WiserEarth UK

Feels like a good step in the right direction to me - the layouts look like they've got a bit more in common with other social networking sites like facebook, and I think that kind of familiarity will help people feel it's more 'usable'.  Instant gut feel reaction to the 2 versions of the homepage was a preference for the one featuring Bowo - not sure why...

What a lot has happened since February!   The UK is now in a different space politically and financially than it was at the beginning of the year.  My own focus has sharpened still further on the issue of 'quality' connections mentioned by @sicjedi and into political activism.

@dameron - intrigued by what you might have said?

I've submitted an outline proposal on 'quality connections' to a group of organisations which all have visions for the development of Bristol.  The aim is to develop and communicate the culture and skills for coordinated and cooperative action between organisations and leaders in Bristol. More on this anon.

Re: political activism - the UK has a significant crisis of political leadership at the moment, and few can see any obvious alternative to 'the usual suspects' or the marginals and fruit loops. I believe WE broadly represents 'The Movement', and that we could probably gain a stronger electoral mandate than the political parties get through the national elections. I think it's time we collectively step into the responsibility of our ideas and form a viable political alternative.  If you're in the UK and are keen to take part, please get in touch.

Thank you all for your kind words and votes. It's funny that I hadn't realised quite how much I would have liked to be on this council until I saw the result just now, and my heart sank that I hadn't made it - at the same time, I agree absolutely with Bowo's point about youth and women, knowing that white middle aged men are vastly over represented in just about everything!  

I'm grateful for having been invited to participate, and would like to congratulate the worthy winners Michael and Deborah, who I know will do a great job.  Thank you both for agreeing to spend your time on this - I'll support you and the council in whatever way I can, and look forward to meeting you all one day...

Very best wishes

Mike

Like the new Wiser Blog feature, and my immediate thought was 'Why can't I have one?'.  Having seen this discussion (I'm already using a wiki page as a pseudo-blog), I think you're right to try and keep it simple. I like being able to edit my own blog thoughts on the wiki page.  Perhaps a label/note on personal profiles to suggest the blogging options might be a good idea?  I suspect people will keep on asking until they see a signpost of some sort....

I've rated the discussion for the visible progress of thinking!

Love your summary Bowo :-)

Thanks also for the tutorial link.  I've just posted something about blogging in the suggestions stream about joining stuff up - so I guess I should follow your advice and try to knit these two conversations together...

Great to read about the blog space coming up next month Angus - I'm not clear if Wiserearth.org.blog is for Wiserearth users to blog about Wiserearth, or about their own stuff?

William - great to hear your voice, and thanks both for the rating and the comments.  I'll now try to share this conversation stream with more people and hopefully the learning/practical progress will keep coming.

Best wishes

Mike

Thanks for those comments guys - I really appreciate their thoughtfulness.

Re; the language thing Bowo - there are some REALLY simple things we can do to make a big difference. Appreciative Inquiry is a great way forward - you can be very academic about it if you choose (there's LOTS written about it), or you can apply it very simply.  I like things like the 'And/But' challenge - just invite people to replace all their 'But's' with 'And's' - the difference is that you've left space for the other person's perspective rather than opposing it - and by acknowledging the both/and way of the world (there's always a shadow side), you make it easier for people to challenge each other without raising the emotional stakes and heading toward conflict.

Holdiing this both/and idea firmly, I'd agree with your comment on the idea of breakthrough victories vs miles-long battle line. it DOES take both approaches, partly because the miles long effect is unavoidable in a shift of world views - I think what I meant was that a lot of strategic thinkers want to change the big picture with big tools - that's fine, and important.  In my view, it's likely that the biggest changes will actually happen fastest because of the people who do see/sense that big picture, and concentrate on the things that they themselves can do with those close to them.  Often, these smaller scale chages will be driven by what the big scale folks are trying to do.....

As to the questions thing - I think the best way of improving our ability to ask great questions is to test each other's questions regularly - and in my experience, that's mainly about the assumptoins that our questions imply.  If we're all acutely aware that the questions we ask set the direction of the conversation, we'll see that  we often settle the outcomes (to a degree) right at the beginning. Journalists are forever assuming the worst of human behaviour and so ask provocative questions - unless the questions are countered with other questions about the assumptoins being made, we're destined to follow them into the darkness.

Angus - not sure what you meant by your last sentence - will have a look at the link in a moment.

Couple more questions from me:  Is there anybody on the team whose role is to insert links between related wiki pages etc. and so clear the pathways to coherent conversations? Since this wiki is about best connections, it would be ironic if we made no clear effort to join it up!!

Also - I've assumed that these wiki pages are effectively my 'blog' space on Wiserearth.  Is that an assumptoin that is widely held?  Is there a protocol I've missed about where to just upload whatever I'm thinking/experiencing?

Hi Angus,

Yeah - I see (and promote) Wiser's raison d'etre as being the best chance we have of creating a 'World Index', which for me has two main benefits - 1) making the scale of the movement visible to those with power to make big decisions (although this function is rapidly becoming less important as it's becoming more obvious anyway) and 2) to enable the connections to be made.  AND - my experience is that we need to learn the best ways of communicating with people who are different from us - so my interest in the language thing isn't so much about Wiserearth's internal community (though it may well be quite helpful),  but about how we talk to the people who don't see or agree.  The better we're able to deal with criticism, the better enabled we are to make change....

Dear Associates,

We will shortly post a few short pieces of writing to help us all improve our learning/reflective practices as we go about our work. Use this discussion group to post your ideas, to talk about making effective learning buddy/group connections or to point to other useful resources.  Thanks Mike Z