Our third International Working Out Loud week from 15-21 June 2015 is raising some familiar questions. This post is to share the current work to address these questions and invite some help in making sure that we are helping everyone get the most value out of #wolweek and the practice of working out loud. I would love your input because I think there is more we can do.
Here are the five commonest questions and the current attempts at answers:
- How do I work out loud or get involved with #wolweek?
- To understand working out loud read John Stepper’s Five Elements of Working Out Loud. Then buy his new book.
- If you want to understand the history, there is a family tree of #wol which is built from Dennis Pearce’s PHD dissertation that supplies all the details. Because the working out loud movement is focused on sharing and aren’t big on doctrinal disputes, nobody is claiming ownership and we embrace all related movements, especially #showyourwork.
- You may already be sharing your work which is great. Just make sure it is work in progress and your intent is a generous community oriented one – helping others to learn and to help you. Self-promotion might be valuable but it is not working out loud (& is much more likely to be treated as unhelpful noise)
- To get involved, share some work in progress any way you want with others for them to learn or to help.
- You don’t need to use technology, a hashtag or even be that public. Share with at least one other person and you are involved.
- Why is there a week? Shouldn’t people do this every day?
- The week is to promote the sense of community that comes from working out loud.
- People can experience that community in a week and can learn more about working out loud. Hopefully people try it ongoing.
- The week is only a beginning and not a limit to the practice. We would love people to practice every day (we have suggestions on how to start daily practice too!)
- Who is behind #wolweek? And who is making money from this?
- International Working Out Loud Week is not officially aligned with any organisation and is the barest network collaboration itself.
- International Working Out Loud Week is a collaboration of Austen Hunter, Jonathan Anthony and I. We loosely coordinate our activities by working out loud. We started with a conversation in a public forum and we still haven’t had a meeting or used email. We are each authorised to act to advance the organisation. We chat occasionally. That’s all the organisation we need.
- So far the only money involved over 3 International Working Out Loud weeks is the sub $80 budget spent on supporting the wolweek site. Nobody gets a salary as we are all volunteers just like our passionate community. There is no income because no money changes hands. No profits were harmed in the making of #wolweek.
- If other people can benefit from wolweek because they have a product or services to sell, that’s fantastic because it all reinforces working out loud.
- What is a #wolcircle? Why do we need 1000?
- I will let John Stepper supply an answer to this one as the circle peer support process is his gift to everyone.
- The big opportunity is to help spread the word by helping us achieve our goal of 1000 #wolcircles by November’s #wolweek.
To make #wolweek valuable in its goals in promoting working out loud, we need to address these and other issues well. We also need to ensure that we are giving people confidence to act on their new practice and advocate for the movement. The best International Working Out Loud week is one where the movement develops ways to engage others and create ever greater value from learning & collaboration.
What else can we do or say? How can we create greater value from this and any future #wolweek? Work out loud with us in the comments or on a social media network.
