Rewind

Rewind 2020. Actions, motion, observations and reflections.

I look back to look forward.

2020: what came together? What didn’t? What are my moments of change and ripples?

January

I started the year by participating in the Personal Knowledge Mastery Workshop by Harold Jarche. The asynced and light-guided format helped shape, review, refresh and refine my sensemaking, work and learning practices over a three-month workshop with introductions, tips, activities and resources shared by Harold.

February

The Learning Technologies France conference in Paris is where I went to get a pulse on what’s happening in the workplace learning space. 

With Jillian Reilly we explored a possible collaboration for Antacara expeditions. 

“project selection; does this work align with our culture? does this partner align with our culture? will this project further our culture?” — Joyce Raby

March

After completing the PKM workshop, Harold Jarche invited me to join the Perpetual Beta Coffee Club. I enjoy being part of a global community of practice focused on working and learning in a networked society.

Through the monthly calls I connect with people and see with fresh eyes what is happening in other parts of the world – dealing with the pandemic, initiating exciting projects and discussing various issues beyond workplace learning.

As part of the first lockdown in France, we also scoped, co-designed and built the platform architecture with my client for a remote learning programme and community focused on soft skills development for hundreds of Masters students at a French business school.

This month I also started attending monthly IFTF Certified Practitioner Meetings with futures thinking instigators worldwide as I continue to spot and use signals.

“As an amateur, I try and surround myself with people who know and do what I am trying to learn to do. And all that good company is inspiring and transformational.” — @write2tg

April & May

Over the two months, with my client and the school staff, we ran the remote programme and community for two cohorts of French and international students.

In April I joined the 21st Century Explorers community hosted by Jillian Reilly on Connectle. I have been meeting, connecting, laughing and making sense with a global community of explorers on a weekly basis. This ecosystem is energising, full of empathy, curiosity, creativity and madness.

Since meeting Jillian on Twitter, via video call and in Paris last year, we have continued our conversation about human flourishing and community building. One of our shared interests is health and well-being.

In April, I was kindly invited to present a webinar on making choices in uncertain times with my holistic health practice.

“Some, perhaps most, communities are simply there and available to members when they need them. In these communities, you look at the culture, the speed of response, the empathy of the response and work to improve each. You refine rules and nurture new social norms with top members. You develop systems to get faster responses. You work to help each person feel safe sharing parts of themselves they can’t anywhere else.

You might measure a satisfaction rating via a pop-up poll or survey every 6 months to a sample of members.

Ultimately, remember the engagement paradox here:

The engagement paradox.

Everyone wants more engagement, except community members.

Alignment is harder than it looks.” — Richard Millington

In May, I met again remotely with Paul Simbeck-Hampson, who is always kind, insightful, responsive and classy in helping me with marketing and business challenges

June

My experience as a programme and internal community manager for a business school sparked my desire to develop my community management skills. I delve into this discipline with The Community Roundtable and other mavens through their rich resources: events, podcasts, libraries, blogs, newsletters, live chats and roundtables.

Trish Wilson, CICE’s Network Catalyst, put me on frequent calls with global changemakers when I returned. It was interesting to meet people I didn’t know and discuss issues I had no idea about before the call. Often there is no roundtable, defined topics or agenda. The only constraint is time.

“The challenge then is about change. How do you get all the pieces fitting so individuals are being their best, and a group moves forward (literally in the case of motorbike rides).

A lot has to do with the individuals in the organisations, the groups, the companies, but the overall systems and structure has to support them.

It’s embarrassing to be ‘different’, one of the slower riders, but it’s also mentally about the psychological space to be that, and then in practice as you grow and develop your skills, eventually becoming one of the people who pays it forward and passes it on to other new riders, who are where you were.” — Trish Wilson

July & August

It was quiet. I enjoyed the summer without travelling. I took a break from social networks and communities. I reviewed and shared some of my cornucopia of bookshelves, podcasts, music lists and blog post series.

In July, one of the few conversations I had with a certified Gallup Strengthfinder coach, Lotte Koënig, was about my strengths and how to activate and nurture them. A second session took place in August.

I focused on mastering a few disciplines: community management, futures thinking and learning innovation. I also started to design a workshop on the development of learnability.

“The art of innovation and design is striking the right balance between divergence and convergence. There’s a right time to open the aperture wider to welcome all ideas and a time to converge and align around shared ideas to make progress.” — Saul Kaplan

September & October 

I continued to write my book on connectedness and learnability: the outline, the essays, the first draft and the editing.

I also designed my learnability development workshop: the activities, the bingo, the presentation and the one-pager.

I self-care with lots of unplugging, cycling and fitness.

“With increased remote work, rise of gig-based economies, digital transformation and automation, the landscape of work has already started to change in a post COVID world. If the only thing that’s constant is change, skills are the currency that can help us survive in the present and continuous learning is the mindset that can help us thrive in the future.” — Taruna Goel

November

I attended the Next Gen Enterprise Summit, live streamed on Zoom, immersed in Virbela and hosted from Paris. It was artistic and enlightening. I also updated my worldview with the Gapminder test.

December

I review the year. I am still working on my learning artefacts and upskilling in a few disciplines. Finally, I have the last conversations of the year with the global community I am engaging.

Thoughts

Global communities help me find meaning and support in a crazy world.

Focusing on a few disciplines also allows me to cross-pollinate. So human flourishing is at the intersection of community management, learning innovation and futures thinking.

“Networks are not communities. Communities are trusted spaces run by and for members.” — @hjarche

 

“We work, grow and play in our own communities, and at the centre of these communities are the places where we come together to learn, innovate and celebrate.” — @Downes

During the lockdown, doing projects made me think about embracing constraints and our identity, the importance of relatedness, self-care and collaboration. Productive and quiet times are joyful. Long-term thinking and knowing are in my mind and will.

I have enjoyed travelling. It seems far away as I write.

With twists and turns, each spring is when we sing, summer is when we slow down, autumn is when we go down rabbit holes and winter is when we rewind the rollercoaster.

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