Facilitating Online Communities

What does it mean to Facilitate?

Before we leave this two-week module on what facilitation is and is not, I wanted to add some thoughts about different sorts of facilitation based on some of the people I work with and what I think are some interestingly evolved perspectives on the subject.

In the World Café we don't even use the word facilitation - rather, we speak of "hosts" that help create the context for generative conversations. In trusting that the "whole" holds whatever knowledge is needed, a good host gently "guides" the proceedings, largely through creating hospitable space for collective wisdom to emerge, rather than trying to manage it in any more overt ways.

The Art of Hosting offers facilitation training, using process methodologies like the World Café, OpenSpace, Appreciative Inquiry and Circle work. Their concept of facilitation is largely based on self-awareness and cultivating a "way of being" that is conducive to mutual responsibility and interactive creativity. Online conversations with this group are fascinatingly fluid - full of participation & innovation - with no one "leading", but no one holding back either.

Craig Neal of Heartland Circle offers a tele-course in the Art of Convening, and his approach to facilitation is similar to the Art of Hosting and World Café in that the training is largely focused on convening, or creating space within which transformation can occur - both internally and externally. Craig & I also work with FireHawk Hulin and PeleRouge of Resonance where the work of "facilitation" becomes even more refined. They model how to "listen" closely to energy and notice how it "moves" - inside oneself as a guide, and inside the group as a whole. The key to facilitation for them is in listening deeply to what is emerging and knowing how to respond to it moment by moment.

My immersion and collaborative participation in all these group processes has greatly influenced my own ideas on facilitation and my personal facilitation style shares many of the fundamental principles they espouse. It's a little out of date now, but here's a short overview I wrote with a few key suggestions on how to "Midwife" Online Community: Download MidwifingOnlineCommunity.pdf (100k).

All these methods either pre-suppose a populace that is self-motivated and mutually responsible, or they are designed to support the emergence of these traits. Greg Bacelon wrote a recent post to the FOC08 mailing list, posing the question "If one were to take the Internet as one on-line community, then the term Facilitating is possibly a contradiction in terms – who is the Facilitator of the internet?". The answer for the communities using these methods, like the internet itself, is of course "all of us". Everyone that participates in a conversation, who offers content or helps to build infrastructure - we all have a part in "facilitating" the collaborative phenomenon that is being born as we speak.

Facilitation

We've been discussing the differences between a facilitator, teacher & moderator on the FOC mailing list, and course member Greg Barcelon brought a refreshingly straightforward approach to the question. In response to Leigh Blackall's dilemma of whether to "yield to the tradition of schooled learning and assume the role of teacher, instructor and assessor and forgo the role of facilitator", or develop the facilitation skills that would encourage a more self-directed learning environment, he had this to say:

"I believe we get caught in such a dilemma when we take Facilitating as an exclusive term. The dilemma is resolved once we go back to its basic definition as: “to make possible or easier” And this is where context plays a very important role, because in the context of ‘facilitating as making it possible or easier,” then we can be facilitating as Teachers when we make learning possible or easier, and we can be facilitating as Moderator when we make discussion or exchange of information possible/easier…"

I agree! Of course what a facilitator “is” in any given situation depends on what’s being facilitated! In a learning environment like this one, it’s entirely appropriate to ‘teach’ to some degree or another (in this case, create a curriculum, put forward a reading list, set questions and tasks, etc.) AND facilitate conversation (like Leigh has been doing by setting up a workable structure and participating in the conversation), AND moderate the interaction if and when the need arises. I think that’s what facilitation IS in this context. And yes, it is more challenging than simply “teaching” in the old model.

In my opinion, Leigh’s doing a great job in this three-ring circus school of facilitation. It’s very much like the pedagogic model I experienced at Sussex University in the UK where I got my degrees during the 90s. We had a lot of autonomy and scope for self-directed learning within a very well facilitated container of resources and support made available as needed. In my experience it’s a model that works well both online and off.

A Personal History of Online Community

My first online community experience was the result of isolation- both geographic and ideological. It was 1995 and I was living in England, a US ex-pat artist & writer, partnering with a British scientist in a non-profit environmental education NGO.

My hippie ideas weren't always going over so well in Blighty, a fact that came squarely home with a funder's offhand comment about an article I'd carefully researched and written on ecopsychology for our newsletter; "You're not in California anymore, you know!" So I reached out and brought "California" home to me - via an international group exploring the nascent field of ecopsychology through a mailing list. That group is still active today, 13 years later. Now we have, in addition to rich conversation among peers, a website, collaborative blog, online journal and a directory of research practitioners - all without funding or any external support beyond the University of Leed's hosting of the mailing list.

Today I am part of more online communities than I can count. Well that's a slight exaggeration, but I'm active on a lot of them and they are vital elements in my personal support system, my professional development and capacity for learning, my intellectual obsessions, creative inspirations and almost spiritual yearning for collectivity and shared consciousness. In other words, they're an integral part of my life, and I am very grateful to have access to the abundance of resources they offer.

Design & Confusion

Seth Godin posted a fabulous piece on his blog yesterday that I thought had some relevance to the vibrant chaos I observed in the first few days of orientation for this course. He says that:

"Great design is intuitive. Great design eliminates confusion. But not for everyone, not all the time. The words and interactions you use often have a sophistication that will confuse some portion of your audience.

Why not consider making it easy for the confused to ask for help? And treat them with respect when they do. If you don't create a little confusion, it's unlikely you've built something remarkable."

That seems to me to be a brilliant exposition of what happened with us. There was a lot of confusion, sure, but there was also a very clear way to express that confusion and ask for help. Whether the invitation was effective enough, and how many people were lost in the process are open questions, but for now (with 85 blogs on the class blogroll) we seem to be sailing along quite well.

Leigh's Facilitation Skills

Sylvia Currie over at Webbed Feet has modeled some great blogging skills in listing 10 facilitation skills that our course convener Leigh Blackall has shown so far (this is exactly the kind of blog post that people want to link to). Here's Sylvia's list:

1. Presence
   We all just know that Leigh is right there and available. This counts for a lot. It makes everybody feel very comfortable and motivated.
2. Responsiveness
   Process type questions that are directed at the facilitator are answered very quickly.
3. Inclusiveness
   Leigh gave everybody a chance to speak in the orientation meeting and was also very careful to follow up in the forum to ensure those participants who are new to the technologies introduced this week are not feeling overwhelmed.
4. Negotiation
   Rather than decide how to best manage our course roster and profiles/list of blogs Leigh involved everybody in the conversation. There were many creative suggestions!
5. Engagement
   Rather than telling us everything Leigh is giving us opportunities to explore.
6. Focus
   While several people are keen to jump in with new questions and offer solutions to how we can organize ourselves for the course, Leigh continues to bring us back to the main tasks for this week. "Great to see you raring to go, but..."
7. Pace
   On more than one occasion Leigh has suggested we not jump too far ahead. For example he reminded us that we can "slowly subscribe" to participants' blogs. It doesn't have to all be done today!
8. Thoroughness
   Leigh obviously puts a lot of time into reading and responding. His thoughts are well-organized, and he is makes an effort to acknowledge contributers.
   
9. Tone
   Leigh has a very casual, friendly style. This quality in itself is obviously most effective when combined with #8 -- a little comfort along with respect. :-)
10. Openness
    Sharing feelings like losing the network connection during the meeting "freaked me out", or dilemmas like not being able to find the Elluminate recording make the participants feel like they can be open as well. Let's all fess up to our blunders and head-scratchers!

What other facilitation skills are important, particularly in an online environment?