Trainers Network Mtg, 9.15.2012

Introduction and Framing: proposals on how we will build the database

 

    • Content Management Systems- Lasitha and Marc offer up two options- one googlespreadsheet based
    • Conversation about keeping personal information private
    • How will people sign up to be in the database?
    • What process do we have for taking new people on?
    • Depends on the platform that we choose to use?

This is a network for individual people, not a collection of training resources that exists

 

    • Is there a way to export the list of trainers? Is there a way for other folks’ site to pull this data?
    • With google docs, it is
    • With drupal, it needs to have an RSS feed… something about an API? – might have to copy and paste the database otherwise?

Should there be quality control? Level of experience/ self-identification?

    • Temp checks—no neg, some pos, many sideways

Thoughts/Contributions:

 

    • Databases are real political and technical and something that should be taken seriously.
    • Also techy, Jon is pleased that it’s a simply url, that it’s accessible—ppl who want trainers should have an easy way to find trainers
    • Not real techy, but concerns about folks consent in putting information out into the world- don’t want to have ad nauseum conversations about techy things they don’t understand
    • We can list that there are anonymous people
    • But then people will have to be moderating and it adds more work for some people
    • Opaque email addresses
    • Ricky might be able to confirm with individual people before we put their information up on the website.
    • Breakout group for techy people to talk about it?

 

 

Major Questions:

 

    • Security? quality control? who’s in the group? what qualifies who/what a trainer is?  we don’t want person a editing person b w/out their consent and /or a trusted admin
    • Lasitha & Marc & Greg & Jon will consider these concerns—and will come up with a beta page
    • Sasha, Ricky, Mike & Nadine will work on establishing language
    • Larger conversation about reference, and other such things
    • Maybe folks could connect to their other networks (maybe linking to linkedin, which offers the capacity)
    • Walda is determined to keep things simple

 

 

Next Steps:

We’ll call a meeting of folks who have committed to moving the database forward. There will be two groups of people- a language group and a techy group will work together to work together. Dany will switchboard this.

Skillsharing:

 

    • Noticings
    • Lack of hand signals made people feel more like they had to say everything and it took more time.
    • Facilitators were willing to switch up the conversation based on what where the group was at
    • Stack was dropped several times—stack wasn’t followed through on
    • There was a mixed bag of open discussion and stacked conversation
    • Folks weren’t entirely clear on what the proposal was… things got clearer as we got closer to consensus
    • There wasn’t a clear explanation as to what the group was, and there weren’t introductions, and he didn’t feel like there was a lot of trust. lack of identity, abrupt introductions
    • There weren’t any doorkeepers, so that might have held us back, there wasn’t any scribing happening
    • Different comforting levels with tech made for a difficult dynamic
    • Facilitators looking into the future
    • Two times went up—once with the temperature check, and supporting the work that’s been done already. energy dropped when she was confused about open source star rating (wasn’t fed back, didn’t know if it was a contribution)
    • People’s energies go back and forth throughout the evening
    • Almost everyone spoke
    • Matt and Allison got along well
    • Rhythm in the conversation, things got more complex as the conversation moved on
    • The parking lot, avoided tangents really well

 

 

Consensus and Facilitation Definitions:

 

    • consensus- everyone allowing a proposal to happen, that everyone is happy with happening, it’s a process that everyone agrees to use
    • facilitation- facilitator is dedicated to process, not content
    • consensus is just one way of making decisions—attrition
    • consensus is a group decision above individual
    • consensus process is a group product
    • consensus – everyone can tolerate (or live with) the decision
    • consensus isn’t about agreement, it’s a process by which a decision is made, it’s about consent, not agreement. Consent is involved with trust.   (democracy doesn’t allow for consent, consensus is hard because it involves trust) 

 

 

Handouts:

 

    • occupy consensus process
    • thing from dude in Detroit
    • other flowchart

Facilitation:

Process not content. creating and maintining a space where people feel comfortable, quell dominance, facilitation isabout looking at the group, and brining out people who are quiet, balancing that dynamic appropriately, be aware of time, facilitators are neutral, not having a bias towards to conversation (recusal), facilitation techniques (smaller groups?) to make a space where people speak up, equalizing participation, keep group mindful of vision & end goal, criteria rather than content, thinking through the process, setting that up in such a way that it’s easy to buy in, communication systems,conversation about reportbacks, catching up, notes accessibility, standards, etc.

 

    • lazy consensus
    • agreements/shared goals
    • process vs. content

 

Proposal for Next Meeting:

    • Trust building exercises andan HR of business stuff
    • Having two meetings- one business, one skillshare
    • Folks come up with a beta, at next meeting we have a computer & a have a proposal about 
    • Virginia says we need a mission in order to break things out
    • Matt: We have an understanding about why we’re here—or do we 
    • Sonia: We can synthesize the group and why we’re here and who we are, “we’re a group who meets monthly to share skills and make us better trainers” 
    • Ricky: business group, skillshare group, 
    • Robby is facilitating the facilitation group—will talk about process and content, there will be a meeting about database afterwards skillshare on facilitation
    • Sasha, Ricky, Mike & Nadine will work on establishing language for the database & possibly the skill share (to join this team, email ricky@washingtonpeacecenter.org
    • Lasitha, Jon Williams, and Marc Smith will convene and work with the language crew to take into consideration concerns around the database to offer up a beta of the final product we might use. *this probably won’t happen at the next skillshare, and if you’re interested in having a say in this, you’ll need to email ricky to make sure you’re on the appropriate list