CommunitySense

Sep

2025

De kunstwaarde(n)-verbindingsmethode: van werkveldwaarden naar waarde voor het veld

Een aantal jaren geleden werkte ik samen met Geert van Boxtel aan Het Arrangeursproject, een initiatief van de Provincie Noord-Brabant om innovatie en publieksverbreding in de klassieke muzieksector te stimuleren. In plaats van top-down doelstellingen op te leggen aan projectpartners, begonnen we met het ophalen van waarden die de sector zélf belangrijk vond. Deze “werkveldwaarden” – van openheid en creativiteit tot co-creatie en diversiteit – werden de leidraad voor alle gesprekken met programmeurs, componisten, musici en ensembles.

Het resultaat? De Kunstwaarde(n)-verbindingsmethode ontstond, gebaseerd op de CommunitySensor-methodiek. Onze participatief-kwalitatieve analysemethode maakte het mogelijk om de impact van het Arrangeursproject te meten door de beleefde ervaringen van alle betrokkenen in elkaars perspectief te zetten en deze samen te bespreken. Door samen met de betrokkenen inzicht te krijgen in die waarden zoals ze werkenderweg in de verschillende deelprojecten vorm kregen, ontwikkelden we een inhoudelijk verrijkende manier om gezamenlijk de waarde van het project te bepalen.… Read more...

Aug

2025

When Paper Beats Pixels – A Bikepacking Lesson in Effective Technology Use

During my recent bikepacking trip through the Dutch countryside, I had one of those sudden insights about how we actually use technology in our daily lives.

I’d planned my routes using the brilliant Fietsknoop – a sophisticated web app that navigates the Dutch cycling node network by calculating the shortest path between numbered waypoints along cyclist-friendly “green roads”.

The app creates a simple list of nodes forming the shortest path: start at 47, head to 23, then 89, then 12, and so on until you reach your destination.

The obvious next step seemed to be to mount my phone in the bike holder for turn-by-turn navigation. But after just one morning of cycling, this turned out to be a less than ideal setup.… Read more...

Jun

2025

Reclaiming our agency over AI

The AI Now Institute has published a most timely and incisive “Artificial Power: 2025 Landscape Report”, proposing an actionable strategy for the public to reclaim agency over the future of AI. Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

“Why society would ever accept this bargain is the critical question at hand. Amid the excitement over AI’s (speculative) potential, the sobering reality of its present and recent past is obscured. When we consult the record on how AI is already intermediating critical social infrastructures, we see that it is materially reshaping our institutions in ways that ratchet up inequality, render institutions opaque to those they are meant to serve, and concentrate power in the hands of the already powerful. It makes clear that for all the whiz-bang demos and bold Davos proclamations, on the ground AI is consistently deployed in ways that make everyday people’s lives, material conditions, and access to opportunities worse and the systems that incorporate them stronger.”

May

2025

Community Building: The Hard Work Beyond the Tools

Just came across this story by Elle Hunt in The Guardian, which highlights an often overlooked fact: community BUILDING means exactly that – it requires time and sustained effort for a community to truly form and thrive:

“The word ‘community’ has warm, fuzzy connotations. But a siloed, individualistic culture also makes it harder to establish and maintain community; creating a shared identity and spirit of reciprocity takes effort and is not always comfortable.”

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/feb/05/how-to-build-community

Time and time again, this truth is forgotten – especially with the abundance of (online) community tools that promise instant connection, but often overlook the hard work required to build genuine community.

Of course, we community building professionals know that very well, but amidst the deluge of tools, tech, and systems we face in our daily work, it’s sometimes good to be reminded of the social roots of it all through a simple personal story: getting along with your neighbors!… Read more...

Apr

2025

The Community (Platform) Recession – Breaking Free to Build Better

Richard Millington from FeverBee Community Consultants shares some very interesting observations on how the field of community management may have entered a “community recession.” He points to possible causes such as a shift to profitability, changing member behaviors, and the growing expectations around AI.

This rings especially true in the area of platform-based enterprise communities. However, there is a much richer landscape of community types and tools—of which he lists some compelling examples. “Communities for Good,” in particular, is of personal interest to me and still offers so many opportunities for community building and support. The key development to watch is the gradual shift in community work from platform-centric to audience-centric approaches—what Richard calls the COMMUNITY EVERYWHERE approach.

Increasingly, communities live and work across many different online and physical spaces.… Read more...

Mar

2025

Augmenting Human Intelligence – How Generative AI Conversational Audio Extends Human Dialogue

In 2017, my friend and fellow mapmaker Christine Capra from consultancy company Greater than the Sum, interviewed me about my work on participatory community network mapping as collective sensemaking. We had a blast, Christine with her incisive questions turning this into a conversation so insightful, that – instead of Christine converting it into a single blog post – she produced a full series of six blog posts – over the next few years. As Christine wrote in her concluding post -at the height of the COVID19 pandemic:

It’s been over two years since my original interview with Aldo. That one interview was so rich, it generated six blog posts and an abiding friendship. We’ve met online semi-monthly ever since that first great conversation, to talk about our projects, challenges, ideas & dreams.

Mar

2025

No Pain, No Gain? Does Generative AI Make Students Bypass the Peaks of Education?

Troy Jollimore in The Walrus raises some profound and thorny issues about the havoc generative AI ‘magic bag’ tools like ChatGPT are wreaking on education, issues that remain open and unresolved. His main concern is that if students don’t put in the blood, sweat, and tears of genuine effort, we risk devaluing education’s true purpose. It’s not just about passing a course or getting a degree; it’s about cultivating individuals who can think critically, solve problems creatively, and contribute meaningfully to society:

“So I am in a position to know and appreciate what a difference education makes to the quality of your life. The vastness of the world it opens up to you while simultaneously instilling in you the curiosity to explore it.… Read more...

Feb

2025

The Epistemicide of USAID: A Call to Action for Global Knowledge Communities

Urgent call to action in the USAID and the new burning of the books in digital and ideological epistemicide. A call to action-article by Sarah Cummings, PhD (she, her), Nancy Wright White and Bruce Boyes on the epistemicide taking place through the gutting of USAID, including its invaluable knowledge resources:

“In summary, removal and destruction of USAID’s knowledge should be identified as epistemicide. It should be stopped. It violates the fundamental understanding that all knowledges and unheard voices must be included if we are to solve complex problems. Undermining this knowledge will lead to less effective development. It will bolster ignorance that will hurt many initiatives and approaches. We must examine these actions in the context of a wider epistemicide, including the purge of diversity and inclusion initiatives, ending access to critical health data, and the rewriting of science to exclude reference to gender.”

Feb

2025

Wicked Problems: The Marathon of Effecting Change

In 1993, I spent six months on Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. I was actively involved in protests against the clear-cut logging of the Clayoquot Sound watershed (see my photographic impressions on Youtube and Wikimedia). Thanks to the efforts of a broad coalition of communities, the destruction of this vital ecosystem was successfully prevented.

My experiences on the island have profoundly shaped my professional journey. They inspired me to pursue a Ph.D. in Community Informatics and ultimately led to the founding of my research consultancy, CommunitySense. My R&D focus has evolved to center on “collaboration ecosystems cartography”—participatory mapping and collaborative sensemaking of complex issues such as deforestation, climate change, and the interconnected web of wicked problems affecting humanity and nature.… Read more...

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