Planning to steal Mikhail’s thunder at our upcoming staff meeting this Wednesday, here I am/writing to open up the blog space for reflections on our symposium. Please contribute.
It was a good day, this past Friday. I think I most enjoyed its dynamic, happening quality, as if in defiance of the rain outside. And I did indeed get out of my academic bubble to look around a bit and see and hear what those non-academics think about writing. One of my favorite parts was the opening lecture, actually, Jeff Jarvis’ talk. (At the Players’ Club, Olga was telling me how much she enjoyed Peter Elbow’s talk because of its introspective quality, and I agreed with her. The upbeat, popping quality of the first speaker got me, however, and I think it was an excellent choice to start with in the morning.) At moments, I wondered at the striking American-ness of the entire speech, and I felt this with all my convoluted sense of belonging and Americanized brain. I liked the way the speaker opened up the creative act for necessary mistakes (“Everything is miscellaneous”), inherent flair (“elegant organization”), and I loved the little spiritual tag that came with the package (“Make mistakes well, and don’t be evil”). Peter Elbow, on the other hand, wanted to celebrate “the glory of writing” and that inward turn that it brings, and I was nodding big time then too.
What about you, my fellow audience-members? 
Ahhh yes, the American way of giving a speech… Quite a show, no?
A great show, absolutely, and so was the colorful “writing on walls” of our dynamic facilitator!
Sidonia, what do you mean by the American-ness of the speech? I’d like to hear more.
I thought that Elbow talk was challenging but it was also a big surprise…I liked the format of the afternoon section better than last year: it seemed more dynamic, with all the workshops, and then getting together again as a group.
Agnieszka,
By the “American-ness” in Jeff Jarvis’ talk I actually meant the spiritual quality of the speech, which reminded me of the Puritan sermon-tradition. The moral and ethical value system that the speech promoted was what I appreciated because it went beyond and above what I expected from a “business talk” about Google. In this sense, it was truly an enlightening talk: revealing my own biases in how I conceptualize “doing business” as a way of being. I think it was altogether brilliant.
“How did it go?”
“The best ever.”
“You always say that.”
The potential value of a symposium is in the new ideas and the rethinking of old ideas that emerges. The actual value comes from whether I have the courage to walk the talk, to make change, to do what it is I do better.
For me, Jarvis, Elbow, the morning discussion and afternoon workshop were the high points. Gee, that’s just about everything. As I said to my bride, “The best ever.”
So, the takeaways:
Jarvis: Help others do what they want to do better. My note is a bit ambiguous here, but it contains both sides of the application of “better.” Perhaps the manner in which I wrote the note is also instructive (at least to me).
Jarvis: “If the news is important it will find me.” This seems to me a tad pompous and arrogant. Surfing the world of ever increasing complexity, speed of change, data, information, and knowledge will require every increasing hard work in order to make sense. No one is going to do this work for us. There may be tools and techniques that will help, but we will need to do the work.
By the way, I think there are perils in too much of anything. Although, as a former consulting colleague once said, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”
Morning Discussion: The questions that keep running through my head relate to the nature of connection and confirmation that connection has been made. Or, on an even more abstract plan, do we have the time to care?
Morning Discussion Debrief: The need to learn and teach active listening. It’s everyone’s classroom. Know the rules before breaking them (where the fun in that?). Allow for the possibilities of self-correction. Authentic audience.
Elbow: I was reminded of the movie “Finding Forrester” wherein Connery’s character tells Brown’s character to write the first draft with your heart and rewrite with your head. I had never heard of Elbow, but his advice of ignoring the audience seems much in line with how I write. I’ll need to learn more about Elbow’s approach to writing. Thanks for the book.
Afternoon Workshop – Smith: Similarities and differences between generations should inform our communication. Understand learning style. Valuable insight here.
Oswald: A fascinating facilitator. Appealing graphic organizational style. Now to tease out the value in the content.
Birdsell: Perhaps there are no more best practices. Yep, that’s what I wrote and I suspect I was listening to David’s remarks through a lens shaped by “the world of ever increasing complexity, speed of change, data, information, and knowledge.” That is, perhaps best practices don’t have time to form. Or perhaps the characteristics of the best practices of tomorrow are very much unlike the characteristics of the best practices of today.
Anyway, great, great day. Thanks for including me.
For me, this year’s Symposium was elegant, challenging and thought-provoking. It had a collective energy brought about by the exceptional keynote speakers, program facilitators, participants and presenters. Everyone seemed to contribute something of themselves that brought value to the discussions and we were all anxious to absorb as much as possible. We could have called it a Symposium on Learning-Intensive Instruction.
Jim Jarvis and Peter Elbow brought us a lot to think about … “small is the new big,” “long live the mass of niches,” “ask yourself, what don’t I know?” and “what is your center?” among other thought-provoking thoughts and questions. I am aleady reading Peter Elbow’s book, Writing with Power, and the books were a great takeaway.
I liked being given the choice to join whatever afternoon workshop most resonated with me. I attended Stanton Smith’s “Decoding Generational Differences”. In the end, Smith said “everything is about communication and how to communicate more clearly for a better result.”
Dinner at The Players Club was a treat.
I’ll echo all of the previous comments– I give the symposium two exuberant, twittering thumbs-up.
My personal favs included the morning discussion at Table #2. Questions of authenticity and authority loomed large. An anecdote came from a table participant from Bristol-Myers Squibb (apologies for not recalling her name here), which recently discovered that their company’s Wikipedia entry includes some incorrect information– but information they didn’t deem crucial enough to continually try to keep updating and correcting. The external communications that are TRULY important to them relate to information about drug safety, etc. This led to a fascinating discussion regarding the parallel confusions within education administration, the classroom, and beyond.
This fruitful chatting was certainly motivated by Jarvis’s keynote, which included a lot of ideas that I felt ambivalent about, yet were undeniably engaging & thought-provoking.(Is it uniquely American to use anecdotal evidence about your child to extrapolate conclusions about every 18 year-old, or is that universal?)
Re: Elbow– those of you who were perplexed by his delivery style should check out his footnote about a “third kind of inarticulateness” on xvii of “Writing With Power.” “My speech is usually a jumble…”
The Twittering: enlightening & fun. Oswald: got his groove by the final report back, and seemed to then really begin synthesizing in a cool way. The historical neighborhood tour: excellent (if a bit rainy), highly recommended. The Player’s Club: the perfect nightcap.
And, as a side note, while it’s great to meet new people at the Symposium, it’s also great to get to know fellow Fellows better. I’ll protect their identities here, but our lunch table conversation about Kindle & Torrent was illuminating…