wrythings

Tonight we convened the first Chicago Net Tuesday at “The Point” at 600 W. Chicago… thanks Aaron! We had a great turnout by Meet-Up standards… (somewhere around 30 people) … we’re shooting for the second Tuesday of each month.

The metaphor of the mash-up is perfect for our vision. We want to bring together the talents and assets and interests and needs of Chicago — Chicago techies and community activists, NPOs and others ready to give back to the community and grow the network. Fundamentally, our perspective is that while NPOs are addressing deep needs in the communities they serve, our city and the neighborhoods and professions and trades are full of resources and talents that we have but to put together in new and exciting ways. This has been my credo for some time … this perspective informed the efforts of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance and our campaign for Digital Excellence (in the context of the Citywide Wireless Initiative that wound up stalling out).

We started off the evening with an invitation to everyone to step up and join us as co-convenors for this effort going forward… we all introduced ourselves to the group and then we sunk our teeth into our first big question about what Chicago Non-Profit’s really need.

That is an important question, to be sure, but I’ve reached the point where I want to start from our strengths and assets. We need to figure out how to share our skills and talents. We don’t have to start from a scarcity mindset.

More important than the answers to the question we started with, or any alternative positive framing I might offer, is the question of conversation and story, and widening the circle of participants. What questions do we have to ask? What are the big questions that will open some real conversation for Chicago? Who do we address the big questions to? Can we ask ourselves the really hard questions?

For myself - the issue of new social technologies leaves me rather ambivalent. We have to start from our purposes, and not from the faddish new tools. We have to get clear about what we want for our city. Let our technology choices and investments stem from that vision.

G I O - Get Illinois Online. We’ve been hosting an email conversation for several years. Join the conversation.

Subscribe to GIO-Talk

Email:

Visit this group

There is also a more Chicago-centric mailing list, here:

Subscribe to GIO-Chicago

Email:

Visit this group

I composed a short list of some essential readings that reflect a world-view appropriate to the Internet Era, I shared it with friends studying Community Informatics and Civic Entrepreurship, two domains seeking a better world. Since I recently catalogued (part of) my personal library using LibraryThing, it makes sense to share these here as well (as they are part of my virtual library).

These writings provide a conceptual matrix for an interesting breed of Civic Entrepreneur- (it’s a partial list) … really a new model of Citizenship and Society/Polity. They aren’t new to a lot of you - and if you have other works that you think really need to be on the list, please let me know.

Movement as Network, by Gideon Rosenblatt, also: The three pillars of social source

David Isenberg’s Rise of the Stupid Network

Pushing Power to the Edges (pdf) by Jillaine Smith, Martin Kearns, Allison Fine

The Cluetrain Manifesto (Doc Searles, et al.)

Cory Doctorow’s Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom

Coase’s Penguin: (by Yochai Benkler … his book The Wealth of Networks is also recommended. There’s a wiki inviting discussion of his ideas.)

The list doesn’t represent any hierarchic ordering.

Via the Open Space listserv, courtesy Doug Germann:

Perhaps the earliest open space poet was Emily Dickinson. In 1858, she wrote:

In the name of the Bee–
And of the Butterfly–
And of the Breeze–Amen!

This weekend, three cities are celebrating Earth Day with Green Festivals. I had the fortune of meeting some great people from Yes! magazine who came to town just for the Festival including Susan Gleason, Fran Korten and Neva Welton. An open-spacey dinner, with much discussion of wiki-culture, and an exploration of our cross-connected networks of social justice, media, technology and environment. A great prelude to the eChicago Symposium held at Dominican University.

My only regret is that the between the eChicago Symposium, family obligations and the Green Festival, I wasn’t able to attend the conference at the University of Chicago put on by the Invisible Institute’s ‘The View from the Ground’ … Issues and Inquiries Arising from Eight Blocks of Chicago’s South Side.

This conference will explore issues, themes, and lines of inquiry that have emerged from the eight square blocks that once were the Stateway Gardens public housing development on Chicago’s South Side. Its aim is to enrich public discourse about fundamental issues–race, class, gender, impunity, and institutional denial–by grounding the conversation in the realities of life in an inner city community during a time of “transformation” . . .

I’ve written before about Jamie Kalven of the Invisible Institute.

Each of the three events deals with profound aspects of social justice and brought together some amazing people. Is Chicago awakening?

The results of the NetSquared vote are due today. Without needing to know the outcome… I want to give a big thank you to CompuMentor, TechSoup and the NetSquared team … they really brought excitement to the field of socially conscious developers! Or at least they opened a space, invited us in, and made that space warm and productive and safe, and we brought the excitement together.

I personally needed that positive networking. I have felt it often in open space, but haven’t felt it to this extent online - not with so many groups and individuals. Thank you, thank you, thank you!