I Never Dreamed . . . Bloggers at the Nexus

I want to acknowledge the other bloggers I met at the Nexus. It was such fun to walk up to someone whom I had never met before and say, "Hi! I'm Tina, and I read your blog!"

In no particular order, I thoroughly enjoyed meeting or talking with these bloggers:

• Gabriel Shirley, key conference convener and a guy who teaches fish to dance
• Zach Smith, who blogs from Japan and embodies quiet leadership
• Keith Instone, a user experience guy who demonstrated unbelievable courage by spending two days with a group of "touchy-feely" process consultants
• Mario Gastaldi, who blogs brilliantly and bilingually in Italian and English
• Nancy White, who manages to be creative every second of every day (and maybe even while she's sleeping! - she told me she dreams blog posts . . . )
• John Abbe, an old school geek who is far ahead of his time
• Myriam Laberge, who is as composed and elegant as she appears in her photo
• Loretta Donovan, who group blogs at Appreciative Inquiry Annotations, and . . .
• Ivan Overton, a South African change agent who participated in the group Change Management Blog (alas, I didn't meet his fellow blogger Holger Nauheimer)

Other bloggers who were there, but whom I did not meet or perhaps met but did not know were bloggers . . .

• Jon Kennedy, who supported the whole conference platform on his GroupMind software (thank you so much, Jon!)
• Brian Childs, who was blogging for the host college, Bowling Green State University
• Doug Germann, who I think I may have met in a World Cafe conversation, but did not know was a blogger at the time, and . . .
• Kaliya Hamlin, who patiently tolerated my fumbling attempts at literally stepping through change during the Leadership Dojo

There's so much from the conference to share, and I know I'll never be able to document it all. Be sure to check out these other bloggers and the del.icio.us or Technorati tag "nexusforchange" for more reflections.

Tag: nexusforchange

3/25 UPDATE: Correcting the link to Gabriel's blog, and adding another blogger:

• Peter Jones

On the Road to Nexus

After work I'll be driving up to Bowling Green for the Nexus. There is excitement with a tinge of nervousness. Why am I going? What is my role?

Rosa told me not to worry about labels and to follow my nose, and that is what I plan to do.

Of course I'm looking forward to hearing from some of the Big Names in OD. But I'm also excited about seeing my former MPOD classmate Rita and her husband Dan. And then there's just the buzz that goes with any road trip!

Nancy White has already arrived in Bowling Green and shared this reflection.

Tag: nexusforchange

My First Meme: Media Consumption

I've always watched memes wave through the blogosphere with a teeny bit of envy. Like the high school geek observing the popular kids from afar, I was never tagged to join the party.

Then, a few weeks ago, Nancy White tagged me for the media diet meme. After eating my heart out for so long, you would think I would have jumped at the chance to participate. And I did start a post right away. And then, the excitement wore off and the draft post got buried, and the party was nearly over before I joined!

So here I am today, listening to the strains of the last song at the party and helping to clean up the chip bags and confetti . . .


Web
I live online. The first time I saw the Web was on Todd and Kathy's computer in 1994. They were AI (artificial intelligence, not appreciative inquiry) researchers, and they showed me an online art museum site - it might have been the Louvre, I don't remember. I was bowled over, and I fell in love with the possibilities of this new technology. So, with all those years of weblust behind me, you'd think I'd be a truly sophisticated user, right? Oddly, I'm not. I love the access to content (just like that first glimpse of that online art museum), and the underlying tech is just the means to my end of finding great content. So I use the basics.

• Browser - Internet Explorer
  
  
• Email - Gmail
  
  
• Bookmarks - del.icio.us
  
  
• Aggregator - Bloglines (83 feeds)
  
  
• Wiki - No. I have yet to find an intuitive wiki interface, or a wiki with content to which I felt compelled (or qualified!) to contribute. So shoot me.
  
  
• Groups - Yahoo. I've recently joined a couple of Google groups, and boy-oh-boy am I struggling with those.
  
  
• Blog Platform - Blogger. I tried Wordpress and couldn't make heads or tails of the interface. I have serious typepad-envy.
  
  
• IM - Sametime at work. I used AIM when there was a reason - during school Pam and I would IM while we were studying and writing papers. (I sound like a 14-year-old, don't I?)
  
  
• Skype - Just skyped for the first time a few weeks ago. Had been invited to set up accounts before, but had no built-in hardware (microphone), so I didn't bother.
  

Radio
NPR news during the weekday drivetimes, and music programs in the evenings (we especially like The World Cafe). NPR and PRI features on the weekend. Starting on Saturday morning at 10, it's Car Talk, Whad'ya Know? Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me, and A Prairie Home Companion.

Music
Hubby is the family DJ. He plays an eclectic mix of rock and jazz. We like Radio Paradise online.

TV
Broadcast only. It's on a lot with sound off and closed captioning on. The sound comes up for The Office and severe weather alerts.

Books
If we stopped buying books, the local B&N would go out of business within a month. I'm sure of it.

Podcasts
I download and actually listen to a number of podcasts.

Movies
"Family" movies on DVD. We just watched Mirrormaskfrom the Jim Henson Company.

Communication
Not so much voice comm. Mobile phone. Landline is used for dialup access. I just bought a mobile broadband card for my laptop, and I'm in high-speed heaven.

Magazines
None for me, but I read the kids' Muse on occasion, and I've thumbed through Makemore than once.

Newspapers
Nope. Never. I hate the smell and feel of newsprint.

Now, who to help mop up the stale beer? How about Dave, Maureen, Connie and Steve, Professor Piderit, Cheri, and Starbucker. They're all good sports.

Tag: media consumption diet

Re-Connecting with Case

While I consider myself quite reserved, you know that I push myself to stretch and grow. Wednesday night I pushed myself by attending an event that I ordinarily would not.

My alma mater, Case Western Reserve University, hosted a "president's reception" for Ohio legislators in the Statehouse Atrium. Case alumni were invited to meet members of the 2007 Ohio General Assembly. I think I met one (minority whip of the house?) very briefly - too briefly to even mention - but that wasn't really why I went.

The fun was in seeing Case alumni whose names I've only ever seen in the news - Lee Fisher and Marc Dann, for example - and in running into an old friend - Sudhir Raghupathy of Ingenuity Cleveland. Current coworker Bernie Rifkin and his wife Barbara were also in attendance, and we learned about plans for a Case Alumni House from the university architect.

I also met Mohan Reddy, the new Dean of the CWRU Weatherhead School of Management. He is incredibly personable, and I wish him the best as he takes the helm at Weatherhead. Mohan shared that there are plans to take the MPOD program to Spain and India! If I understood him correctly, he indicated that the whole program - not simply the international study tour portion of the Cleveland-based program - would be hosted in those countries.

I also met Barbara Snyder, the incoming President of Case. Also friendly and personable, she carries our fondest hopes and wishes for the future of the university with her.

All in all, the event connected me with others who care about the future. I think it was a good stretch.

Tags: MPOD, CWRU