My talk at fOSSa2011 in Lyon France sharing some ideas about communities, networks and technology stewardship in the context of Open Source Software communities. Photos of the sketchnotes I did of other presentations can be found here: http://fossa.inria.fr/nancywhite-s-sketch-notes-scanned-part-one/
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fOSSa2011: Five Things About Online Community and Networks
1. Twittering: frittering or connecting? Or…thoughts on designing for, connecting to, and holding space for groups, communities and networks. fOSSa 2011 Nancy White Full Circle Associates http://www.fullcirc.com
7. Tech + Social: Technology has fundamentally changed how we can be together
8.
9. “ And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.”
16. facilitators community leaders technology stewards social artists Independent thinkers moderators
17. What the %&*# is a technology steward? http://www.flickr.com/photos/maykesplana/270819284/
18. http://www.flickr.com/photos/meaduva/3163258523/ “ Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community.”
24. 4. Complexity and Safe-Fail Experiments (Snowden) Some rights reserved by Josef Dunne http://www.flickr.com/photos/josefdunne/4319306255/sizes/z/in/photostream/
As humans, we have a long history of working in groups: families, local geographic communities, work teams. Today online technologies allow us to connect broadly using networks of all kinds. We might think of these as deep (groups) and broad (networks). The question is, how do we keep these two forms usefully knitted together? How do the emerging technologies work together as a useful habitat, and when do they actually make things harder? What are the online and offline implications? My original plan was to explore this via the idea of the “transversal.” Right. Uh huh!
I realized after I talked to Stepane, we had, ahem, broad ambitions. Then reality set in. 30 minutes max, a desire for time for questions and interactivity, and me with enough thoughts an ideas to fill a day.. Not what you call an effective strategy for a talk at a conference.
I realized I had to take one of my own fundamental pieces of design advice. When in doubt, keep it simple. And simple to me came down to another fundamental element of human interaction. Invitation! The act of inviting others into engagement with you and with each other, into engagement to think, do, learn, create, debate, play. So today my talk isn’t quite what was advertised… at least our 30 minutes together does not cover that full territory. Instead it is an offering of a few ideas, and an invitation to continue to engage with those ideas over the next few days, and maybe even longer as we scatter back across this little green globe we call “earth.” In fact, next week I will be engaging with some unknown number of people as part of the MOOC, Change 11, and we are going to be talking about some of this stuff. So yes, consider this an invitation.
First, let’s walk the talk and engage. Despite the power I wield as holder of the microphone and name in the program, we DO have options. We are going to do a little exercise I learned from Johnnie Moore who attributes it to his friend, Alain Rostain. (Describe exercise)
Possible debrief questions: what are a few words that describe your experience. Holler them out! What surprised you? What was difficult? Easy? Did it go according to your plan or expectations? Whose pictures are these? What is it like to work with another person without talking? Without praise or criticism? Did you laugh? Why? What have you learned about yourself and your partner? What experiences did you have doing this that you would like to have MORE of in your working life? And LESS?
The proliferation of internet based tools has expanded what it means to "be together" with others for learning, work and pleasure. How do we decide when to focus on the individual, the group or the wider network? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? How does our choice inform our selection of tools and methods? And what about all the gray area "in between" each of these?
Some of the roles that I’ve been looking at are community leaders, network weavers and technology stewards. Community leaders are a more familiar role, helping defined groups achieve specific goals over a period of time. “Helping” may mean creating conditions, supporting the emergence of relationships or individual and/or group identity, managing, etc. Network weavers are a new role (See the work of June Holley et al at http://www.networkweaving.com/blog/) – “people who facilitate new connections and increase the quality of those connections.” In between community leaders and network weavers are technology stewards – they show up both in groups/communities AND networks.
Ten years ago, when someone wanted to set up a set of tools to support a community of practice, they called up IT. Install Lotus notes. “Give me a SharePoint set up.” And that was that. Communities rarely had control of their online environments. There was a gulf between designers and users. Unless of course, they were coders. Now we have access to a wide variety of tools, some of which are technically difficult to set up, and others that are available at a click of the button. Who is paying attention to these tools? Tech stewardship goes far beyond the traditional IT tech support. It is tech with a community attitude, attention to how to adapt a tool to a community’s quirks and practices. It is about seeing and representing the community perspective first. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/maykesplana/270819284/
Technology stewardship is not a solo gig, but by, of and for the community. It is about that balance between control and emergence, between "self-organizing" and "organizing on behalf of others." It balances the wisdom of the group, with the reality of getting things done.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newzgirl/3175562284/
trans·verse /transˈvərs/ Adjective:Situated or extending across something: "a transverse beam". http://www.flickr.com/photos/clotnatura/6177350876/
When designing, managing and facilitating online communities and networks, we have to be able to work from at least three perspectives: the sponsors and their strategic goals and objectives, community leaders and facilitators with their attention to process and relationships, and finally, the members with attention to what creates enough value to make participation worth their time and attention.