Nancy is not West Australian

Not many Australians are called Nancy. We had a Nancy in primary school ... fascinating girl. So last week I went to a conference workshop thingy and Nancy White presented at it. I really liked her presentation. Was pretty bloody impressed too when she said she hung out (ok that's an exaggeration, she said she works with ...) Etienne Wenger.

Nancy is from WA - that's Washington not WA. Ok that's the title solved, but will you read on?

Unfortunately we didn't get to hear as much as I would have liked from her but she did a great job of packing a heap of information into a pretty short period.

She talked about facilitating online stuff, a couple of things really struck me as important:
Don't over committ, online communities and forums require you to take your whole self there. Just like in a real time community, it's really important to develop a sense of trust between members and it's pretty hard to trust someone who is only half there. This doesn't take into account lurkers though, who can and should hang out and well, lurk to their hearts content.

What else? Well communities of practice got a bit of an airing out. I think communities are still largely unrealised in their potential. Certainly in my organisation they are. Maybe I should do something about that!

Another bonus was seeing my old mates from my past work life, they're a good bunch! Was so refreshing to talk to such real and good people.