Suw, on reflection, I think it would have been good to have started again before playing 'same or different' - We could have said "OK, those are some of the things we've thought...what are the most important things we want to remember (that have already been articulated or are still lurking under the surface) from the conversations we've had today. Then get everyone to write a new bunch of post-its and then play 'same or different' with them.

This does have the benefit of hindsight and it would fit better into a day that was more structured overall, which, I suggest is something we should do in addition to the BlogWalk format, not necessarily in it's place.

Thanks for the sterling work you did on transcription - i look forward to seeing the wiki'd version.

Yes, I think we could have done that, and it would have been equally as valuable.

Ideally, it would be good to tweak the BlogWalk format a little just to include a short period at the end of the morning and afternoon for the capture of all the ideas that are flying around. Either that or take it in turns to take proper notes throughout the discussion periods.

I like the BlogWalk format as is, and wouldn't want it messed with too much because it works, it's just a little too ephemeral for me. But maybe that's just because I have a memory like one of those things with holes in.

Hi Suw, Lloyd,

I missed the last session, due to family commitment, but really enjoyed the day. I think the "Walk" aspect is important to retain, but agree that a little more planned structure of the sessions, would have helped make best use of the time - not all of us are conditioned to expect what is entailed in that OpenSpace format.

Some way of electronic post-it recording helps too (I've done that before in real-time). As the "new boy" I didn't come armed with gadgets, but I was very surprised not to see more Laptops, PDA's and projection / recording being used - seemed odd for a "bleeding edge" technology meet.

I posted two items on my own blog,
http://www.psybertron.org/2004_09_01_archive.html#109550028528475977
http://www.psybertron.org/2004_09_01_archive.html#109550125622448580
And I saw David Wilcox blog too afterwards. I thought David had caught the positive side in his own summary on the day, that all these people relationship aspects of blogging in business, were really just good old people relationships as they ever were, but in his blog he suggested we / commercial blogging in companies were missing this fact, and treating it as a technology issue.

For what it's worth I think the right issues have been captured.
99% Anthropology / 1% Technology.
It was refreshing that none of us turned up armed with technology.

Thanks for a good post Suw and a good summary of the issues.

I'm an inveterate non-taker of notes and in the interests of diversity, and having declared this piece of neurotic luggage at customs, here's why I personally wouldn't want a second "let's write it all down/pull it together' session. Time pulling together and writing down is time NOT spent conversing, connecting, exploring.

We have the whole of the rest of our lives to record and digitise; when I meet people in flesh I want to use that time to talk and converse. On a Blogwalk, I'm not very interested in "agreeing" on anything much other than to have a walk together and to do it again sometime.

I truly don't worry for a moment about precious ideas being lost; I think good ideas take care of themselves and don't need to be rigorously digitised to survive. They certainly don't need several people to agree with them formally to ensure their longevity.

Au contraire, what good ideas thrive on is being knocked around, subjected to variation, reinterpretation, even "mis"understanding. The good ones will mutate and improve. Individuals will pick them up and blog them alone. Just as you have done here Suw.

In other contexts, plenary sessions seeking agreement are necessary and useful. But not - for me - on a Blogwalk.

I soon get bored by sessions where one person talks and everyone else has to listen. Unless the person is a really good talker. Or is me, that's always acceptable.

Hi all,

thanks for all your thoughts and impressions. I agree with John that to make the most of time f2f reducing the time spent summarizing in situ is a good idea. That can come later. However I think we haven't yet hit on a good way of doing that afterwards, of providing a platform for it. Originally we assumed that this would happen in all our blogs. But that is maybe a different activity than collectively trying to summarize things.

As to the lack of gadgets etc. The first blogwalk was specifically organized without connectivity of any kind. I guess we succeeded in keeping it that way :)

best,

Ton

Ian, if you'd have stayed you'd have seen the array of iBooks and Acer Tablets that some people displayed/hid behind as the afternoon wore on.

Thanks to everyone for their further thoughts on this. I wouldn't want to change anything that we did or how it's done in future.

I agree (and yes, checking back at the top, I see I did say it) that any recording should be in addition to the Blog Walk format not in place of it and that it shouldn't be a required part of the experience, just for those who need it.

My need for writing it down is less to do with a need to record and keep and more to do with my experience that if I try to keep it all in my head, without writing it down, I don't have as rich an experience. My head just doesn't have that capacity - i need a stack to push stuff onto while i think about it, check it out with others and then come back to it.

Thanks mostly to Johnnie for reminding me that there will always be another day to think, talk, write and digest everything and that it doesn't all have to be done NOW!

Memory-wise I find the "little black book" with a few key phrases or bullet points essential to remember the flow of the day.

However I'm not keen to have a formal plenary "writing it down" session; partly so as to make best use of f2f time; partly because I find that writing a too-detailed set of notes tends to freeze the thinking at that point rather than allow the ideas to ferment and mature over time.

I do think that a reflection period at the end of each session would be a good way to surface and anchor thoughts without over-formalising.

The other side of that coin of course is that to continue the conversations amongst this geographically-dispersed group we are going to need to write it down on blogs, wikis, emails, IM etc. etc. - perhaps that is where we begin to express a written emergence of our thinking?

I'm beginning to think that as well as having the "seed" themes (the 11 groupings from the window) to work with it would be very helpful to have some candidate"research questions" in each of those areas to focus our output. If inspiration strikes I'll blog it!

Of course we already have one target output in terms of defining the right toolset (the "IntraBliki") .

I mostly agree with the view that "it" is about the soft issues and not the technology but that is a little bit countered by my experience that unless the technology hurdle is very very low then it becomes a great hook for people to hang their other issues on.

Don't forget that we are, by definition, a self-selected group who have been prepared to deal with the technology to get our ideas "out there" - that is not (IMHO) generally true of the people in a given workplace.

This has become something of a mammoth comment so I'll probably cross-post to my blog.

Just a facilitative afterthought. Of course, Open Space allows those who feel like an integrative session to have one any time they like, with others who share their interest/concern/enthusiasm - and that's what actually happened in the late afternoon.

Yes - thank you Johnnie for gently keeping us on the Open Space track during the day. This thread has been great for me to see the huge diversity even among a small number of relatively like-minded souls of conversational preferences and styles and to be reminded of the value that people place on f2f encounters - which I can tend to be a bit cavalier about.

I think the range of feelings on the knowledge capture aspect just goes to show that people react and remember very differently.

I happen to have a particularly slippery memory which will allow me to remember in great detail visual details (I could sketch you that Window Wiki in some details) but which doesn't seem so good at remembering conversations. Mild dyslexia means that hand-written notes are usually worse than useless, hence my tendency to prefer typewritten notes when possible.

The BlogWalks are very valuable meetings, and the opportunity to discuss blog-related issues in depth is great, but I personally dislike coming away from any such event without having some notes because otherwise the whole lot is lost to the ineffectiveness of my synapses.