Author Archives: Marie Haller

Framing it Up!

My favorite part of this week – getting to ask other people to tell me a story about their best collaborative experiences.  Sometimes I feel like this work can get jargon-y, so it’s nice to cut through that and listen to a story without all of the big words.  Not only did I get some more data for our “Effective Collaboration Framework” but I also got to learn some new things about my colleagues – from AJ’s fascinating Burning Man camp project (3D Printers and Scanners that made people miniatures of themselves!) to the incredible non-profit organization (about-face.org) that I had no idea my manager, Kathy, founded.

Their narratives definitely converged around similar themes we touched on during last week’s session:

  • co-creating/creation
  • no ego
  • meaningful result (even if the intended result didn’t occur)
  • open communication/equal participation

Two new ideas also emerged:

  • energy/passion
  • diverse skill-sets

All 3 of my colleagues said these two things were what made their collaborative efforts so great.  I remembered that Anna’s story also included a group with diverse skill-sets, so I thought these two factors were definitely worth inclusion in our framework.  The framework is still loose, but I’m excited to continue revising it throughout the bootcamp and as I continue in my career.  I’m sure I’ll hear about and experience many other collaborative experiences to add data and depth to this framework over time. 

Speaking of revision…..Eugene kindly prompted me to think about our discussion around generative questions last Wednesday in reference to one of my overarching questions for this experience.  Instead of asking whether you have to be in the same physical space to collaborate, I think my real question was the latter half of that sentence – “How can one support and spark collaboration and community virtually?”  Still working on the answer to that one….

 

 

Why is community and collaboration so important?

It was pretty amazing to put all of those nagging questions up on the wall and see them in physical form

It was pretty amazing to put all of those nagging questions up on the wall and see them in physical form

The first thing you see on the HUB Bay Area website –

“We’re Humans Taking Collaborative Action For A Better World.”

The HUB is a co-working space for changemakers, and my role there is as the Host of the space.  I’m fairly new to the social enterprise world, so when I got referred to Eugene for his Changemaker Bootcamp it was a no-brainer for me.  Since starting the job, I’ve been thinking a lot about why community and collaboration is so important at the HUB and wondering what having an engaged community looks like in action.  I’m hoping this bootcamp will help me start to answer those big picture questions.  In the first week alone, I got to throw all my questions up on the wall (see above) – even questions I didn’t realize I’d had before – which was a pretty powerful sight.

We have recently convened a small group of members and staff at the HUB to try to answer these same questions about community and collaboration, so I am hoping to be able to directly apply the skills I’m learning through the workshop to enhance the work of our Community Building group.  I think the larger goal of both this HUB working group and my participation in this workshop is to learn how to more effectively support people in building a community that will help further collaborative initiatives.

Beyond the big picture question and goal I have set, one of my other key questions that I’d like to explore is whether you need to physically be in the same place to feel part of a community and join in a collaboration.  At the HUB, our membership base has grown to about 900 members in the Bay Area, so I think that understanding ways that I could help spark collaborations virtually would be a great asset to my work.

Through all of this, I’m hoping to use my empathy superpowers to connect with other people and understand their needs which will allow me to connect them with others.  At a basic level, I think this is how community building and collaboration can grow – through individuals connecting each other across a large web.  I hope to use the time in this bootcamp to really delve deeper into the larger questions that I have and learn tools I can use to help activate and support a web of people day to day.