Facilitating Change

As promised, here is Part 2 of my report from Webcamp Montreal. Again, only the shiny stuff…

If you recall, we were talking about conversations and community.

A community has to have:
1. une memoire / a memory
2. des sujets communs / shared topics

I relate to the idea of a shared memory. I met a fellow Franco-Ontarian this summer and was surprised to hear from him the same stories and perceptions that I had passed down to me in my family. Things given to you and taken in without thought, like milk. (Lots of it, unfortunately, I define now as a victim mentality. Topic for another post.) We had a shared narrative of the past and a clear sense of “the issues” — immediately understood. But as to whether or not a community has to have these things. Well, I’ll have to think on that. Certainly it needs boundaries, even permeable ones. Isn’t that the task of a facilitator? To moderate and maintain the boundaries of a discussion so that together we can achieve something or get somewhere?

Then talk switched to the overload of conversation. And to whether or not we are just building ourselves bigger echo chambers. There’s a need to organize. For better filters to handle the overload. As the number of books became overwhelming we developed the dewey decimal system. What will it be now?

Mitch (I think) said the next big trend is that each blog is its own social network. There was agreement that people are less interested in “me” blogs and more interested in content that is about community. Beyond the self. Blogs are becoming magazines. (My vision for this blog was always that it would have a number of contributors writing about how to change the world. Damn! And I thought I was running with my own idea. But, once more, simply being carried along by a wave that is bigger than me.)

Then we went back to this idea of limiting, filtering, and defining communities. The best communities, someone said, limit the number of participants. They set rules or at least find a way to put in filters so that people with similar interests can find each other.

Sylvain mentioned that his kids are not at all in email. They go where their friends are: to msn, facebook.

Then my mind started wandering and I started thinking about serendipity. Wondering can you define it as openness to the unexpected, for what we’re were not looking for.

Ohhhh. There’s more. About Quebec’s Digital Plan. But Steve just called and we’re going out to supper now so I’m gonna have to tell you the rest later. Part 3 here we come!