The One Million Splotz of Glue Campaign

Doc Searls writes:

With his One Million Splotz of Glue Campaign, Lloyd Y. Asato is doing an important and commendable thing: building community through “everyday actions”. He’s talking about real communities here, where people actually know and care about each other — rather than the abstract demographic variety. He adds, These actions have the cumulative effect of increasing the quality of life in a community. By deliberately doing more of these specific activities we can build the kind of community we want to live in.

And then Doc responds to Takeaway number three where I ask is “there something I am supposed to burn? Is it my process-centric thinking? Can someone help me with this part?”

I’ll try.

Glue, snowballs and fire are all metaphors. Which means they frame a subject without being the subject itself.

I’ve thought of “rolling snowballs” and “setting fires” as two frames on the same subject, which is spreading interest in, and conversation about, a subject. Not (I now realize) about building communities.

With glue Lloyd’s got something else going on. He also uses the verb build. So we’re talking about construction here. Building community is barn-raising. Everybody contributes in their own way to something larger than themselves. So, two actions occur to me, as ways to build community.

The first is to stop watching so much television. Community builds around communication (which it would have to, just to function), and communication in its most fundamental form — conversation — is two-way. TV is one-way. It is about consumption, not production. I’m not saying TV is Bad here. I am saying that it is too often a bad substitute for productive activity. For communities, it is more solvent than glue.

The second is, build stuff. I’ve been amazed lately at the growing difference between conferences and workshops. Conferences are like television: everybody in the “audience” faces speakers and panels that comprise the conference’s “program”. In workshops, everybody participates. They get together in rooms and around tables and talk about common interests with purposes in mind. Progress usually happens. Stuff moves forward. It’s amazing how well this works.

You have to do workshops in person. Kurt Vonnegut writes,

Electronic communities build nothing. You wind up with nothing. We are dancing animals.

How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.

That’s from Kurt’s excellent short book, A Man Without a Country (Random House, 2005). Buy one from your local bookstore.

I don’t think he’s saying “don’t use electronics”. I do think he’s saying get together and talk to each other. There’s no substitute for that.

All right. I am in. Three more things I takeaway from Doc.

Takeaway number four - Let us do the silly workshops. I never got to do them except in my head and that was no fun. Anyone interested? You may do them as I imagined them or as you do, all I ask is that you share what you did and what you learned here. I am also interested in mashing up the silly workshops to see what we come up with. But eventually, let us implement. Okay?

Takeaway number five - community building is a team sport.

Takeaway number six - I am giddy and more jazzed about collecting Splotz of Glue than I have ever been. We need to shine spotlights on these people and their stories and then do meetups and do gluecamps and organize to paint a school or shelter and go for coffee and learn from each other and get inspired and then do more.

Who is with me?

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Posted on March 5th, 2007 by Lloyd Y. Asato
Filed under: The Ask