Openness and communities

Last year, Tandem Learning had the honor of transitioning the ThinkBalm Innovation Community into the Tandem Learning Innovation Community (TLIC). The community was housed on LinkedIn and was in many ways a "closed community": you had to request to join, agree to the community rules, and then be approved by one of the moderators. Within the community, the goal was to talk about innovative technologies and their use for "serious" purposes, including business, education, etc. With membership over 500 members, it was a fairly large community and there was information being shared through member blogs and posts on a consistent basis.

One of the struggles for me with the TLIC was that it wasn't really integrated with the other social media tools I use consistently, namely Twitter and Facebook. Although it was beneficial to feel like there was a closed community that could share topics of mutual interest, I was "sharing" much more through my other social media accounts even when topics would have been of interest to the TLIC community. I suspect that other community members were doing the same.

Another struggle was with the idea of community participation and moderation. Of course we wanted as many people as were interested to join the community and I will freely admit that as long as someone said they agreed to our community "rules," they got in. But is it really up to just Tandem Learning to moderate the community? Or is it more effective for the community to self-moderate and Tandem Learning to step in when an issue is raised?

With the release of the "Open Group" option on LinkedIn, we needed to make a decision about the structure of TLIC and what it might mean for the future of the community. I want to be able to integrate our group communications with my other social media accounts and I want to connect to other members' accounts as well. I want to attract as many people as possible into our community to actively participate. And I trust the community of professionals that have joined us in the TLIC to let us know if something is happening in the community that needs to be addressed. Because of these reasons, we have decided to make TLIC an open group.

I welcome any feedback from our existing group members and I look forward to their continued participation. I also am looking forward to who our extended visibility may attract to participate in our community. I truly believe our community will be all the richer for becoming more open.

Learning mobsters: #4sqchat

I've been one of the moderators for #lrnchat on Twitter for almost 2 years. Saying that amazes and humbles me...I've met more brilliant people and had the opportunity to learn from so many new friends through the serendipity of social media and my life is forever changed for the better because of the #lrnchat community.

On the other hand, I've been participating in #lrnchat for almost 2 years. And its really been the only Twitter chat I've participated in, besides an occasional #edchat or #hcmchat.

In retrospect, this seems absolutely silly. I've talked about in the past how I learn the most from the non-learning focused conferences I attend: gaming conferences, technology conferences, industry conferences...those are the conferences that typically get my mind whirring and my creativity flowing. So why have I not participated in any of the hundreds of chats you can now find on a regular basis on Twitter?

I don't have a good answer.

But luckily, some of my #lrnchat friends pointed out the obvious. We need to learn in places outside of our own backyard. We need to get out into the world and explore. We need to flashmob other chats!

If you don't know what a flashmob is, check out an example of one that I experienced myself by the Opera Company of Philadelphia here. The basic concept is that as people go on about their normal activities, a group of people come in and perform an organized event...and then everyone goes on about their normal activities. Flashmobs aren't intended to be disruptive...they are intended to entertain and enrich and often, to teach something, to expand people's viewpoints.

Tonight was our first chat flashmob. Our target? #4sqchat which takes place Mondays from 9 - 10 pm est. We didn't really know who all would show up...honestly, I didn't plan on participating. But 9 pm rolled around and I was online and I started to see my #lrnchat friends tweeting with the #4sqchat hashtag and I just couldn't stay away.

I will admit, I'm not an avid user of Foursquare and I have been skeptical about leveraging geolocation services for learning. Tonight, as part of the chat, I learned some things and got some ideas that expanded my viewpoint:

• Foursquare has the ability to post photos to a location. Very cool! Some practical applications of that may be:
• Running a game where people check in and take a picture of themselves or their team completing a task to score "points"
• Documenting a trip by assigning a photo to each check in. There's even a service that allows you to create a memory book based on your check in photos: Memolane 
• Businesses could market their products and services by adding photos to their business location in Foursquare.
• You don't have to check in to post a photo to a location. This could address some people's privacy concerns.
• Foursquare check ins could be set up for different locations within a conference, facilitating the creation of games at conferences and events. Think about checking into sessions, checking in at vendor booths in an expo hall, etc.
• Check ins could be set up in locations at your company to support the creation of a new hire orientation activity.

Want to learn more about Foursquare? Participate in the weekly chat, check out the chat transcript, or check out this local Indianapolis Foursquare blog: 4sqindy or this more general AboutFoursquare blog.

Another cool thing we saw at the end of the chat? Analytics! Check out this data from Tweetreach on the chat and notice some of the #lrnchatter names on the board :)

But the coolest part of participating in #4sqchat? We learned new things, met new people and quite a few members of the #lrnchat community who didn't know about our flashmob plans joined in as well! Oh, the beauty of Twitter...

We don't know where we'll show up next, but be on the lookout for the learning mobsters to crash another chat near you...

Tandem Learning Innovation Community: 1st event recap

Just a quick post to thank everyone who attended our first official Tandem Learning Innovation Community event. We hosted the event on our new Second Life island and I'd encourage all of you who were unable to make it to stop by any time and take a tour. The island is open and public; we'd be happy to share the space with any member of the TLIC who'd like to run a meeting in SL. Feel free to contact me if you'd like a guided tour or assistance in how to work our browser displays.

I can't thank Earth Primbee (SL name, for those not in-world) enough...he did a fantastic job building the island to suit our needs, and he completed the entire build in just a few days. Amazing. He also served as tech support and transcriptionist during the event. Big kudos on an amazing job and for all of his help!

We had about 15 attendees for our first event, ranging from people in academia, corporate training, consultants and designers/developers. Although we kept the event informal, we spent some time doing introductions and talking about topics we'd like to see discussed in future TLIC events before letting people explore the island. 

One of the topics discussed was what new technologies community members would be interested in learning about through TLIC events. Suggestions included:

• OpenSim
• Unity3D
• Alternate reality games (ARGs)
• Jibe
• Augmented reality
• Geolocation technologies

The consensus was that community members would be more interested in hearing about case studies in future events than in seeing new technology demos. We also discussed what major issues organizations are facing in implementing new technologies. The major issues raised included:

• access to the technologies (firewalls, hardware, etc.)
• interface design issues 
• ease of use

It was great to see our friends in avatar form and meet new community members who provided great feedback and insight. Plans are already underway for our next event and we're looking forward to some additional announcements to the community in the next few weeks. 

In the meantime, we'd love to hear your thoughts on what new technologies you'd like to find out more about and what types of programming for future events would be of interest to you!

Announcing the 1st Tandem Learning Innovation Community event!

We are pleased to announce the first, official Tandem Learning Innovation Community event scheduled for Friday, August 27th, 2010 at 9:00 am SLT/ 12:00 pm EST. We’ll be hosting an open house on our new Second Life island. The official networking event, led by Koreen Olbrish (SL: Nina Sommerfleck), will be an informal discussion of community topics, including:

• New technologies for the TLIC to explore
• Major challenges in technology adoption for the community to address
• TLIC at DevLearn 2010 – call for interested parties to be showcased

Please let us know if you plan to attend by emailing Jedd Gold via linkedin or at jedd.gold@tandem-learning.com. We will be sending out the SLURL the day before the event to everyone who RSVP’s.

If you haven't yet joined the Tandem Learning Innovation Community, you can request to join here.

We are looking forward to seeing you there!