Fund Thrivable.org kick-off

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After three years of exploration and network building, writing and discussion, planning and processing, Thrivable.org is just about ready for kick-off. We will have a soft launch to our friends and collaborators this month (August) and will run a pilot for three to six months.

While I have self-funded the development until this point, the work is for the commons. And if it is to be our shared organization and movement, then it must expand beyond my effort and my funds. We own this work together.

Are you willing to make a commitment to becoming thrivable? Buy me a virtual cup of coffee to keep me alert on this effort.

Have you already felt the effects of my work and the emergence of thrivable? Pay it forward for others.

My sincere gratitude for your faith in this emerging idea and project. Thank you for your commitment to a better world for all.

San Francisco Sunshine

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Home again and settled in after many magical days in San Francisco. I had so many phenomenal conversation, and I simply must share a bit of it with you.

When you have an hour or so with someone you have been admiring for a long time, how do you make the time productive? I had lots of practice on this trip.

1. Gil Friend. As I walked up to the building we were to meet in, I saw a man just ahead of me. Dark hair streaked deeply with gray. Yep, it was Gil. And as he turned, he saw me. Thank goodness for profile pictures and avatars. He recognized me immediately. We sat down in the Natural Logic office space – a warm open area full of treasures, books, and yet a bit minimal too. He asked me for a story, and I gave him one. I spoke of years in the country, middle america, of gardens and composting, of care for community, of care for the land. I told him of the path that brought me to thrivability – via philanthropy, writing, and social change and online community, network weaving and the gifts of strangers. I showed him the thrivability cards and spoke of my vision for growing this work. He listened. He really listened. He smiled. There is something quite thrilling about having someone you admire hear your story. I mean really hear it. And I asked him for his story. And he told it. It is his to tell. I listened, as you know I do. Deeply, feeling the emotion behind the words and the passion fueling the effort to move along the path. If I admired him from afar before, I admire him even more on closer connection.

I look forward to reading his book, The Truth about Green Business. Gil has the experience to have watched the green movement evolve for nearly 40 years, and he has the rigor and presence to discern what works and when.

2. Bobby Fishkin of Reframeit, a firefox add-on that lets you mark up the margins of any webpage (and see what others have marked up too). I met Bobby, late, for crepes. (FYI – do not think that a stroll from the Embarcadero straight up California to Van Ness is easy or quick.) Bobby has a mind like a racecar and a tongue of a poet or playwright. Well, the later makes more sense as he has written plays. I met him originally at NetSquared in 08. And I delighted in seeing him at sxsw (we had dinner with Frank Hamilton and Evonne Heyning there). He is young, brilliant, creative, and delightful. I do not know what will will ever do together, but I am sure the path forward will be fun, interesting, and profound.

3. David Hodgson. Well the main purpose of the visit was to spend time with David hacking on thrivable and revenue streams. We spent much of Monday doing wall drawings and having conversations before heading out for Paul Romer’s talk at the Long Now Foundation.

Tuesday! Lovely Tuesday!
4. David Evan Harris of Global Lives and research guy at IFTF. I took the train down to Palo Alto for the Internet Identity Workshop, so I lined up all the visits in that area on Tuesday. I got off the CalTrain and switched to a local train. Only the ticket machine didn’t take credit, and I didn’t have enough cash! However, a lovely man had said hello to me. I asked him where a cash machine was, and he generously gave me a dollar so I could take the train immediately. Thank you Sam. So…on to David. He was recovering from a bit of surgery. We talked of this and many other things. And now I owe him a ton of emails for follow up. David is a wonderful and creative thinker with a heart of brilliant gold. We spoke about philanthropy and thrivability. He shared a bit about the Long Now Foundation and a few other orgs helping with Global Lives.

5. Kaliya Hamlin, Judi Clark, Guillaume LeBleu and a host of others at the Internet Identity Workshop. I made it in time to enjoy a few quick conversations with these friends before a session on Currency. Now you know I had to come for that, and Kaliya had tipped me off on the time to attend. Thanks Kaliya. I still need to send photos of the notes I took on the board during the session. Waves to Hannes, a new friend I met there.

6. Thomas Kriese. mmmmm Thomas, it appears, has left Omidyar Network. We had a terrific conversation over coffee discussing urban chickens, triathalon training, and thrivability. I always cherish time with Thomas, and I love how he pokes at my ideas to test them and me.

7. David’s Dinner: Lana Holmes, Ann Vowels, Carmen Mauk, and Mariah Howard plus David and I. MMMmmmm good food, fabulous wine, and amazing encouragement. I can’t even describe the energy in that room, and perhaps I should not try, for there was safety in that space that I would not want to break. However, I will say that I was inspired and well fed – body, heart, head, and spirit.

Ken-day
8. Ken Homer and his lovely and funny wife Diane Fischler. David and I drove out to Marin to see Ken and Diane. The two of them have a wonderful and playful dynamic between them. Warming to see. I have met Ken once before. He is a total twitter connection, just as David is. Ken really knows how to have productive conversations. And I don’t say that in any way flippantly. With years of doing world cafe, coaching, and facilitation, Ken is very clear on process and has some terrific webinars now on conversation art. He took David and I for a walk in Kentfield? We absorbed amazing views, many micro-climates, with a rich and diverse topic range as well. Ken took the lead and told us inspiring stories, guiding us through the rich topography of his knowledge and experience while we navigated the varied mountain terrain. It is beautiful to watch connection emerge as people move deeper into awareness of each other, and I was delighted to watch this process as Ken and David “grew on” each other.

9. Ken Lynch. I was serious about it being a Ken day. 🙂 David and I passed through the campus of Dominican where he earned his Green MBA (gorgeous space), and into an area in the East Bay to meet Ken Lynch for dinner. I met Ken through my dear pal, Jo Guldi, because Ken was working on carbon coins and very interested in currencies. He came through Chicago, and we talked briefly. I was here to get an update on the currency work he was doing. My takeaways from this meeting were less about specific outcomes and more about sensing that Ken is one wicked dude. And I don’t mean evil at all, I mean bright, pure hearted, very present, determined, curious, and open.

10. Jerry Michalski and April Rinne. Mmmmmm Jerry and April. While I stayed with them, I don’t feel like I got serious conversation time with either of them at any length. I reveled in the flowing love between them and the presence of great intellect and warm humor, play and reverence. To give you a sense of it, April and I had a brief but intense discussion about philanthropy. I think she got more out of me about my big beliefs in 5 minutes than most people ever get. And dynamically, at one moment I think Jerry had April in some wild circus-like position, and I thought, they have the cirque du soliel in their living room.

11. Charles dear Magowan. I met CM years ago on Onet. And he has made me laugh regularly ever since. I take deep delight in wandering with him anywhere, as he has this amazing encyclopedic knowledge of something within sight. (I sense this is especially true in San Francisco.) I learned about the changes in Cognitive psychology, the history of Crissy Field, the efficiency of the biz model for his upcoming wild business, and so much more. To understand my relationship with Charles, one must understand my appreciation of absurd humor, the male mind, professorial dynamics, and a love of being a bit awed.

12. Kevin Jones. Well, Charles took me for a bit too long of a walk, so I drove dear Ziggy (Jerry’s old BMW) across town as best I could. I was very late to meet Kevin, and he was very kind and gracious anyway. Like Gil, I have been watching Kevin for a long time. Admiring for years – xigi.net, good capital, socap… all good works. How do you connect in 20 minutes or so? We moved fast and talked faster. cards, games, thrivability. Boom. and off I went.

I also spent more time with David and had lunch with Chris Watkins (ChrisWaterGuy) of Appropedia. I missed his comrade Lonny. I stayed a couple nights with my dear cousin Kim too! I also missed Kara (someone I had met at Portland BarCamp a couple years ago). There are many friends I did not get to see nor have time to meet with. 🙁 Almost all of the conversations were too short. And I feel really touched by these connections and inspired on the path forward. Thank you. And thank you to David for making it all possible!

ps. On the way home, I got a fabulous education on Hinduism from an amazing man from Mumbai, Pradeep. What am amazing trip.

Currencies and Wealth Acknowledgement

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Oh, I have been sniffing around the edge of this field for years now. I am not a core participant, but I keep tabs on folks working in the field. So today I got a request to intro someone to the thinking in that area. I thought I might share it with all of you!

What am I missing? Who are your favorites? What is needed?

* Arthur Brock – alt currency, might have stuff on targetedcurrencies.net (leading edge, unfortunately the info doesn’t flow and follow as fast as he thinks and works, best to talk directly)
* Eric Harris Braun – Openmoney.info (conceiving wealth in multiple forms and building meta-currency system)
* Timebanks and the work of Mark McDonough (long standing community time sharing system)
* Charity Focus and anything Nipun Mehta works on, like Karma Coins (innovator in currency practices and games)
* Art often recommends Money by Greco as a good intro read
* Michael Linton and his pal Ernie Yacub do a lot of community currency: CommunityWay
* Tara Hunt, online community builder, is coming out with a book on Whuffie reputation as currency) this year
* and don’t forget Cory Doctorow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_and_Out_in_the_Magic_Kingdom which is a great start.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Currency conversations are very alive right now, given the economic crisis. More attention is being given to what systems can work both as alternatives and in addition or alongside “money” as we currently know it.

Social Media Memory

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I “follow” abut 700 people on twitter, with about 1000 following me. At scale like this, the question I often am asked is, “How do you remember all those people?”

* about a hundred don’t tweet often, I would guess
* I already know about 250+, so I have hooks in my memory for them
* there is no social obligation on twitter for tracking all of it (unlike email)
* people @ or DM if they really want me to hear
* I use PeopleBrowsr to sort/group folks and the tags there help me remember
* as a network weaver, people fascinate me – how many sports stats and players does a sports fan track?
* whenever I don’t remember someone (and want to) PeopleBrowsr has lots of ways to dig for info

Part of this seems to be about building social media memory skills. In my years of Omidyar.net community, I seemed to develop strength in that memory muscle. While I was in college I could hardly remember which author wrote which books or held what beliefs, when it came to online community and my connections, I remember tons of details. It can be a fun game with folks – they ask me a question, and I remember who posted wedding photos to Omidyar or who lives in Boston. I think the ability to remember has a lot to do with how important something is to you. To me, my network made of hundreds of brilliant, interesting, inspiring, compassionate people is very important.

And I solidify this by meeting up with folks as I travel so I can really ground myself in their being. Then we when check-in online, I can imagine their posture, gestures, and warmth. I think the optimum number of connections for full rich relationship is much lower than the number I track via social media.
This works in something of a power law form. There are the edge folks – people I have encountered, but the connection has not deepened. Some of these folks are very good at putting enough into the initial connection that the looseness is sticky enough to hold.

How do you “hook” people into your memory?
– I prefer using sensory data, as I am a kinesthetic person – I experience others in my body. ooo, that sounds weird. Let’s just say that 3-d is better for me than voice or visuals.
– Like many others, my memory is often container-based/domain-specific – so meeting them in twitter doesn’t mean I will recognize them in email or at a conference.

What are ways of being “sticky” in other people’s memory?
– At nearly 6 feet with starkly contrasting hair/skin, I am visually pretty easily memorable (not much I can do or did do about that). Now, don’t go get a tattoo or piercing just to be memorable, but do dress in your own fashion and highlight your uniqueness (rather than worrying about whether your uniqueness is attractive or not).
– ask an unusual question – rather than asking “what do you do?” which is soooo typically American, ask “What are you passionate about?” or “Tell me a short story about your greatest adventure.”
– be yourself. If you consume all your brain cycles trying to remember what people know about you or who you were trying to be last time you met them, you won’t remember them and they won’t feel connected to you.
– be curious. The more you bring someone else alive, the more they will remember you.
– be clear about who you are, and get enough info from others that you are clear about at least one dimension of who they are.

What other ways can we be memorable (and positively so)?
How do you keep your social media memory?
What tools do you use to assist you?

Philanthropy – field changing

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This is extracted from a note I sent out to Leaders engaged with Inspired Legacies:

The theme for my trip seemed to be democratization of philanthropy and knowledge sharing across internet sites and organizational silos.

Tracy and I met up and joined Leif and Eric Utne along with several of my friends for dinner. Eric is doing some amazing work bringing multi-generational folks together for salons. See Utne Reader or Earthcouncils.org. He met up with Peggy from Wiser Earth to talk about adding a layer to Wiser that would enable peer standard form peer feedback across multiple criteria – rate the nonprofits based on your experience with them. It could be something to watch regarding donor attention.

This all flowed very smoothly into a conversation with Christine Egger from SocialActions (a tool that brings together actions from over 30 sites to be redistributed across the net). Christine is quite a thinker, and we had felt like we were path sisters when I met her in May. We want to have an event and produce a book/report/catalog with the aim of catalyzing philanthropy as gentle compassion (more than money and more than just an act of doing). We discussed transformative philanthropy, thrivability, moving from giving to sharing, and much more.

4 years ago there was a Giving conference in Chicago. Christine and I want to do something of a follow up on that. Much progress has been made, and we want to assemble the players for the next stage of the co-evolution. I will keep you posted. The event is tentatively planned for April. See what Christine had to say.

Finally, as I find more and more people in philanthropy on twitter, I also discover better and better information. Just yesterday one of my followers (from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation) linked me to an awesome report which includes about 70% of the trends I have been paying attention to in the field of philanthropy. I strongly encourage at least a perusal of this important report.

The report called Intentional Innovation: How Getting More Systematic about Innovation Could Improve Philanthropy and Increase Social Impact, calls to the importance and value of thinking and using more systematically about innovation in the work of philanthropy and nonprofit sector.

Through this study, the Kellogg Foundation, working with Clohesy Consulting and the Monitor Group, learned some concepts for helping change the way the social sector thinks about innovation.
ttp://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=94&CID=6&ItemID=5001167&NID=85&LanguageID=0

Next, the same contact, Stephanie McAuliffe, also shared a bunch of pdfs about network weaving, strategy, social media etc.

I also was pointed to change.org blog — “In Defense of Raising Money” Very cool post discovered by my fellow Chicagoan and brilliant change agent, Nathanial Whittmore.

It is very exciting to see the convergence emerging, and there is no better time than now to shift gears for uplift in the philanthropic sector. Thank you for your part of this effort! Please share your articles, links, insights, and intentions!

Savoring People in San Fran

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Wow, what an incredible trip.

Friday night I arrived in San Francisco. Michael Maranda and I drove to the San Fran University area to meet with the Appropedia folks organizing the Open Sustainability Network camp. Discovering that they didn’t have a clear plan for facilitation, I stepped in. I knew if I didn’t that it would not be where I wanted to be. Do-acracy, right. 🙂 The amazing and delightful Evonne Heyning along with her handsome, Brent, joined us. (Despite her living in LA, we do manage to make our paths cross several times a year.) I have a tagging project in mind based on an idea I came up with during the Omidyar.net days. It will be perfect for collaborating with Amoration and Evonne’s circles of love. I will tell you about it when we are ready. (Too bad I missed Tony Deifell, because he is such a whiz at spreading mind-opening ideas.)

Saturday the conference began. An amazing woman, Amber Word, arrived to act as our greeter and artist. I wrote up the four principles of Open Space and the two laws, then Amber drew a splendid butterfly and bumblebee. Collectively we created our marketplace, and I was pleased to see a rich collection of ideas being explored next to projects being shared. We, of course, had a session to discuss what sustainability means. I am thrilled to share that people really loved the thrivability framing. Let the thrivability meme propagate!

I left a bit early (Michael Maranda took over running the evening news). Kaliya had arrived, and we talked until it was time to head to the East Bay. (Kaliya missed the Sunday session where her knowledge of open standards would have been incredibly useful. Perhaps her energy helped create that space/conversation.) Kaliya and I jumped on public transit and talked on the ride to Rockridge. I always enjoy her discerning insight into process and identity. We parted with promises to hang out at the Bioneers after-party on Sunday.

Next, Tom Portante met me at the train stop. We have been talking about going out to Tilden for a carousel ride for a couple months. We made it just in time for two twirls around the merry-go-round. As we walked up to it, I realized that it might be sort of silly for two adults to be riding, but I let that inner voice fade into silence as the horses went up and down, and the spin nearly pulled me off the saddle. What a thrill. How alive! We had time for dinner and espresso in Berkeley before arriving at Wisteria Ways for a house concert. (I did their web design years ago.) After hugging my old friend Lisa Tracy, we reveled in the amazing voice of Amy X Neuberg. WOW. Fantastic experience, and Tom is just the person to share it with. He really knows how to savor experiences.

Sunday at the conference found new friends easily discussing projects, actions, and possibilities at the Open Sustainability Network conference (#osn). I enjoyed conversations on geo-mashups, messaging the network, and building a coalition for Open Sustainability. I think we came away with a group committed to sharing data and creating data-standards–yeah!!! Post-conference de-brief dinner was lovely ending with goodbyes to several of our amazing circle. But I managed to steal away Lonny, Amber, Chris, and Scott for the Bioneers afterparty.

We arrived miraculously (without clear directions) at the Sacred Grove. I managed to find both Kaliya and Kachina Katrina. We thought we might stay an hour, but we wandered, danced, and played until 3am. (I believe the band we danced to was Dogon Lights.) I might have mingled more, but it was gret to focus on playing with the people I brought.

Monday started late. 🙂 I met Lisa Parker on Haight at The People’s Cafe. (I met Lisa at our Inspired Legacies event in late June.) We have much in common and a shared vision, so our time together went fast. I am eager to see what Lisa does next with YouthGive as well as her own efforts to help democratize philanthropy.

Monday evening was our dinner party! Rather than run around the Bay Area having one on one meetings this time, I had decided to have a dinner where people could meet each other. Jerry was one of the people I invited, and he had plans with some friends that night. So he brought them with. (Jerry and I are working together with some amazing people on guildsmiths.) Tracy Gary made it! (And my dear co-founder showed me our Inspired Legacies bi-annual report which consumed my life since early August along with our trade show booth banners – so terrific!). So the crew who turned up for dinner at Chow included: Jerry Michalski, April Rinne, Tracy Gary, Eric Utne, Leif Utne, Leif’s friend JP, Amber Word, Kaliya Hamlin, and later in the evening David Harris and his partner. Topics on the table included TheUptake (Leif is on the board), Zanby, EarthCouncils.org (Eric’s project), Global Lives (David’s work), Inspired Legacies (showing off the report), microfinance, and more. As the party broke up hours later, Leif invited those remaining to karaoke. Eric, Leif, JP, Amber and I wandered down the street, with all our bags in tow, to a fabulous little bar and some fun. I have never been to a karaoke night, so I had to turn off the little inner voice arguing not to do anything to look silly, and be open to whatever might happen. It was fabulous!

Tuesday again started late. I met with David Harris for more conversation (I have done some limited pro-bono consulting for Global Lives since I met David at Omidyar.net in 06.) He is consulting for Institute for the Future, so he gave me a tour and a handful of introductions. IFTF maps on the wall made me feel right at home. The experience was highly encouraging. We caught up a bit – David has been doing a lot of traveling for his project; then he kindly coached me some on the services Nurture offers. Since I passed Redwood City on the way to see David, I messaged Thomas Kriese. We met at Peets around 4pm for a fast-paced exchange and update. Next, I went back into San Fran to meet with Jodee Rich of Peoplebrowsr for a demo and discussion over dinner.

What a phenomenal trip. Thanks to everyone I met with! And apologies to many I missed this time through.

Poverty – Blog Action Day

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Poverty, at first glance, is an incredible issue. What gets our hearts about poverty is not really that people do not have money. I mean really, who has heard of someone dying from lack of money. Money is an imaginary thing that we created and use, in agreement with each other, to exchange for what we really need. What is really at the heart of poverty is not the lack of money, but the lack of what that money can get: food, shelter, and the rest of Maslow’s pyramid.

What I think we really mean when we say poverty needs to be alleviated is that we need all people to have access to what they need to live and possibly what they need to flourish. We need a world where, in fairness, we all get the rich benefits of this amazing and beautiful planet.

What we miss when we struggle against poverty is that we address the issue one step away from the real needs people have. And that step is a misleading step, because we move into the realm of the imaginary. We created money, we created the rules money follows, and we must take responsibility for the consequences of those choices and acts of creation. The system we created for money depends on some people having very little of it. We might move the dollar a day living of some poor people of this world into two dollar a day living – doubling their earnings. But that does not take them out of poverty. They still can’t get adequate food and shelter. We might move the bar on what it means to be poor, but moving the bar isn’t sufficient in addressing the needs we have collectively to care for ourselves as a whole.

Poverty, given the economic crisis we entered, is likely to get a lot more common in the US (and abroad). It is time for us to move beyond measuring health and wellness in dollars. What we don’t see when we look at people and perceive them through the filter of money – as having it or lacking it – is what that person really is and offers. Or what that community or country is and offers.

What if we look for something closer to what matters most to people? Do people have food? The right kinds of food? Food with the right micronutrients to support high quality brain and body functioning? Do people have access to clean water? Adequate sanitation? Do people have heathcare that addresses emergencies, preventive medicine for known diseases and health concerns? Do people have sufficient shelters? Disaster care for natural and man-made emergencies? From there, do they have access to education, integrity in governance, civil and legal process for getting their concerns met? And continue up the Maslow chart…

I think Americans might be shocked at how we rate in the world if we look with these measures.

And these measures need to be taken at the individual level and mirrored at the community level. What keeps communities healthy? Do communities have what they need to sustain themselves? Do they have healthy flows? Are they resilient to crisis? Are communities enabled to learn and evolve? For thousands of years communities flourished without using fiat currency. Were they poor? No. Do so-called developed nations have vibrant healthy communities? Yes, but it is not a given. Do so-called developing nations have vibrant healthy communities? Yes, some do, but it is not a given. However, I see this measure – of vibrant healthy communities – as a more critical measure of what is going right than the measure of money.

So I choose to hear poverty as a lack of access to vital resources and glaring unmet human needs rather than lack of money. Sometimes addressing financial concerns, empowering entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurs can help those lacking what every human needs and deserves. But sometimes we need to recognize the way the system we put in place, to mediate our interactions, is the very thing that undermines a given portion of the members within that system.

So what can we do? Well, we must continue our charity and social change efforts to address poverty. Those are the things that help people now and in the near future. For the long term, we need to evolve healthier systems that don’t leave people out, that have a human heart woven into every fiber of the system – enabling compassion for others bound by our common humanity. We must stop our vain efforts to prop up a system that dooms some people to scarce access and limits their resources to prop up someone else’s egoic needs elsewhere.

We need to evolve systems and practices that reveal the invisible elements of power dynamics at play and transparently offer fairness – for every human being. We must strive for greater balance between individual needs and free will with community and group needs – groups at both a local level as well as groups across the seas and plains.

Unlock Capacity and Capital

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I had a wild brainstorm last night. I wish I could share all of it with you. I was pattern finding in history to get a sense of the convergence of shifts we are experiencing. And I was sensing that what goes beyond post-modernism, from what I can see, is a pragmatic humanism. In this, there is a search for what is useful rather than finding some grand overarching theory that explains it all and determines interpretations and meaning. Help me here if you can, the key elements I see from NLP to Integral Theory and beyond: value our nature as humans, seek fit, self-evolving collective organisms, and a search for utility – what works. (By “seek fit” I reference the misinterpretation of Darwin as survival of the fittest being the most capable and assert the other possible interpretation – that what thrives is what fits in that ecosystem.)

I have been listening to a CD on Influence, thinking about Clay Shirky and the success of tools like wikipedia in harnessing human capacity…so…

So from there I wondered, how do we unlock our collective capacity and capital (in many forms)?

    a shared sense of ownership and agency
    opportunity
    small tight feedback loops
    connection and a sense of collective self
    usability
    higher purpose/mission/shared values

What else or what would you include?

By shared sense of ownership and agency, I mean we as contributors need to feel we have some claim over and investment in what we are giving too as well as a sense of our own ability to take action.

By opportunity, I mean there must be a clear path to taking action that we can recognize as a possibility. This might be the very existence of a website that we can find and participate on.

By small feedback loops, I want to be clear that we need to get information quickly and directly that our contribution is accepted and valued. We need regular positive affirmation and attention that what we do matters. And we learn when this attention offers constructive criticism.

We are beings who thrive on connection, social animals. Whether leaders or followers, we are drawn to opportunities where we know we are connected to others and to a collective (especially a meaning-making mission driven collective).

Usability. Well, lofty ideals and warm friends won’t get you there unless you can navigate the systems of an organization organism -whether that is a website or a group process.

Higher purpose/mission/values. I was thinking about why the social networks working for good arouse so many passionate committed individuals giving their time and talent. We strive for a meaningful life and a purpose to our identity, and thus organisms/organizations that call to our higher purpose, mission, and/or values pay us in identity credit–the most valued credit in our times.

I would love to hear your thoughts on what unlocks capacity and capital, as this is surely just preliminary thinking on the subject.

Thank you.

Convergence Colliding in Chicago

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Chicago New Media Summit concluded tonight. I didn’t attend. At first I was excited by the great idea of rallying around Chicago’s talented new media folks and pushing us toward the leading edge. Worthwhile endeavor. But as the waves of email blasts announcing presenters rolled on and the fees got discounted (but not within range of many nonprofit and grassroots activists), I started to get more and more uncomfortable. I just wasn’t feeling an authentic connection.

Tonight the event concluded. And in my inbox is another email blast celebrating…and announcing some next steps. Here is what I posted in a comment on my profile page:

1. A microsoft event? I predict Chicago will not be the center of innovation, geekiness, and cool media, should this be focused on Microsoft. See bubblgeneration blog last couple years for ideas on what sort of companies and their models which could support this sort of “convergence” here.
2. Moving to a microsoft platform? Please don’t move me over. Why oh why would you move a community?
3. Talent, ideas, and code? Collide? What happened to people. New media is in huge part social media. People. I do not aspire to think of myself as a “talent” to be commodified. I am a social creature yearning for connection and thriving by sharing ideas, sparked by the synchronicities common to a flourishing community.
4. And what does all this have to do with the Chicago bid for the olympics? Do I need to behind that to be here? Seems like a pretty big agenda to not be supper-de-dupper clear about it.
5. I do appreciate the notice about fees and our grassroots friends in our latest email blast. Thanks for coming around to our value (after the fact).

Entering Social Spaces Online

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Seems like each week there are new social media spaces to join and participate in. And lots of people help others learn and adopt online social practices. Each space has its own nuance on social practices. There are general rules of thumb, sure. But each site – even a cluster within a site – is specific in the way it encourages flows of connection and information, and thus which practices are encouraged. So how do you know what to do where?

I see lots of do and don’t lists, and they are great. Very helpful if you want a rulebook to follow. But if you want to learn the skill of adapting as you enter spaces, the work you do needs to go deeper into your practice. What questions should you ask yourself when joining and contributing to online social spaces?

Be strategic. Social media is a huge flow of information and people often very loosely knit together. What do you want to foster? Disregard fads of tools and spaces. What you do with your extremely precious time needs to be purposeful. Do you want: friends, information, a thriving network to use as a resource, marketing your [fill in the blank]? How will you know when you have that? How will you maintain it over time? Social spaces online just like physical social spaces require your attention to stay alive and flourishing.

Listen. Like I shared above, each space has its own social norms. Yes, there are general rules, but if you lurk before blasting posts, you can get a sense of how often to post, ways to appreciate others, ways to find interesting people and ideas, ways to avoid trouble, what puts people off… How do people behave in this space using this tool? What best practices can you collect? Sense into what is working for you in other people’s social practice. What gets you engaged there? How can you offer or connect, mirroring what worked for you?

Applaud. In speech we often give praise or acknowledgment with our faces. We nod or even just keep eye-contact. There are zillions of body clues. And they don’t show online. At all. Not even with emoticons. How can you show you are listening? How can you show that you are giving your attention to someone or something? How can you show you are a contributor? How can you help others shine? Where can you quickly, easily, and usefully connect people, ideas, and resources? If the general principle of social relations is truly get what you give, then what are you giving?

What questions wander through your mind when you are visiting new online social spaces?
What really irritates you as a social practice?
How do you quickly and easily sense a spammer, a connector, a maven, an influencer?

Your answers help you figure how how you want to be online. And they create an opportunity for you to be genuine in your practice.

Here are some resources for you that I saw on twitter today:
Top 10 Reasons Brands should Listen to Social Media
The Creation of Twitter Best Practices: Round 1