Facilitating Online Communities

I’m taking the Facilitating online communities course offered by the Manukau Institute of Technology and led by Leigh Blackall from Otago Polytechnic. It kicked off earlier this week with an online meeting (via elluminate), and is off to an interesting start.

As part of the course we’re asked to blog our reflections and thoughts, so I figure that I might as well do that here. Apologies to regular readers if you consider this off-topic. For your benefit, and for those specifically wanting to subscribe to these posts, I’ve added category feeds and will tag all course related content as foc08. That way — you get to decide.

Why am I doing it?
Last year I worked on a project to develop an online resource for learning and skills development in knowledge management. It involved setting up a Wiki and working with a small number of contributors to improve the content and encourage wider participation. I learnt a lot. One of the most important things I learnt is the importance of encouraging good practices. I wish I had had more time to cultivate the community and to assist others to learn about using wikis at a deeper level.

I really loved working in the space where technology and collaboration intersect. And whilst my business is currently focussed on face-to-face facilitation, I’d also like to help groups translate their collaboration and knowledge sharing needs into usable technology solutions. This fits nicely with my purpose to discover more human, more productive, and more creative ways for people to work together.

So, this seems a step in the right direction.

What do I hope to get out of it?
Essentially, I want to better understand the role of an online facilitator, and some of the tools and techniques at their disposal for designing and managing healthy group processes.

Although I have a vague, intuitive understanding of what the answers might be, I’m hoping that the course will answer the following questions:

• What are the characteristics of good online faciliation? Do these differ from face-to-face? If so, how?
• How do group dynamics differ online? If so, how?
• What collaborative frameworks and processes work when facilitating online groups?
• How does is power, rank perceived online and how do you encourage diversity
• What is the role of facilitator in relation to technology stewardship?

Beyond the more specific, task-oriented objectives, I’m also hoping to have some fun, to be present and engaged. I want to meet new people, make new friends, to take more risks and to stretch myself.

Questions and concerns
My main concern is about being overwhelmed by the volume of information and being able to ‘keep up’. I find it difficult to follow threaded conversations online — I guess because of the asynchronous nature of the discussion. Apologies for the stereotyping, but I also put this down to being a mere male. Apparently we find it difficult to concentrate on more than one thing at a time! To be honest, it’s more to do with my learning style. I’m not particularly quick off the mark articulating my thoughts. I need time to ponder and to process. This is not really afforded in the fast-paced environment of the Interwebs.

I’m also very inquisitive, and as a learner, I need to explore and delve deeper. The challenge here is to try and not chase the rabbit too far down the hole!

Week one has been interesting. Mostly I’ve been setting up a feed and reading other participants blogs. I’m looking forward to delving a bit deeper.

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