Question 71 of 365: What is a better organizing force, passion or values?

I have created my communities wrong. Or at least, I have done it while ignoring a huge element of what makes a great community stick together: its values. On the one hand, I have been running away as far and fast as possible from any kind of value-based community, afraid that whatever I create would turn into a “Tea Party” kind of organization that really can’t stand on anything except for the values that the members share.

And so I have pursued people specifically because of what they are passionate about. I have pursued tech people and education people and startup people because they are the ones that I can have a conversation with. They share the same interests as I do and we can speak without fear of leaving someone behind. We are the same brand of geek.

I kind of took it for granted that we would all value the same things too. I took it for granted that we would all value married life and children and balance. I took it for granted that we would value getting things done and reading a whole bunch. I thought we would all respect women and respect our environment and respect love, truth, and inquiry above all else.

But as much as these values are ones that I find in my communities, this is not what my communities are based upon. While a great many of the people that I gravitate towards are capable of being both passionate about my passions and valuing the things I value, there are many people who are simply in it for the passion.

And this has caused some of my communities to fall apart or languish. When I look at many of them, I see nothing but a series of individuals and individual interests. There isn’t a cohesion that comes from a mix of passion and values. I think the main reason for this is that passions are much more in-flux than values. While I have not always been interested in starting a company, I have always valued truth. While I have not always been a blogger, I have always valued the creative process.

One of the things that value-based communities get right is that their values bind them closer together than any set of interests ever could. In that sense, they are incredibly accepting of differences. So long as you value the same things, your background and approach doesn’t matter.

So, I guess I am advocating for building communities that do not ignore our values. I am looking for communities that see the whole me. I am a husband, a dad, a musician, a writer, a geek, an optimist, a truth-seeker, and a hand-holder. I value those things, and I want those things to be a part of the conversation just as much as term sheets, VC funding, EdTech, Collaboration, or Learning.

In fact, I want to be able to search based upon those values and not just the passions or topics that people have going around in their heads all day. I want to be able to find those other individuals who believe. If for no other reason than I feel as though I will be able to take that kind of a community with me wherever I go. No matter what I become passionate about, so long as the people I have with me value the same things, they can come too.

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SpeedGeek Learning: My call to Action

I have helped to build many things that I am proud of:

• The Academy of Discovery
• eDCSD: Douglas County Online Education
• Discovery Utopias
• Discovery -Isms
• This blog and Podcast

I am proud of them because they added something to the conversation. They have created learning experiences and connections for many people, and I am content to have a hand in each one.

They are, however, not originals.

They may each have their own sets of contexts, but they are not unique in their purpose. They do not create a sense of wonder at how we ever lived without them before in the way Youtube, Classroom 2.0, or Google Docs does now.

The Academy of Discovery tried so hard to be The Science Leadership Academy, eDCSD is built on the existing technology of Moodle, Google Apps, Blackboard, and edMastery. Discovery Utopia and -Isms are pencil and paper projects brought into the world of wikis and even this blog is modeled after the blogs of Will Richardson, Chris Lehman, Bud Hunt and Clarence Fisher.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to find something to throw myself into that has the potential to transform the way that people learn. I have wanted to be a part of something that grew from a single idea and blossomed into the forum that I want to spend all of my waking life within. I need to create something that isn’t just a collection of tools and pedagogy that anyone with enough time and interest would be able to figure out.

In short, I believe that I am called to create something new.

Not repackaged or relabeled, not collected and aggregated, not open sourced and hacked; I need to create something new.

And, I believe that I have found that thing. I believe that my call to action comes in the form of SpeedGeek Learning.

I have seen a gathering storm of people who are looking to gain knowledge from inspiring presentations, building upon the passion of others. I have seen a growing movement of Pecha Kucha learning, Ignite illumination, and Micro-Lecture authorship. The one thing that I have not seen is any platform to really bring these things together. There is currently no place to go and see a continuum of videos that give all sides to a given topic. We have the ability only to search, but not really find related and contextual materials. We have no ability to collaborate and connect around the impromptu communities that are demanded by our inspired words.

Enter SpeedGeek Learning.

Here is what I believe that SpeedGeek Learning is:

In a nutshell, though, SpeedGeek Learning is the only platform that will allow you to learn in context. It will allow you to organize the most engaging content on a subject and then have a conversation about it anywhere and any time without ever being taken away from that content for a moment. SpeedGeek Learning is the way in which I want to learn, and I hope that you feel the same way.

So, if you would like to know more about SpeedGeek Learning, here is the video I made to introduce it:

Here is the planning site that will give you insight into how the project is progressing.

And, here is the form that you can fill out if you are interested in helping bring this vision to life:

Please, come help me build something new, if you believe that you are called to do so as well.

Oh, and here are the initial videos that will be a part of SpeedGeek Learning. What is missing?