Nancy White
Biography
Nancy White—Founder and Chocoqueen, Full Circle Associates (http://www.fullcirc.com)
Nancy helps non-profits and businesses connect through
online and offline strategies. She is internationally recognized for her
leadership and expertise in the emerging field of online group facilitation and
interaction. She is a skilled online interaction designer, facilitator and
coach for distributed communities of practice, online learning, distributed teams
and virtual communities. Nancy presents internationally and was one of the
first to document and collect online facilitation resources (http://www.fullcirc.com/community/communitymanual.htm).
She teaches the original online workshop, Facilitating Online Interaction,
since 1999 (http://www.fullcirc.com/ws/onfaccourse.htm)
and hosts the respected “Online Facilitation” email list. She is a chocoholic.
Position Paper
I work at the border of technology, group processes and
global networks. My field is defined as “online facilitation” but in practice,
this is about helping people get things done at a distance. It is about the
shifting intersections between defined, purposeful groups and broader networks,
both in terms of people and technology. This practice is moving from being a
specialized field to what I believe will become a global competency. Every
organization will need skills to adopt and adapt tools and processes to allow
them to do what they need to do over a variety of borders.
There are three issues driving my work these days:
Reconciling the difference between tools and processes designed
for groups, but most often experienced individually in online
interactions, particularly focused group work, learning and communities of
practice. I’m particularly interested in fostering more intersection between
tool designers, tool “deployers” (often community leaders) and community users.
We don’t talk enough. We don’t experiment and play with each other enough. WE
need to swap stories. This is reflected in my work convening groups in gatherings and “muckabouts.”
Developing and refining practices required for designing and
facilitating border spanning online interactions from a socio-technical
perspective. This is getting even more interesting as we work with tools that
facilitate groups and tools that facilitate networks. I work mainly with
non-profit organizations in international development. They are being asked to
literally reinvent the way they work, from silos to networks. This is a
profound cultural change, but what is most often discussed is the software. We
need to bridge this with organizational change. (This holds true with my business
clients as well, but I have a strong passion in the NGO sector). This is
reflected in my ongoing client work.
If software is the “first thing on the table,” we need to
evolve the practice of selecting and deploying tools from a community or group
perspective. We need to better understand how to choose, deploy and utilize
software to support diverse distributed purposeful communities and groups. This
is reflected in my current project with Etienne Wenger, John Smith and Kim Rowe
developing a report on Technologies for Distributed Communities of Practice.
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