I recommend my friend Tamm

My good friend Tamm Whitty is applying to the 2011 Kresge Artist Fellowships - Visual Arts at Kresge Arts in Detroit - College for Creative Studies and has asked me to provide a recommendation. Tamm is a wonderful friend and artist, so I happily obliged. I post text of the recommendation below so that others might learn of Tamm's greatness.

Kresge Artist Fellowships

Dear Sirs,

In my line of work, I've made a study of change. Some embrace it. Many fear it or perhaps more correctly, they fear the loss that accompanies change. One must let go one rung in order to reach another.  

Tamm Whitty is one of the fortunate few that thrive on change. My favorite people. Always learning and exploring, growing and morphing.

When one studies Tamm and her approach to art, one finds the embodiment of change. When she starts with a blank canvas, the end isn't known in advance. She begins anywhere, confident that the way forward will emerge when pen strikes paper. Her mandalas take on a life of their own as they wander across the page.

Her art is perhaps purposely incomplete, asking the viewer to complete the picture in their mind informed by the pattern set forth in front of them. In this way it engages the viewer, calling them to add their voice to the choir of shape and color.

I've had the pleasure of Tamm's company for the past 7 years, watched and marveled at the evolution of her work. Approachable and rich, her work can appear child-like and then, upon closer inspection reveal multiple layers, each one adding information and nuance. A gel pen for Tamm is her magic wand that she uses to make art of wonder and whimsy.  I'm especially fond of her use of words as background to a visual work.

I would like to recommend Tamm as a person and an artist. Having hosted and attended Tamm's art openings, I have witnessed how her work moves and inspires others. Her work is more than appreciated -- it is almost universally loved.

Please fund her. I can't wait to see what's next to emerge from this creative powerhouse.

Kind regards,

Tom Woodman

To view images of her work, visit her Facebook gallery.

Increasing interconnectedness using social software

I'm working on a presentation that extols the benefits of collaboration using social software, like Traction TeamPage. One big benefit comes from enabling a  community of participants to learn faster by having a system of open, transparent dialog.

My early realization of this benefit came from using discussion boards online to solve problems more quickly. Google makes it easy to search across communities of practice where subject matter experts post questions and answers. The internet is filled with examples of this. Information systems professionals were early adopters of this approach, even doing it before the Internet as we know it existed using bulletin boards and a dial up modem. I don't know a single geek that doesn't take great advantage of this technique, using sites like Experts Exchange and Tom's Hardware to solve problems in minutes that would have otherwise taken hours, days or weeks of trial-and-error and phone support.

Today, examples of online collaboration like this abound. Many times, a community web site will have a section called forums. Internet forums are a form of discussion board. Blogs, too, can include a threaded discussion, usually at the bottom of the page through the comments feature. (This one does. Please comment!) One can find these communities of practice on virtually any topic you can imagine; social causes, politics, sustainability, yoga. It's just about guaranteed that if you have an interest in it, someone else does too and has started a forum about it.

One recent example for me came while doing some research on residential geothermal systems. I wanted to know from the experts what it would take to increase the number of geothermal residential installations by 10x. If you want to find out how to do a geothermal project, the guys at greenbuildingtalk.com can help. They have a very actice community of people sharing their expertise with anyone that will listen. A friend recently put one of these systems in a house in Grosse Pointe Park, and we used this site to find him an installer.

With so many examples, I'm still surprised to find organizations not taking full advantage of the technique, especially applying the concept to benefit the organization's own interconnectedness. I've recently had a couple of opportunities to introduce a collaboration platform into organizations and witnessed their power to inform and engage.

What are your favorite examples of thriving communities based on a threaded discussion platform? I could really use some good examples for the presentation.

An idea shared has the power to inspire and engage

For too long, I've been keeping ideas to myself. Not to hoard them, but rather out of fear of being seen as a dreamer, a crackpot. I felt that ideas weren't worth sharing unless they were fully formed, ready to be funded and planned and executed. The idea had to be both novel and important in some way and that somehow, mine rarely measured up. 

But recent work on my personal mission has helped reframe my thinking about these ideas. Now, I see these incomplete ideas as seeds of greater understanding, as opportunities to inspire and engage. I see, too, that these ideas are a gift just waiting to manifest.

It's time to live out loud, to speak up, to free those unfinished thoughts and open myself up to the new experiences and understanding that only collaboration can bring. Most learning and growth happens when we share experiences, understanding, desires, and challenges. To that end, I'll use this space to bring those ideas off the notepad, out of the mindmap, and into the crowd master mind.

I'll hold fast to a belief that, through sharing, these ideas will stimulate dialog. Through that dialog, we will bring our efforts into alignment and integrate our resources. Together, we'll create future states greater than each of us alone would dare dream.

So, please... Join me in this journey of understanding. Let's flesh out some big ideas.


Peace and progress,
Tom