improving the architecture of this online space

[Benjamin Aaron Degenhart]

may this thread be a place to be in conversation around a conscious evolution of the architecture of this online community so that it serves our global community well. 

in this form it started as comments on the "AoH Bowen Island" Group as a conversation between Jay, Amanda, Ria and me - i copy the state of that flow in here for it to continue here. i rearranged the order so you can read chronologically from top downwards:

Comment by Benjamin Aaron Degenhart on October 19, 2010

heyja, same for me, i wasn't part on Bowen Island but can feel the powerful and inspiring ripples this event took...

as i want to keep learning about creating useful and enjoyable online spaces i'd love to hear how the architecture of this online community could be improved in your sense Amanda and others - is a group the right piece of architecture to honor the needs of a local AoH gathering? how could it be even more useful and attractive to people?

Comment by Jay Standish

Benjamin! RE: online<->onlife integration: I would like intentional harvesting for online presentation, with a focus on rich media (video, photos, audio) So the harvesting team could include a web ambassador who does her harvesting specifically for presenting on the web. Maybe this means taking little video snippets of each person. What amanda's done with the prezi is a great example of weaving multiple forms of media into one presentation.

Also, some mobile/tweet/SMS channel where people can easily post their insights throughout the day, and others can see them. We develop shared vocabularies in deep gatherings, and you can say a lot more when you have already established a wisdom language.

We could just create hashtags for different conversations, and have an asynchronous world cafe to continue gathering the collective intelligence and creating a shared vocabulary.

Comment by Mike Kennedy

I'm just getting acquainted with social media, Jay, but this sounds very interesting. I'm interested to learn more. One of my goals is not only to be more connected when with others in hosting spaces but also to find a meaningful way to stay connected when apart, as well.

Comment by Amanda Fenton

Jay those are some great ideas. And thanks Benjamin for inquiring about the architecture of this community. It is too soon for me to comment on that - I'm thrilled that this space exists and hope to do whatever I can to build community. One note though (and this might have just been me), but the AoH org site offers a link to an online community site that is different from this one (see here at the bottom). If it weren't for Chris Corrigan mentioning this ning site I wouldn't have known it existed.

Comment by Benjamin Aaron Degenhart

awesome, thank you Jay, such richness in your thoughts! love what you are learning through developing @symbionomics and your genius mind in general :) i will co-host an AoH at YIP in three weeks (excited!!) and am thinking about convening with a harvesting team before (all YIPies had one week of media/harvesting training, they are fit) and talk about digital strategy and architecture... maybe you can be our friendly nerd joining in for a call or something :) how's that? let's see...

thanks for the link Amanda. i knew about Evolutionary Nexus and have found brilliant content there when i spent some time. it doesn't seem active these days though.

Comment by Ria Baeck 

Hello Amanda and Benjamin,

You are really the online wizards, who are finding the glitches in the system! It is true, Evolutionary Nexus is not active anymore. It is still there, but most people found it too difficult to use, so it never got real traction. (If any of you would like to copy the nuggets there over to here...?) We hope this Ning will go better and it would be fabulous if any or both of you would help with hosting this online space (like welcoming new members, making links to other pages or conversations etc)!

This Ning site is not officially announced to the AoH emaillist, which should be done in a few weeks time. It just has grown organically with a few groups/trainings and it is moving from there.

When this Ning is totally set, we will look at redesigning the static site, but any help is welcome!

Hope this helps.

If we continue this conversation, then better not on this wall, but better under Conversations -> Problems? Help?

[Benjamin Aaron Degenhart]

thanks Ria! yes, some day i'd love to dive through the EN space and digg for nuggets...
i feel like hosting this space in the form of approving and welcoming people when i have a good moment to do so and caring for the improvement of the architecture. maybe we can make Amanda administrator too if you want?

we just had a call with the AoH YIP hosting team (in three weeks in Sweden for 33 young people) and i will create a group and invite all participants beforehand there and we will share the registration question there. so this is an experiment in using a group on this ning already as a landing plattform before an actual training - then to harvest during (this i want to design very consciously and involve other media channels for (real-time) interaction with the global community, hopefully with you Jay and others?) and to share stories afterwards...

[Ria Baeck]

Thanks Benjamin for opening this conversation!! Greatly appreciated!

Would you mind - at some point in time - to make a Page that explains Twitter, Facebook and the like for 'old folks'? Really for people who are starting from scratch. In the Art of Humans being we had .... (forgot her name now) and she offered 'teachings' on how Twitter was working for people aged like me. It had a lot of success! Some of these older people are really afraid 'to do something wrong'...

[Ria Baeck]

Forgot to say: i fixed the link to Nexus - now linking here!

[Benjamin Aaron Degenhart]

thanks Ria. yes, i will do that soon!
... started the "Discipline of Peace" training today here in Århus, a wonderful group to dive into this for the coming month, i feel so blessed.

[Amanda Fenton]

I would be honoured to help in hosting this online space. And how beautiful that it has grown organically. I think this site is an important part of the AoH community and look forward to helping it flourish. I'll browse Evolutionary Nexus and see how I can help with moving gems over.

Benjamin - I love the idea of using this site for the intro questions and to harvest throughout. Will you create a specific hashtag?

And Ria - brilliant thinking on the digital guide. If there is anything I can do to help just let me know.

Exciting!!

[Ria Baeck]

Hé Amanda, thanks for offering your help!
Benjamin offered to write a page or so for a Digital Guide, but I know he is quite busy these days... Why not start a draft and co-create it with him? That would be great!!!

[Benjamin Aaron Degenhart]

thanks Ria. here some notes i wrote recently on what a digital AoH guide could contain. it would be lovely if you feel inspired to make it more beautiful and maybe broaden it Amanda. then we can make an extra page for it....


TWITTER

twitter account @AoH_live, happy to share the password on request
to mark the conversation it makes sense to use #AoH[location]
the profile information & location on the account should be updated in this way or similar:
- upcoming training: [location, date, theme,URL to flyer, who is tweeting, ...] join the conversation using #AoH[location]"
- currently: -"-
- the last training was: -"-

FACEBOOK

if there is a person/team holding the focus for real-time online harvesting and maybe even feed the online replies back into the local face2face group it can make sense to create an additional FB page beforehand. the level of engagement seems to be higher on FB than on Twitter and photos/videos can be posted. the FB page could be linked to the Twitter account for auto-crossposts.

AOH NING

thoughts: every local training gets its own (closed?) group. so that a safe/trusted environment is there AND the possiblity to share globally in the conversations or continent/national-groups.
one way to use the Ning right from the start is to invite participants before the training to join the "AoH [location]" group and answer the registration questions there.

[Amanda Fenton]

Greetings Ria and Benjamin!

Have a quick peek at this slideshare I came across - is this some of the info that would be helpful for folks who want to dip their toe in the social media water? Or perhaps something similar to this blog post?

[Ria Baeck]

Thanks Benjamin and Amanda!
The bit Benjamin wrote down, seems indeed a little bit too short... needs more explanation and context. (Think of explaining Twitter to your aunt or grandmother who has heard of it, but doesn't know what to do or what it is good for) The links you gave Amanda could be pointers that we could include in the Ning Page.
Maybe we need to make another page or separate section for people who know what it is but to share the hashtag etc.