Social Media Tools for Work & Learning » changecamp communityrestoration peterblock

ChangeCamp Next: A Point of Departure

July 24th, 2009

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I attended the ChangeCamp Canada tel/conference meeting on July 21st, 2009. Instead of dialing in to the meeting I chose to participate with a group of people at the Social Innovations Centre in downtown Toronto. I was wanting as much face to face time with the discussion as I could get, as this was my first experience participating in ChangeCamp. It was a planning meeting to look at the road ahead and how to build on the successful ChangeCamp events held in cities across Canada last winter.

My interest in ChangeCamp grew when Mark Kuznicki, one of the ChangeCamp stewards gave a signal online that he was interested in exploring how the work of Peter Block, author of Community – The Structure of Belonging could apply to ChangeCamp Canada.

Peter Block’s work centres on the theme of restoring communities. I’ve read all I can find (without buying the book – yet) on Blocks work. Upon reading these documents and watching a few videos, I felt that his approach/framework fit so closely with my own thinking and growth as a community worker. For me reading about the community restoration framework leaves me feeling like I’ve transcended into new territory on a practical and theoretical (consciousness) level.

Here is how Mark introduced his position to ChangeCamp Canada participants.

The Social Non Profit – My Lens

A social non profit is attuned, responsive and adaptive to the complex factors affecting its constituents and communities. In a social non profit there is an alignment between staff, services, governance systems and online communications. Social non profits value learning and innovation and believe in working smarter by using social tech tools to enhance communication, collaboration and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users. These organizations believe that strategic use of social media empowers staff, improves services and strengthens governance practices.

Social Web Partners

I'm very pleased to have a number of very capable and talented consultants as friends and partners that work with me from time to time.

Alain Hurtubise (iAutomate.ca) designs and developments web 2. 0 platforms. Alain has over 20 years experience in web design and enterprise systems programming with large corporations. Alain's passion is paying it forward through his work with me in the non profit sector.

Peter Levesque's company, Knowledge Mobilization Works (based in Ottawa) is dedicated to building the capacity of people to create value through knowledge mobilization.

Mark Holmgren (Mark Holmgren Consulting - Edmonton AB) contributes his extensive organizational change expertise along with an array of social media integration expertise.