Brex was the name we in the Ho‘ohana Community had given to the learning initiative we embraced during all of 2008: Braver Experiments [with] Digital Learning. This was how I had introduced it about a year ago; much of this is different now, which is good ~ we did learn!
I've just joined a new social network on Ning in the past week. Have been on LinkedIn for a while now, have a Tumblr lifestream,
but I'm not a Twitterer and have said no to Facebook on purpose (Yeah,
you can say no. What's hard is to stop second-guessing yourself about
it.) Have discovered some contextual and social construct strengths I
never realized I had, but am lost within learning how to actually apply
them now.
facetious: Read between the lines for what I still don't do, or think
about what your kids already do. Think how much longer it takes you to
learn the same things… One thing the Ho‘ohana Community has taught me through all this, is not to go it alone in my learning now.
See Postscript 2 at the end of this article for more on how we Brexed it last year.
Therefore, one of the things I have been most tickled about in these historic months leading us to our Barack Obama presidency, is how they have furnished us with such a precedent-setting living laboratory for our digital learning. We have taken global surveys and hummed along to YouTube parodies, we have tweeted and flickred, and we have ourselves learned to become citizen publishers.
I was able to spend a fair amount of time online during Inauguration Day, and the geek in me thrilled to the links shared, and the immediacy of them. Here are some you might enjoy too:
- Transcript of President Obama's Inaugural Address, shared by KGMB9.com at 7:35am HT
"Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are
serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short
span of time. But know this, America – they will be met." - Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov, at The White House Blog – first post at 12:01pm ET, a clear "we are ready" signal about the smoothness of this transition, and a message about the work which had already been steadily done to prepare.
"Our initial new media efforts will center around three priorities: Communication… Transparency… Participation… " - We watched, on the Flickr blog. This one was such fun: We all saw many of the same media clips on television, but the Flickr community brought us into living rooms all across the globe. In particular, I loved seeing children watching; I imagined their parents teaching, and taking up their first line of responsibility in doing their part.
"Many of us stopped what we were doing this morning to watch history being made. Here are a selection of photographs from our Inauguration 2009 group pool." - Starbucks Pledge5, created by Starbucks Coffee
"Join the call for national service: What if you gave 5 hours to help your community?"
The cynical may say this one is just a clever marketing campaign to get us in their coffeeshops, however were you this clever and timely in your business? When the email first hit my inbox, there were already over 80,000 hours pledged ~ that would be 16,000 customers listening…
Those are a mere sampling, for there were dozens to choose from! If you caught a favorite online yesterday, let us know in the comments, would you?
I am eager to see what will come next: Eager to share in imaginations far bigger than mine, but overjoyed with this new ease within which I can share in them, and continue to learn.
If the history-making aspect of this first digitally staged and commanded campaign and presidency intrigues you too, here are a few more links you might enjoy, most written immediately after his election victory:
- Nov.04th: Propelled by Internet, Barack Obama Wins Presidency at the Wired Blog Network
- Nov.10th: Barack Obama’s Ultimate Guide to Marketing: How he Used Internet and Social Media to Become President-Elect at DWSmg.com
- Nov.22nd: How Will Obama Now Use the Internet Army He Built? at Newsweek Enterprise – Technology
Postscript: I will be posting soon on the learning initiative that I have chosen for our Ho‘ohana Community in 2009. My thoughts have bounced back and forth between two different possibilities, and I have been allowing both to sit with me since the New Year, trusting that the most pressing of the two will begin to speak the loudest until I have no choice but to listen, and sure enough, it did.
Postscript 2: We kicked off Brex in February of 2008 with a series of 4 articles on Managing with Aloha Coaching. Here are the links: