Call Three Plans

Nancy and Bill are both just crazed this week. We want to be thoughtful when we do this and neither of us have the mental bandwidth to prepare thoughtfully.


 * Wed the 21st 11am PDT/2pm EDT
 * Call recording: http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WPlWNrBQ

Topics? A couple of things have come up.
 * Identity
 * Us and Them and Katrina
 * Other possibilities? Seeing "them"? (See http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/2005/09/10/change-starts-at-home/) Your ideas?
 * I like this. I also recommend the recent David Wilcox posts on "participation." Billorcmid
 * Being "them"? (just a riff by Bill on the previous thought)
 * I was just raising this question with someone: Have you ever noticed that, when we respond from anger, indignation, and other accusatory attributions about "them," we are being just like those we are judging? It must be a Zen / Karma thing.  Billorcmid

Let us know. Chime in!

Nancy & Bill

Thanks for inviting me ... I'll be there. Can you please refresh me on the focus? If it is us and them, one I'm looking at now is that there lot's of stuff for professional trainers and facilitators, online and off, but not much for participants http://partnerships.typepad.com/civic/2005/09/time_for_a_part.html

Whose side are we on -the people who pay us, or the people we claim to benefit?

I felt a little of this in the burningbird exchanges. Lots about who should or shouldn't speak, little about what it was like for the audience. However, very difficult to contribute comfortably.

David

2005-09-19: two pieces on WNYC (New York Public Radio) this morning brought up some us/them ideas:

1. talk about the "gossip is good" article in a recent NYTimes Science section. Interview with one of the researchers (biologist & anthropologist) yielded the idea that since we all gossip it must have an evolution aspect to it. I had a hard time connecting those dots. And I always thought that "gossip" refers to the kind of hearsay and rumors that has serious consequences for people. Now we have good and bad gossip, or responsible and irresponsible gossip. How does this help us?

2. a HR training consultant talked about how groups must adopt an "us/them" attitude just to be a group.

I wonder how much "us" and "them" is needed for a group focused on a specific work task, rather than identity attributes.

And what worries me most is that these discussions seem to be saying that, yes, we behave badly, but it's only human. So that's OK?

-Bill

-->|	koanbremner (n=koan@212.84.101.188 * ) has joined #usthem  parts of her. Blog, later, in between. still have a hard time try9ing to figure out "who the hell I am." Moderatory type? Me?  http://ourfounder.typepad.com   ourselves.
 * IRC Notes
 * Nancy	hey
 * band_ 	hey u did it
 * band_ 	Jim, did you get the e-mail i sent yesterday?
 * jimbenson 	Yes
 * jimbenson 	grabbing it now
 * band_ 	OK, just checking; my= e-mail list wasn't complete
 * band_ 	just a reminder that, if you want to, you should be able to munge around in the wiki
 * band_ 	or is that "on" the wiki
 * jimbenson 	Yep
 * jimbenson 	And that people on GMT (our participants in space) may have been an hour off
 * band_ 	yeah, I thought I just straightened that out with David Wilcox.
 * band_ 	The folks in London are actually at GMT+1 during daylight savings time
 * band_ 	I'm going to try to connect via Skype for this call
 * band_ 	if that doesn't work I'll use the POTS
 * jimbenson 	Hi Nancy
 * Nancy	hello
 * Nancy	Jim's birthday in a week!
 * Nancy	Bill reintroduces the clock!
 * Nancy	We have Koan, Grace, Debra, Jim, David, Ed, Denise
 * Nancy	Nancy
 * Nancy	Seems like a theme that everyone is busy/crazy!
 * Nancy Ed is sitting in front of a cuppa coffee at a diner. Oldest starting Kindergarden. Cleaning house (COME CLEAN MINE!)
 * Nancy	"Discardia"
 * Nancy	Trips to Portugal
 * Nancy	Projects from Hell
 * Nancy	Discardia songs!
 * jimbenson 	need more IRC attendance
 * Nancy	I'll remind folks
 * Nancy	Hurricane relief (YAY GRACE)
 * Nancy	Developing a non profit
 * Nancy	Rita, beware. Kitchen Table Relief on a roll!
 * Nancy	Works = simplicity
 * Nancy	Solutions come to us in Dreams
 * Nancy	Jet lag sucks
 * Nancy	Volunteering is great
 * Nancy	Move to texas. yahooo!
 * Nancy	Identity, language, riffing off the swearing conversation lat time
 * Nancy	assumptions
 * Nancy	Some of us disclose deliberately on our webpages
 * Nancy	Some of us don't have a lot of "identity" material posted
 * Nancy	Journalistic perspective - well crafted pieces, that may not show too much identity
 * Nancy	Hi Koanx
 * koanbremner 	hi all!
 * Nancy	Davids old blog: Designing Civil Society. Then Partnerships Online - biz identity - behave in a different way. Pulled in different directions.
 * Nancy	Denise has this problem every single day as a community moderator. People see just that face. Not all there is!
 * Nancy	When moving to a new setting, hard time connecting the different
 * Nancy	Negative feedback when people aren't getting the side they expected.
 * Nancy	Persona
 * Nancy	Linear nature of blogs - you can give things different categories, people see the most recent thing which is just a snapshot.
 * Nancy	Initial face typecasts.
 * Nancy	How to present a balanced picture or to compartmentalize aspects conveniently.
 * Nancy	Online presence compared to F2F presence? What kind of reaction
 * Nancy	For Grace, really gratifying. Pick up conversations, immediately dive in. Extraordinary friendships. The blog is access to ones heart. (Hearth)
 * Nancy	Denise has met more than 200 people in person first met online. They immediately say you are just like this, then to something else, they are surprised.
 * Nancy	People read into your posts what they want to hear. Or absorb the parts of it that they want to absorb
 * Nancy	People ignore what they want to ignore
 * Nancy	Pre blog versions of this - mailing lists & usenet - the identity you construct on any given mailing list is as much a unique and faceted perspective of yourself as you do on your blog. Many identities for each online world you live in. If you are lucky they mesh.
 * Nancy	Ed sends regular email about his kids - that side is not on most other mailing lists.
 * Nancy	Hard to see, understand how others see us. Looking out. Don't know what looking in sees.
 * Nancy	Interaction gives some sense of how others see you.
 * Nancy	How much would personal context support more productive blog communications?
 * Nancy	Personality type stuff - does it influence your online presence?
 * Nancy	How does our identity shift over time - by life experiences, choices, etc.
 * Nancy	Managing/defining identity.
 * Nancy	Choices about compartmentalizing on/off. Some of us don't have the bandwidth to separate.
 * band_ 	Jim, what
 * band_ 	jim, what's your blog link?
 * Nancy	I have noticed that Jim has unfolded different layers of himself over time. And we've met F2F!
 * Nancy	http://ourfounder.typepad.com/leblog/
 * Nancy	Staying on topic may hide different elements of our personalities
 * Nancy	Work persona - political - personal - all sorts of public faces
 * Nancy	Sometimes we are in the role of presenting views that are not our own. Online too
 * Nancy	"presenting a topic"
 * jimbenson
 * Nancy	http://www.soundbag.com/musictest/default.asp
 * jimbenson 	that's just the music
 * Nancy	People make assumptions based on one bit of info or face we show
 * Nancy	I know, Jim, but to me, it is part of you!
 * jimbenson 	:)
 * Nancy	(And Iput your blog link above too! But that is what is interesting. There are these layers to each of us. Some of us share them, others don't)
 * Nancy	Once someone has "tagged "us on something, hard to extricate
 * Nancy	Hard to be a moderate in a polarized society
 * Nancy	Our issues get us slotted and quick into us them
 * Nancy	How do we avoid coming to conclusions with just these little snippets of information
 * Nancy	Intimacy gradient - what you will say to whom/context
 * Nancy	Present as neutral/moderate in big forum, let more of it out in private places.
 * Nancy	No blogging agreement in a discussion. "Please don't blog this" -a whole set of unwritten rules about, like journalist embargo.
 * Nancy	Be aware when we jump to judgement. (1)
 * Nancy	(2) Tell people our expectations of the discussion
 * Nancy	(3) Learning how to trust each other
 * Nancy	Us = Trust built over time, cemented by phone calls and chocolate
 * Nancy	Is Us/Them the right way to talk about this?
 * Nancy	Us/Them - feeling of exclusion
 * Nancy	Us/Them as a polarizing issue

Fear of Cliques. Cemented when people had conversations out side of the online forum. Everyone not a part worried about what they are excluded from. if you are going to have an online community, keep it all in. Transparency.
 * Nancy	People self categorize themselves as outsiders in online groups.
 * Nancy	Impact of the back channel - and the transparency of talking about it or not
 * band_ 	cliques happen; need to talk about them when they affect the group's work
 * Nancy	cliques can add to a community -- not all 'negative'
 * Nancy	Online blend w/ offline and how it creates a different experience
 * Nancy	public and private spaces
 * band_ 	exactly; but sometimes things need to be made visible
 * Nancy	we get labeled when we open our mouth (pen, keyboard)
 * jimbenson 	break point?

take a position but I will debate. Not fixed and inflexible. Don't like the role of devils advocate or facilitator, but there is a place for such a role. Glad folks like N and D are there to keep some of the conflicting personalities in check. Don't feel comfortable contributing in an online or distributed environment without taking ownership of what I'm saying. Won't discuss if I don't believe in them.
 * Nancy	Koan: I guess what I've bring to discussions, try to bring, I

online community have only been on blogs and some dalliances on X. Educational for a blogger. N of 1 going out to many, instead of hosting a bigger conversation beyond comments. Pleasure to listen.
 * Nancy	Grace: I have been doing a lot of listening. Experiences in

and most of you with professional identities what you bring to your blog, how it effects what you write. Sketching a really interesting drawing, called Us/Them and the intersection of our lives. Fascinating. Lines and arcs would come and go as people talked.
 * Nancy	Debra: struck a lot by the difference between personal bloggers


 * Nancy	Debra will photo and blog within a day.
 * Nancy	Jim: Noticed that on delicious there is no usthem tag. Would be nice if any conversation that leads to blog posts, we tag (idontknow tag Nancy has been using)
 * Nancy	Track conversation as it takes shape and impacts others out there not on the call.

identity. When a journalist, standing on the side of the readers. Now a blog and social software coach, standing on the side as people are their own creators. Figuring out whose side I am on and how I want to help or intervene.
 * Nancy	David: Reflecting on professional blogging role and personal

boil down the way too many years of random things picked up by google. To read paragraphs why someone might want to engage me to do work for them. Really hard process.
 * Nancy	Ed: Thinking hard about how I present myself online and how to

talked to a lot of people about. Cool to spill it all out there, hear what others had to say. Thinking about it quite a bit more. No solution. Helpful to talk about it.
 * Nancy	Denise: Really appreciated this topic today. Not something I've
 * Nancy	Nancy: didn't write what I said

like putting out. Interesting to discover how I want to present myself. Easy to wish to write or do like others. More of a challenge to find out what is there, not what ought to be there. That's it.
 * Nancy	Bill: Struggle with blog thing. Professional and whatever I feel

<--|	koanbremner has left #usthem 
 * Nancy	tag usthem were using idontknow, usthem more descriptive
 * Nancy	Shall we try to find time for another call. Yes, sure, yes, yes,
 * Nancy	Feel free to step up and take leadership.
 * band_ 	when in London?
 * band_ 	nancy let's talk after this
 * Nancy	Meeting ok
 * Nancy	gotta take bio break first
 * Nancy	I'll be in London Nov 6 - 12
 * band_ 	me too; talk in 5 minutes?
 * koanbremner 	cool!
 * band_ 	I'll be in Edinburgh Nov 20- 22; maybe stop in London is a good idea?
 * Nancy	yeah!
 * Nancy	ok, I'm back. Bill if you want to talk, I'm on Skype now
 * band_ 	OK getting headset
 * koanbremner 	bye, chaps!
 * band_ 	bye bye
 * jimbenson 	bye guys! thanks!
 * band_ 	jim, thanks for participating
 * Nancy	ciao