Metacentricities

Today is the last day of the social forum workshops. Since I’ve been “off duty” both in terms of tech stuff, and in terms of doing workshops, I’ve been wandering around to different workshops. I went to a good workshop I’ll talk about in more detail in the next post. It’s been very interesting - a quite intriguing mix of people and perspectives and attitudes about social change.

One of the fascinating things that is going on is that the USSF is overlapping at the Westin with a National American Miss pageant. Specifically, they will be crowning Miss Georgia … (pre-teen, etc.) So, at the same time as all of these activists in birkenstocks and piercings and casual clothing are walking about, there are this perfectly coiffed mothers and daughters wearing extremely excessive amounts of pink. It reminds me of the year I went to the National Women’s Studies Association conference in Oklahoma City, and we were overlapping with the national cheerleading camp.

The elevators in the Westin have been a challenge (too many people, and too few elevators) - but the mix of people at and in the elevators today has lead to some awkward silences (in comparison to earlier, when almost everyone was from the Social Forum, and there were the standard “so where are you from” exchanges while waiting for elevators, which takes forever.)

It is an opportunity, I think, for practicing compassion for people who are choosing to live very different lives, rather than derision, which, I have to admit, is my first impulse.

I’ve been at the Social Forum now for a few days, and I have some observations. I haven’t been to a huge number of sessions (3 so far, I expect to get to a few more before the close.) And, two of those sessions I was involved in, so it’s hard to make much of a pattern out of that. But there have been some very interesting conversations, and I do feel like people are looking for some new avenues and strategies for change. Which feels good.

I gave a short talk about my own experience with blogging - I was on a panel about blogging with Brad Friedman (of BradBlog), BobFitrakis (of the Columbus Free Press), and Matthew Cardinale (from the Atlanta Progressive News.) They were, of course, real investigative journalists. My perspective was that primarily as a progressive faith blogger, and a techie.

It was interesting to talk a bit about being a “progressive faith blogger” (am I that?) and the organization of progressive faith bloggers. I got lots of blank stares, and a few perky looks. I would not quite say that part of the conversation went over like a lead balloon, but I got the definite impression that it was something that hadn’t been on most people’s radar. It would be interesting to have been able to talk to people perhaps more in depth about their perspectives on that whole thing.

In talking afterwards with people, I talked with someone who had her own blog (the christian environmentalist).

In general, the crowd here at the social forum is, well, familiar. It’s that interesting mix of people with garish t-shirts that have outrageous (or not so outrageous) slogans, aging dyed-in-the-wool activists, and professional activists and union organizers. There is a very large contingent of people from Atlanta, especially African Americans. It is a very, very diverse crowd, which I know was the point - the primary organizers of this forum are part of organizations that primarily focus their work on communities of color.

It is also pretty chaotic. Sometimes, here at the Westin where I’m staying, between sessions, it can take 10 or more minutes before an elevator that isn’t full arrives to take you up or down floors. Things are spread out enormously.  But in the chaos, there is, it seems some comraderie, and shared sense of purpose, which feels nice.

I’m at the US Social Forum in Atlanta, GA right now. I arrived on Tuesday, and have spent the last couple of days as part of the tech team, helping work on the technology infrastructure. For the next few days (I’m leaving on Sunday,) I’ll be doing my sessions, and going to others. It will be definitely a different pace than earlier.

One of the things I’m noticing is how although this forum, which is the first of its kind, is meant to be a kind of coming together of many different people doing many different kinds of work, it has a feeling that is so familiar to me about lefty gatherings - a lot of people who are so caught up and invested in the ways they are different, that it’s difficult for people to work together for common goals.

It does seem, from looking at the workshop listings, that some folks are trying to bridge some interesting gaps. But there also seems to be a lot of the same-old identity politics (<insert snoring sound here>). What I’m looking for is some consciousness of people’s own reactivities and attitudes, and a willingness to own stuff that’s their own. It’s only a process of that sort that will allow a real coming together of people with different priorities and perspectives for common good.

Finally, I got a few minutes to move my first blog over from Typepad. It was pretty easy - although I think that moving Zen of Nonprofit Technology will be harder, because I care more about preserving the right structure. This blog, I’m just happy to get all the posts over.

So, things will be moving and changing, be patient. And notice the new feed on the bottom right!

The intersection of vertical lines through the center of buoyancy of a floating body when it is at equilibrium… A collection of centers… Where religion, politics, science, technology, the environment and Michelle’s brain and life meet.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what this blog should be. It hasn’t become clear yet. I expect it will soon.

Life is so interesting sometimes. I had an interesting weekend in the realm of directions my life could have, or might have taken. First, I found out that the Center for Contemplative Mind, an organization I have admired from close up, and from afar for years, is searching for a new ED. It’s a great organization that does fantastic work in the world. I had a moment (well, no, I had about an hour) of angst. Maybe this was really the job I wanted. I looked at the job description, thought about what I was doing, and what I’d have to give up, and realized, with real clarity, that I was doing right now exactly what I wanted to do. I like the work I do, I have amazing freedom. I just took off a week to write in May, and I’ll be taking off another week to write in July - and I expect to do that with some regularity. And Ruth and I are likely going to spend a month in Latin America in December - these are things I could not do if I had a real job. and, I like doing the work I do. I’ve been doing work directly with organizations, and not with code and databases, which has been fun, and a relief. I’ve been doing more and more technical writing, which I enjoy. It has it’s downsides, of course. Self-employment tax, footing my own health insurance bill, not always knowing when that next client is going to arrive.

The second interesting part of the weekend was to find out that the person who got the job I didn’t get (I won’t name the org here, go look it up in the archives if you’re really curious) got laid off recently, just a couple of months after they got hired. Now, of course, I don’t know the whole story - but it makes me happy that I didn’t get that job after all. That would have been such a disaster. It makes me feel that somehow, I’m being looked after. Not that I believe in that sort of God that actually pays attention and mucks around in my life - no. But that somehow life’s twists and turns, even though they are hard to trust close up, smooth out from further away.

Some current events are making me think a lot about leadership. I’ve been (and am) a leader in a variety of contexts, and perhaps I haven’t thought a lot about, or articulated, what I think leadership is, and means. But some recent events in a community I care deeply about have made me reflect on this, and be much more conscious about the ways I am a leader.

I have been involved in the Linuxchix community (a community focused around fostering and supporting women in Linux and open source) since 2000, which, of course, is eons ago in internet time. I have been around for controversies big and small (or small controversies made big, which seems endemic in electronic communities.) I have met many ‘chix face-to-face, and count some as friends. I have found help for my varied and sundry Linux and open source technical issues, and I have helped others with theirs. They have heard both my experiences with varied Linux distributions, as well as my experiences in seminary, and with partners old and new. I have received so much from this community, and I have given what I have been able. It has been a fixture in my daily life for a long time, and so the situation that faces us now as a community is affecting me greatly.

At this moment, a very significant proportion of long-time volunteers of Linuxchix (leaders in their own right) have become disaffected with the present (newly appointed) coordinator of Linuxchix. The process by which that happened, and the way it is playing out, is making me think a lot about what leadership is (and isn’t) - and about how it has failed for this community. I don’t want to give a review of what has happened - I’m sure others will - but I want to reflect some on what I’m taking away from this situation.

Leadership is a role to be taken with great seriousness, as well as with great openness - leadership is more like an open hand than it is a like a closed fist. Leadership is as much listening as it is talking. There are times when leadership is just that - pushing forward, being out on the edge, setting the agenda, and getting things done. Linuxchix needs plenty of that. But there are just as many times when being a leader means following. It means listening to what people are saying, answering questions honestly, taking a moment to stop and ask questions before taking precipitous actions - or being willing to reconsider actions that some express concern about after the fact. Being a leader means being willing to admit that you’ve made a mistake, moved in a wrong direction, and are willing to do a course correction.

Being a leader isn’t easy. I know that it’s something I’ve resisted a fair bit over the years, even though I’ve learned that I’m pretty good at it. But I didn’t get good at it without a lot of mistakes along the way. I hope that the present coordinator can find her way clear to a place of being the kind of leader this community really needs - open, responsive, willing to admit mistakes, and more of a listener than a talker.

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