Here are a few snippet recollections I had from my participation in the live film streaming of the Multimedia Film Festival of York Region at Sutton District High School.

A little girl in the film made by a  grade 3 and 4 class from the Waabgon Gamig First Nation School on Georgina Island said – “Community is when we all stick to together; when you don’t stick together, your like a twig that falls broken to the ground” That line broke me up!

A young lady who spoke eloquently about how youth culture is actually saving civilization by taking control of and using technology to create, publish, solve and innovate. She said that youth culture is using technology to create while previous generations only wantonly consumed technology. Her comments contradicted the perspectives of the film makers who suggested that youth are obsessed and addicted to technology and are less for it….

Hillary Van Welter who engaged, joked, provoked, pushed and had fun with the student audience. She did a great job of connecting the schools to each other and coping with the minor streaming glitches.

The live art production that summed up the whole morning of films. It was a wonderful example of art voice in action. Their LOL and WTF acronyms were outstanding additions to the mobile art production.

The occasional cell phones going off as the discussion on teen obsession with technology was taking place.

A school board trustee who gave congratulatory props to the Family Services York Region Prevention Diversion Program for their work in schools around supporting, facilitating and celebrating youth assets and voices in the Georgina community.

Related Posts:

Michael Bowe – Chair, Multimedia Film Festival Council of York Region

Brent Uncategorized

At a recent meeting, half a dozen of us were setting plans for an upcoming community meeting. We wanted to set the stage for a dialogue in which participants attending the meeting could speak freely and openly about potentially contentious issues.

We became embroiled in a discussion about the difference between a person attending the meeting on behalf of their organization and the person who comes to the meeting without representing anyone except their desire to contribute to a better community.

I was fascinated by the indignation expressed as to why we would consider the Agency representative less valued than the resident. What button was pushed here? I’m not sure to this day but the conversation stayed with me.

I and a few others felt that having a person attending who didn’t represent any group or agency was preferred over the agency representative. It was not that we would exclude or didn’t want the Agency representative to attend. It was more a case of viewing them as not motivated in the same way as the citizen coming to voice their points of view.

I think those at our planning meeting that were indignant about our viewpoint believed that we were insulting the character of the agency representatives. “How can you say my presence and voice is less valid than someone”?

Some of you know how much I’m learning from Peter Block’s book, Community – the structure of belonging. I think in this quote, Peter Block unpacks this issue very acutely.

The conversations that build relatedness most often occur through associational life, where citizens show up by choice, and rarely in the context of system life, where citizens show up out of obligation.

I highly  recommend Peter Block’s book for anyone who is interested in community restoration and development. His lens is helping me wade through my associational and system life.

Most of all his book has helped realize the limitation to constant efforts to problem solve the building of community. Put another way, the futility of constant efforts to improve relationships between organizations.

There is need for problem solving and relationship building but restoring our fragmented community needs to be the starting point. I’m sure that across the country, countless organizations are mired in collaboration (negotiations) efforts in the name of building community.

What’s your take on focusing on our fragmented community rather than improving our organizational relationships

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Charlene Li, author of the Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, is participating in the Question of the Week, sponsored by Nokia’s Idea Project. She posed a the question (above) and the responses are quite interesting. The responses are mostly from the corporate sector but have relevance for the non profit sector as well. You can post your responses and possibly win a Nokia phone. Here is the explanation of the Ideas Project, taken from Charlene’s newsletter.

“As social technologies change the way that leaders interact with customers, employees, & partners, what one thing should they do to prepare for this change?”

That’s right – ONE thing. Not a dozen good ideas, not a list of four starting points. What is the single most important thing a leader can do to deal with the change foisted upon them by social technologies?
To answer, visit http://bit.ly/aZkE3z to get directly to the Question of the Week. During the week, I’ll add to this post and also tweet out some of my favorite responses as we go along. To keep track, please use the hashtag “#ideasproject”.

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