This is actually an account of what my mind has been coming up with while the ROI summit has been taking place in Israel this past week. For the uninitiated, the ROI Summit is the brainchild of Lynn Schusterman, the Center for Leadership Initiatives and Taglit-Birthright Israel, and is officially described as The ROI Community for Young Jewish Innovators. Its vision is to create and harness the energy of a “global community of outstanding creative individuals who have a personal vision about how to make the Jewish world a better place.” The organization helps fund initiatives that could transform how we live Jewishly today and tomorrow. I’ve been following it religiously on twitter at #roicom as well as on the ROI website.
At the beginning of the week, as attendees began arriving, the tenor of the tweets was joyous: Acquaintances being renewed and newly formed; folks retelling their stories of who they met on the flight. One participant even tweeted: “guy next to me on the plane was reading a dossier on "the obama agenda" from misrad habitachon. creepy.” Sounds great.
During the course of the summit tweets described how everyone was being inspired by the goings-on. I was trying to find content: what were the sessions about, and what did the facilitators have to say. I lurked the ROI website trying to glean what was being taught. I was annoyed (let’s be honest here) that prominently placed on the right side of the page is a member login. Now, I don’t know about you, but I happen to find member logins supremely uninviting. I’m a Jewish educator. I thrive on creating innovating environments for my students – be they kids, parents or other adults. So to be denied access to resources because I’m not a “young Jewish innovator” is frankly, and pardon my French, fucking annoying. There were a couple of videos that gave a taste, but that is not a meal.
At one point I (@redmenace56) did tweet my hope that we will learn from ROI so we who did not have the privilege to attend could apply these lessons. Others (@Jewishtweets) reiterated that call. And references to progress kept being tweeted. But no specifics have been revealed.
On Wednesday ROI had its first “community [global] brainstorm”. One tweeter commented on the “focus on concrete and implementable ideas”. What does this mean? How can I use it? Another tweet went like this: “Actually excited about a great idea @chicagoleah and I cooked up with Ben at #roicom” And the idea is? There were a few tweets commenting on the role of Orthodoxy in the “Jewish Peoplehood category”. @jchickrock tweeted: “325 challenges posted.127 solutions. 42 action posters created. let's get it on” Huh? Can we in the Diaspora get a hint as to what is being alluded? @JewishTweets posted the following: “Will the results of the community brainstorm this morning be shared?” The response from the “official tweeter” (insofar as there is a concept of officialdom in this Brave New World), @ROICommunity, responded: “don't worry - we'll reveal all soon. well, not "all," but at least "some." :)” I was disappointed by that comment and what it implied. The Jerusalem Post published a description of the goings on. Not enough. We Jewish educators in the Diaspora need to get to work. We need ideas now, even if we are not in the demographic that are invited to attend ROI summits.
I know I sound like I’m whining. Maybe I am, but it’s because I feel shut out. I know it’s not intentional. At one point I got frustrated and googled “ROI grants 2010.” It took me here. The mother-lode. Stuff I can use as a Jewish educator. Why isn’t this ROI’s homepage? Why is it buried? It needs to be accessible. I’m pretty computer savvy for a 53 year old, but it should be easy. Those of us in Jew-biz yearn to learn from the fresh creative minds that attended ROI. If you investigate the ROI website, you can find the newsletter and other nuggets. Buried. It needs to be out there - accessible for us Digital Immigrants. As our students join our ranks as Jewish educators and engagers, we all need to be in the same loop. This ain’t highschool with its cliques and passwords. It isn’t Members Only. It’s more important than that. As weird as it sounds, the future is our teacher. We need to learn from it. Please…share.
You make some important points about how information learned is then shared. I think most ROI'ers would agree that what we learned should most definitely be shared and the question is how, and how fast can it happen. For example, the session on networks that we had is talking exactly about this point - the difference between and the reasons for closed and open networks - this is an example of where that can get tricky.
ReplyDeleteI personally would love to be able to share what I learned with the Jewish educational community of which I am a proud member, and feel that it is my responsibility to share given I travel around the US and beyond and connect with so many Jewish educators.
Typically, that sharing happens not necessarily in a tweet post, but in the modeling of programming I do, in the participation in various meet ups, conferences and meetings of Jewish educators where I have an opportunity to share ideas and learnings and also in one-on-ones when I consult, help or am asked for advice from educational institutions or individual educators.
I would love to keep brainstorming with you and others as the best way we can disseminate new learnings that can impact the field of Jewish education and how ROI and any other group that convenes can be as non-exclusive as possible with those in our extended networks.
Naomi Less
@jchicksrock
www.naomiless.com
Hi Peter,
ReplyDeleteI've just written a similar post on this topic on my own blog: "ROI, I Love You, But..." (http://tinyurl.com/loveubut) We have similar frustrations. I'll be interested to hear what you think.
Just so you know, beyond participation itself, there is nothing private to ROI participants or alumni. Yes, there is a members log-in on the ROI site, but it doesn't lead to anything.
Last year when I was an ROI fellow they expressed that they were looking to use the members part of the site as a community building tool, but that never got off the ground.
Glad to have found your blog and look forward to reading it further.
Shabbat Shalom,
~ Maya
The New Jew: Microblog-- an experiment in social media (http://tinyurl.com/TheNewJew)
The New Jew: Blogging Jewish Philanthropy and Innovation-- home blog (http://TheNewJew.wordpress.com)
Dear Peter.
ReplyDeleteI found you post interesting, and think it is nice with some critique to ROI. If anyone listens it is definitely them. A have few critiques to your post I would like to share, if you don't mind :)
I learned at this ROI that Twitter is commonly used in the states by 40+ people. Where i am from (DK) it is not used at all, if even known. To think that you would actually find useful information from the twitter list seems strange and foreign to me. I know a lot of people were using twitter for the first time, so maybe that can explain some of the lack you talk about? Personally, I mostly used it to complain about the air conditioning.
You say that "...we in the diaspora" would like to have a hold of the information gathered at ROI. I really don't like the way you use the tag diaspora, as most people are from diaspora. This is not some exclusive Israeli event, just because it is held in Israel. ROI gatherings are already happening in South America and Europe, and more are to come in the States as well. This include both ROI alumni and new participants.
In the end, I would just like to say the new webpage was revealed at this years ROI Summit. It will be a complete revamp of the current side, and seems to all what Maya talked about and more. I don't know how it will be opened up to the public, you should ask ROI about that. It is still in beta, so testing is still being done. All i can say is its gonna be really cool. :)
~Mischa
@mszpirt