Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral

Facilitation and hosting

Johnnie Moore just wrote almost exactly the post I was about to write about David Snowden’s post referring to Chris Corrigan’s post about facilitation and hosting. I’m not really a ‘blogger’ blogger who blogs about other people’s blogs because others do it better, but thought this too interesting not to, so I suggest you read what Johnnie said as I agree with him. And here are a few other bits:

1. A local technical outfit recently changed strategic direction after a couple of years’ work building a software product. Naturally the change is somewhat disruptive to the technical team, so I suggested to the team leader that he do a little lessons learnt type session with the team to get their responses out as a group, and to learn some lessons for the future as a group for them as individuals, instead of getting down to some predictable sadness and pointless moaning that can all too easily occur when ‘organisational change’ happens.

He did a grand job, using De Bono’s hats method and I am very proud that he did it, and that they all enjoyed it so much. He said it was easy to do, fun to partake in, and productive for everyone.

The thing he found the weirdest about ‘being a facilitator’ was that he was part of the system and had things to say too, and he knew that was OK, but he still felt weird adding things to the process. So he was ‘hosting’ in Chris words. And it was fine.

2. Chris’ points about hosting, systems and communities as vectors I totally agree with:

Hosting is leading from the field, and it is a very different path from “facilitation” and it operates out of a very different worldview about the kinds of systems in which we live. Anyone can do it, and in fact it works better when there is more “hosting consciousness” in a group. That way the power of a traditional facilitator is not needed, and the group’s capacity to take itself to the next level is increased.

Couldn’t agree more. When I started as an ‘online community manager’ it was seen as an external agent who ‘moderated’ ‘facilitated’ ‘re-purposed content’ etc. for a ‘thing’ that existed largely in isolation to its relations around it. Now I insist that I work with clients who take their own communities onboard themselves, build clear relations with HQ, the membership etc. and work with people within the community system to enrich it because I don’t believe that me being an external agent works for the system. We will work hand-in-hand, but it’s theirs. Only by being this way can the community come close to self-realisation. Lyndsay Rees-Jones and I are outlining how we tried to do this for The CILIP communities at our slot at Online Information soon.

And back to Chris:

Hosting from within the field however is more aligned with the nature of complex systems, where there are no answers, but instead only choices to make around the next question, and the paths where those questions lead us. There are no end states. The idea of a healthy community is a vector, not a point. It is a direction to move, not something that can be acheived and then crossed off the list.

Oh gosh yes, yes, yes. I have seen people use a gardening metaphor to explain online communities to people wanting to understand them more, and it’s OK. But I think a climbing metaphor is far more powerful for the reasons Chris outlines above.

We are not in control, we can’t predict the future, and by creating ambitious community development plans, we risk that old project manager hell of spending more time updating Microsoft Project than surfing the potential of the group.

Also, all of this reminds me a lot of the work Nancy White, John Smith and Etienne Wenger are putting into the concept of a Technology Steward, upon which I draw much inspiration for assisting groups of people define their needs at different times in their community’s lifecycle.

Good work all!