Connecting Communities

Prato was worth the trip for Andy

barbmcdonald — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 03:57:14 +0000

Here’s another blog post from Andy Roberts about a connection made at the dialogue.

Another connection

barbmcdonald — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 14:05:41 +0000

This is what I love about CP2. Interesting connections are made.

This is a post by Andy Roberts looking for German blogs because Patricia Arnold (whom he got to know at the Prato Dialogue) invited him to be a guest at a workshop she is doing on blogs.

Connections and Tipping Points

barbmcdonald — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 23:30:57 +0000

When I first read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference” I didn’t see myself in either of the three roles: Connectors, Mavens, or Salesmen. Now I’m beginning to see myself as a connector. This blog has helped me begin thinking in this way. So far it’s on a pretty small scale, and who knows if it will ever get “bigger”, but so far it’s been rather interesting.

One of my passions is the CP2 Workshop on Communities of Pracitce. Because of it and the connections I’ve made there (both personal and knowledge) I am in the process of moving into a communities of practice consulting role at work. This is something I’ve dreamed of for a while, but now it’s suddenly here. These connections (and a bent toward being a geek) led me to be involved in the Web 2.0 and Communities of Practice conference sponsored by CP2 last January. At that conference, I met and got to exhange posts with Bill Bruck of Q2. At that conference, my future employer was peaking in. I have since begun working at an LMS company who has partnered with Bill and his Communities of Practice tool. Now I seem to be full-circle to the workshop and it’s fit for our clients’ community managers and facilitators and whether Bill’s tool might be useful for the workshop.

Connecting people and ideas. Kinda cool!!!!

More Prato Dialogue Follow Up

barbmcdonald — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:10:47 +0000

Here are some more reflections on the Prato Dialogue:

Andy Roberts: http://distributedresearch.net/blog/?p=174

Bev Trayner: http://phronesis.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/lively_remember.html

Summaries of the Prato Dialogue

barbmcdonald — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 18:05:39 +0000

I have been going through the blogs of the folks who participated in the f2f event in Florence and thought I’d create a list of people’s posts:

Bev Trayner: http://phronesis.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/prato_dialogue_.html

John Smith: http://www.learningalliances.net/

Andy Roberts: http://distributedresearch.net/blog/?p=166

Shawn Callahan: http://www.anecdote.com.au/archives/2006/10/the_prato_dialo_1.html

The sum of these parts sounds like it was a great success for everyone. I wonder how the session at the conference went…

Connections

barbmcdonald — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 15:31:12 +0000

Opportunities for learning seems to be based on the same thing as opportunities for jobs. It’s not what you know, but who you know. And similarly, it may not be the people you are closest to or spend the most time with that are going to help you on your journey. Well, those closest to you are a great support, but new ideas come from those who may be from outside your primary circle. All this has more to do with networks than with community, except that networks make up communities and it’s through the networks that the cross pollination of communities happen.

All of this philisophical thinking was spawned by the recent post and comment in the Prato Dialogue blog. John Smith posted notes from one of the conversations that happened during the dialogue, Nancy White read it while she was in Australia preparing for a series of talks, and now, even though she wasn’t part of the f2f . Now, Nancy is a good friend and collegue of many of the folks who met f2f, but she didn’t attend the session herself. Yet a whole bunch of people in Australia (and beyond) will benefit from this discussion because they know Nancy.

Cool, eh?

What’s happened so far

barbmcdonald — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 21:23:18 +0000

After some discussion online as well as 2 teleconferences – aka “The Ramp Up”- those who will participate in the dialogue f2f are travelling now or soon will be.

The first of the teleconferences was documented in the Prato Dialogue blog. This entry tells about the things the group discussed as a possible agenda for the f2f time.

The second teleconference wasn’t documented as much as it was photographed — see Beverly’s blog.

Bev organized the dialogue process around the Open Space philosophy:

From the law, flow four principles:

Whoever comes is the right people
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
When it starts is the right time
When it’s over, it’s over

It will be interesting to see the outcome.

Introducing this Blog

barbmcdonald — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 19:48:59 +0000

Hi!

I’m Barb McDonald and this is my blog. It was started, primarily, to function as a bridge between CPSquare’s Foundations of Communities of Practice Workshop and a project being worked on with in CPSquare.

I will be using this space to reflect on community from an Instructional Design perspective — since I’m an instructional designer by trade and education. I love to think about and discuss ways to help people learn, especially in the workplace. But I may make periodic forays into the K-12 world as that was my original background and I have two small children to think about as well.

One of the things CPSquare attempts to accomplish in its design of learning in communities is making connections. The “social learning perspective” means we always end up trying to find someone to “hold the connection” and that’s me this time. Our collective idea of “design” is focused on “inventing roles” more than polishing instructions or text, because while instructions and text are useful, the context that leads to learning lies within the relationships people have (aka community).

We’ve all seen the rise (and fall) of the content management systems (CMS) in the workplace. There wasn’t room for the people in those implementations. No one to say, “You’re creating a proposal for XYZ? My group did something similar last year, here’s what we ended up with. Use it if you can.”

Join me in my journey.