Breathing In and Breathing Out in the FOC

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.

My e-newsletter

And in case you are curious, a link to my e-newsletter Powerful Living. http://www.myezine.net/ezine/garber/0808/0808b.html

Second Step

I have never had a blog and am feeling a bit shy about writing here what I am thinking about for the whole darn world to see.  It feels very exposed to me.  Then I think of all my community members and how (I imagine) they are gaily jotting down on their blogs all their learnings and stumblings and I am strengthened to jump in.

My primary work is with international NGOs (nonprofits) in supporting them to be better managers and leaders and have health organizational cultures with the end result being that they do their very important  work even more better.  What energizes me about learning to facilitate online communities is the possibilities of what I could do with this information.  I can see bringing managers and leaders from similar organizations or within organizations together to share learnings and support each other in going forward.  I can see training and team building.  I can see community building.  Oh the possibilities.

And there is a secret part of me that is thrilled with all the technology.  Once I understand it.  I stand in amazement, who knew all this was going on (RRS for instance) and how wonderfully accessible it makes the world and what people are thinking and talking about.  

That is where I am at the moment.  Looking forward to having my BB (Blog Buddy) help me figure out stuff that I am not even aware I need to figure out.

First Step into the Blog-o-sphere

Here I am with my first blog, spurred on by the Facilitating Online Communities course with Otago Polytechnic.   I have spent enough time thinking it would be good to have a blog and this is what finally kicked me into it.

I am energized about the course and how much learning from others I will be doing.   With this blog under my belt I will go back and read others blogs and see what is going on out there.  How cool is that?