How Can We Use This Space to Collaborate?

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Permalink Reply by John Coate on November 21, 2007 at 11:11am

A good start might be describing what people do currently - projects, work, aspirations, etc.

So I'll start. I am a long-time Internet professional (since 1986) who wants to channel that experience into realizing the goals and values of the Bioneers, as well as The Green Festival (I just attended in SF) Wiser Earth, and the Earth policy Institute, as well as others. My experience has been in community building (The WELL, Habbo Hotel) and online news and info (sfgate.com, techsoup.org).

I live in Marin County in an apartment most of the time. here is am pretty much a consumer who tries to keep it green as much as i can.

But I also have 2.5 acres up near the coast just south of Mendocino Village. It is there that I try to live in as green a way as I can. We try to keep fuel consumption low, we keep out invasive plants (there are a lot of them if you let it go), harvest apples and plums and keep a small garden.

One area of focus is trying to collaborate in bringing more broadband connectivity to rural areas. It's one thing to live all the way off the grid. but a lot of people live pretty much off the communications grid except for dial-up which really hinders creativity in today's electronic environment.

A lot of people who share our values aren't all that crazy about the Internet but i think it ought to be as ubiquitous as water pipes and electricity so that all of the human resources in society can be tapped - especially all the sane people living in the country. Plus, I think it is a good way to keep the kids from moving to the city!

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Permalink Reply by Nurture Girl on November 21, 2007 at 1:00pm

Thanks for your great message John. Can you share some of your insights from other online communities about the practices in a community that foster collaboration and help conversations thrive?

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Permalink Reply by John Coate on November 21, 2007 at 3:26pm

There are two basic aspects to it. One is social and one is architectural.

Architectural means everything that physically brings the service to you. Network, server, design, interface, support - all of it. Here's one way how architecture matters to community growth. The WELL was - and still is - an online service dedicated to good conversation among the users. Like a number of systems that predate 1994 when the web started, the environment was basically all text. "Talk" was all you had, except in some cases where you could also read prepared text files that could be news or someone's academic or scientific paper and so forth. So a lot of intelligence and attention was paid to making the process of conversing online as efficient as possible as one progressed from beginner to advanced. One thing the best of those systems (and the WELL was one of them) did, that for some reason you almost never see on a web-based forum system, is that the system remembers accurately with log files what you have seen. That allows you to drop in a lot to your conversations with a minimum of hassle and process. It bookmarks all your spots. Why most web forum services don't do this as a standard must-have is a mystery to me. But there it is. So, I strongly advocate that you have a system that performs this function for every user. It rewards repeat use. If it is enjoyable, it gets more of your time and becomes a hangout. I am sort of on a crusade to get these more sophisticated attributes built into web forums. These web interfaces, such as this one here are nice and they even have spell checking. Links to bio pages of the participants, the ability to show as well as tell - all wonderful. But still not efficient for repeat use.

As to the social part, I define community as being something more, something greater, than people interacting over a narrow set of subjects or goals. I think the motivation to participate over and over until it 'feels like a place' is both personal and professional, with the ratio of the two being different in each individual - or even within that individual at different times. So having talk areas that emphasize specific tasks or professions or how-to can separate out from discussions about anything that floats someone's boat. And thus get to know each other in a variety of facets.

But that maps right back to efficiency...

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Permalink Reply by Nurture Girl on November 21, 2007 at 4:14pm

I agree very much with you John. I spent 2.5 years online at Omidyar.net. When they closed, I had to go elsewhere, but nowhere else did I find the conversation tracking tools that made it so easy to find conversations I was having--and know if there was new content to them. To me this is a critical tool functionality that we need to have in online community. Where have I been and has anyone else said something there for me to reply to? At least with this conversation I received an email ping. However, it would be even better to have a conversation page with tracking. Did I miss that somewhere?

I think community is about relationships. Just pontificating at each other does not make community. Having conversations where we learn from each other and span multiple conversation topics starts to weave together the energy of community. Otherwise it is just a network.

I also think, vital to relationship and conversation, if I might suggest it, is questions. If we ask questions it invites participation and suggests that we enter the community with curiosity rather than ego. I am still figuring it all out, but that seems to be true.

John, for you--or anyone else, what kept conversations going and evolving--through practice--rather than through the tools? I would love to have someone with more experience share their perceptions. What works?

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Permalink Reply by John Coate on November 21, 2007 at 5:53pm

Right - you do get an email ping here and that is handy but it isn't really an intelligent tracking of where you have been.

One important thing is that people sometimes discover their commonalities while discussing their differences. So it can get a little scrappy in the process. One thing that is important is not worrying about it so much, knowing that it is often easy to misunderstand, especially when one can only go by what is written. So, cutting slack is a form of social lubricant. At the same time, if it gets too hassly then it can become unpleasant to deal with. Part of the process is a group finding where the 'red line' is.

Another is that everyone loves a good story. And most people are better at telling a story by writing than they give themselves credit for. I found at the WELL story telling, with various people commenting or asking questions and just generally enjoying the experience, helped people bond.

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Permalink Reply by Nurture Girl on November 21, 2007 at 6:32pm

So, let me see if I am understanding our thinking here.

Opening the space in a way that allows for a little bumper car action so people can feel their "red line" themselves rather than dictating it or having people walk on eggshells.

--personally I try to work with the Four Agreements with the wiki-way layered over that. With the Four Agreements as a foundation, it helps to keep in mind not to take things personally. I find this gives lots of room/social lubricant, because writing is a bit more difficult to get right than speaking (visual cues are so helpful and asynchronous conversation can be tricky). Also, many of us are not superb writers. Do you have ideas for how to create that space--that conveys the principles and practices of community? Or how to convey that to participants and collaborators in a quick and efficient way?

Once the space is open encourage the use of story-telling and questions to keep conversation flourishing.

--do you have suggestions on how to encourage story-telling (without that darn internal editor heading off the show) and how to create an atmosphere of curiosity that fuels people to ask questions rather than show off knowledge?

I think you also touched on something I find really valuable: that magic blend between people who have enough in common to congregate and enough different to have lively interactions. Preaching to the choir is dull. So do you have ideas about how to encourage the right blend of diversity? Or how to hold the space so people keep in mind their commonality?

Then the bonding piece is really vital, I think, for creating the energy of community. And for that, it seems like having various people commenting (rather than two or three with onlookers), asking questions, and enjoying the experience. Can you say more about what is needed for people to enjoy the experience? And how can you tell if they are?

Let me also add to this summary what I said above about relationships needing multiple conversations (I have seen people stick to one thread within a community, and to me that didn't weave community)...and also the learning from each other helps build community.

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Permalink Reply by John Coate on November 23, 2007 at 8:32am

What are the Four Agreements and the wiki-way?

The best way to convey principles and practices i think is to demonstrate them by following them rather than laying many rules. usually I ignore someone's tone if I don't like it unless it is ad hominem, in which case I might likely mention that. Like you said, writing is imperfect and it's hard to say exactly what you mean. So, assuming good will from the other people, cutting slack, etc is pretty necessary.

Maybe the best way to encourage story telling is to just do it and others may join in. It's hard to get these scenes off the ground so they have their own social momentum. I hope others here want to help build it. The Bioneers extended family has all the right ingredients. But there are a lot of things that compete with people's time and attention. Smart and interesting people are busy people. But as the I Ching says, perseverance furthers.

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Permalink Reply by Nurture Girl on November 23, 2007 at 9:38am

The Four Agreements is a book by Don Miguel Ruiz. The agreements are:

Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.

The WikiWay--see the list of qualities on the right box. http://www.aboutus.org/WikiWay

Basically:
Recognize the value and the will of the community (trust in the development of the commons)
Assume good faith (assume that contributors have a positive intention)
Be a real person (we are more sensitive to real people than to anonymous or pseudonyms)
Be a builder (grow both the content AND the community)

I agree with you John, that leading by example is an excellent way to show how to be in community. Assume good faith is much like your assume good will (and cut people some slack). Many of the people I collaborate with are not big on following rules, nor do they want to go through a long list of how to be. I would add to the leading by example that it can also be useful to encourage behaviors we want to see more of with genuine and appropriate appreciation.

In person, we keep going on a conversation when we can tell people are interested--their eyes stay focused on us, they nod some, etc. Online, we can show this by writing something that shows our agreement or understanding. "Great story!" or "wonderful insight" can do wonders to keep a conversation going and encourage posting. And the "Yes, and" principle helps too. If we start a response with "yes, and" we convey the message that we heard and understand what it is said, even if we go on to qualify it in our response. It gives the air of cooperation for developing the "we" rather than feeling oppositional.

How do you suggest we invite people to story telling? What do you recommend for opening threads for story telling?

If the Bioneers community has all the right ingredients, how do we best mix and bake those ingredients?

I have never figured out how to deal effectively with ad hominem attacks. In the past, I have viewed this as trollish behavior, and I tried not to give it any attention. This was not effective. Do you have any suggestions?

And thank you John for pursuing this conversation with me. It is very important to me to develop my understanding of this, and I hope valuable for others as well.

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Permalink Reply by David FINAC0M on November 27, 2007 at 11:56am

What a wonderful conversation!

Before I jump in with my own thoughts, I'd like to comment that I think the tone, the engaged formality, the stateliness of this conversation strikes me as one good way to work with the strengths and weakenesses of this particular forum system. Not the only way, but one.

The way Bioneers know each other is through a conference where there is very little dividing line between presenters and participants. One becomes the other at the change of a session (or at the asking of a question). And at the same time there is very great respect for the special knowledge each presenter brings, and listening is sincere and deep. Something about this conversation as I read it puts me in that frame of mind.

At first glance, this forum system seems designed for banter, soapboxes, and clubs - not exactly for "developing my understanding" as you put it Nurture Girl. But here, the two of you have generated not only a discussion about "How can we use this space to collaborate?" but also in a way a typical Bioneer product! If I want to know more about "Building Local Living Economies" I go get my conference session CD and listen to it. If I want to know more about how this space can be used to collaborate, I click RSS Feed and subscribe to this discussion.

Just like at the conference, I don't think of myself as receiving the Word of Experts, but rather, getting a timely dispatch in from those first on the ground, or at the front lines of this particular piece of the great interconnected puzzle.

Permalink Reply by John Coate on November 27, 2007 at 1:21pm

Stateliness - I like it! Ahem..

So, I have spent 21 straight years working in online communication projects and businesses. I love it all, especially all the multimedia. I remember how I used to long for it back in the all-text days. So you could *show* as well as tell. We have that in abundance now. But along the way I've been sad to see that the virtues of (and the tools to support) good conversation fell a bit by the wayside. You can still pull it off in web forums but almost none of them are very sophisticated in assisting good conversation.

My premise is that, as good as the media tools and the bandwidth get, nothing is as sophisticated as the human mind and there are few places that exhibit that better than good conversation. Yes it's harder to get it across in casual writing compared to just talking. But given that, and with judicious slack-cutting, things can get serious, then funny, then back to serious as quickly as a mind can process it. It can be banter, it can be soapboxes, it can be hanging out or a raging debate. And it can all take place inside the same conversation if that's where the participants want to take it.

The Bioneers, just like WiserEarth, are among the most natural places I have ever seen for a blossoming of all the various ways to communicate online because there is such a range of people who have very tangible commonalities. It's the perfect soil for it really and should be the successor to whatever virtues the WELL had that caused Wired to call it the "world's most influential online community." But of course, to take that metaphor out a little more, all gardens take care and patience. As for 'mixing and baking them' I hope that enough will join in and find enough benefit to come back and make it be their place. It always takes awhile to get real traction. And again, I think the tools need to be better for conversation. I come back to that because it is a proven way for people to get to know each other, and new relationships building is crucial to getting things off the ground.

As for ad hominem remarks - i have usually worked in a hosted environment (often was the host) where it didn't need to fall on the person on the receiving end of a nasty comment to deal with it. Absent that, I'd have to decide in each instance whether or not to dignify it with a response or let it go. What I would be sure of not doing though is perpetuating the bad feelings that came with the remark. That almost never improves things. Remember: it's easy to get into conflict in online interaction and hard to resolve it. Whoever knows that and operates on that basis helps all the participants simply by not keeping the bad vibes going.

The Four Agreements and the Wiki Way - 100% agreement with them.

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Permalink Reply by Garthh on December 22, 2007 at 4:04pm

I'm from a different more industrial perspective.
I hope to articulate common ground.
I'm from the central valley & have spent many years maintaining food plants
I also spend time in Ukiah & am familiar with the issues/views of Bioneers.
I spend time on a engineering forum CR4. The users are a very diverse lot, from students trying to cheat on their homework, to shut in retired engineers. On the whole a pragmatic conservative group. Here's a link to a on going recent discussion about climate change. Ok I don't quite understand how links work here so I'll include the address also
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/15443?frmtrk=cr4sd#newcomments. The thread starter Shyam is a very thoughtful gentle man from India who is trying very hard to to provide opportunities for youth & communites. The thread has lots of genuine criticisim of the science of GW. As the posts progress you can see a genuine desire to help mankind & the planet. There is common ground & it needs to be nurtured.
We are in a time of change, the price of oil has suddenly made efficiency much more attractive. The economic pressure opens normally closed minds, searching for ways reduce energy costs. Increasing transportation costs reverses the economic viability of outsourcing, globalization, large centralized manufacturing.......

I hope to have many productive exchanges here & to get to know many of you.

More later
Garthh

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Permalink Reply by Nurture Girl on December 29, 2007 at 9:35am

My aologies. I wrote this post about a month ago, however, there was more I wanted to say. So it stayed on my computer until, amidst cleaning, I rediscovered it today. My apologies for slowness.

Garthh,
Thanks for bringing in another voice and perspective. I hope that the expanding interest of many people to climate change issues will flow smoothly with good conversation practices despite differences in beliefs or perspectives.

David,
I appreciate that the bioneers community values “flatness” as that resonates deeply with my values. While I have not attended bioneers yet, a friend of mine hopes, with me, to have a satellite event in Chicago next year. So I am very pleased that we are setting the right kind of tone with this conversation. I also value that this is not the only way. Many paths can lead to collaboration for the greater good. I am honored and appreciate your post. Thank you.

John,
I deeply value your experience and wisdom. Thank you for sharing! I hear in your post a yearning for sophisticated ways for conversation to thrive online. Do you have specific ideas about how that would look or work? We have mentioned a few, such as tracking the response to posts. And some of the behaviors that help too.

There are so many spaces for people of like mind to gather, whether that is change.org focusing on many causes, WiserEarth gathering all who are part of the largest social movement ever, or Bioneers with a more specific way of being and a movement. There are many others too—dreamfish, razoo, ned.com, and spaces within facebook. Then there are numerous wikis and ning spaces for collaboration too. So many options! Communities emerge all the time. One area where I feel like the Bioneers online community offers a great deal of strength is that it arises from a face-to-face gathering--a powerful force in weaving an online community, in my opinion. It is so much easier to give people slack when you have hugged them or shaken their hand or seen their eyes dance with life when discussing what matters to them.

Re: attacks. Hosted communities offer so much in the form of governance for online collaboration! Yes, there is more and more need, I think, for self-regulation. Wiki communities have developed practices for dealing with aggressive behavior. During my stay at Omidyar.net, we were not able to develop effective forms of self-governance that responded to aggressive behavior, and the management held a policy of non-intervention. One key difference I see between that environment and wikis is that in a wiki the history remains even if the current iteration of a page removes negative remarks. In Omidyar, deleting such remarks was seen, by some, as rejecting principles of free speech and the value of “flatness” too. I hope we evolve processes here that work effectively to honor our dreams and mission

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