Updates from February, 2014 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • marie 6:39 pm on February 26, 2014 Permalink |  

    SSIR Article 

    Read this article yesterday and thought I’d share it in case some of you may not have seen it.  It really validates a lot of what Changemaker Bootcamp is all about.  Looking forward to seeing you all soon!

     

    http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/moments_of_impact_how_to_design_strategic_conversations_that_accelerate_cha

     
    • Jessica 11:07 pm on February 26, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Marie, too funny. I was just drafting up an email to changemakers about the same book, which was written by a colleague of mine. I will bring it to our next bootcamp. The best part of the book? The helpful toolkit at the end of it!

      Also, @eekim –>Ertel and Solomon landed on a venn diagram of STRATEGY + DESIGN + CONVERSATION… Just reminded me of the some of the concepts you’ve been thinking about related to collaborative learning. They also speak our language re: the importance of PRACTICE for creating successful strategic conversations.

      Jess

    • Eugene Eric Kim 6:40 am on February 28, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      +1 for sharing, @marie! Love seeing you active here! 🙂

      @jessausinheiler, were you at the book launch last night? I RSVPed, but ended up having to work, so couldn’t make it.

      I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s obviously very relevant to the notion of generative questions. If it’s good, it’s something we should add to our resources page. Jess, what do you think of the book? Chris and Lisa interviewed my former business partner as a source for their work.

    • Jessica 7:10 pm on March 9, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Eugene, I think the book is phenomenal. It highlights convenings as something that exists at the intersection of design, strategy, and conversations. It offers a fluid 5-step process for convening design (define your purpose, engage multiple perspectives, frame the issues, set the scene, make it an experience). It offers tips for each step, AND really useful practical advise for each. And it includes a toolkit at the end of the book. I will definitely use it in my work moving forward.

      As an FYI, I’m organizing a book club discussion on Moments of Impact at work in which several volunteers read a portion of the book and then present the framework, what they found to be useful, and questions they had (and of course in which the whole group discusses how the concepts and messages present in the book compare to current practice, and might be relevant to their work.)

      Given the purpose of our bootcamp, I think it would be a great idea to discuss this book as a group at our next bootcamp. I can volunteer to organize… But let’s discuss tomorrow!

    • marie 5:46 am on March 12, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I love the idea of discussing this at one of our Bootcamps, @jessausinheiler! Maybe for May?

      • Eugene Eric Kim 12:45 am on March 13, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        You just need to claim it! 🙂

        And let me echo previous sentiments: So fun to see you engage more here, @marie!

  • Jessica 7:20 am on February 10, 2014 Permalink |  

    Bootcampers,

    I spent a lot of time reflecting on a workshop I recently helped design / facilitate, and figured since I already spent so much time thinking about it I might as well share what I learned with the group… If you have any thoughts on any of these I’d love to hear them…

    1. At some point I considered having a goals conversation with the client using Eugene’s fail-meet-wildly exceed expectations framework. However, I received substantial push back from my colleagues and others whose opinion I sought. Their point was that framing things in the negative could lead to negative feelings, and results. One person suggested asking the following questions: What does success look like? What would have to be in place for us to succeed? What obstacles would we need to overcome? Because I haven’t ever had a conversation with a client about what failure would look like, I don’t actually know whether it works better than the success / obstacles conversation. I would love to hear people’s experiences having a what-failure-would-look-like conversation with a client.

    2. All design conversations were done over the phone with individuals I’d never met in person. As a result, it was difficult for me to read their genuine reactions to the workshop design. (This is, by the way, part of my personal learning curve.) In the future — and given my personal communication style — I think I’ll ask for video conference conversations, especially early in the project. @eekim, my experience has given me a different perspective on the in-person/online distinction we’ve talked about; would love to continue that thread with you at some point.

    4. Finally, we did a really good job pivoting the workshop after an exercise didn’t get as much traction as we had hoped. I’m very proud of us for our willingness to shift, but next time I design a somewhat experimental workshop like this one I’d like to think of a Plan B ahead of time. I wonder if anyone’s done this before, and how they want about doing this?

    *****
    As an aside, I’m really anxious to hear from @marie and @eugenechan about place+time for our next Bootcamp!

    Hopefully see you all soon, and take care.
    Jess

     
    • Avatar photo

      Brooking 8:06 pm on February 10, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      How interesting! Thanks for taking the time to share all this Jess. I think the failure push back is super interesting. I can imagine that being a norm in many business consulting circles…but I have found so far using this framework (just got off a call where we used it for a meeting design actually), that it really helps clarify what the group does not want, and my sense is it actually creates a sort of stake in the ground benchmark of “this is not good enough, we must aim for better than this and watch out for this particular pitfall”. E.g. we were doing a large group meeting design goal setting session, and one person typed in (we use shared display via google docs while we do it) “poor turn out” as a fail. It spurred a really important conversation about what good turn out was, what # of participants we were aiming for and why, and what the space constraints we were dealing with were. I’m not sure any of that would have gotten surfaced so quickly had we not had the failure column in the goals list, because “good turn out” seems more obvious & less scary… in acknowledging what a fail would be, it can help deepen conversation & asking important questions to be sure to avoid that outcome in a different way than I’ve seen around success metrics. I have not yet seen it create the outcomes your team was nervous about. And we’re really creating 3 sets of success markers and 1 fail markers with EEK’s system so from a positive psychology sort of angle I don’t see that being a problem – still plenty of focus on success. Curious what others think / have found about this one?

      Re: #2: I agree getting even a glimpse of face time helps so much in being able to read people’s reactions on phone calls, and a video hangout intro call can be a decent substitute for that. Using shared display when you’re on calls can also help get a good pulse. E.g. if someone’s quiet but typing ideas into the goals list or chat box you know they’re engaged & can get a sense of their thinking.

      Re #3: If you have time, back up /contingency thinking can be great both to make more effective meetings, to ease your mind re: being prepared, and also just good practice — sharpening more tools in the tool box so to speak. I think as we get older/more seasoned we’d have to do this in a formal way less, but as younger practitioners it makes sense if time allows to over train & contingency plan if nothing else as great practice in creative process design & brushing up on more tools/ approaches as part of meeting prep. I do this a lot with workshops & meeting prep – one thing I’ll do is make a detailed plan and then at the end have a list of other exercises I might want to throw in there if things get off course – just having that list handy & whatever notes I need to help me facilitate those other activities well makes it easier to switch gears during the event when needed. Sometimes there’s a clearer fork in the road – e.g. we’ll start with activity A and that will lead us either in this direction or that direction, and then have two pathways planned out depending on where the 1st activity lands the group.
      Reminds me of how on sports teams we would practice all sorts of different plays, even though we had our go to standards during games, because then you can change it up when needed and still be able to execute well. That’s the craft of what we do I think, and the more prep time we can put in the better at it we can become, even if we don’t need to use all the prep, it’s still great practice.

      Also excited to hear about @marie & @eugenechan’s plans!!

    • Eugene Eric Kim 4:37 am on February 11, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      @jessausinheiler, so appreciative that you’ve been practicing, and even more appreciative that you are sharing your experiences and questions here! @brooking, appreciative of you stepping in and sharing your own wisdom, most of which I agree with. Some quick additional thoughts:

      1. I think the confusion might be because of the way my toolkit is structured, with the Failure column coming first. When I’m walking people through this exercise, I always start with success. (I do the same when I’m debriefing.) Many of my templates currently share this flaw, where it’s not obvious which field to complete first. It’s something I need to fix.

      2. I’d encourage you to test your assumptions! We have a lot of assumptions about video and visual cues in particular, and many of them turn out not to be true. There’s a better way to get the feedback you seek: checkouts.

      3. Contingency planning is a huge part of my design process, and it’s one of the main reasons it takes so long. I don’t believe that you can get away with doing less of it as you get older / more seasoned. Experience does not eliminate the value of preparation. I love the sports metaphor. Here’s an old blog post where I made a similar point:

      http://groupaya.net/blog/2012/01/practicing-for-the-emergent/

  • Avatar photo

    Brooking 6:49 am on January 9, 2014 Permalink |  

    Hey everyone – we’re on for the 14th from 3-5 at PolicyLink in downtown Oakland (Marie won’t be able to join/host that day unfortunately). TOPIC: designing for high performing networks! PolicyLink is walkable from 12th St Bart at 1438 Webster St, Oakland, CA 94612. Eugene if there’s any info we should know for arrival/where to meet please share with the group! In attendance for sure we’ll have EEK & Eugene Chan, myself & Rebecca. @jessausinheiler ? @dana? @natalie @renee @anna341bc @lauren @amy you are welcome to join as well!

     
    • Dana 7:04 pm on January 10, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hey ya’ll I’ll be there!

    • Avatar photo

      Natalie 5:47 am on January 14, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      So sorry I’ll be missing this. Next time?

      • Eugene Eric Kim 8:09 pm on January 14, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Dislike! But I’m sure there will be others. @marie and @eugenechan are talking about convening the next one. Anyone *ahem* can do this. 🙂

  • Eugene Eric Kim 5:03 pm on January 6, 2014 Permalink |  

    Happy New Year, bootcampers! I’m currently planning the next Changemakers Bootcamp pilot, and I’m pondering some changes. I’d love your ideas and feedback. Briefly:

    • Change the name to Collaboration Bootcamp.
    • Make it eight weeks instead of six.
    • Stricter requirements around participation. Specifically, you can still miss up to two, but you can’t miss the first session.
    • Concept papers. Lots of folks have requested more theory / teaching / Eugene-time. I am reluctant to do this during the two hours we have together, as I want to focus that time on practice. To try and accommodate, I’d like to write a series of two-page concept papers for everything we do at Bootcamp. I’m always willing to have followup conversations after the sessions, preferably here but also scheduled individually.

    I’m anxious to innovate around the last point above. It’s flattering that there’s a demand for more me-time, and I want to meet that demand, but I don’t want to fall back on traditional modes of “teaching.” Would love to hear people’s ideas.

    Finally, @jessausinheiler has asked a number of times about the difference between Changemaker Bootcamp and my new website, Faster Than 20. Faster Than 20 is simply an online home for my writing and my experiments. Changemaker Bootcamp is one of my experiments. It has its own website, this water cooler, etc. There are reasons for this, but there are also challenges: Namely, a lot of the stuff on Faster Than 20 is directly relevant to Bootcamp, and the way it’s currently setup requires people to go to two different places (an example of bad use of online group physics).

    It’s always a tradeoff, but I want to experiment with that line. As a small step, I’m thinking about making this water cooler part of Faster Than 20 rather than exclusively for Bootcamp. It would allow me to broaden the participant list as well. What do you all think?

    As a bigger step, I’m thinking about dissolving this website entirely, and just integrating the content with the Faster Than 20 website. Thoughts?

     
    • Eugene Chan 7:11 pm on January 6, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      I like Changemaker Bootcamp more. “Collaboration” seems more like a method to me.
      8 weeks is good
      Concept papers can be good–not sure until I get a sense of what exactly you are proposing.
      The websites are confusing.

      • Eugene Chan 7:43 pm on January 6, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Ooops, I hit send a bit too early.

        You have 3 places where you post things: eekim.com, changemakerbootcamp, and now Faster than 20. Even though it might be clear in your mind as to the differentiation, it isn’t as clear to me. Especially since it is all “just you” at the moment.

        The difference between eekim and the other sites makes more sense. But between Faster than 20 and Changemaker is not so clear.

        The name “Changemaker Bootcamp” is also more concrete than Faster than 20.

        eugene

        • Eugene Eric Kim 10:57 pm on January 6, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

          Thanks for the quick feedback, @eugenechan! This is helping me think this through more carefully.

          So I’m taking this as a vote for consolidating fasterthan20.com and changemakerbootcamp.com? For context, here’s my distinction between eekim.com and fasterthan20.com: http://eekim.com/blog/2013/12/faster-than-20-my-new-website-on-high-performance-collaboration/

          By concept papers, I mean a brief overview of:

          1. Why we’re exercising this muscle in the first place
          2. How this is connected to the “bigger picture”
          3. Pointers to followup reading and frameworks

          For example, with the power workouts, I didn’t offer any feedback on how to think about power. All of that came from all of you exercising the muscles you already had, then debriefing with each other. The same was true of the difficult conversations workout. With a concept paper, I might offer some tips and point you all to other places to learn more.

          Clear?

          Would love to hear what others think.

    • Avatar photo

      Brooking 6:59 am on January 9, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hi EEK – love the innovations, all of them actually feel like good moves to me. Re: further innovation ideas for the last one, I wonder if you’ll choose to hand out the concept papers before or after – before would satisfy those who like to enter w/ a clearer frame for practice; after would satisfy the desire to have more exploratory practice experiences. I wonder about giving out brief hand-outs before the exercise, and further explanation hand outs after (or on water cooler after) for integration. Another idea is to assign a boot camper the 2 pager and have them take 5 minutes to present the idea to the group, which gives them practice opportunities to work on communication skills and may feel a more valuable way for you to offer frameworks & more of your thinking, but still have it be focused on the bootcampers’ learning & practice experience and not you talking….

      Re: website: I like having them as separate sites, and more-over think the bootcamp as a closed group is a good thing and benefit of paying to join the boot camp. Having the watercooler be more open feels more vulnerable and makes this a less safe space I think for some of the more personal conversations, which to me is a loss….

      2 cents! -Brooking

      • Eugene Eric Kim 3:29 pm on January 9, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Thanks, @brooking! I wonder what I’ll choose too. 🙂 My inclination is to simply make the concept papers available in advance and give people the option. It’s consistent with my philosophy that workout time be devoted to practice and feedback. I like the idea of having bootcampers (rather than me) present for the reasons you list. However, I’m concerned about the time it would take away from the main workout.

        Appreciate your vote on keeping the websites separate as well as the feedback on open vs closed watercooler. There is no question that a closed group is safer than an open one. The key question is, to what degree? What would be happening here if this group were closed that’s not happening right now? What’s happening right now that wouldn’t be happening if this were closed? Well worth an experiment to articulate, then test some hypotheses.

    • Jessica 9:52 pm on January 9, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Team,

      I love the idea of concept papers — before and after. Before as a way to gather your thoughts AND practice presenting. After as a way to reflect on the progress you’ve made, and get feedback on your high-level plan.

      I, like Eugene C., like the idea of integrating the sites. I appreciate @brooking comment on the intimacy of the group but–personally–would welcome any one who happens to be on the FT20 site and wants to join our conversation. (And the site is currently “open” anyway).

      Looking forward to seeing everyone on 1/14.
      Jess

      • Eugene Eric Kim 6:33 pm on January 10, 2014 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Thanks for the feedback, @jessausinheiler, and glad you can make it on Tuesday!

        I am almost certainly going to integrate some kind of discussion functionality into Faster Than 20, as it’s already turning into a touch point for all of my different communities and projects, and I’m wanting to integrate them. Still uncertain as to whether to make this water cooler that, but the feedback is helpful.

  • Dana 9:30 pm on December 13, 2013 Permalink |  

    Echoing Eugene, thank you @jessausinheiler for sharing your Messaging framework with us! I really enjoyed thinking through the wheel and I realized I have a message for my project. Now I want to communicate it and I am feeling clearer about how to.

     
    • Jessica 5:58 pm on December 18, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      My pleasure to facilitate and to share Holly Minch’s framework with other bootcampers. While I can’t attach an image I took of our white board, here’s a link to a post about using Holly’s framework, for our reference: http://networksguide.wikispaces.com/4-6+Creating+shared+language+and+talking+about+networks+and+network+impact

      Re: Eugene’s comment below, had we had more time I think it would have been beneficial to try crafting a message BEFORE sharing the framework (despite the urge to talk theory first). In fact, even the ORDER in which I presented the framework mattered—it influenced how both Dana and I started crafted our messaging, which was entirely different from Eugene (we started with the “ask,” he began with the “vision”). I’ll definitely take his suggestion into account next time I design a learning exercise.

      A couple more things I learned about messaging in the course of the bootcamp: it’s totally an iterative process; the channel matters (email vs. in-person), especially for me because I have little patience for crafting (or reading) long email messages; and having a narrowly defined audience and ask is very important.

      • Eugene Eric Kim 4:23 pm on December 20, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        I “liked” your comment already @jessausinheiler, but I just had to add how much I love these insights. Thanks for sharing!

  • Eugene Eric Kim 4:22 pm on December 13, 2013 Permalink |  

    Many thanks again to @jessausinheiler for organizing and facilitating a bootcamp this past Tuesday! So great to see everyone there! @brooking, sorry you couldn’t make it, and hoping you’re feeling better!

    Some quick thoughts on the session:

    • I loved being a participant! 🙂
    • I think Jess’s choice to do an hour-long checkin exercise up-front was a good one. It’s been over a month since we’ve all seen each other, and it was a great way to check in on our respective projects. It also shows the value of doing these things regularly. An hour-long checkin doesn’t leave much time for workouts, and I’ve found that my more involved workouts tend to require at least 90 minutes. Regular meetings mean shorter checkins.
    • I liked the messaging exercise. Jess chose to do it in a more classic explain-the-framework-first approach, which worked fine. I happen to like that framework a lot. And, I’d love to challenge any of you to redesign the exercise more bootcamp-style: practice first, then framework (if at all).

    Finally, this was another great reminder for me about the value of practice. I’ve been doing variations of these same exercises for my projects, but repeating them — especially with a community of peers — provided new value and helped me move forward in concrete ways. So thank you again!

     
    • Eugene Chan 4:28 pm on December 13, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Agreed on all points!

      And an open invitation to all Bootcampers (any cohort): we are looking at January 14th 3 to 5 as the next date/time for our community of practice. Location to be determined, but you are invited to join.

      @eekim: if there are bootcamp exercise patterns, it would be good to see them listed somewhere on the site.

      • Eugene Eric Kim 4:32 pm on December 13, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Thanks for posting about January 14! I am definitely planning on documenting patterns. And, I would be delighted if all of you shared patterns you’ve observed as well. 🙂

    • Avatar photo

      Brooking 2:20 am on December 18, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Hey all sorry I missed it, I am still recovering a bit it’s been an epic lil sickness… was really bummed to miss the chance to re-convene. I’ve got Jan 14th on my calendar! -Brooking

      • Eugene Eric Kim 2:44 pm on December 18, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        No worries, @brooking. Ugh — sorry to hear you’re still sick. Glad you’ll be able to join on January 14, especially since I think you’ll be running the workout. 😉

  • Eugene Eric Kim 5:47 pm on November 23, 2013 Permalink |
    Tags:   

    Here’s a related, but divergent followup to the world’s largest comment I left in response to @brooking’s questions. While I was pulling up links to some of my stories, I found some other posts that strongly color how I think about online tools and their role in collaboration.

    Here’s one on differentiating engagement from artifact. Here’s one on stigmergy (i.e. leaving trails).

    Here’s a 12-minute slidecast I put together three years ago that pulls together these different topics:

    As always, feedback encouraged!

     
    • Jessica 8:17 pm on November 25, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      A quick point about engaging busy people in response to @brooking and @eekim, via an anectode: I was at the airport and felt compelled to answer your conversation thread. I tried for 10 minutes to log in via iPhone, but finally got frustrated and gave up. It may be obvious, but it’s so much easier when friends ping you in a way that’s easy to respond. Technology is getting there, but there are still plenty of barriers.

      Eugene, how do sites like https://mural.ly/ change your perception of online vs. in-person engagements? I’m thinking about taking a systems class at Worscester Polytechnic Institute, and was told that the school has “quite a vibrant online community”… I’ll report back on what I learn re: best practices for getting people to actually and meaningfully engage online.

      Jess

      • Eugene Eric Kim 11:15 pm on November 25, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        It’s not obvious, @jessausinheiler. An amazing number of people do not pay attention to things like login usability — including online retailers, whose businesses depend on these sorts of things.

        I did a collective visioning project last year with several Alameda-based arts organizations, and we wanted to use a blog for participants to share their thoughts online. We picked Tumblr for a variety of reasons, and then we sat some participants down in front of it and asked them to log in and post something. It was brutal. No one could figure out how to log in without our help.

        These were not stupid people. They were just normal. Online tools require a mental model that does not map to what most normal people understand. The notion of online identity is particularly broken.

        When these things crop up, you don’t just give up, but you do have to get real about expectations. This is where a lot of people get tripped up. They don’t adjust.

        When I started working on the Delta Dialogues (@dana’s bootcamp project), @rapetzel and I mapped out a strategy for how we might integrate online tools. We ended up doing two things: We had a project blog that was public, and we implemented a buddy system for people to interact with each other however they chose — phone, face-to-face, etc. — between meetings. We shared artifacts from the meeting as printable PowerPoints (although we also published them online for transparency purposes). We did not try to implement some kind of online tool system so that people could interact between meetings, although I had originally thought we might go in that direction in Phase 2. I didn’t think our participants would be ready for it, and we had too many other priorities.

        As it turned out, our participants were even less ready than I thought they would be. Several of our participants (mostly government officials) had their secretaries print out their emails so they could read them, which made sending links completely useless. One of the participants shared his email account with his wife.

        So our strategy ended up being a good one, but it was not easy. For whatever reason, I find that people still have a lot of trouble getting why we approached things this way and how they might proceed moving forward. This is a common problem, not just with the Delta Dialogues, but with just about every project I’ve been involved with. It’s why I find the physical thought experiment so useful. If you imagine a special room where people could interact, but only if they figured out a puzzle lock that on average on 10 percent of participants even had the patience to try, what kind of engagement should you realistically expect, and how might you modify your design as a result?

        Given all this, Jess, how do tools like mural.ly change your perception of online vs face-to-face engagement? 🙂

    • Jessica 6:13 am on December 5, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      It really depends on the length of the engagement and my goals.

      So, an unlikely but extreme example, if the group was a global group of people who’s only chance of accomplishing their goals, given the budget, was to communicate virtually, I’d probably make a really big investment to teach them how to use the tool. For example, at the kickoff meeting I might organize a simulation exercise where people have to post / respond / comment on the site in real time, in pairs or triads, so they learn how to use the site together and from each other’s mistakes–and so they get a sense of how valuable of a tool it can be. Between bi-annual meetings, on a predictable/regular basis, I might post questions on the site (or have people take turns posting questions) that participants have 24-48 hours to respond to, to keep the momentum going. (In Murally this might mean posting an idea that others can build and comment on.)

      Is fun, instructive, collaborative up-front investment… and then time-bound, regular, predictable, valuable virtual engagement periods… really enough though?

      I pun it to other changemakers.

  • Eugene Eric Kim 4:04 pm on November 12, 2013 Permalink |  

    Hope everyone had a good Veteran’s Day weekend! I posted @jessausinheiler’s exit interview yesterday. @dana’s goes up tomorrow, and @brooking’s next week.

    http://changemakerbootcamp.com/2013/11/11/exit-interview-jessica-ausinheiler/

     
  • Eugene Eric Kim 12:55 am on November 9, 2013 Permalink |  

    It was a fun little group dynamics exercise for me to watch you all talk about the possibility of continuing to meet, actually picking a date, and then exploring what you might want to do together on that date. Rather than simply enjoy the exercise in silence, I thought I’d also try to contribute something useful. 🙂

    First, my meta-observations: @jessausinheiler showed a lot of leadership in not only proposing a date, but also by making an offer. To me, that was classic do-acracy. @brooking showed a lot of leadership in committing to the date, then advocating for her interests. When there was conflict around what to do on the 10th, Brooking then showed skill by noting that there wasn’t shared clarity around what all of the individual goals were for continuing to meet.

    There’s a spectrum of ways to get that clarity. On the one hand, you can have a discussion, get all of your interests on a table, then try to come to consensus on a meeting goal and design for the 10th. On the other hand, you can let the person who organizes decide. If people aren’t interested in following, they won’t come.

    I would lean towards the “let the organizer decide” part of the spectrum. And, I’d like to step out of the observer role to make a suggestion and an offer.

    I would like to see two things happening at scale. First, I’d like to see people doing workouts on their own. Second, I’d like to see people doing “jam sessions” on their own. By jam sessions, I mean coming together and practicing by playing. That could mean making up the workout on the fly, or it could mean having one person pick the progression they want to try playing.

    One of the things on my list to do is to create “workout cards,” so that people can easily download and do these workouts on their own. I’ve started doing some of this to support @anna341bc and @lauren, but I want to push them all out sooner rather than later.

    I’d encourage you all to commit to meeting for five weeks, not just one. Since Jess organized the first session, I’d let her decide what she wants to do. She may choose to solicit input, or she may choose to do her own thing. Since Brooking has shown strong interest in a specific experiment, I’d let her have the second session.

    The rest of you can pick the remaining days. If you’d like to use one of my workouts, let me know, and I’ll prioritize pushing out the appropriate workout card.

    Finally, my offer to all of you is: 1. to come to all five sessions as a participant rather than a facilitator; and 2. to offer support and feedback for anyone who’d like help designing a session.

    How does that sound?

     
    • Jessica 4:35 pm on November 18, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

      Eugene, I think my reply to your comment here got lost in the shuffle…

      …maybe I can solicit your and @marie and @eekim ‘s help in turning @marie ‘s “narrowing” challenge into our next bootcamp exercise (yes team … I’m “it”):

      1. Using a deck of “calling cards” by Richard Leider. The deck of cards showcase various “callings” (e.g., thinking critically, connecting to others, writing) and requires you to quickly identify what your core interests are. Would it be interesting to go through an exercise of narrowing down a set of skills to think about what you might be passionate and/or good at? (I have a sense that @brooking might have done this before)

      2. As part of a community of practice of which I was a part, we had Holly Minch present a “persuation framework” (see this link: http://networksguide.wikispaces.com/4-6+Creating+shared+language+and+talking+about+networks+and+network+impact) that helps you think about crafting highly targeted/relevant messages.

      Does anyone have a particularly negative reaction to either of these two?
      @impact hub? @eekim and @marie, you interested in helping a changemaker create a workout around either one of these?

      • Eugene Eric Kim 1:05 am on November 22, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Responded here.

      • Avatar photo

        Brooking 11:22 pm on November 24, 2013 Permalink | Log in to Reply

        Belated reply but Jess I am totally down and excited to do this calling card thing in our 1st session!

  • Eugene Eric Kim 3:33 pm on November 8, 2013 Permalink |  

    Fun, fun, fun to see bootcampers — old and new — pop onto the water cooler this week! I had a long day yesterday that was packed with meetings, but it was re-energizing to peek here afterward and see all of this activity!

    My exit interview with @eugenechan is now up:

    http://changemakerbootcamp.com/2013/11/08/exit-interview-eugene-chan/

    I’ll post @jessausinheiler and @dana’s next week and @brooking’s the week after.

     
c
Compose new post
j
Next post/Next comment
k
Previous post/Previous comment
r
Reply
e
Edit
o
Show/Hide comments
t
Go to top
l
Go to login
h
Show/Hide help
shift + esc
Cancel