Full Circle Associates

Doug uses A N I M O T O to mash up photos and music to document a panel Chris Lott organized at Northern Voice 2008 on “The blog is dead, long live the blog!” It was fun graphically recording a geeky session. Now it is fun to see Doug’s take on it, months later! Woo hoo!

I haven’t read through this report in detail, but I wanted to blog it to get it wider visibility because the sharing the learnings from our community activities is an important (and appreciated) contribution to improving our practices. IN this case - about doing online events for our communities of practice. Check it out — Long Live the Platform Report (application/pdf Object).

I’m going to be in London, then Lisbon in June. I have to book my ticket pronto, but I thought, hm, should I come in a day early and have a gathering with my lovely London (and vicinity) friends? I will be arriving on the 10th (prolly around midday, jet lagged) and have to work on the 11-13th. Should I come in a day early? Does someone feel energetic and want to organize something? Let me know SOONEST!

After London I’m on to Lisbon for an Elearning Conference, then KM4Dev gathering in Almada, then a few days of VACATION!!!

This past January I helped facilitate on online event that used DGroups email list and Wikispaces wikis to enable a global, multilingual online event. The After Action Review (AAR) of the event is now up on the wiki if you are interested! Gender Equity and Women’s Rights Online Event After Action Review

Here is the text:

Reference materials: http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Gender+Equity+and+Women%27s+Rights
DGroups site: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/wsf-genderequity/

Event description
A 2-week online event to discuss what individual and groups were doing to mark the World Social Forum 2008 Global Day of Action and to begin considering how to impact and participate in the WSF 2009 global gathering in Belem do Para, Brasil. Participants from groups concerned about women’s rights and gender equity were asked to join the event. They then subscribed to the main Dgroup and, according to their stated language, either an English, Spanish or French breakout DGroup email list. The agenda was developed collaboratively by Megan, Els, Janet and Nancy. The DGroup was augmented with a Wikispaces wiki to enable quick capture, summarization and machine translation of the group emails.

Note: The survey data reported below represents a small sample due to low completion rates (10 respondents, one of whom is an organizer).

What did we intend to do?
There were 3 overarching goals plus one that emerged during the planning:

1. To find out what groups were doing for WSF 2008
2. To find out interest/plans for WSF 2009 in Belem- what are the common interests where we can collaborate, to what extent can we create a common strategy, how to proceed in Belem? How can we put gender equity on the agenda in the best possible way? How can we influence the agenda, make gender visible, not just in separate sessions?
3. Generally, to reinvigorate the group of people who had been subscribed to the Dgroup. Up until now it had been focused on content and information dissemination. Now the thought is we could revive the community and help shift their perception of the Dgroup - not just a tool for disseminating information, but a community building space. If the community had enough energy and focus, it could be used for planning and participating in WSF 2009
4. From a process standpoint, we also wanted to explore how to have these community conversations and interactions across and between languages, so we also wanted to experiment with tools and process to help with multilingual conversations.

So what did we DO?
Towards our three goals
1. WSF 2008
a. We had reports from 17 groups and one individual on what they were doing both for WSF and in general. Some submitted extensive information, others just brief mentions. The summarized list can be see here: http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/GEWR+Map
b. In the post event survey 67% found the updates very useful, 33% found them somewhat useful.
2. WSF 2009
a. Initially the main thrust of the 09 conversations was around how difficult it is to find funding to attend. But after the official end of the event, a robust discussion has emerged about building a shared proposal for both impacting the agenda and finding funding for participation.
b. We surfaced some face to face networking opportunities that might not have been apparent. These reinforce our online interactions w/ F2f and offer opportunities to keep momentum going
c. In the post survey, 60% found the discussions on WSF09 useful, 40% somewhat useful.
d. It is those who are most interested in moving something concrete forward who are continuing. Whittled down to a smaller group of posters. Backchannel messages support that point.
e. There still needs to be follow up to turn the conversation into tangible outcomes.
3. Community building
a. 22 people posted personal introductions. The summarized list can be see here: http://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/GEWR+Participant+Bios
b. Did people get to know each other better? We aren’t sure. People shared quite a bit of personal information. This helps bring a personal element beyond organizational stuff, and find out what motivated participants personally
c. Getting a sense about the person beyond the org which can help in networking over time
d. In the post event survey, 80% found the introductions very useful, 20% somewhat useful.
e. Some members very enthusiastically added to the conversation while others dropped in and out. Those who participated less often apologized for being late due to lack of time or internet access, showing the diversity of online habits of the group. This is important to keep in mind for future events. Two weeks is probably not long enough for those who are online less frequently. It is hard for them to keep up with the very active participants.
f. A few members reached out to each other via Skype. Megan noted a Skype conversation with Tran from SPERI.
g. The event revealed potential for ongoing community building.
4. Working across languages and tools
a. We spent quite a bit of energy trying to create a multilingual part of the event. The language sub groups were the most utilized, and few reported using the wiki/Google Translate option (80% did not use it, but the 20% who did found it useful. Nancy found it very useful as facilitator.) 78% felt they had enough opportunity to participate in their own language, and 22% did not, but we don’t have demographic data on the survey respondents to really understand what this means. The respondents may have been primarily English speakers.
b. People responded positively to cross language summaries.
c. What about the break out groups? We don’t know for sure. Due to travel and availability we were not always actively facilitating the groups. The French group was only 2 people – maybe too small to get any traction. Although ten women had signed up for the Spanish group, only two of them posted messages during the breakout. Also, although different Latin Americans reconfirmed their interest, their participation remained limited and in the weeks following the event there was complete silence from their side of the world. Taking into account that many will be going to Belem, it is important to try and find out how we can get them more involved (is it the language problem?). We wonder what would have happened if we did NOT have the breakouts. And we wonder if the breakout process was confusing. In the survey, 50% thought the language break outs were very useful, 50% somewhat useful. But does this reflect the diversity of the group with only 10 respondents?
d. We are not sure who was using the technologies, and for whom it is new technology. The wiki has given us, as organizers, a nice overview, but it appears that not many participants used it. 44% did not look at the wiki, 44% used it and found it useful and 11% found it difficult or confusing to use. The overall wiki page view does show a doubling in traffic during the event. To the right are the page views from the event pages.
e. We only know who is posting, but we don’t know who is “listening” so it is hard to come to too many conclusions about participation, particularly participation across language. It might be nice to follow up with some one on one conversation with some of the participants.

Did anything unexpected happen?
• There was a very wide range in people’s level of participation. We expected that some would only participate a little bit, but less expected the few very strong participants, even when the discussion was not that active
• We were startled by one individual’s energetic participation, particularly since she was new to the group. We wonder who else is out there but whom we did not reach who might have enjoyed/benefited from participation. This raises the issue about how to market the group and such events.
• We wonder about how much people do or do not feel the need to engage beyond one’s local context.
• We went beyond the initial 10 days. Clearly 10 days was too short. In the survey, for 90% it was not enough time, 10% said it was.
• We wonder about what level/kind of engagement do people need to see before they jump in and commit to participation. What unmet need does it fill?

What would we do again (what worked)…
• The bios and introductions were good and we’d use them again. As a follow up, we should put the bios in a word doc and upload it to the DGroups site. For future, keep offering people the chance to introduce themselves, point back to event intros, and add to the “introductions” document.
• It is good to start off with general questions such as “What kind of activities are you doing” then “what would you like to do.” Initially we thought the questions were broad and vague, but we got pretty detailed responses. Some people discussed it in their organization like Leonida’s.
• It is important to find ways to let people participate in their own languages, and then build translation and interpretation bridges across them, even if this means volunteer or machine translation. Those who could not understand frequently asked for translations, demonstrating need.
• Even though not many people looked at the wiki, it was a cool format for sharing and looking at the information. Quite a few people shared bios there. (Nancy also copied and pasted many of them in from the DGroup email thread.)
o It was a good way to introduce a tool
o It was a pity that people didn’t use the map to locate themselves, but it was probably “gadget overload” and not that intuitive to use.

What would we do different next time? (And next steps)
• Focus on fewer gadgets and options, and introduce the options gradually. We got overexcited
o Attend to the balance between the number of conversational and technical options compared to the length of the event.
o Do a tool training call about Skype or other tools.
• Explore more deeply what is “critical number” of participants for both the full group and the language sub groups.
o Think about what we can do differently with outreach to get more participants.
• Timing. Try and figure out both the length of the next event, and when it should be held.
o Past experience is that African online work habits are less online and need a longer time frame.
• Seek to understand better what is nice to know but not NEED to know.
o We want to focus on things that people say “this is worth my time and attention”
• Contact and follow up with those who might be key people for contributing and participating

On Tuesday, while I was doing small scale graphic recording of the Interfaith Panel at Seeds of Compassion (and deeply enjoying the humor and humanity between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu!), I had the good fortune to be sitting right behind Deborah Koff-Chapin. Deborah does Touch Drawing and on Tuesday, she was using it to evoke what she was experiencing during the panel. Page after page of her work appeared, like magic. All the press photographers (we were sitting in the press section) kept coming over, taking pictures and asking her about her work. I have been reading about Deborah’s work, so it was a great chance to watch her in action.

She has allowed me to share a set of photos of the work she did that day on my Flickr site. I encourage you to check them out –> Deborah Koff-Chapin’s Touch Drawing at Seeds of Compassion - a set on Flickr.

Deborah wrote about the experience:

It was an honor to do Interpretive Touch Drawing at Seeds of Compassion. Touch Drawing is a simple yet profound process. Images are created through the touch of fingertips on paper. The process allows for direct expression of the soul, and can be used for deep therapeutic and spiritual purposes.

In the conference setting, I use Touch Drawing to visually portray the content and energetic qualities of the lectures and musical performances. Through the immediacy of the process, I can create 7- 8 drawings per hour. These drawing were created during the Tuesday event; ‘Inspiring Compassion
in Our Youth; Youth and Spiritual Connection Dialogue’. If you attended the day or are watching it online, you can use these images to enhance the feeling-tone of the presentations. Think of them as notes from the soul.

All these images will be posted soon on the CONFERENCE ART page at www.touchdrawing.com. Go there if you would like to order a signed, archival fine art print. Contact center@touchdrawing.com if you are interested in purchasing an original or receiving permission to reproduce an image. Drawings can be enhanced with color. A percentage of any income generated by these images will be donated to support the ongoing work of Seeds of Compassion.

As I reflect back on the day, we had Steven and Patti’s large scale 4×8 foot charts on paper, my 8×11 inch sketch book images and Deborah’s Touch Drawings. All four of use were capturing at many levels - at the literal capture of ideas through words and images, of the sense and spirit of the gathering and, of what was triggered within us as participants in the gathering. It was heart, mind and soul. I am preparing some collage images for each of the other graphic recorders for a subsequent post. I want to reflect on our process as a group of graphic recorders (and impromptu singing group. “The Magic Markers”) and capture some learnings going forward for visual harvesting of F2F events.

All images © 2008 Deborah Koff-Chapin.

You get by with a little help from your Twitter Friends, tweeting extensively from the Online Community Report gathering in Santa Fe. ocbf2008 - twemes.com. Thanks tweeters! There a lot of interesting stuff there. I haven’t looked, but I wonder if anyone talked about Slow Community?

Today I head over to do graphic recording in the Compassionate Listening Room at Seeds of Compassion. I have been cruising flickr to encourage people to put their events into the The Seeds of Compassion Pool. I have uploaded the graphic recording team’s work from Friday and Saturday there (limited access for the recorders at Qwest field, but they did small drawings on paper) on my Flickr stream. Just to be clear, the images are the amazing work of Keith McCandless, Patti Dobrowolski, Steven Wright and Timothy Corey. (The one to the right is from Steven Wright.)

If you are not in town, there is streaming video of many of the events on the Seeds website.

I awoke before dawn to many birds singing, then a beautiful sunrise. An auspicious start for Seeds of Compassion , a 5-Day Gathering in Seattle with his Holiness, the Dalai Lama and a huge community of people who care about the role of compassion in the lives of children. This morning I attended the session on the Science of Compassion, and am currently listening to the live stream of this afternoon’s second science day. Archived materials are being translated into 24 languages. That is a mind-blowing, bridge-building commitment. (The image to the right is a close up of Tim Corey’s work)

Experiencing the Dalai Lama
You hear about this remarkable human being — of his warmth, humility and compassion. Even from high in the stadium stands, I felt this. Such humor too… his twinkle twinkled across the stadium. He spoke without pretension, took his time and radiated calm. While I was intellectually engaged with the offering of the panelists (and they came across very compassionate themselves), I found myself just experiencing his Holiness. Sometimes I could not understand with the amplification and echoes, but that didn’t seem to matter. It mattered that I was able to just be there.

Graphic Facilitation at the Seeds of Compassion
I’m also a Seeds volunteer over the next 5 days, helping with the graphic recording of many of the events and welcoming people to put their mark on paper in the Conversation Cafe room where people can debrief and talk with each other about their experiences over the 5 days. Today Patti Dobrowolski and Timothy Corey recorded. You can see photos here. Our full team also includes Keith McCandless, and Steven Wright. I am thrilled to be able to watch and learn from them, as well as provide a contribution to the event WITH them.

Today after the morning event ended, I hung out while Tim and Patti completed their charts. It was wonderful to see people look at them, remark at how it helps them remember what they heard, and their amazement that “they drew this DURING the presentation!” For me as a newbie practitioner of this art, it was immensely useful to see their two different styles and watch their final additions.

I’m looking forward to five days of learning, community and compassion. It seems a fitting entry point to my 50th birthday on April 15th.

One of my favorite communities, Knowledge Management for Development (KM4Dev as we call it), will have it’s annual F2F in Almada, Portugal, just across the Tagus river from Lisbon. Yes, I lobbied for Portugal because some of my dear friends are there, giving me multiple reasons to hop on a plane. The gathering in June will be in Open Space, so anyone can bring their knowledge to share, questions to pose and you can be sure, there WILL be partying. I have to start getting in Party-Shape to keep up with these friends and colleagues!

Who can come? Anyone who decides to join the community via our site or DGroups email list and shares a passion for the application of knowledge and learning in international development. So that might be YOU!

It looks like I may be in Lisbon the few days earlier to give a talk at an Elearning Conf. More on that later!

Last week at Nexus for Change 2 we had an evening of the arts for change. We had Playback Theatre from our full arts team (who recruited me - that was fun! You can see some video clips here, here and here), juggling from the amazing Tom Sparough and song from Timothy C. Van Ness and we even drew together. Taking an idea from Johnnie Moore, we did a pairs drawing exercise, continuing on my inquiry into visual expression as a mode of interaction and learning together. Here is a short video of one pair drawing together.

YouTube - Drawing Together Exercise

Here are some of the beautiful faces they drew together:

You can see the pictures more clearly in the Nexus set on Flickr.

And some stills from Playback Theatre

Peter Block made an observation on Tuesday that really hit home for me. He said something to the effect that we resist change done unto us, but we embrace change that helps us stay who we are. Somewhat paradoxically, it is in the preservation of self that we embrace change.

So does change always have to be serious and gut wrenching? Or can we play, singe and draw our way through transformation? I think we can. And perhaps we MUST!

For more on Nexus, see our wiki.
More videos here.