No I haven’t forgot about the little endeavour I launched in May:
I started thinking we need someplace to just try stuff. If it works, then great: we can replicate it on our own sites or even develop something more permanent, public, and professional. If it doesn’t work, then that’s ok too: without actually losing anything, we can cross-off a few ideas from the list and move forward to the next few –a little wiser and more experienced than we were before.
This whole idea is like that. It might turn out to be a complete dud. If that’s the case, then fine: on to the next thing.
So what did it accomplish?
1. It didn’t have to accomplish anything
First of all, if nothing else, it simply scratched an itch: intrinsic motivation. I’d been blogging about London for a while and started feeling like I wasn’t backing up my words with any action. (It’s arguable whether LDNbeta resembles any kind of “action” yet, but anyways) I got the idea one weekend and I just had to do something about it — one of those creative-person urges.
2. Established a model to work with
Consistent with the notion of “rapid prototyping” (also knowing I had to capitalize on the motivation-surge at that moment), it only took about 24 hours from the initial moment of conception through buying the domain name, installing and setting up WordPress, writing that inaugural post, and hitting publish so I could start sharing not just a vague idea but a working demonstration.
3. Learned about the limits of social media
It was an effective way to get the idea across (I think) but it turned out to be not such an effective way to get other people involved, i.e. to generate real results.
I learned that although social media can be an efficient way to get noticed, make introductions, share information, and stay in-touch with people, it isn’t well suited for generating collaboration during the development stages of new projects and initiatives. That requires a lot more in-person (or at least verbal) networking and relationship-building.
Collaborators have to establish foundations of mutual understanding and trust; that means eye contact, handshakes, laughs, and maybe a beverage or three.
4. Developed more domain-relevant knowledge
It compelled me to do more reading, thinking, and writing. There were a lot of things I’d missed before — probably still are, but in the course of that process I earned a better grasp of what I don’t know, what I still need to learn, and where to go from here… I became more “oriented”: I found a number of similar initiatives I could defer to and point at for reference.
5. Signaled interest, ability, and intent
Conversely, I was raising a flag; other people took notice of what I was doing — people who were already on the same wavelength, thinking about (and possibly starting) similar or complementary projects [not just in London]; sending the right signals with one’s existing work can greatly expedite the process of establishing mutual understanding and trust.
If we can see that someone has already read and thought about (and tried) many of the same things, then first contact becomes easier, more natural (for me, at least) and more fruitful, and I’m very grateful to have made some new connections with people who share some of my passions and interests in the past few months.
6. Focused sense of direction, and humility
There’s more material, substance, and momentum to build with now. There’s a bit of a platform to build on, I received some feedback from others — or at least a better sense of what people are interested in — and perhaps most importantly, I’ve eliminated a lot of possibilities, formerly-unknowns, mistakes, and dead-ends from the long list I started with.
Finally, the most recent insight I had is that maybe my proposals haven’t so much prescribed what ought to be done, they seem to have merely described what’s going to happen anyways. Things have gone in the direction I’ve been pushing but I can’t see any evidence that my pushes had any causal efficacy. So part of me wonders if I’ve merely been an opinionated annoyance to the people who are actually getting things done…
Regardless, that possibility has motivated me to make some changes; if I’m going to make a meaningful contribution (and you can feel free to read it with the word “I” changed to “we”) I’m going to have to work harder on:
- meeting and building relationships in-person
- original research (both the journalistic and the academic kind)
- deference to people and organizations that are ahead of me
- focused and assertive criticism of what people and organizations need to correct or improve
- professional presentation — such as limiting the use of the word “I”
Those are the intentions, at least — essentially the same things I need to improve on in general… and come to think of it, the foregoing list of accomplishments looks more or less like the core imperatives I keep coming back to — i.e. the whole reason I blog at all…
Well, so much for the “what I did this summer” story. Time to look outwards and ahead.
I have some high hopes for where this whole movement might lead. The rumbling on the horizon sounds deeper, the cadence more persistent — pretty hard to ignore now.
And now that everyone’s coming back from vacation or whatever, I’m looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the fall, winter, and beyond.
[Note: some minor changes were made Aug. 30.]