Friday, September 14, 2007

Balaton 2007 - Introducing an Amazing Human Resource

After a characteristically arduous trip - flying isn’t much fun any more, I am comfortably settled at the Hotel Szezpalama, in Balatonsemmes, Hungary. This is the week, each year that I participate in the annual gathering of The Balaton Group. The group is a network, that as sustained itself for 27 years, loosely ‘organized’ around the ideas of sustainability and systems thinking To learn more about the group and its distinctive culture, you can read blogs from the previous two years. If I have time, I’ll go back and tag them for easier reading.
“In a group that comprises remarkable human beings, “Gillian” is one of the most remarkable. Among other things, she is the best trainer with whom I have ever worked among many, but much more than than. To illustrate, I begin with an agenda I brought to last year’s Balaton meetings, with limited or no short-term success. Because of Center for Teaching Excellence work in multimedia applications, and my contacts with millenials who are my Anderson hall “neighbors” I have come to believe that multimedia, web and social networking applications have a critical role to play in spreading the word about ideals that the Balaton Group germinates so creatively. I am not alone in this interest, but last year the enthusiasm was limited at best. But I did share my ideas with Gillian
.... and lo... the first session of this year’s meeting, lead by Gillian focused on the ideas I was touting, last year, and much much more. In about eight months, Gillian had constituted herself as an incredible resource in web and multimedia applications that facilitate learning.
Out of her head she created a “tools map” that listed the following applications
Second life
My space
Facebook
Skype
Blogging
Delicious
Moodle
Podcasting
Go to meeting
Linked in
Technorati
You tube
Flickir
Bloglines
Ning
Bloglines
Wiser Earth

And she created a job for herself that encourages exploration and application of these resources in her organization
To learn more about Gillian check out her blog, entitled “You learn something new every day.” This expresses not only what she does, but who she is.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Gillian Martin Mehers said...

Dear John, It is fascinating how ideas spread so much faster when people you really respect share them with you. You rightly identified an inspiring conversation I had with you last year, and the impact it has had on my interest in, and work with all these web 2.0 tool. I remember reading your blog, and being amazed at the relationships you have and the role you play in this group as an intermediary with the younger generation. Thank you again for the time you took and still take to be a mentor to me and best of all a friend!

10:29 AM  

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