The following was written by Evan Scherr and the original post can be accessed at Just Thinking Out Loud.
I love Twitter. I have connected with some really amazing practitioners because of it. I have become friends with some really fantastic people as a result of it. Twitter serves as the bridge to my connecting and my learning. It is a beautiful bridge. It is not a very long bridge to walk across. Sometimes, I just want to take a longer walk.
Eric Sheninger wrote a great book on Digital Leadership. The timing of the book was fantastic. I had just accepted my first admin position with a large international school in Germany. I wanted a way to discuss the book with other leaders out there. So I started a Google Plus Community in the hopes of connecting with other leaders out there to discuss the book and leadership in general.
Image credit: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/
Why Google Plus?
Twitter is great for those shorter walks. 140 characters of quick, rapid fire, tweets. That works well for me at times. The other times I just want to dig in and really begin to discuss a topic and not be limited by the 140 character limit. G+ communities provide me a way to accomplish all of this and so much more.
Other benefits of the G+ community are:- The ability to hold threaded discussions
- The ability to add video chats (called Hangouts)
- The ability to remain in the Google Ecosystem and leverage other Google products like Calendars and Docs.
- The ability to further grow and deepen the PLN experience.
- Adding New Layers
The Digital Leadership community centers around Eric’s book. Last week we held our first BookOut (probably not a name that will stick) Hangout. Four of us, including Eric, connected and discussed chapter one of the book. This added a layer to the community that I really enjoyed. It was a great experience to have face to face (via video chat) conversations with other leaders and hear their thinking and ideas. Eric added more back story to the chapter and provided us with even more of his thinking and experience with the tools that he discussed in the chapter.
Beyond 140
The goal of the community is to go beyond 140 characters. It is a place where you can share your thoughts on the book, on leadership/digital leadership, or connect in new ways with new people from around the world. The community experience can be anything that you would like it to be. That is the beauty of it. You can even be a lurker, though I am hoping that you become an active participant and add your voice, ideas and knowledge to our growing thinktank.
