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In Our Social Web, Leadership Still By Example

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Submitted by Andre Yap on 2010, July 28 - 7:21am
 

From my facilitator's view, two people stood out in yesterday's meeting at City Hall; one for obvious reasons, the other less so.

Brandon Jackson (@methoddesigner) came prepared. Not just with brilliant concepts and opinions, but with what he is ready, willing, and able to do for and with us. As a result, we have a lead developer (role) and timeline (accountability) for building our platform (albeit as we can't ever over-emphasize, tech is only one side of the social web platform we're building).

Jack Nork (@jcnork) was less obvious, but led equally by example. We barely heard from Jack in 90 minutes of meeting, barely a hint of his concepts, frameworks, opinions. But lo and behold, behind the scenes Jack had contacted the New Haven Public Library System, got in touch with the key person, pitched what we're doing, and got their buy-in to get involved. Jack asked what he can do and then he did it.

Brandon and Jack's leadership are crucial in another sense: they represent the equal parts technology and community imperative of Our New Haven Project: 100 Common Vision in 100 Days. It's the most challenging point to get across, yet I dare say the single most critical factor to our success - that we approach this sociological process of turning visions and ideas into collective action as equal parts tech and community. As we sketched on the board:

Vision > Ideas (Projects) > Signals (Metrics & Progress) > Roles (Tasks & Needs) > Meetups & Notes (On/Offline Venues for Collaboration) > Action

Brandon and co. will help us get it done on tech. Here are 3 things the rest of us can do:
  1. Find common visions and be ready to submit them in 2 week's time.
  2. Find project ideas, yours and others', and be ready to state them clearly as to goals, timelines, calls to action, etc. in 2 week's time.
  3. Most importantly, find Stakeholders and win them over. Think about who else is important to draw into this process and start connecting with them. I'm sorry - I just don't buy the idea that the rest of us can't do anything until Brandon is done. Of course we can. Like Jack, we can talk to the library, figure out what their common visions and projects are and how it could translate to Our New Haven Project.

So, in the continuing saga of Our Social Web, what are you going to be: a leader by example, or...

Great Minds Think Alike!

JackNork's picture
Submitted by JackNork on 2010, July 28 - 9:39am.
Andre- Thanks for your kind words. I agree that Brandon has some wonderful ideas and really look forward to see what he puts together.  I'm so excited to be part of the #getitdone crew. I also wanted to acknowledge Matthew Browning, Lee Cruz and Giulia Gouge who simultaneously had the same idea to work with the New Haven Public Library.  They took the idea and made it even BETTER! They have come up with another project #swHVN to teach 100 people how to use social media through the library system. LOVE IT! 

Here are the ideas that have been born in the past week! --> #vethvn #foodhvn #bookhvn #KiteHVN #boatHVN #CompHvn #TreeHvn #DrumHvn #swHvn & #BikeHvn