Forum Activity for @magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
07/01/14 09:10:34PM
29 posts

Training Interview Trainers


Training

yes - the discussion just got too long i thought and was branching out! I forgot I could copy the link and paste it in this post to make it easier to find. . . .thanks, loads Deb!

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
06/12/14 09:34:48PM
29 posts

Training Interview Trainers


Training


This post is an extension of the back and forth on my earlier question about training interviewers. The description of this ongoing project got so long that I figured I should give the topic of trainers its own space.

To recap

All of us on the project are adult volunteers, from North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand so far. I'm the only one who has had any ABCD training of any kind (from Ron Dwyer-Voss by the way--shout out, see the session coming up the end of July 2014:CS-Flyer-ABCD-v2.pdf). One participant attended a summer program on ABCD in Toronto, but it wasn't a training, more like a survey course with in-the-community exercises. I trained the first batch of 16 interviewers + three managers including the CEO. Now I'm training the two project managers to help them master the project better themselves and be a greater resource to the trained interviewers. One manager lives in Washington, DC and the other in the state of Washington, while I live in California. For Training the Trainer in covering these distances, we use Sococo, a virtual online office and meeting service to see each other and share screens in order to understand and perhaps modify the training material.

What's going on now

Although we are all volunteers, we have different roles for this project and I do my best to keep these roles clear--for my sanity as much as theirs.

In our case, the way I set it up, I sold the person acting in the role of CEO the idea, and to make a very long story short, we have thetwo managers who can be considered as institutional folks, and the group of them, in effect, have hired me to help them organize the process of community development.

What's interesting to me is how much everyone is still looking for someone to tell them what to do, much like a community that has forsaken their institutions for so long that the institution is fighting for life to meet its purpose and the individuals tend to feel there is nothing they can do without that institution--a lesson that emerged in my own learning when taking an ABCD training. ABCD is one of many such tools that once it's started. it is for me a continuous process of being able to continue growing as a person and helping my community empower one another to take positive and effective action.

How it's worked so far

We originally agreed near the end of April that the next training would take place in August. To me, this meant that we needed to start training of the trainers right away!

We've had four training sessions now, about a week apart and including a one-week break while one manager had to tend to major obligations elsewhere.

I've been sticking with the herd leader philosophy that I mentioned in my Interview Training post. I look for when energy is moving and work with that rather than tell folks what to do as if the destination is predetermined. All I know are the conditions we need to be in - everyone knowing the forces we were contending with in ourselves and the community, enthusiastic engagement for everybody involved, safety (in this case emotional and relational) for all, recognition of/access to/actual use of resources.

Overall, I let them tell me how they would like to proceed and where to go. ("Let's take a look at your slide 21, Magdalena"). At the last session, one manager disagreed with a line about establishing community businesses, saying she felt completely cynical about anything like that ever happening. She was laughing, but it seemed like we were about to risk something of her personal integrity.

Instead, I pointed out that when the next set of interviewers they would be training underwent training or would go out, one of those interviewers might feel the same way or be bound to meet others in the community with similar feelings. So I invited her to say more now and explore this together. She was more than happy to speak and we ended up going into deeper conversation about their jobs, the purpose of this particular community institution, and how much our fellow community members would resonate with somebody else who could acknowledge the situation and not get defensive. At the managerial level, I pointed out, we are modeling the conversations that we are inviting the community to be able to have.

Looking forward to your questions and comments and helping each other make better communities.


updated by @magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz: 10/24/16 04:46:28PM
Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
06/12/14 05:43:01PM
29 posts

When partners want to help what should I do?


Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

My thanks to Ron and Dee for eye-opening advice. I am still hoping we can get our group as far into the process as you have, John. I have a few weeks left to my term of chairing a community group that bumps into political situations every now and then, and one thing I have learned is what Ron says at the get-go to make sure I have the permission of the group first. It's the group's power, not mine, so I have to honor that.

I have had to take a little time to put together some initial information the community group needed to make an informed decision, but other than that, the process made it possible to push the political folks towards their own sense of human integrity, and the community members selected among themselves who should go and get the real info with me just providing an introduction.

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
10/14/13 06:04:01PM
29 posts

Learning ABCD: Conference or Videos/Workbooks?


Training

Start with the workbook. The material may be old but it's gold. Also, check out the resource page on this forum. I've posted a few items myself.

I've been a community organizer for a number of years also, and I have to say that in-person training is very useful. For me, the videos, workbooks and everything else online became that much more useful after training because I found outhow much my mindset is already fixed a certain way.

After the training, I pointed my colleagues to the videos and workbooks since there wasn't any training local to any of them. Each one of them fell in love with the concepts, especially talking about gifts, and "learning conversations" etc. However, when it came time to apply ABCD to our community, they could only envision the creation of a database of information that could just be mined. They couldn't make the connections needed between their minds and hearts, so we started heading down the path of community development in name only. It wasn't until one of them attended the Toronto Summer Institute this past season, where John McKnight and some younger field ABCDers were offering a training, that this one person "got" it. Now she's my ally in the work we are attempting.

I don't know Dan; I took my training with Ron Dwyer-Voss a few years ago. Ron is very experienced, having been an organizer, a minister, and an ABCD'er for many years. I see that he includes Dan in the list of stewards, and to me that is a fantastic recommendation. The folks on that list are very committed to this work.

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
10/14/13 06:07:57PM
29 posts



Please check the resources list in this forum -- there are some good videos and other resources to help you learn more about how ABCD has been used in many, many places around the world.

How did you hear about ABCD?

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
11/11/13 04:55:55PM
29 posts

Cloud based asset mapping software


Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

Do you know about Jennifer Palka's nonprofit, Code for America?The companymatches coders with governmentsbadly in need of improvements in efficiency, and the coders do everything from streamlining food assistance programs to developing a system for replacing batteries in tsunami sirens. I heard last year about how they set up an app so that community members could work with one another to care for local fire hydrants and keep them free and clear of snow etc. for emergencies. I don't know what the app is called, but the system has been rapidly adopted around the country. They could be a good resource. When I have time after my training, I will look into it further, myself.

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
11/10/13 11:49:56AM
29 posts

Cloud based asset mapping software


Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

I start offering a 3-day training session for a group this Friday. It's been a constant play in relationship to get my colleagues to understand that they need more than a static database, and the furthest they've come along is a plan to use this database as the foundation to build a social site private to the group. That's good progress for us.

A lot of drawn asset maps I've seen online are also static in the sense you describe because I can't tell from looking how the community members are actually using the "assets" posted. One lady doing a project in England, ended up drawing her own map of the relationships that were developed for a project, rather than the community making the map together. It was more of a mind-map, but I appreciated the color-coding to show the relationships. Here's what I found:

Project: http://creativecitizens.co.uk/2012/05/29/community-asset-mapping-and-a-jubilee-street-party/

Image: http://creativecitizens.co.uk/files/2012/05/streetpartymap-full.jpg

Could you and Karen please continue this thread so that the rest of us can consult with you as you go along?

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
09/16/13 03:53:37PM
29 posts

Cloud based asset mapping software


Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

Forgot to mention, there are alreadyABCD Google mapping projects posted on the internet, but rather few and far between. Check outhttp://www.slideshare.net/srengasamy/introduction-to-community-asset-mapping-presentationto see if there's anything you can glean from their work or maybe you can try and contact them to see how they did it.

Magdalena Valderrama Hurwitz
@magdalena-valderrama-hurwitz
09/16/13 03:50:25PM
29 posts

Cloud based asset mapping software


Tips, Tools, Strategies, and Technology

I joined the Open Space Technology listserve. John McKnight has given presentations with Harrison Owen, the OST founder, so these are related movements. Our group has been looking for similar cloudsharing software, not necessarily maps but ways to catalogue our work. So maybe someone can adapt these things for ABCD. Out of the ones we've been discussing, it seems to me that Trello.commight be useful for the cataloguing that is part of ABCD work. It's a unique kind of project/task management software because it uses "cards" and not Gantt charts so I've seen it used for purposes other than project-planning, and users share the applications they've developed.

  2