Re-published … because I think it is germane to what I see happening on the blogs I frequent, and becaue I hoep a few more people read it.
I’ve been thinking for a while about how I have experienced learning more deeply, in this process called blogging. More specifically, I have been reflecting on the many essays, articles and comments that have addressed what is referred to as the two-way Web, the read-write Web or a World of Ends.
Many of us increasingly spend part of our lives participating in a new set of conditions, a new environment or atmosphere if you will. This new environment involves us in thinking, reading, writing and linking in the company of others. To benefit from this as fully as possible seems to require ongoing adaptation, or more colloquially learning, which in turn seems to demand of us that we participate in dialogue.
By dialogue I mean something different than discussion (dialogue comes from dia + logos, or a flow of meaning, whereas dis + cussion is a heaving of ideas back and forth). As an active blogger for the past two-plus years I have noticed several emergent properties, upon which I have commented in several previous posts such as Blogging As Applied Developmental Work and Authenticity, Presence, and the Peanut Gallery.
Namely, there are some interesting characteristics about a blog post from which a thread of conversation develops – characteristics which are different than most conversation in the real-time 3D world. Blogging allows the reader to read when and as she or he sees fit, think about “it” and then move on or comment. Then, the author can reply or not, also as she or he sees fit. The cadence is different than a real-time 3D conversation and allows more (or different) space and time for reflection. The kinesthetics of blogging (reading, thinking and writing) versus speaking and listening also come into play, I think.
This process clearly facilitates one’s learning and adaptation.
A domain of learning and adaptation in which I have been involved for almost a decade is coaching and mentoring, which has grown in leaps and bounds in lock-step with the increasing pace and complexity of our interconnected, electronic, mental and psychological environment.
Mentoring and coaching traditionally have been seen to be ways of passing on experience, wisdom and useful connections within given contexts, and have often involved interacting within some form of hierarchy ascribed to knowledge, status or other form of vested authority. I would like to interweave this notion with the growing belief that most people have a deep interior sense of knowing (who they are, what they want, what to do), both with respect to themselves and their context, environment and challenges.
Indeed, much of today’s coaching and mentoring (not to mention personal and leadership development), promotes the notion that we have the answers in us, and that skillful exploration and evocation in the company of a trusted “other” will call forth and lay the foundation for planning and implementing growth towards a preferred future.
So, how do blogging and the dialogue that I believe blogging builds weave into this?
Here’s an excerpt from the comments section of Andy Borrows’ Older and Growing blog. I watched Andy’s blog come into being just over a year ago, and I would like to salute Andy – he more than any blogger I know has had the courage to publicly examine, explore and wrestle with his writhing innards and the becoming-clearer little interior voice that is calling his authentic being into full-blown existence. In doing so, he has built a dedicate small community of seekers and thinkers,and pulled into view some well-wrought gems of insight.
“Isn’t it amazing? Sometimes it feels like blogging is facilitating a ‘fast track’ through all this learning and journeying. That the right people with the right words were waiting at the other side of the world and the wonder of blogs allows us to connect, build our little networks and bounce our experiences off each other.
Barely a day passes without someone from my blogroll spontaneously addressing an issue that’s currently at the forefront for me. The syncronicity is astounding!”
– Penny
He and his community exemplify for me what I call Applied Developmental Work, and demonstrate how commenting, which builds into blog dialogue, provides a form of peer coaching, co-mentoring amongst equals.
I often reflect on this as a core element of the process of moving from the Parent-Child dynamic inherent in top-down power-status-authority based relationships to the Adult-Adult relationship of taking responsibility, individually and severally, for the effectiveness of learning and growth (a nod to the field of Transactional Analysis, popular in the ’60’s and ’70’s).
In this new social phenomenon of blogging, I truly believe that we are beginning to learn more rapidly and deeply from each other and about each other, bringing form, shape and rhythym to the necessary process of active adaptation.
Comments and commenting facilitate co-mentoring in this brave new world, a world where each and every end may be helping to build wholes.
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