Technology treats - the new team builder

Jonathan Briggs returns to the question of how groups can effectively use blogs to take action - in this instance how they can be used by those on Common Purpose courses to take up community leadership challenges. His ideas lead me to think that rising to the technolology challenge could be a useful way for many groups to start working together effectively.
I reported earlier on a meeting we had with some of the Common Purpose team, and last week Jonathan and I met Oliver Mack again to follow through.

I launched in with the assertion that it might be most productive to think about the personal media available to many people these days - digital cameras, audio and video recorders that may well be used at home and could enhance presentations and other forms of knowledge sharing at work (but seldom do I suspect).
Could Common Purpose encourage those taking courses - which involve visits and other explorations of new fields - to use new media to share their experience? As well as the written or verbal report backs, and feedback questionnaires, maybe groups could create course journals to share with others. Hardly radical in the education field, but so far fairly unusual, I believe, for professionals volunteers.
In Getting to grips with personal media: providing a guide to blogging for groups Jonathan takes the idea forward with a list including demonstrations to groups, identifying champions, setting up a blog and so on. As he says, it is difficult to explain this stuff and the only way to get started is to....get started.
I agree with Jonathan's points, and also liked the comment from Tom Smith "I wouldn't start from here (again). "
Tom suggests: "Before you do all of the previous items, spend some time being a personalized information maven for each person. Help them find good news sources... lots...
"Introduce them to RSS. This takes time, they need software like NetNewsWire or FeedReader and how to subscribe to a feed, they need to know about sites like BlogLines, Blogdex, Syndic8 and Blogorama. They need to know about OPML and why it is such a great start to "getting RSS".
Tom is making the point, I think, that people will get enthused by a combination of seeing how useful blogs can be in finding interesting people and the conversations they are having, and some support for trying things for themselves. Before becoming effective producers, they need to be good consumers.
I think that Tom has a point that extends well beyond blogging. I suspect that many (most?) people under-use their personal technology and might well welcome some help, particularly if it were more fun that teasing out the deeper intricacies of Microsoft Office.
Perhaps Common Purpose should consider making part of one of the 12 or so days people spend on their course something on personal media, with the emphasis on learning from each other. One of the few things pretty much everyone will have in common is the joy (or otherwise) of dealing with their laptop, and perhaps feeling mortified by the greater facility of their children with cameras and other gadgets.
There may of course be some (many?) who, faced with this prospect curse that they came on the course precisely because they wanted to get away from that sort of thing. There should, consequently, be options for using technology to make tee-shirt transfers, plan a party, create a recipe database, or send greeting cards. I can recommend the range of CuriosIT activities developed by DirectSupport for local technology centres. Into the techno sandpit for some team building.
More here about blogging

Comments

[Tom Smith]

That's "Smith"... not King...

We often forget that we, as readers of blogs probably have a long-ish personal history of reading blogs before we took the plunge and started writing them. That we individually witnessed the benefits over time. And they we expect people to share our enthusiasm and just start blogging.

I have had thanks from potential bloggers JUST for introducing them to NetNewsWire, people who, haven't started blogging quite yet (but will) but who are dipping more than just their toes in the blog soup.

[David Wilcox]

Sorry Tom - now corrected