Dadamac and "Social Media, Enterprise and Action" September 16, 2010

Hi Genevieve and Larry (and readers of my open letters)

It was good to meet you yesterday at  the Meet Up on Social Media, Enterprise and Action 

Learning

I enjoyed discovering our overlapping interests in education and learning - with the emphasis not on formal learning in the traditional educational system (initially designed to serve the needs of 19th and 29th century employers) - but on the kind of informal, dynamic, life long learning we need to do now, in so many aspects of our rapidly changing lives.

21st century social dynamics

It was such a pleasure to be able to discuss ideas with you on how things are changing, not just in individual ongoing learning, but in so many aspects of social dynamics and 21at century life - truly disruptive organisational changes emerging from the alternative ways of interacting that the Internet has enabled. I have been reflecting on some of the ideas we touched on yesterday. I think for example of the ones of individual-but-not-isolated activity - the whole "dance" of brief collaborations, continuing collaborations, recurring collaborations and so on. I think too of the really deep differences between pre and post Internet society that are so real and yet still so invisible to many people.  I hope we will get further opportunities to explore ideas together. 

A digression

By the way, as I think about this I realise how deeply I would like to develop that analogy of dancing and of individual yet collaborative activity. I'd probably use examples from barn-dancing - but also from other, more free-style types of dance, even thinking about it now in my own mind I am seeing additional useful insights. I realise that would be a personal indulgence and of limited value to people who don't relate to dance -  but there are some very useful analogies in there. Hmm - thinking around the uses of analogies and movement  is now causing me to reflect on  how I think, and how that affects how I try to explain things - and .... Hey! I  think I now understand better why I can't talk without moving and waving my arms around - and why there's probably no use in use trying.)

Some links

When I started to write this I had two intentions.

1. Follow up our exchange of contact details yesterday.
2. Give you some relevant links from Dadamac's posterous and www.dadmac.net related to our conversations.

Regarding links I realise that much of our conversation was about ideas that I have been incubating for a long time, but have not written up yet. I work mostly with people who are practitioners of one kind and another who benefit from the Internet - but, although using the Internet  is important to them, they are involved with doing various practical things, not with analysing changes in social dynamics and such like.

However I think these two links might lead you to something of interest:

1. From dadamac posterous  September 15, 2010 - Second week in September at Dadamac  - The theme was collaboration, and my first few comments about analysis are there too
   
2. From dadamac.net Nikki's blog - this is the total opposite of analysis - it is totally practical work I am involved in and gives the ongoing story of Dadamac's ongoing UK-Nigeria communication and collaboration (which is enabled by the Internet and informs some of my anaylsis).

I look forward to discussing more with you.

Pamela