not contributing. Some are readers but many just don’t have the time for even reading, except very infrequently. And they have the legitimate right to be in that situation as long as they want - except when that is clearly stated in the "definition" of the forum. And they also have the right to begin participating when they feel the need for that or to quit the list at any moment. Many of us have participated in "Professional Congresses" before the Internet time - and after. What was (is) the percentage of participants that would present a paper? 1%? 2%? And what was the percentage of people that would put a question or discuss something during discussion time? 3%? 5%? 10%? (and what percentage would offer to serve at the Directions of Professional Associations?) And would we call the other 90% "lurkers"? Of course not. First because they "showed up" for the meeting. Second because they were the professional body that made possible for the presenters to present something. Third because in some cases they had paid for the Congress - they were the "costumers"! And, of course, if they were present in the sessions, they would hear, they would learn, they would discuss with each other during the coffee breaks (normally the most interesting parts of any Congress) or in private conversations. And after the Congress, they would apply their knowledge and eventually some of them would later present their own papers. Of course, no one would worry to "facilitate" the participation of the "non-speaking participants" or criticize them as indeed they were the "customers" of the event. And after all, the "logic" of Congresses would be impossible if all the people would participate - there would not be enough time for presentations - or the Congress would need one year - which was obviously too much as someone would need to work after all… And no one would even question why were the "participants" not presenting papers or putting questions. That was their "right". What could be questioned was the motivation of the presenters (especially when they would make bad presentations) or the motivation of the people that asked questions (especially when they were silly or trivial ones). Yes, THIS needs an explanation: why do presenters present? For the sake of sharing knowledge? For the sake of prestige? For having their two minutes of exposure? But I never heard a presenter in a Congress saying - I hate those "lurkers" that come here to profit from the knowledge I am creating - if they were creating any knowledge at all, which was not always the case. 2. The member who contributes sometimes but has good insight may be more valuable than someone who has a lot of chatter. 3. Frank "mused": Seems that if there’s no one giving, there’s no one receiving. So don’t we each have a responsibility (I know, a big word) to be givers of whatever we can if we also long to receive? Else, the well runs dry feeding many from a few. Does that make many of us "parasites" or "users"? Or worst yet, "abusers"? Seems to me that community is all about "we", not just "me". And if I "show up" however I can whenever I can in a way that can be received by others, then I’m a real part of the community. Hmm, and maybe just being a reader brings enough energy to exchange with those who have words (authors) that long to be read. Why did the authors "show up" in the way that they did? What real need is being filled here for them? Is it truly possible that someone who volunteers to be "in community" has nothing to give? Doubt it. Can we have a yin without a yang? Is there a palpable experience of "silent giving back" in an online community? What would the other end (the reciprocal) of that silent giving back look like? And how do we consciously move from being a "group" to being a "community"? 4. "Are they talking about me? Am I a lurker?" I guess the answer to both questions is yes. And I am not ashamed or apologetic about it. I will speak when I have what I think is a valid question or when I have something valuable to contribute to the conversation. Up until this point I have had neither. While I find the topics of general interest so far, they have not really answered any critical needs or triggered any startling insights that I needed to share. As facilitators, we all know that participation is a wonderful thing and we want to be inclusive, but trying to trigger participation just for participations sake is not desirable in every situation. And my gut tells me that in an online environment, just responding to emails, with nothing to offer, only for the sake of being participative, or being part of the community, just doesn’t feel appropriate. If every person contributed to every email query, just to participate, I would find it aggravating. — Charles A. Tweedly 5. My approach with this list reflects a value that I hold about giving. We may not always directly reciprocate one-for-one, but it is important to give. So I may read something on a list and never offer anything, but what I learned there I may share (and give credit to) someplace else. So that the reciprocity is more general to the world, and not just the list group. But I don’t have any expectations that if you read here, you must contribute. And I respect other folks who run other groups who have such expectations. I don’t personally hold them as universal. - Nancy White 6. For me, many lists I’m on are for me like "tv channels" with a more or less "Big Brother" style of programs on: you can have a look at various "communities" and see how they develop, how people interact, who’s in and who’s out, and so on. I sometimes "tune in" and listen/read more carefully on one of the channels, but most of the time, I just zap around, to keep an overview of the various discourses and discussions. — Rolf 7. …the non posting member is probably absorbing the "material" and distributing the acquired material "off list". Not all members are up to speed of the "lecturers" and are in "learning" mode. Do members have to advise you of their standing on the pyramid of learning? Whether they are at the top or the bottom, does it matter to you? Is there a test given to determine their ability to absorb and distribute? And if the non poster is at the top of the pyramid, what difference does it make if they are just observing and cataloging data? Do they need your permission? Why is that? The non poster, quite frankly is one of the most valuable members of the team. They do not fill the board with needless posts so they can be seen and heard. They do not write trivial data just so they can get "attention" or "make themselves feel important". But what they do do is sit back and observe, sifting the information quietly, and in their own way, passing on the information off list. -Kathleen 8. Where I feel I have more of a responsibility to post, culturally this is not always comfortable. -Claire 9. People also have different values. Some feel obliged to respond, to give "something" back. Some do not. Some feel obliged to only give back some *significant value*, if and when they have such to give (it may be never). This is also not a bad thing, if it is recognized that others values may not match your own. 10. Sometimes the active participants get frustrated if they are contributing and they are expecting feedback from other participants and they are not getting it. I would separate the attitude of the active participants from that of the facilitator. I do get very frustrated with lurkers but I try not to let them know that I’m frustrated with them. That might get in the way of encouraging them to participate. It might be more effective to stress to them the potential benefits of participating rather than stress the negative side of lurking. I suppose that’s just the same as looking at a glass half-empty or half-full. The attitude might make the difference. -Barbara Fillip, Knowledge for Development, LLC Yes, but if lurkers get feedback such as this from other list members, when all else has failed (I try never to use negative if win-win will work), perhaps they’ll start thinking about it. 4 Ways to Figure Out How Many are Reading But Not Posting 1. Some software especially courseware does this- eg Blackboard you can see how many times a particular post has been ‘read’- but that doesn’t count how many times you might read it yourself or whether or not any meaning has been made- nevertheless it is a great comfort for beginners in online courses who are scared that no-one is reading their posts, but then they begin to wonder why no-one responds..so on it goes…. 2. Why not place a humorous survey question in posts to the list, perhaps once a month, that are different in request each time, something like the radio announcements that are still aired on occasion (note: these aren’t humorous!): "This is a test of the national emergency radio broadcast system. In the event of a national emergency, this station will cease regular broadcasting and provide….blah, blah, blah. This is only a test." But in this case, request that people provide a one-word answer to a somewhat silly or serious question back to the list. 3. Statistical extrapolation-use personal email to poll a random sample about whether they read the post. Once you have done this for a few posts, just assume that you get the same readership on similar posts. It would be really nice if some group would conduct studies like this and publish them-perhaps a facilitator newsgroup might be willing? 4. Instead of putting content in the email, put it on a special site and put a counter on the site. 5 System Changes to Physically Allow Greater Participation The slashdot (www.slashdot.org) model is interesting. Random members are assigned as "raters" for a limited time. Each Rater may rate posts they read on a scale from -1 to 5, and label them "Interesting", "Insightful", "Funny", "Redundant", "Abusive", and so forth. Posts initially start with a value determined by the ratings of the poster’s previous posts. Readers may filter posts by rating… If you only want to read the gems, set your filter to 5. If you want to read everything, warts and all, set your filter to -1. http://www.weblab.org/home.html (Archived site)  "Small Group Dialogue": Divide the group into many overlapping small groups. http://www.americaspeaks.org/library/21st_century_town_meetings.pdf "21st Century Town Meeting ": Live groups gather in tables of 10-12 with a trained facilitator and sends comments electronically to a "theme team" that recognizes common themes across the tables and posts them on a large electronic view screen. Then someone addresses all of the tables and instructs them to vote (electronically) on the issues put up by the theme team. This achieved a 100% satisfaction rate at a 5000 person meeting to set priorities on the World Trade Center rebuild. http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/index.jsp (Archived site)"Rotisserie": Everyone posts an answer to a question and a computer program automatically assigns each person to respond to another person’s answer (and bugs them by email until they do) then assigns people to respond to responses (and so forth). www.openspaceworld.org Open Space Technology (or Methodology, as I prefer) for meetings offers a completely new way to handle meetings with a much bigger percentage of people participating actively. -Artur

In 2010 I did a short post on useful books on building online community. While Useful Books on Online Community Building was pretty lame, there is now a great Google Doc maintained by the folks who participate in the Community Manager Twitter Chat that is really great. Check it out here (and add to it!).