Relationships Archives

March Community Call Recap – Exploring new solutions to old problems, obliquely!

On this month’s call, we invited the Organizational Mycology team to facilitate an Oblique Thinking Hour activity for CSCCE community members. Beth Duckles and Dan Sholler led us through a series of prompts, culminating in breakout conversations where participants looked at community manager challenges from a range of surprising perspectives.

Oblique Thinking Hours

So, you might be wondering: “What is an Oblique Thinking Hour?” These sessions are an experimental way of facilitating a group as they work through a problem or challenge. Instead of attacking the problem head on, they come at it “obliquely,” building an appreciation for what everyone brings to the table before trying to find a solution.

Summer 2021: Opportunities to deepen your connections within the CSCCE community of practice

This summer, we are focusing our community programming on building a denser network of connections within the CSCCE community of practice. This means not only creating opportunities for new connections to form, but also to strengthen the relationships that already exist. In this blog post, we highlight the events and activities we’re hosting to meet these goals, and we hope that you’ll mark your calendars to join in. If you’re not already a member of the community, you can request an invitation to our Slack workspace.

Online co-working partnerships are community of practice in action

When Naomi Penfold of the CEFP2019 cohort and Stefanie Butland (#CEFP2017) met in person at the January 2019 CEFP training week they decided to continue collaborating online – by setting up virtual co-working sessions. In this joint post they describe the format that’s worked for them and why they’ve found their shared time so valuable.

What is online co-working – and why is it good?

After meeting at the first CEFP2019 Fellows’ meeting, we started a co-working partnership. We meet face-to-face online, at agreed times, to do work – our own work, but together in time. This is remote synchronous co-working via video-meeting.

Briefly, we start a session with each of us saying what we are working on, and how we’d like to break up our time together into work blocks and discussion. At the end of each work block, we report back to each other what we’ve accomplished in that time and whether we’re struggling with anything. These breaks can turn into work discussions when we feel we need that, and that’s the real magic.

Building and Facilitating Strong Internal/External Staff Relationships – A Lesson in Patience

We’re continuing to share reflections from our 2017 Community Engagement Fellows on the blog. In today’s post, Melanie Binder shares some strategies for building internal staff relationships. You can catch … Continue reading “Building and Facilitating Strong Internal/External Staff Relationships – A Lesson in Patience”

Posted by Melanie Binder, Community Engagement Manager and Social Media Coordinator for the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)

One of the challenges that many organizations face is how to get your internal staff (colleagues) and external staff (board members, etc.) to be supportive of your projects and goals. And when your new projects are ground-breaking and innovative within your industry, it can be quite a struggle to get all parties to share your vision. While we at the American Society of Plant Biologists have made great strides to address this issue over the past few years, it continues to be one of our biggest challenges.

How do you build strong staff relationships? Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15132846@N00/8197868606/ — How do you build strong staff relationships?
Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/15132846@N00/8197868606/

Continue reading “Building and Facilitating Strong Internal/External Staff Relationships – A Lesson in Patience”

A Community Manager Finding Support in Unexpected Places

This week we’re wrapping up the first year of the AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program (CEFP), funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The first cohort of Fellows is made up of 17 scientific community managers working with a diverse range of scientific communities. Today, Heidi Olds reflects on what taking part in the inaugural cohort has meant to her. You can catch up on all posts by the Fellows here.

Posted by Heidi Olds, Technical Activities Administrator for the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).

Wow! This year has been a whirlwind of new adventures. I was lucky enough to be accepted into the 2017 AAAS Community Engagement Fellows Program as part of the inaugural class! We explored new depths of community management and I am walking into 2018 feeling empowered and more confident than ever.

The 2017 CEFP Fellows in a group fist bump. Photo credit: Allen Pope.

Continue reading “A Community Manager Finding Support in Unexpected Places”