If you’re like us, you’ve been keeping one eye on COP15, the UN conference on global climate change, taking place in Copenhagen Dec 7 – 18, and wondering what its outcome might mean for the planet. Instead of waiting to hear the news, why not take action to help define the future?

In Copenhagen, Toke Moeller, Monica Nissen and other practitioners of the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter will be holding a space alongside the official conference proceedings. They have also issued an open call to form “Inner Climate Learning Villages” across the world, in order to further the ripple of awareness spreading out from COP15. What is a Learning Village? “A gathering, large or small, where people come together to engage in meaningful conversation and joyful connection around how our “inner climate” is affecting what we see happening in the outer world.”

In short, whatever else happens in Copenhagen, there is an opportunity to come together in new and supportive ways to explore possibilities for a common future. Can you add your voice and wisdom to this crucial conversation? On Dec 10/17 from 5 to 7pm we’ll be gathering at the Urban Arts Space around these questions:

• What relation do you see between the inner climate and outer climate change?
• What change in the inner climate would help us to imagine a sustainable future?
• What story about sustainability are we learning to tell?

The Urban Arts Space is located in the Lazarus Building in downtown Columbus, 50 W. Town Street.

We hope that you will be able to join us for this conversation. Come beforehand for refreshments and to explore the current exhibits at the UAS; stay afterwards for the Marotta Hour, an evening of music hosted by Larry Marotta.

Please RSVP to livingston(dot)28(at)gmail(dot)com by Tuesday 12/15 so that we can arrange our space appropriately.

Looking forward to talking with you.

Rick Livingston & Andrew Miller

I want to see a conversation where people of different belief systems sit face to face and find ways to open new lines of communication between each other. Right now the only communication appears to be casting verbal stones with a strong sentiment of distrust. If we are going to move forward as a community we must find a way to be more productive and less destructive.

What has made this conversation difficult to pin down is that I too am someone with strong opinions who has, at times, cast stones. So how do we host such an conversation internally without clouding the process with the persona’s involved?

The steps I’m taking right now are to build a coalition from the primary parties of contention so that a fully developed purpose can drive the conversation. I believe that a purpose derived from our communal knowledge will make this community conversation a success.

Behind the conversation I am also working on a website solution that will provide opportunities for cross organization project development. I’m taking suggestions on names for this site as well.

So, are you in an organization or community that faces similar issues and has a similar need for reconnecting factions? Reconnecting people? If so, what steps are you taking?

The “Un-Conference” – The Perfect Place for Sharing Ideas

{Listen Here}

I have very fond memories of watching Sesame Street and the Electric Company on PBS as a child. After years of watching This Old House I couldn’t wait to move into my first home. It was in that house that I listened to the very first episodes of This American Life on WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio. Now that I’m living here in Columbus I have the chance to not only enjoy WOSU but to be a part of it on air too.

Recently I attended the first national Public Media Camp as a representative of WOSU. The mission of “PubCamp” was to better understand the role of Public Media within the local community; particularly as online media becomes such a major factor in the production and distribution of content.

Because Public Radio and Television have been a constant for me my whole life, it just felt right that I would have a chance to help shape its future. I was honoured to have this opportunity.

PubCamp was held as an unconference. For those of you unfamiliar with this format it is structured in such a way that all attendees are participants. An unconference isn’t a place for presentation, it is a place for meaningful conversation.

The idea is actually very simple, just three basic steps:

• First, get motivated, interested, engaged and knowledgeble Public Media folks together in one space.
• Second, give them an issue to discuss.
• Third, let them determine the right questions and topics necessary to inspire conversations that lead to innovative solutions.

Believe it or not this process works great.

The unconference format is very empowering. It sets the stage for participants to work collaboratively for the common good of the group. For that reason I wasn’t surprised that PubCamp used this format. You see, I truly believe there is a difference between the people working in public broadcasting and commercial broadcasters. Public broadcasters seem to always look for ways to make their community better. For them, the common good of the community is ahead of everything else.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve attended an unconference; I’ve even helped to host a few myself. In every case I’ve walked away feeling like I helped to create something new. Then, just as important for me; I felt like I made some significant connections with other people.

So what would happen if we began solving of all of our community issues in this collaborative, empowering way? Instead of requiring a few willing people to try and figure out the answers to our complex problems, what if we tapped into the community knowledge that already exists?

Now is the time to maximize our collective intelligence and embrace these new conversation techniques. Through meaningful conversation, conversation that welcomes and listens to diverse viewpoints and maximizes participation and civility, we can transform conflict into creative cooperation.

I like that because I see social media as just one other way to develop, build and grow community; and, I look to community as the producer of innovation.

Community produces innovation

When I consider a healthy community I think of a diverse group of people bound together by one (or many) commonalities. In regards to the work I do at the State of Ohio the commonality is related to IT procurement, at least within the group I am working with.

Many of the staff have commonalities beyond just that but it is the work around IT procurement that pulls them together. When the group sits down as equals, as a community, they manage to brainstorm really innovative ideas to the problems facing the State in this current economy. Being a part of this, even just witnessing it, is really spectacular.

This week I witnessed many innovative ideas bubble to the top thanks to this very process. (I would tell you more but you’ll have to wait until the ideas are farther along and can be released into the wild.)

Why then do we so often choose to build frameworks that remove this equality, this community?

When an organization chooses to strictly hold a command and control hierarchy they have effectively chosen to forgo innovation.

Innovation is free

The funny thing about innovation is that it rarely happens in a vacuum. The most useful innovation comes when groups of people who share a common experience and mission are empowered to solve their own problems and determine their own mission. Simply by empowering groups you invite innovation to find you freely, you just have to be brave enough to let it happen.

So I want to ask you:

Is your organization brave enough to invite innovation? Are you brave enough to be an equal member of an innovative community?

Columbus Ohio is home to about 1.5 million people and is in the top 20 cities in the US for population. Columbus has earned many wonderful accolades such as being a high-tech incubator, being affordable, etc. A city this size is a good platform for testing the theory of whether you can create luck (aka make opportunity) or if luck is purely happenstance and blind chance.

If luck is purely happenstance and blind chance then surely I am one of the luckiest people in the world. I tend to believe that we create our own luck, our own opportunity and I believe this story highlights that.

A Week of Luck

On Monday I recorded my latest commentary on WOSU – an opportunity that came about almost 2 years ago thanks to my having a blog where I was willing to speak out about what is important to me in my community. After completing my recording I had a meeting with the news director who offered to give me some voice coaching in a couple of weeks (along with another commentary spot). As I left this meeting I had an opportunity to meet a local writer who I very much admire who happened to be at the station.

My next stop of the day was lunch with a local professor and department head who I will be collaborating with for the Change Leadership Symposium that is coming up. Our conversation was lively and enlightening and provided me with connections to two other individuals that I might have a chance to work with. More importantly however was that this conversation gave me an idea for a new platform I have begun preliminary work on. Once again, this meeting would never have  taken place if not for the fact that I have been willing to share my thoughts across the social networks I use; the initial contact from the professor came after he read one of my blog posts on Facebook.

After leaving the lunch meeting I headed towards my house and, realizing I had some time, turned toward the city municiple building. I felt inspired by the event Bike the Cbus being hosted by some bicycling friends of mine this coming weekend and felt I had the right idea for an event here in my neighborhood. With that in mind I headed to see if the parks and recs director was available. Being particularly active in community organizations in my neighborhood means that I’ve had the “luck” of having met the director before and was happy to be well received by him that day. I shared my idea of a family park-to-park ride and he was over the moon with it. I will now be involved in planning one more event that may lead to me meeting one more great person.

As I left the director’s office I was feeling very satisfied over all of these opportunities that seemed to be coming from the sky. At that moment the city’s communications director (who I also know from various volunteer activities – some of which coming directly from my experience as a blogger); she asked me to help her with a report. Before I knew it I was sitting in on a recording for the community radio station for a spot about the upcoming arts festival. I was asked about an art fundraiser one of my volunteer organizations was running and I had an opportunity to meet a local artist whose work I really enjoy.

My next stop was home to fetch my bicycle and then coffee with a friend and possible collaborator for consulting work. As we sat and talked about what we each had to offer our clients and how those things might compliment each other’s work I was asked how I use social media to find clients, particularly the couple that I have right now. Did I just “luck” into them? Was it using this site or that?

I reviewed the day I had so far, along with many previous experiences, and I said what I know to be true. I have never lucked into anything. Every opportunity I’ve gotten has been due to groundwork I’ve laid in the past. Those opportunities that never came around, or never came to be were equally a reflection of the work I haven’t done.

The social network that may have been the initial contact point for an opportunity was not the genesis of that opportunity. Social media is merely a tool for collaboration and opportunity, it is not the collaboration (work) itself and it is only a channel for opportunity to be expressed, it isn’t the opportunity itself.

Social Media and Community Effort

The outreach I accomplish through social media has greatly extended the reach I have in the face-to-face community work I do. It even has exceptionally greater reach than I have when I broadcast commentary on WOSU or write articles for the local papers or write chapters for books. What I find important though is that I wouldn’t have anything to reach out about if I weren’t active in my community.

The story above didn’t end with that significant question from my friend or the reflection I gained from it. In fact, just that day the opportunities continued to flow and I found similar opportunities presenting themselves every following day.

In a city of 1.5 million people one person can find touch points with so many others as long as they are willing to reach out to them and have something to share, something to offer. Now, what if you look at your organization where you already have those touch points; where the outreach is easier and the only question is “what do I have to share” - what can you imagine being accomplished.

So let me leave you with these questions: what opportunities are you making in the community that is your organization? What are you doing to create a community where opportunities can blossom?

First are some upcoming speaking engagements that you can catch me at.

• UA Library – Job Fair Conference. Using social media to widen your network. (Sept 24)
• OTEC – The Ohio Transportation Engineers Conference where I’ll talk about community engagement in transportation related development using social media technology. (Oct 27-28)

I’m currently working to finish up my chapter contribution to the book Social Knowledge: Using Social Media to Know What You Know which will compliment the new work I’m taking on quite well.

As of a couple of weeks ago now I’ve further diversified my work life. While I am still currently employed by the State of Ohio I have begun using my “Cost Savings Days” (aka unpaid time off furlough days) to begin my consulting career. I’ve talked a little about this in the past and as a part of my website redesign you’ll be given the full run down of what services I’m offering.

One last note is that in addition to my WOSU commentary I’ve been asked to write for the newspaper This Week Upper Arlington here in my town which kicks off this week. I’ll post the first article here once it has printed.

Airs on Thursday 6/11/09 on WOSU or listen to audio here.

WOSU Commentary by Andrew Miller

Our families and communities are facing greater challenges than we have seen in several generations. When faced with such challenges I find some comfort by looking to our history, for the ideas of our fore fathers.

Consider these wise words written by Walt Whitman about the Civil War.

In his poem States! Whitman wrote; “States! Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers? By an agreement on a paper? Or by arms? Away! I arrive, bringing these, beyond all the forces of courts and arms. These! To hold you together as firmly as the earth itself is held together…”

As you read the full text of Whitman’s poem he doesn’t talk about financial windfalls or victory through the defeat of others. Whitman instead defines the word “These” as friendship, camaraderie, innovation and countless linked hands. “These shall tie and band stronger than hoops of iron, I, ecstatic, O partners! O lands! Henceforth with the love of lovers tie you.”

These are the bonds of community created by our souls.

The current recession has reminded many of us that it is not the agreements on paper that have built the greatest parts of our society; these institutions have been built through the use of collective resources and public funds.

Libraries, schools, community centers and green spaces; food pantries, shelters and free clinics; fire, police and public works departments – these are the institutions that bring us together. They require that you participate in the social exchange which in turn creates community.

Like a potluck, or the story of stone soup, we each contribute one small piece of the recipe to build something much greater than our individual effort could afford. Unfortunately, the common response as of late has been that we are turning our backs on “liberty” – becoming “socialists” by joining such collective efforts.

Whitman answers this in his poem by stating, “The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly, the dependence of Liberty shall be lovers, the continuance of Equality shall be comrades.”

When we remind ourselves of the history of our nation it is evident that no singular important event happened based on pure individualism, but on a community of individuals working together for the greater good. Standing united, in solidarity, for the sake of community; for the sake of love and compassion. This was the birth of our nation.

My hope is that we listen to those wise words that Walt Whitman put forward; when individuals and community organizations reach out we must meet them with open arms.

In these trying times we must again hold together as firmly as the earth itself.

The latest attempt to break the Google stranglehold on the search market is Microsoft’s new product: Bing (Bing Is Not Google). If you’d like to check it out for yourself then I suggest you head over to http://bing.com but don’t worry about breaking a sweat to get there. Bing is pretty uninspired visually and the back-end functionality feels more like Microsoft is catching up with Google, not surpassing it or even changing the game.

The issue is that Microsoft continues to look at projects with an engineer’s eyes; in very black and white terms. “If we can build a better search engine than Google we win.” This constant focus on competition instead of community keeps Microsoft falling short. Microsoft should look for ways to create new community instead of just “better tools” as a way to grow sustainable innovation (and thus fan base).

Of course this past week there was a new product that has shown innovation and community centered philosophy. And of course it is Google’s new product (protocol?) called Wave.

Before you sink your teeth into the Google Wave Developer Preview video which is 1.5 hours long and worth every minute (the very last demo will blow your mind) I want to relate to you where I see this application being a game changer for organizations and individuals.

Google Wave is based on the idea of conversations as opposed to messages (along with about 100 other innovations) and the engineers have done a fantastic job of accomplishing that. There is a lot of speculation about whether or not people will adopt to this product, to “catch the wave” or whatever. The advantages that Google are hoping pay off are:

• That the product lets you integrate so much work-flow that it would be difficult not to use it,
• The work-flow is all about collaboration and building community through sharing of control and content,
• They are making it open source so anyone can implement it and develop off of it, and;
• Everything happens inside the browser using HTML5 so you don’t have to deal with device dependencies.

The technological advances that allow the level of control sharing are unbelievable and the closest comparison I could make to this in our physical world would be the types of decentralized leadership being practiced by groups such as The Art of Hosting.

When you consider the social changes that are currently underway around the world you see that this product is directly in line with those changes. Google let the community dictate the direction of their solution instead of the engineers. What I mean this; current trends show the digital leaders (and their networks) are using online tools to share and create things without the hierarchy and centralized control of the past.

This digitalocracy of people are ignoring the protocols of society to create their own solutions to business, organization, community and even individual problems by collaborating online, sharing transparently and crowdsourcing.

Breaking big problems down into smaller chunks and allowing the group to solve them and then fit the pieces back together has become second nature to many of us and this is exactly how Google Wave approaches collaboration, conversation and problem solving. Taking it one step further is that Google Wave allows for a report out and harvest of every collaboration making it not just a fantastic tool for building collaboration and community but also for knowledge management and growth.

One of the biggest walls stifling the digitalocracy is the bureaucracy built into our current systems. If a new application like Google Wave can find its way into our current systems then by the nature of how it empowers everyone to be equals and to work communally we will in fact see a change in how organizations function.

So, without further ado I present the Google Wave Developer Demo:

This week has been a tough one; and that’s a fact of life.

There are times in each of our lives when we have a hard week and we start shutting down, saying “life’s not fair”, and wishing away our troubles until we’re blue in the face. I’ve done that in my life too from time to time. That is merely opportunity lost though.

Opportunities come too few and far between to let them slip away like that.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with some really great community leaders at Experience Columbus to discuss growing the number of “Columbus Advocates” and how we might affect this via social media. Before the meeting my head was a million miles away, full with all of my weeks negativity. Sitting in that room, talking with passion about the community and the technology that I love was all it took for me to remember opportunity.

Experience Columbus provided the perfect backdrop to this mind switch. One year ago this organization invited about 40 local bloggers and social media savvy folks to the premiere of the Experience Columbus social media strategy. While it had some good elements to it the total package did not go over well.

Experience Columbus had spent a great deal of time designing a failure.

Instead of engaging their online networks up front they brought them in on the backend. The message fell flat without the buy-in that develops organically from early engagement and continued collaboration. Experience Columbus, like many organizations, might have walked away from this and headed back into the vacuum. But the didn’t.

Experience Columbus found the opportunity in this failure.

The meeting held yesterday was only one of several being held. Beside the meetings, the employees of Experience Columbus have spent this last year getting personally involved in building their social media networks throughout the region. Along with that development they have been gathering massive amounts of user generated content from the local blogging and social media networks.

What did our group learn at its meeting then?

First of all is that Experience Columbus has an incredible amount of information to share – and do they ever want to share it! Unfortunately all of us at the meeting not directly employeed by Experience Columbus had no idea how much of this info was already available because it wasn’t convenient to find and the Experience Columbus site (and story) wasn’t compelling enough to get us to search it out.

Experience Columbus continues to learn.

The Experience Columbus team had amazing questions and insights to offer as the discussion moved on. Seeing how committed they have been to learning from the failure last year I expect this interaction will only spur them on to even greater work. I really appreciated being asked to participate in this important community effort.

Want to help by being a Columbus Ambassador? It’s easy, just keep spreading the good word about Columubus and look up the folks at Experience Columbus and offer to help!