Invitation to join a 12-week virtual Working Out Loud circle in September 2017

WHAT

A group of 5 people who will form a virtual group to read through and apply the Working Out Loud circle guides and in parallel each individual will seek to achieve a personal goal that they will set for themselves when the group starts.

For those that are new to Working Out Loud Circles, see the following introductory video:-

Additional info to help understand circles can be found in this Getting Started document.

The personal goal that you will set should be something:-

• you are passionate about
• you can make progress on in 12 weeks
• that cannot be done on your own
• that is a developmental goal

WHY

A WOL Circle is a great way to understand and experience new ways of digital working and to achieve a personal goal with the support of peers in a circle.

Working Out Loud is becoming a global movement of people who work out loud and who are able to easily collaborate within and across organisations. See the following quote from an industry commentator:-

Of all the digital skills that workers should be developing now, perhaps the one that most naturally is an onramp to most of the others and leads to both positive outcomes and compelling emergent results is the act of working out loud (WOL) in digital channels. John Stepper’s Working Out Loud book and his push for organizations to create WOL circles to build skills around the technique is probably the best place to start. My industry colleague Michelle Ockers recently posted some fascinating insights into how WOL can work with actual results from a large organization. In short, working out loud will develop vital network leadership skills, cultivate social capital, and produce higher level of knowledge sharing, collaboration, and institutional knowledge, to name just a few of the benefits by virtue of simple and straightforward daily activities in the ESN.
(Source: Dion Hinchcliffe)

By the end of the 12 weeks each circle member will have:-

• developed a larger, more diverse network that is related to their goal - a set of relationships that matter
• developed habits and a mindset that they can apply towards any goal
• achieved a goal that they have set for themselves

WHO

This circle is open to those anywhere in the world that have no knowledge or experience of working out loud or being in a WOL Circle as well as being open to those who have already been part of a 12-week WOL Circle.

The circle will be led by Simon Fogg (UK) who will be facilitating and participating in his second WOL Circle. The first was in Q1 2017. For more info on Simon, see his learning profile.

The circle will include Rita Zonius (Australia) who is currently Head of Internal Digital Communications at ANZ but from the beginning of September 2017 is starting on her own (see her tweet below). Rita is also a co-author of the book “Social technologies in business” that was published earlier this year.

In late breaking news, I'm leaving ANZ at end Aug to run my own biz doing #ESN #social #comms. If anyone needs my help, pls get in touch.

— Rita Zonius (@RitaZonius) July 28, 2017

Simon was asked recently what his “criteria” were for a “good” WOL Circle participant and he responded as follows, someone who:-

• goes on all the calls
• does the readings/exercises prior to the calls
• posts info on each week’s readings and exercises prior to the calls,
• actively contributes to the calls
• supports the other members of the circle as appropriate
• has a good goal to make progress towards in the circle.
  

`The time requirement of being in a circle is 12 x 1 hour calls plus a minimum of 2 hours each week to do the readings and exercises and to work towards your personal goal.

HOW

Personal reading and addressing exercises set in the weekly circle guides (free) for discussion in weekly calls.

Communication between calls via a Slack team. See below.

WHEN

We are aiming to start w/c Monday 4 September with a 1st call w/c Monday 11 September with the 12 weeks of calls ending w/c Monday 29 November.

Timezones will be a challenge and it will depend on who wants to joins us and where they are located.

Simon has a preference for Mondays for an hour some time between 18:30 & 00:00 UTC but do not let that put you off expressing interest.

WHERE

The "events" will be online and likely to use Zoom for video calls and Slack for communications within the group.

If you have not used these products before, do not worry. Simon has successfully used both in a WOL Circle and in a follow-on 12-week virtual book club where a majority of people involved had not seen or ised either product. You will get whatever help you need to get up and running.

There are free options on both.

EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST

If you would like to join this circle, please reply in the comments in this post or direct message Simon on Twitter and he will be in touch.

If you have any questions on any of this, please ask.

==========

Invite posted in the Working Out Loud Facebook Group

The following is the text from the above post:

An HBR article about leaders and learning + an invite to join a WOL Circle

I love the summer holidays especially when I get the opportunity to be away on holiday with the family as I have had this year on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. However, I also love the start of a new school/ university/ college term feeling when September starts. In many ways, it reminds me of the start of the calendar year which for many is a time for reflection and setting objectives and planning for the next time period.

As we approach the end of August, the Harvard Business Review article "Good Leaders Are Good Learners" came through and struck me as a potent galvaniser for personal development activity starting in September.

What do you have planned for your own personal development in any area of your life starting in September or that is ongoing? I would love to know and I am sure it would encourage (and may be challenge) the rest of the group if you posted this as a comment to this post.

If you have nothing planned or would like to be part of a circle, I would like to invite you to join a virtual WOL Circle that Rita (Zonius) and I plan to start in September. We would love to have you join us. See the invite and full details on how to join.

Rita and I first became acquainted in December 2016 via the weekly #ESNchat Twitter chat and have interacted more frequently since via her co-authorship of the "Social technologies in business" book. Rita was also one of the people who agreed to do a Life Design conversation with me as part of my reading the "Designing Your Life" book earlier this year.

With reference to the HBR article, there are strong similarities with some of the key messages in the "Designing Your Life" book especially in the area of life prototyping and failure immunity.