Replying to LO24759 --
Rick, you've certainly stirred things up with your message, and triggered
some interesting reflective commentary. I suggested to you, in an offline
message a while back, a Web-based online medium called the WikiWiki Web,
as a supplement to the mailing list. (Readers of this list may be
interested in the SystemEnvisioning WikiWiki Web starting at
http://c2.com:8040/FrontPage . There are several other such Webs; the
original one is devoted to software topics centered around, but not
limited to, the application of Christopher Alexander's Design Patterns to
software). As a contribution to this topic (crisis? bifurcation?), I'd
like to enlarge on that suggestion.
What I hope to accomplish with this message is to seed a "second-loop"
dialogue about the way the list works, the wants and needs of the
participants, and the various possibilities for electronic communication
aside from the list. If you will, I'd like us to engage in some
observation and fruitful speculation before we get to the falsification
phase. I'd also like to encourage my fellow learners here to hang in, for
at least a while, to engage and enrich the dialogue. (It might be worth
revisiting topics from the Fifth Discipline and the Fieldbook again, as
guides to keeping the dialogue productive -- "increasing the light to heat
ratio", as some engineers like to say.)
Obviously, there are many diverse interests that have drawn people to this
list, and have been served better or worse as the content varied over the
months and years. I've been a bit bemused by those who complained about
the list being monopolized, as though it were a conversation where only
one person can speak at a time. While that's not literally true here
(there's always the "delete" function), apparently there is a kind of
psychological truth to it, which I don't in any way denigrate. In fact, I
find it rather fascinating as a characteristic of this evolving medium of
communication. Would someone like to try explicating this characteristic?
Here's another question that might help the discussion: in what way is the
LO list (or a thread on the list) like or unlike an Open Space event? I'm
fascinated by the connections with the Open Space principles:
1. Whoever comes is the right people
2. Whatever happens is the only thing that could have
3. Whenever it starts is the right time
4. When it is over, it is over
... and the well-named "Law of Mobility": if persons find themselves in
situations where they are neither learning anything or contributing
anything, they are responsible for moving to another place, for example to
another group meeting. (I copied these from the web site
www.openspacetechnology.com; Rick can probably supply other good
references.)
Also, I encourage folks to bring up other possible ways of online
communicating. I know it's been frustrating for Rick to hold to the
"least common denominator" and stick to simple text email, avoiding
pictures, rich text, attachments, etc. I applaud you, Rick, for
maintaining this discipline, but I would ask folks on the list to weigh in
on this: who would be left out if the LO forum began to include some of
the richer forms of communication? Are there ways of overcoming these
limitations, perhaps through some combination of cooperative assistance
and creative software?
I don't want to turn even more folks off this list by consuming a lot of
bandwidth in communication and software details (although my inner techie
would love it!), but I think some discussion of requirements and desires
and ways and means will be helpful.
More importantly, I'd love to see this become something like a "project"
in which we can all pull together, however lively the disagreements get
regarding the details. (Here's a "stretching exercise" to try: think of
the person on this list whose messages you've liked least. Maybe re-read
some of his/her messages to refresh your image of that person. Now, take
a moment to respect that person: recognize him/her as a sincere
participant here, deserving of as much consideration by the rest of us as
yourself or anyone else. For extra credit, read that person's
contributions over time, to get a sense of his/her becoming.)
Best regards to all; I've really enjoyed getting to know everyone on the
list.
[Host's Note: Wiki is a pretty interesting technology idea, and I've had
some fun in limited experiments with Wiki. ..Rick]
--Don Dwiggins "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who d.l.dwiggins@computer.org survive; the 'learned' find themselves fully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." -- Eric Hoffer
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