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We are writing to acknowledge that the community of practice called the Global Coaching Community is growing organically, as its original conveners intended. It appears that GCC leaders are self-identifying and that individuals are creating global events. We celebrate with those who are pleased with the direction.
The Harnisch Foundation had been the founding funder of the GCC, shared the vision, sponsored the launch and initial organizing meeting in New York City in 2007, and provided the administrative staff to the GCC for over a year.
We understood that in order to be what GCC was intended to be, the community of practice could not have leaders and structure. We spent over a year attempting to work in this model, but we found that we function best with traditional leadership structure. And many GCC volunteer participants were holding us accountable for the lack of structure and communication leading up to Dublin event. Thus our departure from the GCC project.
However, we also recognized that the GCC Research Working Group (and other working groups) made exemplary progress, produced the work expected of them, felt a sense of community, and wanted greater connection. Watching this progression inspired us to invite this working group and other global researchers together by co-sponsoring The International Coaching Research Forum. We structured this event along the lines we had originally envisioned for GCC Dublin, and some of the participants attended both the Dublin event as well as the International Coaching Research Forum at Harvard.
We proudly invite each of you to take a look at the groundbreaking results of the International Coaching Research Forum. Visit http://www.coachingresearchforum.org/ and read the 100 proposals for coaching research. We’ve never been more gratified by the results of any philanthropic investment in our Foundation’s history.
In these challenging economic times, it’s more important than ever for philanthropic investments to produce a satisfactory return. One of the highest values of The Harnisch Foundation is non-duplication of effort.
In that spirit, we reaffirm our intention to provide a welcoming forum for all voices in coaching; we reaffirm our support of provocative, open, transparent discussions; we reaffirm our belief that the GCC will be most effective when it is most inclusive.
We invite the GCC to join us at the Coaching Commons to continue their conversations and their work.
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There are 2 Responses so far...
I also sincerely hope that the GCC can meet at the Coaching Commons. Personally I would like to contribute to the aims of the GCC but I find it difficult to divide my time between many organizations over different time zones. By openly sharing the discussions here (or more generally, in any open online forum), I can take part easily. Even if I only follow the discussions and contribute occasionally, I will feel much more committed to any final agreements and conclusions.
I tried to get in involved with the first round of the GCC meetings, but the methods for sharing and discussing were so clumsy ‚Äö√Ѭ∂in fact, I’m not even sure there was any real discussion prior to the conference in my particular area of interest. We should leverage the amazing advantages of technology to facilitate our discussions. But that is expensive and time-consuming to initiate. So let’s start here at the Coaching Commons where we have some fabulous technology and a select gathering of coaches who are already here
Dear all at the coaching commons,
Linda Ballew and I had a conference call on September 20th and we made excellent progress. In that conversation, it was agreed that GCC would use the foundation’s technology through its existing space from which David Lane was a contributing commentator to the Coaching Commons.
We also spoke about what the brief from the Dublin delegates to the GCC was in terms of technology and we both agreed that the coaching commons could not provide much of what was being asked for (which Linda and I did agree was a pretty big wish List).
However, since we founded the space on NING and invited 11 people to “play with it”, over 160 people have now joined the community and new groups and energy for action is popping up all over the world.
It is my hope that this is the type of activity that David will report on in his continuing engagement with the Coaching Commons.
I agree 100% that they are both spaces that should be in harmony but that is up to the people who populate them rather than the people who organise them – surely ?
Much of the conversation that Linda and I had was to do with continuing collaboration and just because there are people who like the social networking technology does not mean that collaboration is not going on. I am a continuing commentator on both platforms and I dont feel any lack of welcome on either of the sites. It is as it is.
If people dont turn up to the Coaching Commons of their own volition, are you suggesting that we close down the social networking site and point them to the Coaching Commons?
What coaches seem to like on the GCC social networking site is that they can start their own groups, add their own photos, add their own videos, links, documents, blogs, discussions and threads. Importantly, there is no moderation and anyone can see their content uploaded in minutes and people can comment and thread their discussions instantly.
Linda and I discussed if these options were available on the coaching commons and it appears that they are not.
Crucially, NING is free and we have had OPIC, the Australian Behavioural Psychology Group, sponsor the removal of the unsightly Google ads.
The suggestion to the Transitional Steering Group was that David Lane continues to link the Coaching Commons through his existing space and that the GCC Social Networking site can continue to emerge into whatever the community wants it to be.
Feel free to check it out on http://gccweb.ning.com
Feel free to email me on paul@resilience4enterprise.com if you want to have a private email discussion on any issue.
Many thanks for the invitation and we also, in that spirit, invite you to try the social networking site as well. There are simply too many technologies available cheaply these days to lock the coaching field into only one option.
Regards
Paul MOoney