There has been an interesting little conversation going on between people we are connected with recently around the idea of making "actionable sense" through blogging - i.e. how to turn evolving ideas into action.

Ton started it, prompted by Lilia's post about exposing loose ends (of thoughts) through blogging:

"The problem I think is that for both those steps, digesting the results of exploration, and making actionable sense of them, we should bring our co-discoverers, i.e. the bloggers, along for the ride, but by and large still fail to do so.

We together came up with the idea, so why should we not together turn it into action? Current reality is that we try to feed the ideas into our regular workflow, and try to bring our colleagues into it. Most of our organisations however will not yet be layed out for the types of things we come up with here.

So, why not form ad-hoc (virtual) organisations, and create our own value adding networks. Bloggers together putting in proposals for conferences, defining projects etc. I'm not saying this is not being done already by some on some projects, but I am saying that we could be doing it a lot more. We feel like a community, so why not act like one. I think blogging is my first internet experience where there is a real bridge between my internet activities and my life off the net. Let's broaden that bridge, blur the lines some more. Turn our loosely coupled blogging-get-togethers into small enterprising networks."

Denham Grey chipped in to suggest using a Wiki as a way of gradually dealing with the loose ends issue.

Then, in the midst of her house moving, Dina Mehta got very excited about Ton's ideas and pointed to an interesting follow-up from Gary Murphy. She also supported the idea that sometimes involving other people in your thinking network can help turn ideas into action:

"I had the very same feeling this evening - amazing synchronicity ! I've only just returned from a meeting with a company that is more 'open' than many others to the idea of using social software tools like blogs, both in their intranet and externally. And as i was driving back - i was thinking that how wonderful it would be to be able to brainstorm with other bloggers interested in this area on some of the barriers or stumbling blocks - and work out possible solutions or directions forward. There is much that i can already tap into in terms of the technology involved - but very little that makes me confident about really 'motivating' them to start."

This is one of those cases where the form of the conversation matches its content, which suggests that Ton's original suggestion about communities of bloggers working together to turn their ideas into action may actually work.