The York Community Data Sharing Symposium 11 was a way cool event. Sponsored by the York Region District  School Board, York University Knowledge Mobilization Department, Kinark Child & Family Services and other key stakeholders, this event sought to create an online dialogue about sharing research data.

The official tag line was “How an Electronic Commons Can Help Us Tackle Poverty in York Region. To accomplish this virtual meeting space, the ABEL network from York University set up their cameras and microphones broadcasting simultaneously to 4 different sites.

Susan Taylor Simpson was the Emcee in charge of herding all the cats, as as Scott Milne, one of the other Symposium coordinators remarked. I was asked to be on one of the panels discussing some of my online work in York Region. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to talk about my work or perspectives on data sharing as the conversations were so many and wide ranging with participants lining up at the microphone to offer their comments and questions. That was fine by me as it was very rewarding to be part of such a rich discussion with people from so many sectors.

I was able to live blog portions of the event. My notes focus on Mark Kusnicki and Dennis Bailey’s presentation. Mark Kusnicki made his keynote presentation in the location I was at, the Georgina Trades Training Institute. Dennis, Executive Director of the Community Legal Clinic of York Region was at the York Region District School Board’s offices in Newmarket. I will post Dennis’s presentation slides over the next few days. His talk was on the stark reality of homelessness and poverty issues in York Region.

Mark Kusnicki’s presentation had a much broader focus as gave an outstanding overview of his journey building community through the social web. Listening to Mark was for me the highlight of the day for me. The context or “playing field” where data sharing takes place is on the social web. Marks understanding of how communities can be restored through open space, open data and the social web was very inspiring.

How might we apply the “tools” of Open Space + Open Data Open Innovation+ Social Media to improving the quality of life for all in York Region.

Mark presented this challenging question to the participants. He pointedly chose to use a more positive framework in the challenge when he used the term “quality of life” rather than poverty. There is a lot of background reasons for looking at the issues through a “positive” lens. He didn’t go into his reasons for “fliping” the poverty lens too deeply.

I believe it’s his way of moving from a framework of  seeking data to solve problems and justify funding to a more strength based, conversational, open community framework that everyone can contribute to and use. The issue of shared data vs. open data was put on the table for discussion. A few people commented that open data is the goal but we are starting from a shared data framework.

Mark introduced me to a new author, Peter Block. I had a brief look at some of the writings of Peter Block, author of Community: the Structure of Belonging. This book definitely is one of the most refreshing and insightful books I’ve seen in some time on the subject of communities. I’ll be picking this up very soon as it resonates extremely well with current work I’m doing with communities via the social web.

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