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Facilitating in Second Life

During a recent Online Facilitation Skills programme led by Stephen Thorpe of Zenergy, participants went on a digital field trip to explore Storytelling and Dialogue in the online 3-D world called Second Life™ - www.secondlife.com

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Each person joining Second Life™ creates their own cartoon-like ‘avatar’ that represents them in the 3D world. Participants travel around the various environments, such as the virtual camp fire on Boracay Island pictured below, and interact with other people from around the world.

Nine participants joined in the session from Auckland, Nelson, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Hong Kong, Uppsala in Sweden and Den Haag in The Netherlands, spanning x time zones.

The facilitated storytelling session explored participant’s journeys to becoming a facilitator. One participant summarised their experience by saying “…the session around the virtual fireplace was so natural and really felt like I was present with others. We managed, quite naturally, to blend story with fun and I certainly went away with a sense of ease and satisfaction…“

Discussion on the 3-D virtual world experience followed on the training programme’s discussion forum. Participants found the experience emotionally engaging, lots of fun and many wanted to explore the environment further.

Programme leader Stephen Thorpe said “Facilitation is the key to harnessing the effectiveness of emerging group technologies like Second Life. Combining processes such as storytelling and dialogue with the interactive 3-D fireplace metaphor meant that participants’ could connect with each other on an emotional level. Something that can be quite challenging when facilitating through computer means.”

Certainly internet 3-D spaces are one domain to be sure to watch for the future of online facilitation. Further excursions into Second Life are being planned for the next Online Facilitation Skills programme starting 1 October. The upcoming programme will be held over 8 weeks until 25 November. There are places for 12 people from anywhere in the world who have access to the internet. The programme also includes email, forum, blogging, and video and audio conferencing tools.

For more details and to register for the upcoming programme see: www.zenergyglobal.com/online

Stephen Thorpe

Interesting & Informative web links

As facilitators, I think the title will intrigue you... It's called "The
5.75 Questions You've Been Avoiding".

www.FiveBigQuestions.com

Michael Bungay Stanier

Recently on the AFN list serv announced by Andrew Rixon that an Australian wide study of facilitation within an NRM setting is complete and that the publication has finally been published in the Australian Journal of Environmental Management.

You can download a copy from the website:

http://www.babelfishgroup.com/files/
PerspectivesOnTheArtOfFacilitation.pdf

Andrew Rixon

Also recently announced on the AFN list serv that research on the theories and practices of facilitator educators in Australia and New Zealand by Glyn Thomas is now complete and the publications in press.

The titles of the two papers and the URL where you can download the PDF files of the final drafts are as follows for those interested:

Thomas, G. J. (in press). Facilitate first thyself: The importance of person-centered approaches to facilitator education. Journal of Experiential Education.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/oent/Staff/thomas_papers/
JEE_final_12_9_07_printing.pdf

Thomas, G. J. (in press). Preparing facilitators for experiential education: The role of intentionality and intuition. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/oent/Staff/thomas_papers/
JAEOL_Thomas_in_press.pdf

Glyn Thomas

FACILITATION TOOLbox

Another powerful story telling technique is Appreciative Inquiry.

The assumptions of Appreciative Inquiry can be summarised in this way:

"1. In every society, organisation, or group, something works.
2. What we focus on becomes our reality.
3. Reality is created in the moment, and there are multiple realities.
4. The act of asking questions of an organisation or group influences the group in some way.
5. People have more confidence and comfort to journey to the future (the unknown) when they carry forward parts of the past (the known).
6. If we carry parts of the past forward, they should be what is best about the past.
7. It is important to value differences [in creating the future].
8. The language we use creates our reality."
(Hammond, 1998, p. 20).

Appreciative Inquiry is known for its ability to enable transformation via a process of:
i) storytelling about the 'best'or sharing approaches which work
ii) developing themes for what worked well in the past & present
iii) creating affirmative propositions about the future, where, as described by Sue Annis Hammond:

"We take what we know and we talk about what could be. We stretch what we are to help us be more than what we have already been successful at. We envision a future that is a collage of the bests. Because we have derived the future from [current] reality, we know it can happen. We can see it, we know what it feels like, and we move to a collective, collaborative view of where we are going..."
(Hammond, 1998, p. 46).

An important feature of this process is also that it looks at a group or oganisation as a "mystery to be embraced" rather than a "problem to be solved".

Affirmative Inquiry is regarded as a generative process which is constantly created and re-created and where every participant makes a contribution to the process and facilitators are encouraged to "read, dream, and experience".

Well worth reading more in:

S.A. Hammond. (1998). The thin book of Appreciative Inquiry (2nd ed.), Thin Book Publishing Co., www.thinbook.com

Compiled by Joan Firkins

book review on all things sticky

C. Heath & D. Heath. (2007). Made to stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Random House Publishing Group.

Hi all

I've been reading 'Made to Stick' by Chip and Dan Heath. Their premise is that ideas that last, that is, are "sticky", are ones that are understandable, memorable and effective in changing thought or behaviour. They explore six principles that underpin 'stickiness':
* Find the [simple] core
* Get attention through surprise or revealing the unexpected then hold interest
* Make concrete: help people understand and remember
* Be credible - help people believe
* Tap into emotions - enable people to care
* Use stories to get people to act: As summarised by Geoff Brown, "Stories create a sense of drama and anticipation and can demonstrate causes, effects, and consequences and people can imagine their own roles in the drama of change..."

This book has really helped me understand that we facilitators are often our own worst enemies when it comes to promoting what we do, how we do it, and why it's important. They explore the 'curse of knowledge' where if you know something (for example, facilitation) it's hard to remember what it's like to not know and therefore can fall into the trap of talking at a level that makes no sense to others. Experts, they contend, often talk about theories and use language that is quite abstract. Guilty, your honour :-) They also suggest that it's hard to pin down the core of something because it requires rigorous prioritisation and discarding of lots of really good bits to expose the core.

This raises the question of what is the 'core of facilitation'.

Cheers

Viv McWaters

[11/7/07]