I spent a great couple of hours yesterday with online community-builder Nancy White and friends, as she paused on her way from work in Armenia to home in Seattle. I don't know if community-builder quite covers Nancy's many skills, but that was at the core of our conversations.
It was one of those occasions where the surroundings were fairly mundane - noisy cafe in London's Festival Hall - but the result for me was old ideas clarified or dumped, and new ones generated. Here's a few - not to be attributed to Nancy, who may or may not agree. As the excellent facilitator she is, she encouraged us to bat things around, rather than holding forth herself. In the midst of it we did pick up that Armenia is big on barbecue, and that despite limited connectivity many people are really keen to use the Net for social benefit. I suspect part of that may be the Nancy effect, however.
The main thing confirmed - for me anyway - was that it doesn't make sense to develop collaboration models that focus solely on electronic.... unless that is all that is available. It's a bit like one of those 'whispers' games where you ask people to pass on messages without writing anything down .... or expect people to give each other notes when they could perfectly well talk to each other. We generally need face-to-face and phone as well as email, web or whatever to get to know other people well, and get things done. Different tools have different strengths and weaknesses, different people have different preferences for communication and learning. Obvious? Yes - but how often do we get seminars on social software and the like that treat electronic communication in isolation, and treat people as if they were all the same.
The reality check on 'tech only' enthusiasts is to ask what is the key factor in making things work or not. Choice of software and platform - in part. Facilitation - yes. Commitment of participants - yes. Levels of confidence and skills - of course. In short - people. There was a neat exposition of this recently in a Cnet column by Rafe Needleman, where he was commendably open about how a tech team, working on a big project, failed to use online collaboration successfully. It confirmed for me that the social software divide is bigger than usually acknowledged.
These reflections on the need for mixed-method communication systems - particularly when aiming for social benefit where interests and goals are likely to be diverse - led me to think again about the usefulness of the academic field of Community Informatics, which has its own research network. The network includes a rich mix of both thinkers and doers, but I do wonder if deliberations might be improved by a widening of perspective. I guess the tension there is between academic focus (defined territory) and real-world problem-solving.
That piece of conversation led me to say that I was thinking of leaving a lot of mailing lists because they variously a) give me too many excuses for diversion b) the signal to noise ratio is getting worse c) they are often dominated by one of two people d) I still haven't worked out how best to clip and store useful stuff in ways I can easily use e) it is difficult to link from a blog to list content.
So if you do leave a list or forum, should you say goodbye? Opinions were split. On the one hand, it might be polite if you are well known. On the other hand, if you do it negatively (I'm out of here) it can lead to a lot of 'me too' which will not win you friends with the moderator, if one exists. He or she would probably better appreciate some private 'back channel' communication on what you think is or isn't working.
Again, it is a matter of thinking about the people and relationships involved.
Blogs came up - of course - and I got some nods around the table when I asked whether lists and forums were suffering from the more committed contributors setting up blogs. This led to discussion about whether lists and forums were where 'real' community existed, while bloggers were self-obsessed chroniclers of their sad lives etc etc. I exaggerate. But Nancy did remark - I think I recall - that there was some emerging friction between the 'blogging community' and the 'online community community' on the West Coast where these things are taken seriously. Brave indeed, then, for another online community builder Amy Jo Kim to remark that online communities are 'old skool'. Another warning against the dangers of labels. I blog, but I am going to avoid calling myself 'a blogger'.
If online isn't enough, and we do benefit enormously from meeting each other, which are the good conferences to go to? I didn't get a clear vote on that. Maybe it is time to sign out of the conferences too, identify the people you really want to meet, find out when they are in town, and organise more smaller get togethers. I know that is something that Chris Macrae - one of those present - is working on across a wider front, and hope to have more soon.
Phew. I'm glad I wrote that down, to remember and share some good conversation, and make the next piece easier because there will be more cross reference. I can mail those I met in the hope that it will help keep us in touch.
And while conversations are great, I don't really know what I think until I write it down.
PS - I should add that Nancy's consulting practice Full Circle Associates offers a great repository of materials about online communities.
Yes a most inspiring meeting. I am no longer surprised but always revel in hearing stories of how those who have previously been disconnected make the most of even the minimal access to the net. As well as Nancy's stories in Armenia, we had quite a long discussion as to how India may have done a better job of connecting rural areas than any comparable huge development challenge -if so I feel that Professor Gupta and all his alumni of http://www.sristi.org are a model to note. I was also most fascinated to hear from Mark Hammersley of his UK group's progress in connecting 5000 aid workers in a sort of any questions forum at http://www.aidworkers.net . Bravo for achieving on a shoestring what many don't connect with 1000 times more resources. Can we all learn from something from those who make the web's most out of the least? - let's hope so and yes thanks for the linkin David : in pledging to connect http://www.simpol.org with every humanitarian change, we offer the Simpol Cafe- if an expert is passing through London and will give us an hour, we'll network across the city to find 10 people who most want to actively apply that expert's learning- around London we have many people wishing to become disciples in changing the world; there's too much open space urgency to go about reinventing the wheel especially the new wheels mixing desperate grassroots needs with the net's possibilities to cooperate in ways past generations could only dream of. Please ask me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk if you are interested in any aspect of Simpol Cafe.
Posted by: chris macrae | May 10, 2004 at 05:53 PM
Belated thanks to you, David, and all who showed up. Despite my lag, it was a real treat to spend time with everyone. I'm still a blogger lagger, but I put up a few shots here:
http://www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm
Posted by: Nancy | May 26, 2004 at 11:03 PM