Every International Working Out Loud Week is an experiment. We have ideas. We share most of those ideas. We endeavour to engage others. However community means you never quite know what is going to happen. The day before I always wonder “What if there was a working out loud week and nobody shares?” Thankfully I don’t need to deal with the answer to that question just yet.
#wolweek is off to a great start. There’s more energy, more participants and more openness this time than ever before.
Today was a day of chatting with others, working on client work alone and of administration for me so I didn’t have the most exotic lessons from the day. However, I spent a part of the day curating #wolweek material so I had a wonderful overview of the experience. Here’s what I learned:
Be Bolder
I am still at times timid sharer. There’s lots of “should I or shouldn’t I?”. With every experience I learn to share more. Every time I do share more I get greater value.
I am inspired by the boldness of others. The biggest reactions to people sharing today were to people who stepped well outside what they would normally share. Helen Blunden, Jodi Brown and Jeff Merrill were three examples of how to share work in a way that opens it to others to engage. Jennifer Frahm has an amazingly bold example of working out loud within a corporate context that I hope she gets to share some day.
You can always connect more
When a face to face meeting had been arranged by 9am as a result of a #wolweek post, you saw the potential of openness to connect people. We were also flooded with insightful blog posts. There were lots of comments and conversations triggered by posts that would not have happened without #wolweek. Let’s hope the rest of the week brings more people together in valuable conversation
I spent the morning with a consultant in a completely different field exchanging expertise. Jane is brilliant at helping to make accounting easier, to make it more valuable and putting her clients in control of their finances. Her expertise to help my business and I shared a little of my expertise in exchange. I’ve saved hours of pointless work as a result.
Have fun & Be human
#wolweek wouldn’t be here but for a community of people who saw the potential and have been advocates and given their energy to the idea. We have had great support in so many places that it is unfair to not name them all. The #wolweek twitter account is an effort to recognise many. I also have to thank the Change Agents Worldwide community for their thought leadership and enthusiasm. The common characteristic of the supporters is that they are people who have fun and value the human part of work.
To kick off #wolweek today I shared a short post in Linkedin inviting people to engage. Linkedin is rarely a place I associate with fun and human behaviours. However, the post has received an energetic response from people who want to embrace the change, the fun and a little more humanity at work.
Share
Share with me your #wolweek lessons and stories. I would really love to hear them and feature them in #wolweek. Most of all I would love to hear about the #wolweek stories that are happening away from public social sites – in offices and in private communities. Let us know what you see so that we can make #wolweek better next time.
There’s a whole week to go. What’s going to happen in your #wolweek?
Please share it.
