1 - Organisational questions that ask about affiliations and roles always cause me problems. I do many things - but I seldom work on them alone, so I prefer to say "we" not "I". However that raises the question "When I say 'we' who is being included?"
In organisations with tight heirarchies that is comparatively easy to answer - "we" are the people who are with me in my department, my region, my unit, my college, my regiment, my faculty, my firm, my committee, or whatever it is that is makes up my "group with a clearly defined boundary". My personal struggIe with the question of "me" and "we" has been going on since early 2001. If I can unpick its complexities and history I will know better how to go forward in 2013. Hence this review. It is longer than a normal blog but has numbered headings and will be used for reference.
(This blog could be bursting with live links - but if I tried to add them all in it would never get published. I'm happy to provide more details if you've tried the seach box without success - just contact me, say what information you want and I'll provide appropriate links if they exist, or write something new if they don't.)
2 - Networks
In networks it is never easy to define "we". There is no tidy hierarchy with set roles and boundaries, just something organic. My network is "people I know"; some I know very well, some hardly at all. The relationships vary from time to time and from project to project. Often I get good advice or help from someone, but I don't know if the person sees the interaction as part of formal work or as part of wider leisure interests related to work (so I don't know if I have interacted with the institution, or the individual).
There are many other subtleties regarding relationships within networks, but this blog is to list my solutions over the years, not to explore the complexities. I've addressed this challenge in various ways over the years, often by using a collective identity of some kind. If I refer to some group identity like Cawdnet, or the Dadamac Community, then I have acknowledged others, and individuals can decide for themselves if they are part of it or not.
3 - CAWD - the Committee for African Welfare and Development
In 2001 when I went to Nigeria to Peter Adetunji Oyawale's funeral to represent his widow, children, and friends in the UK, I did have a little voluntary a role in his organisation. Teh organisation was called CAWD - the Committee for African Welfare and Development. It was a company limited by guarantee. It was small, and without Peter it really did not have a future.
Peter's widow, Agnita and I kept CAWD as a dormant company for some years, to protect the name from any misuse. We also set up a shared bank account in case we found support for Peter's work, but we only had tiny amounts of money to put in it. We had difficulty finding a third person in the UK to join us until Lorraine Duff started to collaborate on the Oke-Ogun project.
4 - OOCD 2000+ and OCDN emerged from CAWD
Peter's funeral was in Ago-Are, Oke Ogun. The project I wanted to help continue in his name was one he always referred to as "Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 plus". I started to develop a network amongst people who had been connected in some way with Peter, or CAWD. I explored who was really interested and how we could communicate with each other.
Gradually a small committed group emerged. I won't go into many details here of who the people were, or how our relationships developed, but it was my first experience of setting up a netwrok that had a purpose and achieved things.
The group formed a committee. It consisted of Mr (later Chief) Adetola, who came from Ago-Are but lived and worked in Ibadan (and was the person in the gorup in Nigeria who owned a phone), Chief Adejumo, who lived in Okeho and Ibadan, and Chief Mojoyinola who lived in Isseyin. I forget who took which role regarding chairman, treasurer and secretary, but when I visited I would be given formal reports. The three founders invited Mr Timothy Oyawale, Peter's uncle, who lived in Ago-Are to join them. I was surprised that my advice was sought both by the committee (before he was invited) and by Mr Timothy (before he agreed). They named the organisation after Peter's "Oke-Ogun Community Development Agenda 2000 plus". They were the OCDN200+ committee.
I was not on the committee, but the committee had formed as a result of approximately six months of information exchange with me. We discussed issues and direction, I had Peter's vision with a different level of detail, especially regarding ICT. The committee knew Peter and his visionfrom various perspectives. and they had the connections on the ground. I could network in London and world wide via the Intenet. They all had wide networks in Nigeria. We had a shared commitment to the vision of a man who had been killed. It was an ususual collaboration.
It would never have been appropriate or workable for me to be part of the OOCD200+ committee committee. It met in Nigeria and everyone's preferred language was Yoruba. I lived in the UK and only spoke English. However we worked together as a team. I had a lot of influence but no authority or formal position. We used email when I was in the UK and when I went to Nigeria it was under the guidance and protection of the committee, and as part of their extensive networks. I met people in government, academia, traditional rulers, local farmers, teachers, health workers, plus friends and family.
The committee and I managed to arrange for a VSO volunteer to come to Ago-are for two years to manage the OCDN2000+ project. He was a Kenyan called David Mutua. Under his management OCDN2000+ opened the Information Centre in Ago-Are and did additional work in the surrounding area. So there was the ICDN200+ committee the project manager, me, and other people with looser connections to the project.
At this time when I talked about "us" and "we" I would refer the OCDN2000+ team.
Later the OCDN 2000+ committee changed its name to OOCD. At one point David and the committee tried to arrange formal registration (I think it was as a Community Based Organisation). We did pay a lawyer to organise this, but no progress was made. After much chasing it became apparent that our money had been used to help pay for the lawyer's wedding and nothing could be done about it. We had paid out of our own pockets and could not afford to try again.
OOCD became less active once the IITA COL OOCD project happened and IITA sent someone to run their project at the Information Centre.
5 - CAWDnet emerged from OOCD2000+
Through my activities as part of the OOCD2000+ team I developed an increasing network in Nigeria, online, and in the UK, which often made the "identity" question problematic. However this wider network was a network - hence the "net". Everything I was doing in that network had its roots in Peter's original work with CAWD - so I called it "CAWDnet. I would often define a "core team" when talking about CAWDnet. The core team varied from situation to situaion. It often included Lorraine Duff and me in the UK. David Mutua and Chief Adejumo from the OCDN2000+ team, Mrs Victoria Adetona a school teacher in Okeho with her own NGO, John Dada and Kazanka Comfort from Fantsuam Foundation. Other people might be named in the core team as well, and others might be referred to in general terms but not by name. I had no idea where CAWDnet ended and who else included themselves in or out of it.
Organisationally CAWDnet was a loosely defined network with no physical assets. Any expenses invovled in its activites were borne by the people involved. It therefore did not need any formal organisational structure or registration.
6 - Teachers Talking group emerged from CAWDnet
John and I were in CAWDnet before I designed and presented Teachers Talking (TT) for him. I set up a yahoo group for TT. People join a yahoo group by formally registering, and some people are more active than others, but there is no question of who belongs and who doesn't. All the people who helped to prepare the course and all the participants were members. It was easy when I talked about TT - I was the founder and leader and there was a defined group.
7 - LearningFromEachOther and Minciu Sodas
LearningFromEachOther was another yahoo group that I led, but I didn't set it up. It was set up by Andrius Kulikauskas as one of the groups in Minciu Sodas (Lithuanian for the Orchard fo Thoughts). I forget how I met Andrius, but it was through an online introduction before we met face to face. I didn't lead LearningFromEachOther the way I led Teacher Talking. It was a place where Andrius prompted me to "think aloud" about things that interested me related to teachers, learners, and how ICT affected their roles and relationships. He set up various groups and got people to join them (I thought of the groups as the trees in his orchard) then he went from group to group cross posting. He also had a wiki and a chat room. Andrius and I got to know each other well, and I was happy to have an identity within Minciu Sodas. It ws fairly easy to explain something if I was doing it in LearnigFromEachOther, or in Minciu Sodas.
8 - "CAWD the charity" emerged from "CAWD the commitee" and its offshoots in Oke-Ogun
Around the time that David Mutua ended his placement with VSO Lorraine, Agnita I had done all our major attempts at fundraising. It happened to be the last year when a charity only needed to show £2,000 going through its books in the year before registration, and we realised that we had reached that total. There are many revenue streams that are only available to registered charities so we went ahead and registered. Having registered we didn't find it as easy as we hoped to connect with any finding streams, and we failed to find anyone to join us who was good at fundraising, but at least we had become a registered charity and could claim tax rebates on money we were given. We also set up online giving.
9 - Dadamac emerged from CAWDnet and TT
Dadamac was origninally called Dada and McLean, but it soon got shortened to Dadamac. John and I had both been part of CAWDnet, before we worked together on Teachers Talking. As time passed I found myself increasingly representing John's interests online and in the UK, in the same way that I had done previously for my Nigerian friends is the South West as part of the OOCD2000+ team. John would say that I could speak for Fantusam Foundation (FF), but although I knew and appreciated its visible work, I didn't know enough about its workings and its history. I said I couldn't represent FF, but I could happily represent John, who I knew well.
By using the name Dadamac I could easily talk about things that John was doing, I was doing, or we were doing together I could also make plans and suggestions in his name for him to agree in detail later.
10 - Dadamac community emerged from CAWDnet, TT and Minciu Sodas10 -
I often use the term Dadamac community now because Dadamac has emerged from working with John on TT and in CAWDnet and I need some way to refer to all the people connected with us. Some of them are my contacts from Minciu Sodas, or elsewhere, with no connection to the Nigerain side of Dadamac. Obviously not everyone in my network would see themselves as part of the Dadamac community. With the Dadamac community, just like with CAWDnet, I can't say for sure who would include themsleves in or out - but I could name quite a few besides John and I who definitely count themselves in.
11 - Dadamac.net our visble presence online
Ever since I started my acitivites in Nigeria I have been aware of the valuable information and support I get from people in my network. Ths is why when I came to develop the Dadamac webspace I chose the name Dadamac.net. It is also why when I was trying to get a visual representation of Dadamac for the front page I finally settled on a community of people in the centre, and the other organisational structues around them.
Dadamac.net is an experiemental online space where our community and its activities can become visible.
12 - Dadamac Limited emerged from CAWDnet and all my work online and in Nigeria
I have written in detail elswhere about the thinking behind Dadamac Limited. John and I set it up recognising that we have an unusual combination of valuable information, skills, structures, knowledge and networks when we work together. If we are to provide them to others then it needs to be done in a way that pays for our input. We are not people in large organisations with lots of slack in the system. We don't really have the resources to do extra things for outsiders without payment, although we often do them, to our own cost. If Dadamac is to do useful things for outsiders then it needs to work on a commercial basis, so we registered it as a company, while continuing to collaborate in our usual combination of CAWDnet and TT ways.
After a while I invited Nikki Fishman to give me some assistance and get to know the people involved in and around Dadamac. The idea was that, if I did need assistance with any Dadamac Limited projects she would be ready and able to do a lot more to help.
13 - Dadamac Foundation emerged from CAWD the charity
Around the time Nikki came to Dadamac, Lorraine, Agnita and I decided that if no-one else was interested in CAWD the charity then it was time for us to close it down. None of us really wanted to continue as things were.
When Nikki heard about this she made an alternative suggestion. She could see the benefit of Dadamac being able to do some of its activities on a voluntary basis as a registered charity, and also saw the overlap between Dadamac's areas of work and those of CAWD. She suggested that rather than close down the Charity for African Welfare and Development it should be renamed Dadamac Foundation. Agnita and Lorraine were approached with the idea and agreed for it to happen but did not want to serve as trustees. Nikki persuaded me to continue as a trustee, she become one as well, and my sister who had been a long-time supporter of CAWD and has excellent committee experience, agreed to join us. Thus Dadamac Foundation emerged from CAWD and has done useful work.
14 - Dadamac OK emerged from CAWDnet, Minciu Sodas and P2P
I have been deeply influenced by the thinking of Andrius Kulikauskas and his example in Minciu Sodas of complete openness and working in the public domain. I think this must have been what led me to connections with Michel Bauwens and the Peer to Peer group.
I have written in detail elsewhere about Dadamac OK (Open Knowledge). I see myself as someone who is working to share and co-create knowledge in an open way and the organisational description of Dadamac OK reflects that. My experiments with the concept and framework of Dadamac OK has influenced my thinking related to systemic change in the 21st century which I'm exploring under headings like "The Landscape of Change" and "The Invisible Revolution".
15 - Dadamacademy emerged from my interest in what I was learning
From the start of my involvement with Peter's project I appreciated how much I was learning. When I was experiementing with explanations about Dadamac I realised that I wanted to make visible the fact that learning was taking place. At first I gave one section on Dadamac.net the label "Dadamac Learners". Stages in the change to Dadamacademy are covered elsewhere. I started to describe myself as a Dadamac learner because I got tired of trying to describe my own learning in any other way. If I used established terminology about self-directed learning and using the Internet it just seemed to cause misunderstandings. Other people who might be happy to be described as being part of Dadmacademy are people who have chosen to call themselves Dadamac learners, or who meet with me online and sometimes desscribe me as their teacher - usually to my surprise.
16 - The First Thursday group emerged from Minciu Sodas, TT Kenya and Dadamac Day
The history of First Thursday is written elswhere. We met monthly in the Minciu Sodas chat room for the first few years until that was closed down in 2012 then we tried Skype until we discoverd etherpads and moved our monthly meetings there. TT Kenya also had monthly online meetings. TT Nigeria gave rise to an annuala] online celebration which morphed into an annual "Dadmac Day". All these have fed into the current First Thrusday group.
I don't advertise it widely or send out many reminders as there is a limit of twenty people for the version that I use. We are not a large group at present but there is a central core of people who attend often and others who like to drop by sometimes. It is hard for many people to be online at the allocated hour - mainly because of time zone issues - so that helps to keep the numbers down. People in USA someimtes get up heroically early to join us. Others can only join in during holidays or other uncharacteristically free times.
17 - Collage-network emerged from the collaborative work of Dadamac and its structures
Nikki and I set this up together in the UK - more about it elsewhere - including its own website.
18 - GlobalNet21 informal networks of learning emerged from my interests in learning and networking through GlobalNet21
I am a great fan of Meetups: an online network promoting less "face-to-screen" time and more "face-tp-face". GlobalNet21 is the Meetup group that I attend most. This idea of informal networks of learning within GlobalNet21 is something new. The first session, which I am leading, is on January 9th. I hope it will become an onging initiative and will be another step towards providing new learning opportunities and new ways of learning for many people.
.(Reminder that if you have yearned for some live links while reading the above I'm happy to provide more details if you've tried the seach box without success - just contact me, say what information you want and I'll provide appropriate links if they exist, or write something new if they don't.)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.