FabLab Community Building
As part of a guest lecture on supporting knowledge work in complex environments and creating circumstances for community building, I worked with a group of students 'concept and product design' in the last month. We used FabLab (I'm a board member of the Dutch FabLab Foundation) as a case.
I asked the students to come up with both on- and off-line elements to help strengthen the global network of FabLab, and stimulate community forming.
Dutch FabLabs as Accelerator
The Netherlands has a large density of FabLab initiatives (3 operational labs, about 5 in various stages of development, all within 2.5 hrs driving distance). This gives us unique opportunities. Globally the FabLab network is highly fragmented. As FabLabs are started, especially if its a completely local initiative, they are focussed on bootstrapping themselves into existence, not on connecting to the outside world. The high density of labs in the Netherlands allows us however to connect people and FabLabs much more easily. First having a number of FabLabs within close vicinity allows experiments in community building basically 'locally', without the need to do everything at a global scale immediately. Second the high density creates an 'acceleration room', it is the 'city' in the FabLab landscape, allowing quick iterations of those different experiments in community building. Successful community building efforts can then be offered to other FabLabs worldwide, or attract attention by themselves from the wider FabLab network.
Existing Building Blocks
Of course there already all kinds of things going on. To name a few:
The Dutch FabLabs are building a sharing platform, allowing different FabLabs to interact and share both content and user accounts easily;
FabLab Academy is being set-up, which is a collective educational programme coordinated by MIT;
There is a (almost) yearly FabLab conference, the next one coming August in Pune, India;
A number of FabLabs use a collective video-conferencing system.
Challenges
There are also challenges that will play a role when scaling up efforts to the global FabLab network:
Because FabLabs work locally, they are all firmly rooted in their own context, character and language. While this is a rich source of diversity, making global sharing of knowledge and designs more valuable, it also means there is little in terms of shared language, shared branding and iconography;
Access to enough bandwith or even internet itself is not guaranteed for each FabLab. This may imply having local copies of e.g. information, with periodical synchronization, or at the least more asynchronous communication;
FabLab challenges conventional notions of production. It brings industrial machinery in the hands of individuals. The 'otherness' of the concept is a source of attraction but may mean it's actually harder to explain to others, before you have 'proof' of what it can mean.
Students trying out FabLab
Suggested Ideas
Most of the students handled the assignment well. What turned out to be very important is that a group of them visited the FabLab in Utrecht, Protospace, to experience first hand what a FabLab is, as well as see the machines and video conferencing equipment working. Those that visited Protospace did a whole lot better than those that didn't.
Some of the ideas that were generated:
- Global single sign-on for FabLab users;
- FabTube, video tutorials;
- FabCases, instructables;
- A credit system (valid in every FabLab, you get credit for sharing things e.g.);
- Cases, workshops etc. with local companies;
- FabTalks, TED-like talks streamed on video;
- Fab Awards, yearly awards for great FabLab projects;
- Consistent use of recognizable visual elements throughout;
- Text only version of information, or stand-alone wiki's on a stick;
- FabLab staff presented in person on websites;
- Connecting FabLab staff worldwide on shared expertise;
- Have a person in each FabLab focussing on/stimulating sharing with the FabLab network;
- Connecting those sharing-focussed people;
- Build contacts with local companies, higher-ed institutions, schools for workshop etc;
- Fab Elections: people nominate projects. Yearly award session in different FabLab each time;
- FabBook, a yearbook with sections by each FabLab. Some page maybe a design e.g. Book can be on reading tables, and on USB-sticks;
Students generating ideas
It's a nice mix of both on- and offline elements. For the most part they can be implemented among the Dutch FabLabs first, without making later wider roll-out difficult. Especially the book and the credit system are interesting, but when put together in the mix of other things suggested. We'll definitely start working on these ideas after the summer.
Announcing OurData.eu
Together with James Burke I have started OurData.eu. We are starting to collect pointers to European open government data initiatives, data sources and example mash-ups.
What is OurData.eu for?
We find that there are a large number of good examples of open government data from around Europe available, but that they are at the same time very hard to find due to language differences? Do you know how to search in Danish, Polish, or Spanish? Most of us are able to search effectively in their own native language plus English. That leaves out a couple of dozen other European languages. With this site we hope to make searching easier. When you know something exists, you will be able to better judge if you want to spend the time and energy to dig deeper.
Three types of pointers
We collect three types of pointers:
1) Data sources. Any European public government data source that is out there on the web;
2) Initiatives. Different governments and action groups have started different initiatives to stimulate the use of open government data. Competitions, policies, discussions, platforms, all fall in this category;
3) Mash-ups. Being able to come up with useful forms of re-use for government data helps enormously in making the 'demand side' more explicit. What good European examples are already out there?
You can contribute!
If you know of initiatives, data sources (or lists of pointers), or example mash-ups in your country, let us know! Or create an account at OurData.eu, and post them.
Screenshot of OurData.eu
Reboot 11 - The Next Ten Years by Bruce Sterling
The closing key-note at Reboot was given by Bruce Sterling. A great and entertaining talk, looking at the next ten years and what it will be like to live through them. Sterling, a futurist (or strategic forecaster, if you're not allowed to use the word 'futurist'), and cyberpunk SF writer, painted a great and at the same time very bleak picture. Referring to a lot of things he saw and heard during the conference, he repeatedly poked all of us in the eye with apparent pleasure. The room grew increasingly silent throughout his talk. I loved it, and I still remain very much an optimist (I guess getting through and out of clinical depression did that for me).
The next 10 years
The next decade, Sterling says, will not feel like progress. At the same time it won't feel like conservatism either. There's simply nothing much left to conserve, as well as nothing to progress to. So it's transition, but transition to nowhere. No new (asset) bubble to get the old economic structures going again, 'lots of bad weather' (i.e. climate change), and global emergent change. The core feeling for the Reboot-type people for the 20-zero's and 20-tens is 'Dark Euforia'. "Everything falls apart, but there are endless opportunities. You just didn't think you'd dread them so much."
Sterling distinguished four quadrants that hold scenario's for the next decade. For me they contain loads of interesting notions about the type of (weak) signals that go with them, which can help to choose your actions, avoid time wasting rear-guard fights, recognize threats to neutralize etc. Basically I can see a whole new set of tags coming into use with which I will collect bookmarks for my writing and thinking.
1: Crisis Capitalism for Aging Baby-Boomers
A large demographic that wants to hang on to their material achievements. "They have all the votes but no future." They won't get out of the way, but get nothing done either.
2: B(R)IC
Brasil, India, China, and if you don't discount oil, Russia. Emerging economies, but emerging into nowhere. Developing with no direction in particular. Globalizing without purpose, not progressing, not really developing.
3: Shock of the Old
Fundamentalists in power, whether they are christian or islamic. They don't have a policy, have no plan, they can only ruin what is still left standing.
4: Reboot in Power
Basically the Reboot participants, feeling their 'Dark Euforia' over endless opportunities in a world that's coming apart. They come in different varieties. At the top-end is 'Gothic High-Tech'. You're brilliant, on top of the world, but death is just around the corner, caused by something secret and horrible. Steve Jobs (made the iPod, but needs a liver), Nicolas Sarkozy (brilliant, but no ideology, offering no alternative), Barack Obama (Massive grassroots fund raising routine, but a Chicago machine politician, 'not Vaclav Havel'), are positioning themselves in the narrative rather than building infrastructure. Cheerleaders, not leaders.
At the low-end is 'Favela Chic'. It's when you 'lost everything, but you're wired to the gills and big on Facebook'. Everything we Reboot-geeks believe is basically Favela Chic. We have Favela-slogans, says Sterling: 'Action is cheaper than control', 'So fix it', 'Always in Beta', 'Just fucking do it'. Favelas are emergent structures. Stuffed animals are the European Favelas, repurposed buildings like Kedelhallen, the old-new. Urban interventions, re-using the left-over husks of the unsustainable is our frontier, because it's under the radar, and you actually can get a lot done there.
Bruce Sterling then offered some practical advice, on how to not be 'hair shirt green' (because it just changes the polarity of 20th century consumerism, and does not constitute a really different way of life), but to be 'bright green geeks'.
The Great-grandfather Principle
The first piece of advice was to stop acting dead, even though it's temptingly gothic. Saving water, saving energy, reducing your CO2-footprint, recycling, my dead great-grandfather is much better at it than me. You have plenty of time to save water ("water is indestructable") when you're dead. Billions of years of it. So start doing things that matter, that your dead great-grandfather cannot do. Saving and economizing that way is also not social, as you're basically starving someone else by reducing the volume and intensity of your transactions.
People listening to Bruce Sterlings closing talk
Objects as Frozen Social Relationships
In stead reassess the way you deal with and relate to objects. See objects as frozen social relationships, as print-outs of those relationships. See objects in terms of volumes of time and space. With such a (design) approach you will make entirely different choices when it comes to objects.
The objects that should be most important to you, 'the monarchs among your objects', are the ones you use most, intensively, and are closest to you. Clothing, your bed, a chair, personal care stuff etc. Don't go 'cheap' on those as they are the things you spend most time with. "Buy real things, that you actually use. All everyday objects should be the best."
For all the rest of your objects, sort them into 4 buckets ('making lists is a very lifehacking-like thing to do'):
1: Beautiful things
2: Things with emotional meaning
Things only belong in bucket 1 or 2 if you are actually eager to tell people about them, show it to them. Do these objects have a narrative that you want to share?
3: Tools
Tools are very important, so make sure you have the best tools, high-tech. Don't make do with stuff that is broken. Also don't put tools in this bucket that you only pretend to be experimenting with. "You're only experimenting if you are publishing the results", which is a very significant point I think.
4: Every thing else.
If it's not in bucket 1 to 3, get rid of it. Before getting rid of it though, virtualize it by taking pictures or scanning it, and scanning the barcode. So you can later refer to it or retrieve a similar item if needed.
The Right Closing
I thoroughly enjoyed this talk, specifically at the end of Reboot. Someone remarked it would have been more effective if it had been the first keynote of the conference, as then 'we would have had two days to prove Sterling wrong' or something to that effect. I disagree. This was a very useful and valuable talk, both in terms of content and form. Sterling was an active participant during the preceding conference days, and it made his talk more effective. It told him which eyes to poke in. Below is the video of Bruce Sterlings closing key-note.
Reboot 11 - Transparent Government, Attitude and Activism
Taking it on the Chin
In the previous post I wrote about how the Danish government officials at Reboot had to wade through a lot of suspicion and frustration from the participants before getting to the actual discussion at hand. As David Weinberger said, they took it on their chin. In this posting I want to discuss the frustration and suspicion that participants expressed in more detail, especially because I've seen it happen repeatedly last year at PolitCamp in Graz and GovCamp Amsterdam, as well as last month at Hack de Overheid ('hack the government'). As I commented then as well, I think we need to learn when to break that pattern and check emotions and reflexes.
Danish IT policy discussion, photo by Andreas Johannsen
Frustration and suspicion
First let me acknowledge that the frustration 'we the people' have in general in dealing with bureaucracies and political structures is real. And we are right, based on our previous experiences, to be suspicious about the veracity of statements like 'we really want to listen to your concerns' because often strongly worded affirmations of 'listening' and 'we'll look at it' turned out to be untrue. So much so that they've become red flags when they are now used.
The flipside of our frustration and suspicion is that we tend to paint all our interactions with 'government' and 'politics' with the same brush. In everything we see and hear we will tend to see our picture of government confirmed, we will fit the data into the established pattern.
We are selling ourselves short however if we don't get past this frustration and suspicion when confronted with a civil servant or politician that actually is interested in hearing our story, and involving us in their work.
Andrew Turner talking, me taking notes at Danish IT policy session. Photo by Andreas Johannsen
There is no 'the government'
First we need to recognize that there is no 'the government'. Government is a very complex collection of different agencies, departments, local, regional and national levels, executive bodies and whatnot. And most pieces of that puzzle have no idea what is going on elsewhere. Also, each of these government organizations is made up of individual people. Projecting your experience with one piece of government on a civil servant that you happen to talk to some place else then is not only unfair but uncalled for. There is probably nothing the civil servant can do that will change your frustration anyway. Projecting your assumptions and prejudices about an entire group onto an individual, and proceeding to treat that individual based on that projection only, also happens to be the definition of discrimination.
This participant announced her candidacy for 'Minister of the Crowds', a thought I liked
Suspension of Disbelief
When to shelve our suspicion that 'they' won't listen to us, when to suspend our disbelief this civil servant in front of us is for real?
One of the signs can be what 'they' are doing to get to talk to you. In this case it was a team responsible for literally writing Denmarks next national IT strategy that came to Reboot, a key European webgeek gathering, to talk to us in a locker room. This was not your average 'public participation' session in some non-descript grey government building at a time of day when only 50+ white males in early retirement with too much time on their hands can attend. 'They' came and sought 'us' out on 'our home turf' because we might be knowledgeable about the subject they are responsible for. And it wasn't a token visit either, they were fully involved during the entire conference. The same was the case with the other events I mentioned at the start: passionate professionals seeking 'us' out during weekends even. In my experience those gov officials that don't care about your participation usually invite you to come to their place. So that when you don't bother to show up they can pretend you're ok with their plans. The former is an active stance, the latter a passive on. Active stances are tell-tale signs for you and me to suspend our disbelief.
Check your Frustration at the Door
Our frustrations about our dealings with government are very real. Nevertheless we need to re-evaluate our frustration every single time when interacting with a civil servant.
Are you really listening to what this civil servant is saying to you, or just to the echos ringing of your frustration when you hear it?
Is this civil servant the one that can actually address your concern, your anger? Or should you be venting your feelings someplace else, e.g. at a different agency, or at a different level, or in the political sphere outside the government bodies?
Will venting your frustration contribute to a useful outcome of the exchange? Or will it just cause your counterpart to become defensive?
If you answer these questions 'no', then check your frustration at the door. That way you make room for having an actual conversation.
A growing number of post-its with suggestions on the wall
Have something to offer
One of the things I caught myself on is that on several topics I have frustrations in dealing with government people, but upon closer examination I don't have much beyond that (yet). I can formulate what 'they' are doing wrong or 'don't get', but find it more difficult to actually contribute constructively beyond the obvious when asked. Because getting into the less obvious requires thinking it through, and formulate steps and actions to implement my ideas in a 'yes, and' in stead of a 'no, but' fashion. It's one thing to say 'government should listen more' or 'just open up and become transparent', quite another to help bring that process about and suggest practical steps as to how I would like them to listen to me specifically, or what I think should be more transparent. It means I need to care to know more about 'them', to be able to see their context more. So, when an opportunity arises to interact with government, and it warrants suspension of disbelief, I need to be willing to prepare. I need to take an activist stance. Otherwise me saying 'government isn't listening' is just a fig leaf for inaction and passivity on my side.
Jakob Willer, Danish ITST (l), discussion going on (r)
Civil Servants need to do something too
Real conversations are two-way, so it's not just 'us' that need to do something, the same goes for the civil servants that are our counterparts. First, I need you as a civil servant to be a real human being, be an individual. I know that there are things you can and cannot say, you can and cannot promise, you can and cannot do. It is the same for each of us that is acting from a certain role. But: acknowledge that explicitly, so it does not feel like being stonewalled or like you're being defensive, when you have to say no.
Help 'us' to overcome our suspicions by showing us how you intend to involve 'us' into an ongoing conversation. Usually 'parpticipation' takes place at the start of a process, then some magic happens in a black box, and out comes something on the other side we don't really recognize. Involve us all the way, from idea up to and including implementation. So we can see how our contributions matter or not. Also keep your promises about follow-up. I've noticed at times that 'we'll get back to you quickly' means something different in my book than it does for some government agencies. To keep the conversation going however, to keep momentum, to make it feel like an 'on-going' thing, we need to know exactly when 'quickly' is. In the case of the Danish government session at Reboot this meant e.g. the transcripts of the post-it notes were up online during the conference the same day, and the URL was given during the session.
Jakob Willer and Christian Lanng at Danish digital policy discussion. Photo by Andreas Johannsen
Taking it on the Chin, Reprise
The Danes took it on the chin. One of them said to me in later e-mail conversation they know this is going to happen a lot, and they don't take it personal. They see they need to go through it before actually getting somewhere. That is laudable even if you think it should be the normal behaviour of civil servants. Nadia El-Imam during the discussion session with Danish government officials asked if we as citizens could enter into a contract with them so we could hold them to their commitments of transparency and involvement. Christian Lanng, one of the Danish civil servants present, said "Yes, if I can enter into the same type of contract with you as well." Exactly.
Reboot 11 - Transparent Government / Open Government Data
At Reboot11 there clearly was a lot of interest in transparent government, on different levels. Apart from the political stream, with the Swedish Pirate Party, there were several sessions taking on transparent government on both the policy and the operational level. For me opening up government data, and making government more transparent is important because it allows people to both base their choices and decisions on more relevant information, as well as act more confidently in shaping their own lives.
Wikicrats
Nadia El-Imam brought a number of people to Reboot that would not have been there otherwise. To bring them in touch with the Reboot-crowd, but also with each other. To talk about technology and digital policies for the European Union, and come up with tangible input. She organised several 'Wikicrats' sessions. It started out with the participants giving their own perspectives (slides), and then several working sessions took place.
Wikicrats at work
Open Data
As I am working on opening up government data in the Netherlands, I did a session on Open Data at Reboot. Starting with a short introduction of the work James Burke and I did for the Dutch ministry for the interior, I invited other participants in the audience to add their own work and examples, so different European efforts get more connected. People from Denmark, Canada, US and UK explained some of their work on open government data. One of the examples put forward, Folkets Ting (which follows the political activities of Danish MP's) also was demo'd in a seperate session by Michael Friis (slides). Also Christian Lanng, of the Danish IT and telecom agency of the ministry for technology, science and innovation, invited us all to take part in a session the next day to help shape the new Danish IT policy that is being written.
Shaping Danish IT Policy
On Reboot day 2, a few dozen people found themselves in an overfilled changing room of Kedelhallen, discussing how the Danish government should shape their IT policy, and how they should engage with us and others in both shaping and implementing that policy. As David Weinberger noted, the Danish civil servants had to wade through a lot of frustration and disbelief before we could get into real discussion, and they took it on the chin gracefully. More on that in a separate posting. The results of the session, transcription of post-its, in English as well as the continuing discussion in Danish can be found at Digitaliser.dk, the Danish IT and Telecom Agency open platform for discussing all things digital.
Christian Lanng (Danish gov) explaining the aim of the session (l), Standing room only at the Danish IT policy session (r)
Change Camps in Canada
Mark Kuznicki is a driving force behind the ChangeCamps in Canada, about re-imagining citizenship and government in the age of participation, about which he gave a good session at Reboot. Had a great lunch conversation with him, amongst other things about the Vancouver ChangeCamp, our mutual contact/friend and Vancouverite Jon Husband, and the City of Vancouver embracing Open Data as well as open standards and open source, last May.
Mark Kuznicki talking about ChangeCamps
Shaping EU policy on Public Service Information
David Osimo, who organized a workshop at the European Commission in Brussels this spring on user-driven innovation of public services (pageflakes overview), was an active participant in the Open Government Data dialogue this Reboot. He has also launched a platform to collectively bring our own perspective to the EU's take on e-government. Next November a new ministerial declaration on e-government will be published during the Malmo EU e-gov conference. If you want to contribute to co-creating an open declaration on public services in the age of social media, please add your ideas, suggestions and comments there.
All in all transparent government and open government data were a big part of the conversations I had with lots of people during Reboot 11. Having my own Open Data session at the start of day 1 of the conference was a good conversation trigger for me, but certainly Open Data / Transparent gov was on a lot of people's mind at Reboot. A very good thing.
0 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkReboot 11 - Coworking Boat PAN
The Coworking Boat PAN project
Henriette Weber is a friend and a social marketing pro. One of her many ideas and projects is the Coworking Boat PAN. She's turning a boat that's been in the family since her granddad into a floating co-working space. Basically using a
'in real life' thing as a social object to involve her on-line networks. A boat, that is becoming the object of lots of social interaction. The boat is in dire need of significant renovation, so different people in her network have become 'shareholders' in the project, aiding her to get the boat shipshape. This can mean financial support to help repair the engine, or support in time and energy, for instance the craftswork involved for the interior. The renovation work is done by her husband Thomas and her brother, and Henriette. She's chronicling the project in video and blogpostings.
During a Reboot session on Coworking Boat PAN she talked about what the project means to her. What the impact is of people actually supporting the renovation of the boat.
The main question Henriette put forward was: what object, like her boat, is there in your own life that you could turn into a tangible pivot point for your (online) social interaction?
The boat being inspected :)
Paint as an emotional stake
For Elmine and me, Henriette's project and call for support came at exactly the right moment to prompt us into action. As part of my membership in the Medinge Group, we had just returned from Paris for the annual Brands with a Conscience award session. One of the award winners this year was Ekomarine, a Swedish firm that has created an eco-friendly boat paint called Neptune Formula. Boat paints are normally notoriously toxic, but this product is fully organic and non-toxic. When the Coworking boat PAN plan came up there was no way we would let Henriette put a boat in the water that still used the toxic paint, when a perfectly eco-friendly alternative is available. It suddenly brought an action into scope that fitted an ideal (eco-friendly, turning the action into its own reward), allowed us to make use of our recently acquired knowledge, and gave us an emotional and very conrete stake in the boat project. At the same time it made a real difference to a person that matters to us. It allowed us to be 'radical' within the limits of our sphere of influence.
The boat has a social wake
To me it's interesting to see that the boat project is creating social interaction in different shapes and forms. There's the interaction around her project updates on-line of course. The day after Reboot we joined Henriette for a beach party next to the boat in Helsingør harbour. We got to see the boat, inside and out, but more importantly we met up with other friends of Henriette, introducing us to more of her life, and building a more complete picture of each other. It was a great party, strengthening ties, and again something that is its own reward. But even when Henriette is not involved there is social spin-off. Pedro and Patricia also are supporting the Coworking Boat PAN, and finding that out introduced a whole new strain of conversation when we recently went to visit them in Dusseldorf. So the boat already created a wake, a social one, from even before it was in the water.
'Shareholders' getting to know each other at Elsinore beach, the boats social wake
What tangible object can you turn into a social one?
This was the core question Henriette asked during the Reboot session last week. There are I think no entirely obvious answers. We have listed our home office as a possible coworking space, and do use our living room for workshops, but that's all somewhat different. There's no 'project' involved to make it so. Probably what is most reminiscent of the Coworking Boat PAN effects as described above, is how we turned Elmine's birthday last year into a unconference. It brought people together that wouldn't otherwise have met, it had tangible outcomes, and it created ripples in other places: one of the participants, Beverly Trayner, is now doing a similar event for her 50th birthday this month as well. To us Elmines birthday conference was very special, and tons of fun. We are thinking about doing it again for my upcoming 40th birthday in May 2010. Birthdays are no tangible objects of course, but the effects of both boat and birthday seem comparable. Of course I think the boat will have a more lasting effect, as that is a real object.
Oh, and if you know Henriette (or even if you don't) and want to support the Coworking Boat PAN project, there's still about 98 shares at 500 DKR (75 Euro) available. Contact Henriette for more info.
2 Comments and 0 Trackbacks | PermalinkReboot 11 Action - General Impressions
Yearly Reboot
Last week the Reboot conference took place. Number 11 in the series had 'Action' as a theme. It is the one conference that Elmine and I keep returning to every year. To me this year Reboot had the same sort of excellent vibes that Reboot 7.0 in 2005 had. That Reboot edition started a lot of things for me, so that makes me curious about the things Reboot11 will set in motion. Bruce Sterling in his closing talk asked 'Eleven reboots? When will you get to a stable system?'. Some systems work best when they're not stable, I think.
Scope
To me the whole Action theme this year was about your radius of action more than actual acts. The big picture talks were as much about that to me, as were the more specific presentations and discussion sessions in the other rooms. So Matt Webb talking about scope in his opening key-note was spot on for me. Matt talked about how big visions and dreams (touch the moon with your fingertip) look differently when realized in a centralized command structure or in a decentralized network-sourced effort. Calling upon the Reboot participants to give the world a new 'macroscope' by taking 100 hour steps, he brings action and change down to the level where you can act confidently now. Hundred hours, a day a week for the three months of summer will be enough to get you significantly deep into any subject.
Other sessions, such as Lee Bryant's contribution on creating the 'Reboot mythology' to position ourselves in a narrative that has a higher chance of working change, struck the same chord: big general pictures to be immediately translated into action in the here and now.
Reboot was not mostly action: though there were all kinds of practical projects, it was still a conference of course, and that is where people basically share stories. Some of those stories were however made hands-on (the Arduino workshop e.g.) or of the 'How to' format. It was about action, giving us all the pointers and the means to define and extend our scope, our radius of action.
Sphere of Influence
Two Reboots ago I created this picture to illustrate why we so often do not succeed in taking the first step towards change. It is about how flow can be found within your radius of action, or sphere of influence as I called it. There are two fig leafs for inaction at play, I find in my work: making ourselves too small, and making ourselves too important.
In the former, you say you would want to change but put forward a version of the problem that is simply too big to handle, allowing yourself the excuse to do nothing. In the latter you say the problem is something you can handle, but only if all others listen to you to get it done (which is the traditional centralized way of doing things, and how President Kennedy got to touch the moon with his fingertip). Again this is used as excuse for inaction as 'obviously' it is impossible to get all others on board (= back to the 'too big to handle' end of the spectrum).
As I said back then, you don't need full control to reach your goals however. Flow is to be found by operating within your sphere of influence, and cutting your actions to a size that fits that, while at the same time trying to push at the boundaries of your sphere of influence. My working definition of knowledge is 'the ability to act', and my working definition of learning is increasing that ability. So Matt Webb's call for 100hr efforts, and Lee Bryant's call to create a different narrative, that I mentioned before, fell on receptive ears with me.
Why I sponsored Reboot: scope
Quite a number of people asked me why on earth I was sponsoring Reboot as an individual. Was it because I hoped to land clients? Was it marketing? No. What did I hope to 'get out of it'? Nothing. Reboot has been a great source of inspiration and learning for me in the past years. I credit Reboot, and the extended network of people around it as a significant part of why I can do what I do as a professional. Supporting Reboot financially was for me a way to give something back. It helped make sure that the conference could take place, and therefore had an impact on people that matter to me, and therefore had an impact on myself. It was its own return. It was within my scope, so I took action.
From the Preboot boatride until the Postboot street party, I had a great time. Thomas, Torben, Peter, Nikolaj and all those others involved pulled off another rocking Reboot. Thanks!
2 Comments and 1 Trackbacks | Permalink
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