Foundations of the Social Age MOOC 2017 Q1: Unit 12 - Community

This post contains publicly available content and my responses to exercises from this unit of the course created by Julian Stodd and Sea Salt Learning.

As I started the course,  I decided that I would go for 100% completion of all exercises given that there was a leaderboard for completion and learner engagement. On the back of that decision, I decided to do the exercises using “wild mind writing”.

 

Introduction

In this level, we will explore the different types of community, look at how communities are important in Social Learning, Social Leadership, and in the building of the Socially Dynamic organisation.

We will consider the role of technology in facilitating community, whilst understanding that technology will not give us the community itself.

Finally, we will explore how organisations must create space for community to emerge, and nurture it as it does so.

Overview

This video is about the rise of Social communities.

Video

My response:

I have increasingly seen the power of networks and online relationship to supplement and complement physical relationships.

I definitely think I am a high value node in the vast majority of the networks that I am a member of. I classify myself as an inveterate sharer of links.

My community platform building was the main reason for me being awarded one of FutureLearn's Inspiration Awards in December 2015. My high volume tweeting was visualised and commented on in a Southampton Uni blog post relating to the FutureLearn Web Science MOOC.

To date, my community experience online has been exclusively outside of my day job. There are currently no electronic community spaces for the employees where I work despite us being a 30-strong team delivering significant web-based solutions supporting our customers' core business processes across the UK.

For those that are interested in social networks in the workplace and eslewhere, I would recommend the #ESNchat on Twitter, Thursdays 19:00 UTC. Last Thursday's, for example, discussed the impact of Workplace by Facebook and how adoption is likely to go given the huge volumes of consumer users Facebook has.

1.2. Spaces, Places and Community

Article

A place may be a space, but it's not always a community. A community may be a place but doesn't have to occupy a particular space. A reflection on communities and spaces.

We inhabit many spaces, some of which are communities: list ten communities that you inhabit, five that are formal, five that are social. If you want extra kudos, share one that is hidden or secret!

My response:

I am relatively new to Twitter Chats and I am finding that their hashtags are often more "powerful" than formal community spaces. Just by using the hashtags I can "link" any of my tweets to therelevant community. I do not have to follow all members of the community and in some cases I am following a very small number from a community because it is the hashtag that binds us together.

I am increasingly frustrated with the multiplicity of closed communities that I need to be part of to contribute to the discussion. This in turn is resulting in me being out of control with where my content is and remembering where particular content is.

It is very rare that I want or need to post content that needs to be anything other than public. As a sharer of content, it is inconsistent with my core value if openness to post content within a walled community that is only readable by those that are members of that community. At some point, all my comments on this course will be posted on my blog so I can share them more widely.

I have listed out all the physical and virtual communities that I am a part of in this document.

1.3. What strengths do you draw from your communities?

Different communities in different spaces. The Social Age gives us access to a wide range of communities.

Podcast

My response:

I saw this question for the first time half an hour before the #LDinsight chat yesterday morning (Friday 10 March 2017). I did a rapid brainstorm on paper and then video-ed the clip that was linked to and posted in this tweet.

1.4. Challenge

This video explores the challenges of creating vibrant, engaged, effective and highly coherent communities.

Video

My response:

Good to be introduced to and consider the dimensions of permanence, visibility, consequences, formal vs informal and  user identity (known or anonymous).

My main challenge is sharing content in a publicly visible way. There is virtually no content that I share that needs any form of access control.

Walls around communities are my biggest bugbear. These effectively mean that any content I want to share I need to publish twice - once within the walls and once without.

This is a particular challenge for me as I am epic rabbit-trail-er and I want to share all content that I find or create.

This is reminding me of music formats where for some albums I started with vinyl, then on to cassette tape, then to CD and now to mp3. So for my published content the parallel would be content published on a walled MOOC platform then copied to a G+ community for public access then to my current blog as a master content location and may be on, eventually, to a more modern blog.

I have no community platform at work apart from the public ones that I use outside of work.

To widen this out, I do find following threads on MOOC platforms, Facebook, G+ and, even, Slack hard work and hard to find content. I have yet to study this in detail as to how I would tackle that. Interesting to note that Slack took 2 years to design and implement their threaded conversations. See Slack’s explanation.

1.5. New York: Separation

Article

We can all be together in a space, but that doesn’t mean we are in a community. What are the key factors that bring a community together? List two.

My response:

Shared interests

1. Ease of communicating as a group
2. Proximity (an online platform counting as a place just like a physical cafe)
3. Common goals
4. Wanting to learn together
5. Shared values
6. Similar demographic of members (in some communities!)
7. Doing something that you can only do as part of a group

1.6. Trust and Mistrust: #WorkingOutLoud

What happens when we lack trust within a community?

Article

Communities require trust: mistrust is a separate force that erodes it: what causes mistrust? How does it erode community? Share your thoughts here.

My response:

Cause (how erodes)

1. Person only ever takes (takes give and take to build community)
2. Person never "shows up" (not committed to the community)
3. Person says different things to different people at different times about the same thing (don't know where the person stands)
4. Hides behind a mask (hard to build an authentic relationship with such a person)
5. Person only ever shows up when the situation is rosy (fair weather member of the community)
6. Fails to deliver on promises (cannot be depended on)
7. Something does not ring true about the person (who is this person)

1.7. Your communities

What does 'community' mean to you, and what does it mean in your organisation?

My response:

To me:-

1. a group of people I can be committed to for the long haul
2. people are there when I need them
3. people who can be relied upon
4. people where I can be the authentic me
5. a safe place for anyone who wants to join
6. a place of truth telling
7. a place where I want to be
8. people who want the best for me
9. people who are happy to tell me when I am going off the rails
10. people who accept me for who I am
11. a place of deep relationships
12. a place devoid of artificiality
13. an open place

To my organisation:-

1. not a well-developed sense of community
2. exclusively a task-based organisation
3. some people go the extra mile willingly others make a song and dance about it
4. deep relationships are possible with some not all
5. even though we could fit all of us in a single room and all bar one work in the same office building on the same floor in 3 offices it is less than an annual event
6. community health is never considered unless and until there is a major issue which is very rare