Sacraments, Social Networks, Farm Teams

Sacramental and Social Networks and creating a farm team

I have these three ideas. I won’t try to explain them, just jot notes.

When you are in class with a laptop, you are in class technologized to your social network. A class then is a group of people all independently connected to their social network. In the old days a teacher could assume that for at least an hour students abandoned their social networks, left them literally at the door, and entered the social network of the class. No longer true. The class as a social network now competes with all the independent networks. The teacher must facilitate a way either to get all those networks to be part of and contribute to the class network, or to eliminate or at least minimize the independent social networks. I need to think though how to do that..

Perhaps sacramental will help. Thomas Merton suggests that even a landscape is sacramental, by which he means a site the experience of which leads to a satisfying connection to spiritual power. Actually he says that it leads to grace which is sharing in the life of God. I need to use the generalized statement.. I can use it to explain the attraction, even power, of landscapes, photographs, art, architecture. Each object becomes a sacramental site. But a further thought on sacraments. They define who is in, or to whom the connection is extended. Only members of Catholicism, for instance can receive Holy Orders or Extreme Unction. Baptism is what makes you a member. Other sacraments define a way of life—confession, communion, confirmation. I like the model, the generalized one, because it gives me an explanation of the power of the aesthetic and extends the aesthetic to all areas of life.

Now if we combine social networks, which in a way are sacramental, you join, you have communion, you proclaim yourself as a member of the group, you draw nearly constant strength from being a member and partaking in the sacraments. So how does the class achieve that status? The old rituals of registration are no longer effective, well efficacious is what I mean. They have the same quaint or oldtime presence that taking part in a bonfire ceremony on December 21 has, perhaps neat, but mostly something you do to get along with a group. Could a class achieve the status of replacing or at least joining all those independent social networks? If so, how?

Now on to the Farm Team. It has occurred to me that as a Director of a faculty development organization, I am a bottleneck. Here is the issue. I receive many ideas about possible development activities—grants, short tip or problem-solving sessions, long research sessions. The problem is that though the flow in is heavy and rich, the flow out is thin, narrow. The lake forms behind me, a stream trickles out from me. In other words, I don’t have anyone to easily send the message to with the expectation that I am not more or less begging them to take it, but offering them an opportunity that they want to be part of. I have a few people, my small team, that I can turn to, but they simply can’t absorb all the ideas; they can’t, in other words, act on the opportunities. There are too many opportunities. So I fill up the available reservoirs and have a lot left over with no place to go. If I may change the metaphor what I have is a situation where I have a major league site, but just now I haven’t filled out the roster. I can’t make any trades. All I can do is put people in the farm team and grow them into major leaguers (not that the people are not major leaguers personally, but that they are not on my team and often don’t have any idea of wha I have to offer). OK, I need to create a farm team. Or to put it another way, I need to build a new large reservoir so I can move the flow coming in out to a place just as large. How do I do that? How do I put people in the situation where they are on my team and ready for the opportunities I have to offer. I can’t trade for them; like major league teams I have to build the organization.

So, to brainstorm: I send out agents to recruit? I offer good deals to free agents? What do recruits need in order to join my social network? I am not sure. Perhaps I can offer 10 1k grants? But are grants the best? Could I offer 10 1K something else? Summer contracts? What would 10K buy in terms of personal satisfaction—speakers? The hallway groups? How many players do I need? Could I have, or aim for, a set number, a critical mass? Like 50 people on a special list?