Best ways to contact me and SMEs January 29, 2011
I am sorry you have been having difficulty reaching me by phone. There are reasons for this - to do with Dadamac's history - so it may be helpful for you to know more about how we work and the best way to contact me.
Internet and Dadamac culture
The best way to connect with Dadamac is via the Internet - it is "where we are based". This has come about because of the way that Dadamac has emerged - i.e. doing most of our work at a distance from each other. The "home" of Dadamac is, in a very real sense, on the Internet - "in the cloud".
Dadamac's organisational culture (all our systems, structures and work habits) have emerged in the context of the most effective way to communicate when people need to work at a distance, normally limited to text rather than voice, and with little or nothing in the way of Face to Face meetings.
Using the Internet (with text) has benefits - every exchange comes with its own record of "who, what, and when" - work is done at the times most convenient to the people involved ( largely asynchronously), and there are other benefits that are harder to explain.
Emails
I do try to check my emails at least once or twice a day - and I do have a system to bring the most urgent emails to my attention first (this normally works quite well).
One of the first things I check when I go online is my direct messages via twitter (I am not hooked on tweeting while I am out and about, and I don't keep checking it while I'm working, but I do tend to check it before standard emails or phone messages).
Real-time connections
Of course I do connect with people "in real time" - some times Face to Face or by voice-only phone, but usually I do 'real-time" connections through skype because of its various benefits such as easy options to flip between text only, voice only, a combination of the two, video option, option to make shared notes, send urls and files so on during the calls, cost, and the ease of including others before/during/after the main call. Most of my phone calls are at times previously agreed. Most of my "casual meetings" are if I "go visible" online (skype or yahoo) and "bump into" people 'in my community" who happen to be visible too. If I "bump into" someone with a good voice connection and I'm ready for a tea break then we may well dicid ========turn into a voice chat over "a cuppa" - maybe a good old fashioned hands free phone call.
Mobile phone and Face to Face meetings
As you know, if we have arranged to meet Face to Face then I will use my mobile phone to make sure we connect up as efficiently as possible. I usually send text messages for journey updates and then use voice at the end (if there is any difficulty finding someone in a crowded place). However I am old fashioned enough to feel that when I am out and about then the phone is really only for the things I am dealing with while I am out and about - I prefer to pick up phone messages from my land-line when I get back to base and can give them proper attention.
I hope this makes it easier for you (and others) to contact me without difficulty and exchange information.
Emailing openly
Dadamac is trying to make it more usual to share information openly as a matter of course. Sharing some emails as you go along, rather than keeping them all private, makes it much easier to include more people and enable new collaborations to emerge.
When you email me, if you are happy for your emails to be public, then I encourage you to write them through the Dadamac Learners group - something that is just starting to emerge (just post your email to dadamaclearnersgroup@posterous.com). You need to have been added as a contributor, so I will add you ready for any time when you want to write publicly. Originally the dadamac learners posterous was just for people who had declared themselves to be Dadamac Learners. However I now think it will usefully serve the needs of a wider group - including people who are helping Dadamac Learners to learn. With you I am learning about all kinds of issues around enabling Small and Medium Enterprises.
I look forward to our next communication.
Pamela