Wednesday morning offers a midweek oasis at "Everything Unplugged". Tony Hall and I once decided that it is our slightly time-shifted version of an evening visit to "the local" in an ideal world. Unplugged is where we're confident of finding good conversation and friendly faces - with the exact mix of friendly faces being unpredictable. (See Dadamac's useful links for more on Everything Unplugged and other references in this post)
Anyone who spends much time working alone knows the value of getting the right mixture of "doing the work" and "getting the right social vitamins". I find that conversation, with people who have overlapping interests, is a great sanity-saver as I spend a lot of time thinking or writing, with little chance to check out the validity of my ideas. Education is one of my core interests so I appreciate the ongoing "learning conversations" of Unplugged.
You are invited
If you share my interest in learning then you may also like to check Dadamac's useful links for information about the Learning Group I'm doing within GlobalNet21 Meetups. Next meeting February 21st. More to follow - face to face and online.
This Wednesday brought extra riches
Unplugged was followed in the afternoon by Civil Society Forum and in the evening by Secret Conversations. More of each below, plus some written gems to refer to (not mine), related to rich conversations.
The gem in writing from Unplugged
Ian McCleave wrote on Facebook:
"I was asked (or challenged) by Pamela McLean at Unplugged this week to put to paper my thoughts on a couple of subjects as exchanged in conversation on Wednesday. Well the first of those conversations, centering on what I define learning to be has now been uploaded to my blog http://wordpress.ianmccleave.com/"
I thought Ian's blog was a gem. He covered so much that I care about (regarding our life-long learning journeys, and the relationship between real life and learning, and what learning really is) and he expressed it all so eloquently. I'm delighted he took up my "challenge" to write it.
Civil Society Forum and more gems
In the afternoon Civil Society Forum Open Forum was another gem for me, and so was the related blog. I'd been invited by Andy Paice, who had attached a blog post to the invitation.
His blog was called "Time to Collaborate" and touched on deep issues of vulnerablility, and honesty. There is such a flood of words around "collaboration" at present that it sometimes seems that all meaning has been washed out of the word, but Andy's blog was different. It was a gem that spoke to my heart and my experience. Its insights are equally valuable for people who do know exactly what he is talking about (and the discomfort of experiencing it) and for those who have no idea of the realities that Andy describes.
The emotional richness of what he writes regarding uncertainly, anxiety, trust etc, can't be captured in snippets, but this brief, unemotional quote gives an indication of his viewpoint:
Shifting from ‘I’ to ‘We’ – Egosystem to Ecosystem economies
The paradox of our age is that as increasing numbers of us go it alone and become independents, on so many levels the need for interdependence and collaboration makes itself acutely more and more of a vital necessity.
Since our society is now reaching the culmination of its individualistic momentum, the majority of existing social structures do not support collaborative endeavours as we have few models to replicate. So we find ourselves in a situation in which we have to create new models and this of course requires effort, commitment and the ability to hold a certain amount of tension that working with others requires.
The Civil Society Forum Open Forum was my second chance for enlightening conversation - this time with a strong flavour of systems thinking - another of my core intersts. I was able to share some of my Landscape of Change thoughts, and was greatly encouraged by the offer of a "Buddy" to help me explore this further in some depth, becfore the next Open Forum.
The evening found me in Hackney for "Secret Conversations"
My third convesational opportunity was in Hackney. This was an excellent end to the day, thanks to a Facebook invitation from Andy of Focallocal to "Secret Conversations". There was food, drink, stimulating ideas presented in a short video, and good conversations betweeen people who would not usually meet each other. Enjoyable in its own right, it was also interesting as an example of the kind of opportunites for new connections that were hard to arrange before the Internet, and are now in increasing abundance.
More details of everything
For more details of the Secret Conversations project and other things mentioned in this blog see Dadamac's useful links.
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