Dear John and all

Once upon a time when I Joined AACORN I joined because I was looking for conversation, challenging debate and artistic expression on aesthetics and arts-informed learning in the workplace (more specifically for myself, on that nebulous subject of leadership). My interest is triadic - connecting the arts with leadership theory with leadership practice. I want to get into the detail, the grain of sand, beyond explorations towards robust dialogue with other people who are involved in similar work. 'We' have journeyed some way already on this subject and yet standing at this outcrop I see an enormous landscape ahead still waiting to be travelled. So I would like to put into the cooking pot some more food for thought.

Another online forum that I belong to has evolved an excellent model for this kind of robust dialogue. It is a study forum where two or three times a year someone (or a group) are invited to initiate dialogue on an agreed subject by writing a short provocative discussion paper to which any member can respond. This discussion is time limited (i.e. running for 6 weeks) and it is generative - always heading off in rivers of unimaginable courses and generating other threads of discussion. The formal dialogues are archived and become accessible in their complete form to members for future reference. Members also spontaneously generate their own questions and debate (as AACORN has done in the past), which keep the group alive; streams that sometimes turn into rivers, other times dissipate quickly. The formal dialogues seem to have shaped a way of working that is highly respected in this forum - and of course it is not without its problems, but these are aired online within the forum. This is a group of about 200-250 members. It is managed and that does take time and makes a difference. I have found this forum and this way of working inspirational and would welcome something similar in AACORN.

Sue Congram
(UK, researching a PhD on leadership and the role of active imagination in leadership learning, at Cardiff University)

www.suecongram.co.uk





On 30 Nov 2007, at 03:46, John Churchley wrote:

It seems to me that we’re discussing two different issues:
 
Issue #1:  Developing an on-line community to discuss and share our interests in organizational aesthetics/artful management.  Do we stick with the listserv or continue to try new things?
 
I’ve already expressed my feelings on this topic.  However, at the risk of repeating myself, I’m going to quote myself verbatim from an earlier email about some other on-line communities that I’ve tried to build (some of which  included wikis):
 
To make a long story short, it [the on-line community]  didn’t work…  A few key ideas:
1.       Despite a reasonably user-friendly interface and LOTS of opportunities for collaborative input, nobody contributed….even the same people who were intensely excited to find each other at a face-to-face meeting wouldn’t “post the time of day” on the website.
2.       I found many other such communities that didn’t work….including one for all of the school district IT managers in our province…apparently they like listservs better….and they’re the most tech-savvy group around – they like computers!
3.       It appears that very few on-line communities survive without ever-changing, “viral” content, and a critical mass of “connected” contributors (that contribute frequently).
 
Further evidence is our forum (which didn’t work), the blog (which didn’t work), and the Ning that Laurene set-up (which didn’t work…if you don’t mind me saying so, Lauree, there’ve been no posts for a year).  The Ning was probably the best Web 2.0 thing we’ve ever tried as it HAS a calendar, user-created profiles, photo sharing, blogs, forums, the whole enchilada!   Perhaps our communication and our community per se is OK by listserv and face-to-face conferences.  However, this leads me to …
 
Issue #2: Is there the possibility of doing something new and collaborative that ISN’T the generic and unfocussed discussion/sharing of an on-line community? 
 
Community is process.  A Wiki is a product.  It just happens to get built by a community.  The Wikipedia is one - corporate intranet project wikis are also often products, with a specific focus. 
 
What I’m suggesting here is that a wiki that is a PRODUCT of our collaborative efforts might just be something new that we want to make.  The question, then, is not about the process of getting people to collaborate or the technical means to do it.  The question should be WHAT do we want to create? ( in a Wiki that is separate from our listserv communication as a community):
-          A “Wikipedia” of organizational aesthetics?  (although, given the number of books on the subject – many written by AACORN members, this may be redundant or too big)
-          A recipe book of artistic strategies/processes for organizational development (although this might infringe too much on the intellectual property and livelihood of practitioners)
-          A gallery of organizational and leadership metaphors – visual, aural, text, etc.
-          One giant multimedia collaborative organizational/leadership metaphoric piece of art
-          The libretto, music, costumes, design, and artistic direction of an opera about a waif-like artist in an anaesthetic organization….sort of a Puccini   Scènes de l’organisation de Bohème We can then produce it in Banff.   This is maybe too silly an idea, but then again, maybe not.  My point is that we, the “creativity people”, need to get creative and make some art together!
-          ??
 
Those are my suggestions to start the creative ideas flowing.  Are there other suggestions for a focused product that would BE the wiki that we create?
 
John Churchley
 
PS: Ken, my apologies for bad listserv manners earlier!