About NextNow Collaboratory
“NextNow Collaboratory is an interesting example of a new kind of collective intelligence: an Internet-enabled, portable social network, easily transferable from one social cause to another.“
Thomas W. Malone, Director, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
NextNow Collaboratory focuses on contributing to social benefit projects emphasizing innovative information visualization and collaboration technologies to benefit the planet.
Visualizing information is key to discerning the meaning hiding in complexity. Information visualization technologies deepen discovery by communicating layers of information and revealing systems and their interconnections effectively and viscerally. Whether it’s the loss of arable land, the displacement of populations due to conflict, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the collective effect of human stress, these technologies illuminate the larger story–and our relationship to it–by making the previously unseen, seen–by making the invisible, visible. This revelation can lead to huge and immediate shifts in awareness. Once awareness shifts, collaboration technologies help enable collective action reflecting the new awareness. This possibility is at the heart of NextNow Collaboratory projects.
NextNow is both a purposeful social network (NextNowNetwork and NextNowNetwork Blog) and a collaboration laboratory(“collaboratory”). The social network intends to accelerate the idenfication of synergies in the web of relationships it represents, and began in January of 2003. In September 2006, the collaboratory was established to help tap those synergies for social benefit–to help keep them “on-purpose.”
Our first big project was to collaborate with the International Society for Digital Earth on producing the 5-day Fifth Annual International Symposium on Digital Earth (the first held in the United States) at the University of California, Berkeley in June of 2007. Please see NNC page on Digital Earth, and posts here and here. (Photo at right by Eileen Clegg, Visual Insight, for NextNow Collab/ISDE5.)
NextNow Collaboratory matches needs with resources by mobilizing the social, intellectual, creative and financial capital, energy and good will available in our diverse and growing “network of networks” to co-create selected projects.
We’re also interested in co-creating the “next now” of collaboratories with others who sense the immense potential in leveraging the concept and practice of collaboration towards co-evolving a consciously created future.
NextNow Collaboratory is a fiscal project of 501(c)(3) Planetwork, whose mission since 1998 has been “Networking a Sustainable Future.” Planetwork is a perfect match for us because they’re about networking a sustainable future by exploring how the creative application of digital tools can open new possibilities for positive global change, and we’re about exploring how the conscious, creative leveraging of human networks sharing those tools can create collaborations with the potential to liberate collective wisdom for positive social change.
NNC is a member of Social Venture Network and Social Enterprise Alliance. Our main location is in the Strawberry Creek Design Center in Berkeley, CA, USA. We’re also part of the Sustainable Enterprise Cluster at the David Brower Center, the first LEED Platinum certified building in the East Bay (Berkeley). For more information contact Claudia Welss, founder and executive director of NextNow Collaboratory, co-founder of NextNowNetwork, and author of this blog at CWELSS(AT)NEXTNOW(DOT)ORG. A profile for Claudia can be found here.
“Ideas that spread like wildflower” is a favorite meme creation of NextNowNetwork and Collaboratory member Eileen Clegg of Visual Insight.
Others that inspire us include:
“If you can accomplish your dream all alone, your dream is too small.” (Please comment if you know who said this.)
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” Edmund Burke
“I hear and I forget. I see and I believe. I do and I understand.” Confucious (Consider also: “I hear and I forget. I BELIEVE and I SEE. I do and I understand.)
Become an Ambassador of Jobs for Change and help grow the Movement to support a new generation of leaders into public service and social enterprise sectors.
Photo of a stabile exhibit from the UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science. Carl Niederer’s interpretation of the Crab Nebula superimposed upon an X-ray defraction pattern of a crystal lattice is visually suggestive of collaborating nodes, but also, in the words of Mr. Niederer, “suggests the unity of all matter and the continuum of the microscopic and macroscopic.” You can read more about it here.
NextNow: Don’t Just Imagine What We Can Do! Image courtesy Jay Cross
Thomas Greco said
I resonate with that description of the “what.”
I’d like to see also some description of the “how.”
This is reminiscent of Larry Victor’s idea for “colab studios;” there may be some synergy there. I can put you in touch with him, if you like.
Shaping Youth » YPulse Research Launches; Digital Youth Posts Videos Online said
[...] Carter is an amazing man, and I thank our fellow NextNow digital collaboratory guru, Bill Daul (Mr. Human Glue) for following a hunch and connecting [...]
The Future Life of Books — Informal Learning Blog said
[...] For more information about the NextNow Collaboratory see NNC. [...]
The Future of the Book — Informal Learning Blog said
[...] night several dozen of us convened at the NextNow Collaboratory in Berkeley to discuss the future of the [...]
Shaping Youth » Young Innovators: Get Out of the Garage and Into the Marketplace! said
[...] Next Now Collaboratory peeps? Let’s nudge our youth members…NetSquared NP Tech Tuesday crowd? Definite. Our friends at QuantumShift TV? ‘Be the change, share the story, indeed!’ [...]
Shaping Youth said
Claudia, Just used our NextNow collaboratory as a classic example of ‘participatory learning’ and ‘collaboration’ among educators where the global creation is better as a sum of all parts than any individual!
We have you (and Bill, and Doug, etc. etc.) to thank for this, so kudos to all.
As I take a deep breath from submitting my digital media learning competition app into the MacArthur Foundation/HASTAC crew, with a gazillion tech glitches and last minute flamethrowers (e.g. Sky was my recommendation letter, but he caught the fact that since I also contract w/him for pay it might red flag bias, so I had to go to Plan B!) I feel like I slid into a linoleum kitchen with socks on within a hair of the deadline…whew.
Alas, it’s but one of many forges forward, but it was a biggie for me, as we seemed to have all kinds of gonzo twists and turns that landed us in new places…and I’m now at peace that ‘whatever happens’ I’m better for it, as my project will come to fruition with or without the human capital and follow through…that’s what passionistas like us are for!
Anyway, thank you for your ongoing leadership, vision and grace. I think of you and our NextNow family of ‘human capital’ as I dart hither and yon in a blur reminding myself of Richard Louv’s comments from last week to ’stop’ and listen to the world around you. See you soon–Amy J.
Shaping Youth » Eileen Clegg: Capturing Knowledge Via Visual Insight said
[...] I immediately called Bill Daul, the human glue of our NextNow collaboratory and asked, “who can help me convey my thoughts visually and rein in this mind-map of multiple [...]
Shaping Youth » Program for the Future.org: Human/Media Toolsystems Timeline said
[...] so will miss some of the speakers on stage and catch them on cam as the timer instead…Our NextNow Collaboratory has a ton of folks volunteering on site here besides me at the Tech Museum of Innovation, so [...]
Buddy Bowles said
Claudia, I was able to take a tour of PIXAR last week and it truly was a vision of creativity and producing an environment where ideas
can flow. I believe you do that with people in your every day life. I wanted wish you the Best of The Holidays and hope you have a reason
to cheer in the New Year…..I would recommend “Darioush” it is like drinking silk.
NextNow Collaboratory said
Hi Buddy, nice to hear from you! Thank you for the beautiful sentiment : )
I have a good friend that’s been at PIXAR for many years and have been fortunate to have several tours of their campus as well. I’d love to talk to you about our common interest in what PIXAR represents, so please contact me privately when you get a chance.
Regarding Darioush, I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to find out!
It was great meeting you at the Global Footprint Network Board meeting dinner!
Shaping Youth » The Kindness of Strangers: Social Media’s Power to Help & Heal said
[...] Media X exhibit on visualization starting next week through year’s end!) and NN Co-founder Claudia Welss, Eileen Clegg and Regan Caruthers, etc. In this case, the “friend of a friend” Laurie Lehman [...]
Shaping Youth » Glympse: Temporary Geolocation For Free Range Kids? said
[...] Geek and fellow NextNow Collaboratory member Robert Scoble [...]