#Brixvill - Confluence pop-ups - the confluence wall August 26, 2010
Hi Hannah (and everyone)
David and Leon - thanks for your interest and encouragement.
Hannah - I love your ideas and naming of things - and I know what you mean about "Tuesday already". Don't worry if it takes you a bit longer than you hoped to get our info onto the wiki.
Regarding the confluence wall, and the headings as on the wiki - I have a couple of thoughts about the practicalities of using the headings and helping people to get started:
- In many situations no-one wants to go first - this may be one of those situations.
- One of the reasons I am reluctant to write onto the wiki is that I'm not too sure what the headings mean (It all makes complete sense when David or Leon tells me - but later, when I go to the site "cold", I'm not at all sure what I'm supposed to write under those headings). Others may feel the same.
- If you have to give instructions to people it may seem complicated - and people may forget small but important details, like putting their names on (and the name of the thread, or project ,or whatever the heading is called on the Confluence wiki)
If so then the following might be helpful:
- Under the heading write an explanation e.g. Conditions (the things that are stopping you at the moment - which need to be overcome).I don't know if that is a correct title and explanation, but I just want to illustrate what I have in mind.
- Write up a couple of examples in advance - maybe a couple of things of your own just some of your own, or, better still, a few examples that you have prised from other people that you know.
If you have a little more explanation in the right place, and "good models of behaviour" for people to copy then everything becomes much easier.
Regarding "swarming" and such like, it may be too ambitious, first time around to expect people to see how they can pick up on shared interest and gather around it as a team. To begin with we want to keep it simple - to help people to put their information up to share with others in the hope of making connections and achieving some actions. We don't have to achieve anything complicated at the start.
I am wondering - how will people who have shared interss actually connect with each other. Will all the people know each other? Will they all be in the space around the confluence wall at the same time so that they can connect and have conversations?
As I recall from our discussion, the Beginners' Poetry night is to be a kind of practice for another confluence pop up later - and then more perhaps - until (if all goes well) we have something that will work online as well as on a confluence wall.
Of course, the confluence wall has the potential to be more dynamic and organic than a simple "for sale" and "wanted" - "I have" and "I need" - Exchange and Mart type of information exchange, so we need to think how to manage that - and if we will try to take any steps towards it on that first occasion.
There are various information management details I am wondering about. Will anyone facilitate that "finding of shared interests and nurturing them" at the Beginners' Poetry night - or will this first confluence pop-up simply be an opportunity to gather some information and start to build "The Co-operative Community" ? Will you (alone or with help) do anything about transferring information from the confluence wall into the confluence wiki, or will that be much further down the line? Will we be able to keep the confluence wall on display as an ongoing and developing space, or does it have to come down at the end of the Beginners' Poetry night?
If I was going to be free on this evening then I would join you, but I have planned to be at David's evening happenings this week. I hope we can share thoughts on it - how it went and what to do next - very soon. I think it will be a very interesting learning experience for all of us.
It occurs to me that if we get the hang of organising confluence wall pop-ups we might increase the scope beyond people who are already at Brixvill. Are you familiar with Meet-ups groups, organised on the Internet? (If not ask me or one of the others about them). It is a really useful mechanism for bringing people with shared interests together, so could be relevant later if we wanted to increase the scope. (No need for us to think of that any more so early on - it's just a possible idea that I thought I'd share while it's in my mind.
Hope all goes well this evening and you start to get some writing on the wall.
Pamela