The photo is several weeks old, but I just got around to pulling it off the camera, and somehow it seemed fitting with all the rain we’re getting. (Yes, even as a native Floridian who’s used to the sky opening up daily during the summer, I thought yesterday’s rain was mighty impressive.)
I’ve been tinkering around with podcasting options for course lectures and conflict resolution training material, and so far I’m very impressed with how quickly good tools for audio editing and web publication have sprouted up. My favorite tools so far…
Odeo, which has a web-based audio recording feature and allows for slick, flash-based publishing like this:
Staying true to the “all media is home brewed” ethos of this blog, yes, that’s me on the drums. Don’t blame Odeo for the 4 seconds of silence at the end, that’s just because I only wanted to record a quick sample and didn’t want to muck with trimming. Odeo is free and gives each user an unlimited number of recordings, with each recording being limited to no more than one hour in length.
GarageBand. Props to Apple for making a great audio editing package that does everything from beginner-friendly podcasting basics to complex looping and audio mixing. When I made the switch from PC to Mac a few weeks ago, one of the programs I thought I’d really miss from the PC platform was Sonic Foundry’s Acid Pro audio editing. Happily, Garage Band does everything I need, with added podcasting-related features and a much cleaner interface.
ProfCast. I saved the best for last. It’s the holy grail of academic podcasting. ProfCast records your lectures and presentations while Keynote (Mac’s improved alternative to PowerPoint) is running, capturing both the audio and the Keynote slides. Then, when you’re done, it just takes a few mouse clicks to kick out the whole multimedia presentation as a video podcast or any number of other export formats.
Ten years ago the Washington Post had the obvious idea that, “hey, we’re already producing all sorts of content in our work, why not leverage some of that on the internet?” I should probably do more of that with the material I write for courses I’m teaching. So in that vein, here’s a note I sent out this morning to students in a summer undergraduate course I’m teaching in conflict resolution techniques and reflective practice:
Hi everyone. Consider this another installment in the “what professional opportunities exist for conflict resolvers?” discussion.
Today’s Washington Post ran a story (available here) about an effort to create a vision for growth and development in the DC region. It’s a common challenge: a region is changing, and there’s no shared vision about how that development should look. Moreover, even if there was such a vision, there are a variety of stakeholders in the change (multiple government jurisdictions and agencies, businesses, citizen groups and communities, etc.) that would need to collaborate together, but who currently have few or no forums to come together to plan and harmonize collective actions.
Does this sound like a situation where diverse stakeholders should be brought together, and where it would help to design and facilitate a process whereby they could have constructive conversations to promote collaboration and that likely would involve both conflict and agreement making? Absolutely. Would doing that tap the knowledge, skills, and abilities of someone trained in conflict resolution? Absolutely. And because of the frequency this sort of situation comes up, it’s one of the reasons that, when looking for a traditional academic departments to call home, conflict resolution programs are sometimes housed in urban & regional planning schools. There are also a growing number of conflict resolution consulting groups that specialize in this sort of large-scale public planning process design and facilitation work.
(Hopefully) you remember my observation early in the course that one of the concepts often not associated with conflict resolution, but that should be, is leadership. In that vein, consider this quote by one of the folks involved in the initiative: “Beal, a retired steel executive, said the key to successful planning is a willingness to risk ruffling feathers. ‘In the desire to be collaborative, don’t forget leadership. Don’t be embarrassed to lead,’ he said. ‘There are too many efforts where it’s all about ‘getting everyone to the table.’ Everyone goes away feeling good, but no one’s doing anything.’”
Beal’s right, although he’s actually getting at three, not one, important ingredients in collaborative planning processes:
1. Leadership
2. Designing a process model that is oriented toward producing actionable next steps, with facilitators frequently checking-in with participants to make sure that the “everyone feels good, but no one knows what’s happening next” scenario doesn’t unfold.
3. Follow up. Making sure that, as one of the next steps, there is some identified stewardship (by individuals, through a newly created group, etc) for following up on next steps and for making sure that the momentum toward change continues even when there are the inevitable stumbles and shifts with the “rubber hits the road” implementation of the plan/agreements.
If you’re interested in reading more about theory and techniques related to large public dispute resolution work, I’d recommend Susskind and Cruikshank’s Breaking the Impasse: Consensual Approaches to Resolving Public Disputes.
While Tryst is usually worth the schlep, lately I’ve taken to working at the Starbucks around the corner from home in Bethesda. It’s not as comfy as Tryst, and power outlets are much too sparse, but the collateral conversations that you can’t help but overhear are still plenty interesting.
Now, just to be clear, when I say Bethesda, it’s probably not the area you’re thinking of. Bethesda is a sprawling, unincorporated area of Montgomery County, defined by a seemingly arbitrary postal code, not any one metro stop or development zone. For my hood, think bunny rabbits and small 1950s kit homes, not high-rise, million-dollar condos and rows of restaurants. The landmarks aren’t Barnes & Noble and the Landmark Theater, they’re Hamburger Hamlet and (so I hear) the DSW Shoe Warehouse.
So you’d think “lame suburban Starbucks.” But the thing is, despite being the sleepier part of Bethesda, we’re talking about the coffee shop that’s closest to the NIH and the headquarters of both Marriott and Lockheed Martin, an area where 49% of the residents have graduate degrees of one sort or another. And so at 8:30 am, the line at this coffee shop goes out the door, conversations range from genetic sequencing to macro economics, and the stereotypes many urban-centric folk make about unreflective and daft-dominated life in suburbia are launched right out the window. I’m becoming a fan.
That said, there’s some bad behavior that needs calling out…
(more…)
Kudos to Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, for this remark:
Speaking at a conference at the University of Pennsylvania on Friday called “The Hyperlinked Society,” Mr. Wales said that he gets about 10 e-mail messages a week from students who complain that Wikipedia has gotten them into academic hot water. “They say, ‘Please help me. I got an F on my paper because I cited Wikipedia’” and the information turned out to be wrong, he says. But he said he has no sympathy for their plight, noting that he thinks to himself: “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.” (*)
I trekked into downtown today to catch up with friend Kim (who’s recently back from Africa) and sell off my beloved (but now redundant) Tamron 28-75 lens.
But I bet you don’t visit the blog to hear the latest minutia about my life. So here are some links I’m enjoying and you might like too…
GovTrack — Lets you customize and track your representatives and specific legislative issues, all then served up on a convenient RSS feed.
OpenSecrets.org — making it all that much easier to “follow the money!” in politics
LibraryThing — A handy way to keep track of all your books. Thanks to Rob for the heads up on this tool. If you’re curious, I’m about a third of the way through entering my books, with the list located here.
Why fax and keys? I mean, do you find yourself on the ever-ubiquitous “I need to get something faxed and get some keys copied while I’m at it” errand? Me either. Now what we really need is a fax and pet supply store, not that it serves any well bundled set of needs, but because then you could call it… Fax Paws.
… you know, like “faux pas”… oh, never mind.
I finally made it out to see Butterstick, and I’m happy to say that the little guy didn’t dissapoint.
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