Just when I thought I was going to drown with that "tears pressing up against the back of my eyelids" feeling, I came back to my own blog and found 2 people encouraging me on. Thank you deb thompson and Illya Arnet-Clark.
I have been away from the course for a few weeks - in some part due to intimidation by all the chatter going on - and then I took some of today to catch up. That is where my boat started getting swamped. I looked at the Google Groups, I looked at folk's blog, I listened to the nuances about what is a community and was left feeling empty.
Seems to me that there is great confusion. Perhaps some folks are forming small groups which makes sense but I can't see how it is happening. I am getting that left out feeling that I recall so well from grade school when being the last one picked to play on the soft ball team (obviously in the US - soft ball is baseball for kids if everyone doesn't know).
I am quite unused to not getting on top of a steep learning curve and I had the feeling that I was not going to make it to the top this time. And I know I still might not. But Debs' comment on being overwhelmed too and Illya encouragement gave me my feet back and reminded me to breath.
And just a word on when is a community a community. I understand the push back on using the word loosely. I also cringe when people call a group of people a team. I look at this group and all the conversation going on and some small groups forming, isn't that a community? And doesn't a community DNA include those on the fringes, the small groups, the lost souls, the leaders, all of it? We are all here, aren't we, focusing to various degrees on the same goal.
Maybe another question is what is our vision for community. Lets create that.
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3 comments:
Right. The meaning of community depends upon context. In this context, we are in a course of learning about community and facilitation. We are on a schedule and our efforts are going to be focused upon organizing a conference. So in this context we are practicing the skills that will be needed to get us to the conference and pull it off. So we are a work group or a team.
I am looking to work with 2 or 3 people on "this" and 3 or 4 on "that". What do you think we need to learn in order to get coordinated?
Thanks for posting on my blog. I put your blog in my blogroll.
Nothing worse than a comment left unanswered Lynne... its been 6 days..
I would suggest managing your information in take. Prioritise.
1. Do the weekly tasks on the wiki
2. Respond to comments on your own blog
3. Browse a few blogs and leave comments
4. Post to your own blog and reference the work of others.
5. Nurture and build personal connections - Artie is reaching out to you, follow that up and you will start to feel connected and less lost/left out.
Online networking is just the same as face to face. We do it to improve our opportunities
Bee mentions you too
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