OrcNotes

I came into the call late. We have

1 David Wilcox 4 Dennis Hamilton 2 Denise 12 Nancy White 3 Bill Anderson

and Bill is looking at team identifications and how one needs a way to psychologically identify with a team and something else. Practical values of that are discussed. Separating to make up teams, and also for competitive (play) purposes.

Establishing policies for dealing with blog situations maybe we could dig into. Bill had an example about a blog post where he described his problem in upgrading blog software.

Nancy points out advocacy mode is about being right and convincing another of ones position.

Bill talked about comments that don't forward something.

Nancy question about when is it worth it to comment?

Denise talks about when she would have let someone have it for being off base, especially as a representative of the company that makes the product being discussed.

Bill had some thoughts afterwards about being in direct communication to clear up how his problem was not being taken as a contribution back to Six Apart.

David Wilcox has a great example about collaborating with someone and stumbling on tools and figuring out what concerns are being acted on and how to gain alignment.

Nancy talks about how that could be dealt with, and that context matters all of the time and different negotiations come into play depending on all of the situation.

David comments about a David Snowden bit, and Nancy follows up.

Denise talks about how Koan maintains engagement all of the time. Comment responses get made by e-mail too and that can maintain a conversation.

Bill dropped the conversation after getting satisfaction with the product although not with the exchange that happened.

Dennis asks about closure and how does someone like Denise deal with not knowing if the customer's problem has been solved if they just go away?

Denise works really hard to make sure there is closure on a situation.

Nancy: what about on your personal conversations?

Denise, it depends. Talked about clarifying something with a commenter, but can't tell whether the commenter was satisfied or not, although the visitor continues to visit.

Another example from Denise: Saw someone blog about having trouble with the product she supports, and they now read each other's blogs, but the fellow declined to come over to the product forum and discuss it. Yet it was amicable. And they continue a non-professional blogging relationship.

Nancy: So, showing willingness can build trust and a relationship.

Denise: Yes. I do that ... and talks about being careful not to neglect or flame someone.

Nancy: Making notes on the ICQ about practices that are coming out of this discussion.

David: Discussing about relationship of volunteer groups to sponsoring organizations and how the recipients of the donated time are providing much support. What are behaviors as users to obtain an improved relationship.

Nancy: Asks whether the sponsor really wants advisors or are they doing it because they are supposed to?

Discussion about how the sponsor brought the advisors in late and already have done what they want done. A concern that David has is that the way the advisory group is treated is indicative of the way other constituents are dealt with.

Nancy offers some advice around fierce conversations and other ways of recognizing discord and addressing it.

Nancy: In a blog environment, as opposed to a discussion-board environment, there is the owner of the blog and everyone else. Is it possible to facilitate the conversation in or between bogs?

Nancy in response to Bill, sees the conversation within a blog and also ping-ponging between blogs.

Dennis commented on where he has been an intervener as a commentor and also as an observer of how a blogger handles what comments to respond to and always only respond to the affirmative.

David has a great discussion about how to practice with aggressive behavior and learn how to respond to it.

Nancy talks about being a provocateur as her persona, "Jane," that she uses in discussion groups.

Interesting ideas about setting up a blog experiment. Nancy and Bill are interested in what a little social science experiment could provide about this.

Us/Them Call 4 IRC Chat Notes

§	Dig a little deeper into the issues.

§	When is it helpful to just do it (Individual moves forward w/out group "approval" ) and when is it not helpful

§	Back to work and training Bill has done/had in group relations. Psychoanalytical perspective. There are ways in which groups need to organize and distinguish themselves.

§	The DARPA race last week (robot automobile) - competitive team sports. Hard to compete with others if you totally identify with others. To compete you separate yourself in some way.

§	Other situations where that is not helpful. Xerox. Projects not going well... software blame hardware. A kind of separating us from them. Scapegoating and blaming.

§	So separating us from them has an ongoing set of functional roles in our lives

§	Personally, Bill is in the world, looking out, a personal experience that is different from others. Can feel close and share a lot of experiences as well. Wondering...

§	In talking about the kinds of conversations in blogs, the unhappy interactions we've had in blogs, if we could dig a bit more deeply beyond one person's strategy or policy for their own blog or behavior.

§	Should we look at the pluses and minuses of separating us? Is there more to dig into that policies and practices.

§	Misunderstanding is one place where separation occurs

§	Defense and offence is one style. Rather than exploring the other person's thinking.

§	(Reference: Ladder of Inference, Template for Critical Conversations)

§	When is it worth it?

§	When is it worth throwing in a monkey wrench? When is it worth trying to look at the wrench and what it might mean?

§	What about responses that aren't useful: "it worked for me" (in response to posting a software problem) or "it's all in the documentation"

§	What do we do with those?

§	Customer support

§	Does anyone deserve our meanness?

§	People speaking from different worlds. A) How do you identify we are coming from different worlds then B) how do we communicate between those worlds.

§	The need to understand how different people are and what their preferences are.

§	Some people will just say "read the manual" because that is how they see it. Others jump in an mess around without the manual. Some take to collaborative online working environments, others don't.

§	David working on a small team putting together a proposal. Some have known/worked for 25 years. Some known for a while, some for not a long time. Coming at it from different backgrounds: consulting, lobbying/advocacy. Some tools put to use like wiki, another moves it all to a word doc. Is it because he doesn't like the application or because he wanted to take more control of the editing process. Others add comments into his document. How do you sort this out on a telephone or online?

§	learning and work preferences? is it about control? or ...

§	Context matters

§	it really does

§	For teams, negotiating agreements is critical. For blogs, that level of discourse may be worthless.

§	conversations are the narrative

§	Snowden quote about context. We don't write down a lot of what is in a narrative.

§	Go to phone. Go to F2F

§	What is our goal going in to something? To simply be responsive, or to really get into conversation.

§	Koan - when she posts a comment, she also emails it to you so you know there is a response. She replies in blog and in email. Raises the accessibility and visibility of the "conversation." Two channel response.

§	Public and private

§	(If you have software that enables you to see their email)

§	So again, WHEN is it worth going to the trouble of getting to understanding?

§	Dennis lets people know when he has had a successful customer response. As a practice. But there is not a moral obligation to participate or be engaged.

§	When do we think there needs to be closure? When is it ok to leave it hanging?

§	Denise trys hard to get closure. In her professional host role...

§	Denise works hard to get closure. WebMD weight-loss clinic. Message boards are the locus of customer service

§	In an online forum, the hosts are the customer service. If people aren't satisfied they will cancel. Lose money. So works hard at it

§	In her personal blog --- it depends. Had a post about RU486. A month later someone came in with a semi-negative reply. Responded in blog post. No response from commentor. Tried to draw them out - no response, so let it go.

§	So a practice is how we make the invitation for engagement.

§	In F2F there is closure, even if someone chooses not to say anything further. Fatblogger. He joined with a free trial for weightloss clinic. Denise has a search. Found his blog post with a problem. Invited him to come to forums for assistance. Denise and he now have a great blog relationship, but no discussion of weightloss clinic. He knows D works for and tried to assist, but he chose not to take up the offer. D thinks he appreciated that because he still visits her personal blog every day. She did "more than required."

§	So showing effort may be a way to build trust and relationship, even if it doesn't resolve a current issue.

§	Practice: Demonstrate willingness to engage.

§	Practice: create an invitation for engagement that people might accept

§	Practice: make sure a blog message gets heard by emailing it to the poster

§	David using Basecamp message-boards

§	David: in a project advisory group. Project set up a message board o Basecamp. People in teh group are saying to hosts, can we have some proper hosting here, can you put up the resources needed. Not getting good service. This is voluntary. The others are a local authority with resources to run the project. We do separate emails. We call them up. But not getting a level of service from the people to whom we are donating time.

§	What behaviors are helpful in getting positive responses.

§	Do they want your advice or are you a "check off" item.

§	It is about creating an online/offline application for community campaigning, provided by a public body.

§	By the time the advisory group got in to operations, the application was already created. So probably a tick box. Or they don't know what to do with us.

§	They are displaying the behaviors to us are exactly the same they will display to community groups. Not good!

§	Trying to avoid telling them they are acting like crap.

§	Maybe the advisory board or part of it should take it on.

§	Complaining or acting out is a symptom of something worth exploring.

§	`us and them created by who can be F2F and who can't

§	When do we respond to our urge to facilitate? When to stay back.

§	What is the function of the host role that helps catalyze action.

§	Is it possible to facilitate questions in and between blogs.

§	Blog conversations: in comments of one blog post OR links among several blogs

§	the mis-understanding gap"

§	Can you step in as a neutral voice in a blog conversation and offer some level of facilitation rather than advocacy?

§	Is this wise? useful? Welcome?

§	Does it diffuse the heat AND the conversation ... piffling off to nothing

§	Does this expose the blog owner's behavior.

§	One blogger only posts affirmative comments. If he gets enough affirmative responses, he makes a new post. So he goes and generates the next post based on an asset model, rather than a deficiency model.

§	This is an example of the blogger taking a facilitatative approach. Rather than an external facilitator.

§	We take comments from people with whom we have a relationship differently than those who we don't "know" in some way.

§	Context matters: blogs within an overall community. employee blogs, totally separate blogs linked only by shared interest

§	How do we say sorry. How do we make reparations?

§	Dennis has asked people to tone down cross blog sniping by commenting. They don’t like it, but they do tone it down. SO turning a mirror on people so they know how their interaction is being perceived.

§	Work with conflict scenarios as a practice exercise.

§	Nancy does this in her online facilitation workshop - anonymous user Jane who comes in and messes with a particular conversation.

§	Could we do this in blogs?

§	Before written response, can you negotiate what you want to accomplish? How to take your own temperature.

§	Lets set up a blog with conflict for an experimental situation.

§	Look at minimicrosoft blogger at MSFT

§	Ethics anyone?

§	A transparent experiment, not a veiled experiment

§	built a simulation

§	As a training activity with particular boundaries.

§	Role play

§	some cool stuff here