eekim.com: EEK Speaks

Mon, Nov 28, 2005

A Series of Open Conversations #

What the heck is BlueOxenAssociates supposed to be about. Why the heck am I in this business? Forget about my ElevatorPitch? for a moment. Forget about collaboration and collaboratories, PatternLanguages and PurpleNumbers. What do I want, and why do I care? (K1V)

I haven't been able to answer these questions to everybody's satisfaction, but I've found folks of all types who get either it or me pretty quickly and who share many of my hopes, dreams, and values. Being around these people has kept me going both personally and professionally, and further catalyzing this community is a big part of what BlueOxenAssociates is about. I often think about the negativity that one of my mentors, DougEngelbart, faced for so long early in his career, and I'm grateful at how different my world has been. (K1W)

KatrinVerclas and SebPaquet are two of my favorite conversational partners. I've had the pleasure of working with Katrin (and AllenGunn, another favorite) on the FLOSS Usability Sprints. I haven't had the opportunity to work with Seb yet, but I'm quite certain it will happen eventually. (K1X)

Katrin is in Massachusetts, and Seb is in Montreal. My conversations with both are always incredibly rich, and I'm constantly wishing that we could talk more often and that we could capture some of those conversations. Of course, thanks to technology (and a bit of process), we can. (K1Y)

In the spirit of old school letter writing, I've proposed to both of them a series of conversations with a twist. Instead of emailing back and forth, we'll post our letters on our blogs so that others can participate and hopefully join in. (K1Z)

I think the open conversations will be revealing and hopefully entertaining. Katrin has already kicked things off with a nice list of things she wants out of her career and life. I'll respond in my next blog post. And when Seb decides to return to the blogosphere (*nudge, nudge*), we'll have an open conversation as well. (K20)

I'd love to have conversations with many others, beyond what already occurs on our respective blogs. If you'd like to join in on this little experiment, write me a letter and post it on your blog. Don't forget to link back here so I can find it. (K21)

Looking forward to the conversations! (K22)

/blueoxen | Posted at 11:10am

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EEK Speaks

A blog about collaboration, community-building, and the various goings-on at Blue Oxen Associates, with occasional digressions on food and other vital matters.