Community on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU - Michael Wesch

Welsch articules the phenomenon of Cultural Inversion:
We express individualism, independance and commercialization
We value community, relationships and authenticity

According to M Scott Peck (who wrote in the 80's and 90's - source wikipedia ) the process of conscious community building involves:
1) building a shared story
2) consensual decision making
3) respect for all individuals
4) inclusivity of difference

What do these have in common with the kind of community Welsch talks about on You Tube? Below are some thoughts that just begin to address the complexity.

Shared Story: There is definitely a shared story as people are building on what they see when when they remix and imitate each other's videos.

Respect for Individuals: There seems to be an implicit respect for individuals and inclusivity of difference. A lot of shared values are expressed. Yet the trend toward hatred as public performance that comes from anonymity of you tube may fly in the face of the value of respect. Yet in an age of scarcity of attention, response is a form of respect.

Consensual Decision Making: "decisions are reached by seeking a consensus among active leaders and avoiding conflict where possible." Community traditionally involves mutual influence and a sense of commitment to what the community perceives as the greater good. In You Tube, decisions are made individually as people decide which videos they like and want to copy or pass on. You Tube decisions are neither consensual nor binding but rather individualistic and allow conflict to live side-by-side.

Inclusivity of Difference: Has the same tensions as 'respect.'

Summary: You Tube offers connection without constraints which is a new kind of freedom. Recognition, which I see as a key human need, is often fulfilled in community. Have people been living in isolation so long they have forgotten the mutuality of communties? Or, is the word 'community' being re-defined (or lost) like the word "friend' on facebook? Will the You Tube Community go through the traditional stages of group formation "Formin, Storming, Normin, Performin? Either way, the "You Tube Community," as Welsh articulates, is asking us to look again at what is possible for 'community.'

Naava

Different Kinds of CoP Leaders

As we move into a new phase of development within the Kehilliyot CoP that I facilitate, we are beginning to recognize each other, the talents and strengths of our colleagues. There are many ways to lead in a CoP and we are seeing many of these emerge. Below is a description of the different kinds of leadership within a CoP from an article by Etienne Wenger and I have tried to apply it to the leaders emerging within Kehilliyot.

Internal leadership in communities http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/lss.shtml

The inspirational leadership provided by thought leaders and recognized experts
The day-to-day leadership provided by those who organize activities
The classificatory leadership provided by those who collect and organize information in order to document practices
The interpersonal leadership provided by those who weave the community's social fabric
The boundary leadership provided by those who connect the community to other communities
The institutional leadership provided by those who maintain links with other organizational constituencies, in particular the official hierarchy
The cutting-edge leadership provided by those who shepherd "out-of-the-box" initiatives.

This summer: Hayim Herring is providing inspirational leadership, Esther Brown and Gayle Bloom are providing classification leadership, Rebecca Egolf and Phil Liff-Grief are providing cutting-edge leadership, Stefanie Zelkind is providing institutional leadership and Marci Eisen is providing interpersonal leadership. And there are many others who provided this kind of leadership in past months.

Who are the leaders in your community? Do you recognize them? Do they recognize themselves? Do others recognize them?

Thank you to the Covenant Foundation for supporting this CoP and to the WikiUniversity Course on Online Facilitation for renewing my acquintaince with this article by Etienne Wenger

Learning - Facilitating Online Communities

My passion is learning. Facilitating the learning of others and my own learning. So I am jumping in headfirst - to the course on Facilitating Online Communities.

http://wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities

I have been working for the past 7 years facilitating Communities of Practice and coaching others in learning to do so. I believe profoundly in the power of f2f. But I cannot deny the importance of online learning and so, after tackling my own resistance, I am going to jump in and try to expand my skills and be able offer more to those I work with as well.

Naava