We did not progress on collecting success stories, but we met on the 14th and people added their links to the manuscript in progress. It was an exciting meeting because we had a newcomer join for the first time in a while! He told us he was working on open source software and getting social entrepreneurs to collaborate with one another instead of individually working towards disparate aims.
We listened to him and then someone brought up Jane Gooddall (“Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE: In July 1960, at the age of 26, Jane Goodall traveled from England to what is today Tanzania and bravely entered the little-known world of wild chimpanzees. … Today, Jane’s work revolves around inspiring action on behalf of endangered species, particularly chimpanzees, and encouraging people to do their part to make the world a better place for people, animals, and the environment we all share.”) and her work on human behavior change. Echoing the Ariyaratne quote, it was less about Non-Governmental Organizations coming in to impact change and never leaving; it’s most effective processes are when they work with locals to start the change and then hand it over.
We also answered his questions about peeragogy. To frame the discussion, we went reading aloud from Lisa’s peeragogy introduction (Peeragogy: An Introduction (draft) on Lisa’s Medium blog. Later she put out a revised PDF version), including a discussion of this anecdote about how people define teams differently:
But it hit me a little bit later when I was driving home. We were working from two different definitions of team. The Chivas definition was one in which all members were actively engage and empowered. We were all expected to be proactive problem solvers (and we had worked to give them the tools to be good problem solvers). We succeeded not just in building the team but our vision worked even relative to other teams around the league. Her definition of team was a top down definition of team. While, within the organization, participation was encouraged, for her and others immediately around her, this was not their working definition.
Additionally we discussed how her use of the couch metaphor is helpful to outline a possible return on investment for two people investing their time peeragogically:
Take two people and a couch. Individually they cannot move the couch on their own. Only when they work together can they move the couch. If they work together well, they will be able to move the couch effectively and efficiently. So, when you have two people who work well together, you have the benefit of both of their talents separately AND you have the benefit (plus alpha) of things that they can do together that they could never do on their own. In a very real sense, 1 [plus] 1 [equals] 3 or [equals] 4 or [equals] 5.
After the meeting, near the end of April, we received word that our submission to the anticipation conference had been accepted. Our next task was to revise the abstract before May 30th.
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