Why are we blogging?

I just fished this out of the "Global Business Women" group at XING (https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles&id=5471325&articleid=5471391#5471391)

“So why should professional women blog?”

Bob wrote:

In a word, power.

It’s the power to create without the baggage of other people's limitations. In the blogosphere - some 70 million people worldwide and doubling every 6 months - general ideas rule, not preconceptions, as one 17 year old women found. Ashley Qualis’ (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/118/girl-power.html) has earned her over $1 million in advertising revenues by doing her business her way.

It’s the power to connect across all the borders and boundaries offline society thrives on. Nationality. Gender. Race. And across the subtler boundaries of occupation, profession, employer. Having a blog - which you can get for free or a few dollars a month - is like getting a magic passport that can instantly put you in touch with other people all over the world interested in exactly the same things you are.

It’s the power to become a leader, an authority, a person of influence outside all of the existing power structures all so very well established in the offline world. From the 22 blogs that are now among the top 100 web sites visited worldwide, to attorneys whose network of referring attorneys now resides in their blogs, blogging aggregates attention and authority as you post and interact with your readers.

"Your blog is your CV or resumé in a world where what happens online is increasingly important."

It’s the power to learn fast. Whether about the latest developments in your profession, a world crisis, what’s really happening inside the beltway, why are iPhones the new power status tool or any other topic people are interested in blogs have the traditional news networks, trade associations and specialty publications well and truly beat. Knowledge is power. And information from bloggers whom you’ve come to trust and from people who trust you because of what and how you blog - that is a new coin of power.

The best way to decide if you should be blogging is to start reading a few blogs.

Some of my blogs are:
The We Are What We Do 50/50 project
Frauke at Ode Magazine
AIESEC Imagine Community blog

The self Berlin network

The Hub Community on Facebook

...and I just remembered that the global Hub community is meeting on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2298829350

9to5 - ein paar Eindrücke

Heute morgen um 02:30 verliess ich das Radialsystem V am Berliner Ostbahnhof.

An die Arbeitszeiten (21:00-05:00) der digitalen Bohème werde ich mich nicht gewöhnen wollen: ich bleibe lieber bei 9to5 oder so ähnlich (08:00-19:00)...aber ich habe tapfer durchgehalten gestern...

Am letzten Festivaltag zum Thema "Weltverbesserung" hatte ich dann auch noch mal Gelegenheit die Sofalandschaft mit W-Lan auf dem Sonnendeck an der Spree zu bewundern. Und hier ein paar meiner pers. Highlights aus dem Programm (mehr pers. Eindrücke dann in den nächsten Tagen hier)

- Wer von euch kennt vertikale Gärten in Deutschland?
- Beim Pecha Kucha blieb mir vor allem das Buch "Umbauland" von Ingo Niermann in Erinnerung
- Warum fand ich es anstossend bei der Lesung von Kathrin Passig die 5EUR Zuschauersubventionen anzunehmen? Ich schlich mich unauffällig an Kathrin am Eingang vorbei...
- den Vortrag zum Social Networking per Handy verpasste ich, aber man kann sich hier zum Betatester anmelden: http://www.aka-aki.com/
- Zwischendurch schaue ich ganz schnell mal beim Ping Pong Country vorbei
- hier gibt es das Buch "Die Riesenmaschine" zum kostenlosen Download: http://riesenmaschine.de/riesenmaschinebuch.pdf

Wird es ein weiteres "9to5. Wir nennen es Arbeit Festival" geben? Man weiss es nicht...vielleicht finden sich ja Macher in unseren Reihen?

http://www.9to5.wirnennenesarbeit.de/

selfHUB goes XING

We have posted an article in the dropping knowledge group in XING where you can add your ideas on the HUB design until 29.08.07

https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=5393616

Designing the selfHUB

We had an AMAZING meeting with more than 40 people interested in experiencing the selfHUB for the first time. Luckily, we were allowed to be in the space-to-be where currently the printing company is still moving out...





We used the U-Model to look at different areas in the Hub and how a space for Social Pioneers needs to look like in Berlin:

- to meet & connect (initiating)
- to learn (sensing)
- to relax (letting go)
- to vitalize and re-energize (letting come)
- to work and realize (enacting)

In addition, we looked at how to design the overarching network & community of Social Pioneers.

And participants had time to connect and plan in a process that was a co-creation between Open Space and The World Café...

Tomorrow is an important day

We will be having the “selfHUB desing input gathering” workshop and I have just finished copy + pasting quotes from the experiences of The Hub members in London in order to hang those up tomorrow.

I think they are really inspiring and here are some of them with a few pictures from The Hub London…

Awareness

“It brought me/Lightweight Medical & ELEMENT 06 into the world of social enterprise. Although we’re a 100% sustainable company in both our operation and the products we design the team are not from a social enterprise background.”

Connection

“You get this kind of mirror to talk at, so you get this environment to try out things. And it’s also a place full of people who know lots of people, like I feel that in London, without a network, without knowing people you can feel incredibly alone and everything can be incredibly difficult and if you tap into one network it’s like pum-pum-pum, you have access to lots of people.”

Commitment

“The other thing is about being around people who are very serious about their work and motivated by their work because it’s productive. You couldn’t easily get that in other offices…there is something which is uplifting about being in a place where people are committed to similar things…”

Access to Jobs

“Straight away, after 3 days in the Hub I got some work, I got a new project, so the networking element in this place it’s just been unexpectedly fantastic really.”

Community Support

“The major impact it had was on my psychological health, and I am not exaggerating. I was almost not functioning in that tiny office on my own.”

Collaborations

“The impact on my work/skills were to have fantastic references to where progressive initiatives in social and leadership development are happening, helping a great deal in my own educational and research activities.”

Creative Environment

“You can just walk across the room and sit in a corner and get a different perspective, crawling to this soft library…you get the impression that the place is not frantic, that people are allowing themselves time to think. There’s no rules as well, people do their jobs in so many different ways.

self sucht Verstärkung

Wir suchen zum nächstmöglichen Termin Unterstützung für den Aufbau des selfHUB. Wir suchen noch Projektmanager, Helfer, die beim Aus- und Umbau mit anpacken, Tischler, Elektriker, Sachspenden wie Möbel, Computerhard- und software, Fundraisingexperten uvm.: Kontaktieren Sie uns einfach unter info@self-germany.de

We have a home!

We did it! We did it! After 14 months of search, we have actually signed a renting contract: the selfHub will be in the heart of the multicultural Kreuzberg, 2min walk from a major city canal.

Our pre-tenants, a printing business have been in the location for 40 years and it was with real luck that we have found out that they are leaving the place to go into retirement.

We have 637sq in a typical Berlin-style courtyard building with trees growing high up from the ground ;-), and a shared BBQ area.

Here are the first pictures....