A Time to Celebrate: The Coaching Commons First Birthday
By Linda Ballew
In a few weeks, the Coaching Commons will celebrate its first birthday. We should certainly honor and remember our first year.
First, a sincere thank you to the Harnisch Foundation for making the Coaching Commons vision a reality.
Let’s add a virtual toast to our more than 28,000 guests from 130 countries.
Thank you to all our conversation leaders, authors and contributors for creating 292 blogs, and applause to those who engaged in the conversation with over 900 comments.
Cheers to the 56 Uncommon Conversations via teleconference! Thank you Katherine Gotshall English and Elizabeth Crouch for producing and hosting these lively and often unpredictable discussions. Our 35 guest-hosts and guest speakers explored fresh coaching territory, and over 500 listeners joined us live and participated in these Uncommon Conversations. Many more enjoyed listening at their convenience, thanks to Super-Tech Sandra De Freitas for editing and posting each recording.
We also celebrate our ground-breaking researcher interviews, hosted by Francine Campone. Seven interviews (thank you, guest researchers) delivered current coaching research to practitioners in meaningful, interesting and useful 30-minute recordings.
Here’s to Vikki Brock, who informed and entertained us with her vast knowledge of coaching history (Virtual Museum of Coaching) and highlighted pioneers (Coaching Hall of Fame) who have paved the coaching way forward.
We celebrate The Chronicle of Coaching, which posted your weekly update of “breaking news” about coaching from across the globe.
It’s been a thrilling start ~ and as we create what’s new for 2009, we invite you to share your favorite moment, blog, conversation, photo, or anything else you enjoyed about the Commons this year, and please, give us ideas and suggestions for 2009.
Let’s hear a standing ovation for our thriving coaching community! Happy New Year, and we’ll continue to meet you at the Commons.
Comment by Jonathan Sibley on 3 February 2009:
As we begin our second year together, I’m wondering if there are ways that the Coaching Commons might evolve to further increase our sense of community and encourage more activity on the Commons.
I love the Commons, and also have some thoughts about ways we might move forward.
1. Some members may not want to be a “discussion leader”, but there might be a topic they would initiate if it were easier to do so. There could still be some moderation, but we might get more topics going and increase participation.
2. As we continue to grow, I think it gets harder to find on the site the topics that we are likely to be most drawn to. Some may be more interested in executive coaching and others in life coaching. Some way want to read about the history of coaching and others might be less interested. Serendipity can be great, when we find a topic we didn’t know would interest us, but I think there is a risk of information overload and that this could limit participation. Overall, I think it is a site usability question that might benefit from a little fine tuning.
In any case, I’m happy to see more participation on the Commons recently and am looking forward to a great 2009 together.