Full Circle Associates

My Vermont buddie, Dave Burke, was tantalizing me last September with the kit of open source .net tools he was blending into a community platform. Well, the cat is out of the bag. Or the chocolate is out of the wrapper… because Sueetie has arrived!

Sueetie: The Future in .NET Open Source Online Community Development - Home Page

I was VERY happy to see that Dave included a wiki, something I was begging for when he showed me his prototypes.

I also enjoyed the Manifesto:

Sueetie is a movement that promotes the creation of online communities using .NET Open Source software.

Sueetie developers are dedicated to the success of the .NET Open Source applications that comprise the Sueetie online community suite.

No commercial or Open Source community application ever meets the requirements of a community without additional custom development.

All enhancements made to .NET Open Source applications on a Sueetie project are given back to the original application community.

Sueetie developers write original code or leverage code from Open Source resources. Sueetie developers never use code from source-available commercial .NET products in Sueetie communities.

The Sueetie feature set grows with the development of each new Sueetie site, as Sueetie developers share their application code in a common Sueetie code library.

Sueetie development is about freedom and collaboration. All accomplished .NET developers who are dedicated to the principles of Open Source development are welcome to join the Sueetie Movement.

So if you are looking for an open source collection of online interaction/community tools rolled into a single sign on platform, check out Sueetie. Even better, contribute to it. Dave can’t do this alone… so ping all your friends who are both Open Source and .Net.

I have four “serious” blog posts half edited and I haven’t found the focus to complete them. So why not veer wildly…

Elana tagged me with an ever twisting blog meme “7 Things You Would Never Tell Your Mother.” I say twisted, because Yvonne DiVita  author of Dickless Marketing and the Lipsticking Blog already twisted the meme once.
Uh, well, what if your mother reads your blog? I think my mom has at least peeked at mine. Talk about social media and boundary hopping. Elana, I’m going to twist the meme again, and try and think of others to tag who have their moms as readers. Then we’ll find out if they ARE reading.

Here is the original:  The 7 Things I Would Never Tell My Mother Meme

Here is my twist: 7 Things You Want to Tell Your Mother in a Subtle Way via Your Blog

1. My job really isn’t overthrowing small countries. Despite what my sons say at dinner time. But I do get to work with people in many countries - this year I was face to face in 7 countries and online with people from about 12 more.
2. I do have an offline social life. I actually just went out for coffee today with a new colleague interested in online learning. And yeah, I met her online. But she lives within 20 miles. Doesn’t that count?
3. I do get dressed for work, just not every day. While I was in Germany last month I got dressed for 8 whole days. Yes, now I’m back to warm yoga pants, sweaters and fleece. And woolly socks. It is cold in Seattle this week.
4. My chocolate addiction is about quality, not quantity. (It is really Larry who eats the quantity in this family. Right, Larry? Naw, I don’t think you read my blog. Do ya?)
5. My drive to contribute to the world comes from you, Mom. You were a volunteer as long as I can remember. Now I see you volunteering later in your life, and I notice how much it energizes you and keeps you young. I hope to always follow in your generous footsteps.
6. My ability to cook a good meal comes from you. When I was younger, you were always experimenting. You come from good cooking genes from Grammy B, and added your own California flare. I remember my friends, when we moved to Pennsylvania, always thought your West Coast cooking was quite exotic!
7. I think you are brave moving to Seattle. I appreciate that this move is as much for us, your kids, as it is for you and dad to have less house responsibility and more time to engage with life. No more house to clean. But moving here to Seattle, because we want you near one of your three kids, is a big leap. I promise, it will be a great one and all of us are standing by to make sure that happens.

Happy Holidays - send a message out to your mom on your blog. See if she reads it. And as for tagging, let’s see:

• Jory - Because I know your mom reads your blog!
• Bev - I know your mom has passed away, but since she was really a blogger before her time, maybe she can still get the RSS feed in heaven (or wherever you believe her spirit resides)
• Ashley - because you are really good at expressing love online
• Steve - I don’t know if your mom is alive (this makes this picking a bit difficult, eh) but I expect you might say something very insightful. How’s that for pressure?
• Jim - to see how far you will stray in your blog focus these days.

Just a quick surfacing… this morning I had the good fortune to snag some of Derek Wenmouth and Margaret McLeod’s time. They were in town for a conference on the School of the Future. I asked if I could take them out a bit for breakfast and to see a bit of Seattle outside of the downtown core. This shot is looking east from the Hiram Chittenden locks, in the Ballard neighborhood. It was great to get outdoors and enjoy a rare sunny winter Seattle day.

As we chowed down on some delicious breakfast, we talked about this idea of “blended learning” and what it means to discern what medium and what approach at what point in time. How do our choices reflect the developmental and content needs of the learners? For children, how does it balance freedom and safety? How do you keep an eye on the polarity between individually driven learning and the experience of learning with others — which has more to do than just learning about something. It is about learning together and social interaction. It is a complex and interesting stew. My head was stuffed full of ideas.

This dovetails in with something that came up last week at the United Nations University meeting on e-Learning that I facilitated in Bonn - the idea that the “e-learning” is not just about classrooms and courses, but about “e-stuff” –> how tools and processes can enable us to weave in and make visible learning an any turn, in many places, formal and informal. Virginie Aimard and I want to write up this “E-Stuff Manifesto” — in our spare time. (I hope you appreciate the humor here.)

I don’t have time or mental bandwidth to capture it all now, but this is a little bookmarker for those interested in this more systemic approach. What do you think?

I’m sure you don’t really care about why I have not blogged (travel, work, need a new roof and have to get quotes and references, blah blah blah). I have about 4 posts I really want to write - and odd for me, write well and thoughtfully. I’m feeling quite inadequate. Then I see this… Lifetime achievement award 2008 The Edublog Awards. Oh my. Look who is on the list:

• Stephen Downes
• Scott Leslie
• Will Richardson
• Nancy White
• David Warlick
• Chris Lehmann
• Graham Wegner
• Michele Martin
• Jay Cross

OK, folks, all those other folks are amazing. They really ARE focused on education, while I meander all over the place. Yes, learning is a passion. But vote for one of them. They are really amazing, generous people who have taught me a ton.

To whomever nominated you, bless your sweet heart. I am deeply appreciative and there is a big smile on my face. Being in this group of people is the best reward. But don’t vote for me — vote for one of the other fabulous people on the list.

I also have to giggle. LIFETIME! A lifetime in blogging years, eh? I think I started in 2004, but my short term memory and my lack of affinity for numbers may prove me wrong. And if you have a magic wand, do you have a way to build a free week into my life this month?

This morning on Twitter, Idocente pointed me to The Girl Effect. WOW! As some of you know, I have been a champion of the GiGis (Girl Geeks in service of the World Cafe community) and have long been a (prejudiced) champion of females in changing the world. So it is no surprise I had a positive response to this site.  Take a look at the video.

Over breakfast today in Bonn, where I’m doing some work this week, my friend Ulf and I were talking about where we have seen positive change take place.  (Check out his cool work with Science-Connects.) We shared stories about how things seem to work better from the ground up. Where people with passion and ownship make things happen, building on assets and in spite of barriers. Girls and women are certainly catalysts for this in many parts of the world. Take a look at this data from The Girl Effect fact sheet (pdf).

• When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children. (United Nations Population Fund, State of World Population 1990.)
• An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent. (George Psacharopoulos and Harry Anthony Patrinos, “Returns to Investment in Education: A Further Update,” Policy Research Working Paper 2881[Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2002].)
• Research in developing countries has shown a consistent relationship between better infant and child health and higher levels of schooling among mothers. (George T. Bicego and J. Ties Boerma, “Maternal Education and Child Survival: A Comparative Study of Survey Data from 17 Countries,” Social Science
  and Medicine 36 (9) [May 1993]: 1207–27.)
• When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man. (Phil Borges, with foreword by Madeleine Albright, Women Empowered: Inspiring Change in the Emerging World [New York: Rizzoli, 2007], 13.)

Since I was in Israel and Palestine last month, I have been struggling on how to write about my experience in a way that is not about judgement, but about reflecting what I saw. The tyranny of person over person is heartbreaking, regardless of the reasons and justifications we create. But from what I saw and learned about, women and children are victims as Israel and Palestine continue without a solution for sustainable peace. The statistics around maternal and child health paint a compelling picture that war, occupation, and the patterns that trigger them are bad for women and children. High levels of maternal depression correlate with poor child nutrition. Raising rates of stunting in children from persistent malnourishment (low nutrition and poor nutrition) are staggering. Cultural challenges that resist healthy patterns of breast feeding and trigger increased poor child health and adult obesity and heart disease in Palestinians.

Where is the hope for something better? For basic human rights of food, shelter, clothing, clean food and water and yes, even peace?

It is with the women.

The women of Palestine and Israel, both, who build bridges across the divides were the most compelling points of light I experienced amongst the bleakness that presented itself. At the conference I was attending, I met a midwife who works for the Jazoor Foundation for Health and Social Development who gave me one of the few moments of light and hope I felt during my visit. She was passionate about her profession of helping women have healthier babies. She was passionate about teaching others to be midwives, even amongst professional disdain from other health care professionals. (US midwives will remember the time when they were dismissed by doctors, and are now an important part of the maternal child health system.) Her brains, her heart, her attitude radiated light. She worked with other amazing, passionate advocates for health, social development and peace in the organization, led by another brilliant, passionate woman. (I’m kicking myself for not having her name handy, but it is on my home computer and I’m on the road!)

Women who are catalyzing positive change.

I would name this radiant midwife, and share a short video we made of her, but I have not asked her permission. I’ll try and remmber to do that when I get home to let you experience a bit of her light.

So the message of The Girl Effect site resonated with me this morning. Wherever we work - in businesses, education, non profit, or independent spirits in the world, what are we doing to foster this light in girls and women? Because so far, they are the best bet I can see for making positive change in the world. By no means am I dismissing boys. But girls are so often dismissed, when they may be the best chance we’ve got.

(A small suggestion to the Girl Effect folks. Your about page is in flash, making it hard to copy and share the stats. Yes, I know I can download the data, but that is one more step. Plus data is still locked in a PDF. For strong virality, making it simpler and easier may be more important than making it slick. )

I love reading Gillian Martin Mehers’s blog, You Learn Something New Every Day. Now there is my kind of person! Recently she posted about a facilitation challenge that I related to: going to a gathering venue and not being allowed to post things on the way. As I’m fully into flip charts and graphic recording/facilitation, I always ask in advance if I can put stuff on the wall, and if not, I arrange for pin boards or some alternative. However, Gillian and her team came up with a new one - human flip charts. Tight Parameters = Opportunities for Innovation.

There are two things I appreciate about Gillian’s improvisational response to a challenge. One, it is creative. Two, in engages and involves everyone in the room in the solution. The “problem” isn’t just the facilitators’. It is the challenge and operating conditions of the group.

Where we are able to give over both control AND responsibility, I find we get greater engagement.

Edit: a few hours later, I find this picture of CIFOR’s annual meeting Open Space Marketplace — one of the more innovative ones that I’ve seen!

I have written in the past about the power of love. Keith Olbermann gives a tour de force editorial on why this culture is needed in the world as a response to the passage of California’s Proposition 8 banning gay marriage. You can see it, and see the transcript here –>  Olbermann: Gay marriage is a question of love - Countdown with Keith Olbermann- msnbc.com

At the end of his comments, Olbermann said:

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”

Edited Later: See also this video from the weekend march in Seattle from Ashley and Thomas
http://vimeo.com/2259354. Again, the theme is Love.

If you haven’t already heard about Twitter, the microblogging tool, it is never too late. I’ve been focusing on it as a tool for collaboration, learning and social presence.

With a lot of self-effacing charm, James Clay brings us this delightful video: Are you on Twitter?. I’m not sure this will increase your comprehension of the tool if you are new, but if you are already on, you’ll probably appreciate the humor. But it brings up the issue of adopting a new technology because it is “cool.” Take a look at the video, then I’ll continue below…

There are early adopters who will try anything. The second wave come from people who learn about a tool from a friend who has recommended it or hear about it and sense it is the new cool thing. There is temptation to try because of the coolness factor. That can be a pro or a con. It can tip us off to something useful. Or it can lead to “yet another thing to attend to.”

How do YOU tell the difference?

The older I get, the more I love open group processes. Improv is one of those. You take a minimal but clear structure and then you run with it. Viv McWaters translated some improv principles into facilitation tips using another elegant, constrained form, the Haiku! Lovely. Since I’m too dang busy to write anything original (with mountains of half written drafts) I’m pointing you to and sharing some of Viv’s cool work.

Facilitation - Evaluation - Beyond the Edge - Viv McWaters
Improv principles for facilitators in haiku

Accept offers, say
Yes! And… be open to the
ideas of others.

Be average. Be
obvious - and then see how
you soar, and excel!

Working with another?
Look after your partner well,
And you’ll both look good.

Just jump in. Go on.
Start anywhere. Begin
and be surprised.

Do something - move your
body. Listen, observe and
trust yourself. Go on!

Made a mistake? Bow…
And then try something else new.
It’s the only way.

What if? What if? What…
Just let go of the what ifs
And be present too.

Even though I’m not writing much, I am present with you in this universe! Till later…

Today I am a guest conversationalist (??) in the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge course run by Stephen Downes and George Siemens. This is the course I was hoping to participate in, but the flurry of travel killed that idea. We had the first session this morning, and we’ll have another later today. The details:

You won’t want to miss the online sessions this week. Nancy White is our scheduled guest. We have two Elluminate discussions (both sessions can be accessed via this link): 11 am CST (see time zone conversions) and 7 pm CST (see time zone conversions).

Christy Tucker took some great notes, and the recording will be up later. Thanks, Christy. I agree that the brainstorming at the end was really good. I am kicking myself for not saving a set of the annotated slides, which included the brainstorm. Stephen, are they available? In the meantime, here are the unannotated slides plus the chat. (Connectivism Chat #1) As I mentioned at the end of the hour, there were TONS of rich, un-mined veins in the chat.

The chairs Christy talks about are on the first slide. After everyone was in, they all had names under them, pictures of coffee and food and all sorts of comments. It was a very convivial group!

Photo: Creative commons on Flickr by the infatuated

Edited Nov 6: A few more links related to this post

• The image of our brainstorming at the end of session one is here. Thanks to Bob Bell.
• Diego Leal’s Notes
• Jenny’s reflection on my teaching behaviors, one of the nicest things I’ve ever read about myself and now I have to live up to it! Thanks, Jenny. I’m still smiling.
• The recordings, session 1 and session 2