Back To Basics …

Nice to have you back!

Here is a question for your musing: if members in a community (or organisation) do not blog on any matters of interest whatsoever to the group, would it mean that the group is highly dysfunctional and is in the process of vanishing? I have made the claim that blogging is an excellent indicator of the viability of a group. I think you know where I come from but would broaden scope.

Hi, gaulois .. first of all, let me say that i keep wondering who you are, as your nom de plume intrigues me. I have a goodly number of French and Quebecois friends and acquaintances, and so …

Your question is a very good one, and i’m not sure I can add anything of value to your perspective, but of course I can try …

The firsst thing I thought about was a question that i think is very natural .. why DOES the group exist, what is it’s purpose or purposes ? It could (possible, but not likely) be a group who just like to think out loud with each other .. for example, there are a (very) few regular readers of this blog, some of whom I have email exchanges with .. I consider them a loose *group*, tho’ I’m not sure we have any purpose other than perhaps stimulating each others’ cortices.

But that’s not the focus of your question, as you specifically mentioned *community* or *group* or organisation … my sense is that if there is no blogging on *any matters of interest whatsoever*, there would be a very real possibility that the group would decompose or vanish, at least in the sense of blogging being one of the things the group would use for communicating. If there’s nothing of interest, why would anyone want to keep going back and looking/reading, other than to watch some one or other think unrelated or non-pertinent thoughts out loud, so to speak ?

On the other hand, I’m not sure that i would necessarily deduce that such a community or group was highly dysfunctional … a lack of purpose ofr focus is certainly something that can help create and grow dysfunction, but it is not necessarily a primary cause of dysfunction.

That said, i strongly support your claim that active blogging is an excellent indicator of a group’s viability .. blogging is in my opinion a key means of developing and sustaining active dialogue in / for a group - at least as good as, if not better than, a Yahoo group or a Socialtext workspace or some other form of group wiki, etc.

I have been much impressed, tho’ not surprised, at the sophistication with which a community in/on a blog can ignore off-topic comments in spectacularly effective ways (I know .. I have learned much from being actively ignored ;-), as well as the ways in which the community can deepen and/or extend conversations just to the point where forms of offline, face-to-face activities are called for and planned.

By now, having watched and participatd in blogging for 3+ years, I will be quite surpised if blogging (well designed and moderated, if you will) does not become the de facto form of what I call *organic knowledge management* in groups/communities/organizations, over the next decade or so

I hope I have at least partially responded to your question, tho’ I’m not sure I’ve added anything of any particular value .. as I said, very interesting question .. I’m sure I’ll think more about it.

I am glad in some way that you did not remember me from attending that Caf’-Philo last spring on building an online community for the Franco-Colombian on Le Canard R’incarn’. I suspect you do now…

I, at the time, thought that blogging was too much reminiscent of broadcast media whereby a blogger holds centerstage and the community within who the blogger “broadcasts” remains (or can remain) passive. I had more in mind a collaborative community blog implemented using common open source Content Management System (CMS) such as e107. This bundle would give you forum, news, articles and RSS feeds around which one could aggregate a community of interest: le Canard Re’incarn’ tries to gather a community of interest (activists type) focused on the renewal of La Francophonie in minority environments. The reality so far has been that the Franco-Columbian community is no longer willing to write in French as it is undergoing assimilation; most people feel IMHO that investing in maintaining their writing skills in French is a waste of time in an English majority environment. I in fact created this online community to reestablish my French writing skills that had vanished over the years. The personal “investment” was quite heavy and most francos typically cannot commit such an investment. In many cases, reconnecting to French is very painful emotionally.

Which brings me back to the topic of blogging and broadcast media in which the Canard has evolved to. My question however remains valid: in this day&age, can the individual investment in blogging be indicator of the state of the commmunity. I can say that there are basically no Francophone Hors-Qu’bec (FHQs) blogs out there, and I see this as an indicator of the FHQ community on its last miles. This claim is of course highly politically sensitive.

I remember you well… I just didn’t connect the online name to the person I remember.

And i think your questions and yourpoints are very valid … it may not be time to give up yet. Have you actually tried blogging pur et dur ? My *community* online is not Vancouver-based, tho’ it might perhaps be or I might increase that possibility if I blogged about something of high relevance to a comcentration of people in that given geographical area. It sounds to me like your initiative may need to find the clarion call that resonates, tho’ it may be that you are quite right about blogs FHQ .. and that may be tied up with some of the reasons Quebecois and Francais leave their respective places of origin. Your current mission with respect to maintaining and/or increasing French writing skills is a highly specialised mission that people would need to very much want to find time for .. as such, it may be a very individualistic *violon d’Ingres* and probably much less geography-based than many other interests ??

I remember you well… I just didn’t connect the online name to the person I remember.

And i think your questions and yourpoints are very valid … it may not be time to give up yet. Have you actually tried blogging pur et dur ? My *community* online is not Vancouver-based, tho’ it might perhaps be or I might increase that possibility if I blogged about something of high relevance to a comcentration of people in that given geographical area. It sounds to me like your initiative may need to find the clarion call that resonates, tho’ it may be that you are quite right about blogs FHQ .. and that may be tied up with some of the reasons Quebecois and Francais leave their respective places of origin. Your current mission with respect to maintaining and/or increasing French writing skills is a highly specialised mission that people would need to very much want to find time for .. as such, it may be a very individualistic *violon d’Ingres* and probably much less geography-based than many other interests ??

You may remeber Isabelle Major, whom I accompanied to the soiree .. she works for Patrimoine Canada, and is focused on the BC francophone community … perhaps she might be of help finding ways to grow or expand the francophone community’s interest in your mission ? Please remember, blogging is still very very new to a great number of people and many will be somewhat wary of it until they taste it in some real way.

The original objective was certainly to gather an online franco community from BC and the focus was not an “activist” one then. I have come to realize since that Francophones-Hors-Qu’bec (FHQs) have very little confidence in themselves after having been under Tutelle for over 100 of years and that is the main reason why they assimilate so easily, certainly in Western Canada. The situation is often quite reminiscent of many First Nations groups. I will point out franco parents run school shutdown by law in the early 1900s. This leaves scar as deep as the residential schools in most communities.

To this day, FHQs have no independent medias and no democratic instances. The “spokespeople” are mostly representatives from lobby groups trying to finance their activities. The usage they do of the Internet to reach their base is dismal. They have huge renewal problems and you see very little new blood. The base as a result of all of this has disengaged and switched over to the anglo side. Returning to the franco side is too painful for most people.

Yep I did get in touch with Isabelle and she refused to associate herself or Heritage Canada with Le Canard even then, when it was mainly softspoken. Culture Canada has done the same and the SRC support has been mainly unexistent. It is no surprise since Heritage Canada is the main operator (and hold the purse string) of la Tutelle.

It would be extremely difficult for an hierarchy organization such as Heritage Canada to recognize that blogging or lack of could be used as a lifeline indicator of FHQs. If they do that, it would mean that they would have to let the people speak which they do not like one bit IMHO. The “separatists” would certainly use this to their advantage. The feds are still living the Chr’tien&Co aftermats! It is very political as you can see.

I have since broadened the scope outside of BC to all franco minorities in Canada and am trying to reach the more Internet aware franco crowds (even via English, which often has become their main language, such as myself). The Canard news is also mainly a blogue dur et pur now. The forums, articles and RSS feeds are there for background support and sometimes linked into the blogue.

Wirearchy in the realms of the federal governments looks like an impossible battle but perhaps a necesary one if it is going to survive. Forgetting FHQs for a moment, are there fed employees that blog on the feds themselves??? Whistleblower law protection may be necessary before this happens and I am hopeful that the Gomery aftermats will make the feds more transparent. So if the feds do not blog, does it mean that they are bound to disappear too??? I will claim that in 2005 an organization that does not allow blogging within its ranks will simply not make it, whether FHQs, feds or even Microsoft! Think of the FHQs as the “coal mine canary” on this matter.

One more note on blogging within the feds. I will extend that to blogging within the CBC, the SRC (Soci’t’ Radio-Canada) and even the CRTC. You will note that these presumably new media organizations would have led the private sector media. Looks like the private sector is much further ahead. I understand that the BBC is also much further ahead.

I went to the CRTC last year and wasted an incredible amount of time dealing with their bureaucrats and trying to convince them to hold an hearing on extending the broadcast services with Internet content as a way to slow down assimilation and engage the scattered community. I did not focus on blogging yet but perhaps should have. In any event I ws given the bureaucratic treatment of this being inconsistent with the “broadcast act” and the “new media order” release mechanisms. Total BS and my blood still boils over this one. How about blogging within the CRTC? Will they disappear to???

It seems to me that the orgs that would benefit the most from blogging and wirearchy are these fed monopolies bloated with bureaucracies.

Hi,

I am trying to reconnect to an Isabelle MAJOR that I met 15 years ago in Montreal. She was working in TV (meteo media) and I organised a stay in Belgium for her.

I am staying in Montreal right now and hope to see her before sunday jun 24th.

Can you give the Isabelle you mentionned my e-mail? (fxs@rtbf.be)

I’d really appreciate.

Best regards.

FX SCHLESSER

Gaulois .. we’ve talked about this before.

You are clearly a man on a mission, and it shows. Some activists find ways to make progress, others struggle a lot .. I don’t know the answer to that one. I’ve struggled a lot, and made little headway.

I suspect that you come across as angry, more-or-less, to the powers that be who are in your sights. Of course there’s lots to be angry with or about, but it’s rarely the way to open and sustain conversations.

Yes, it’s obvious that the Net / Web can do a lot / offers a lot, notably to mionority or under-recognized / inder-fed groups. Does the Web and blogging pose threats to established institutions and established power ? You bet .. that’s why the uptake is at best so very guarded and slow, and at worst actively denied, ignored or dismissed.

Isabelle has nothing to do with this, as we have discussed before .. she is a program officer, one more cog in a very big machine.

Have passed your enquiry on, Francois.