The Power and the Beauty of Connectedness

There are plenty of times when the whole world goes on to a complete standstill, where everything we know of just simply stops, when one bumps into one of those rather inspiring video clips that you know is going to change the way you view, see and experience things. One of those videos that changes plenty of the perspectives we have lived by over the course of decades, not just in a working environment, but also us all as a society. Specially, when it deals with one of my favourite topics from all along: Learning, that I don’t seem to be talking much about lately, and is probably something I need to start fixing as well! Anyway, I am not sure whether you folks had a chance to look into Debbie Kroeker‘s video “Thoughts on Connectivism“, but if you haven’t, please do take a little bit less than 3 minutes to watch it and be ready to be wowed right and left. Because you will 😀

That’s right, in a rather interesting blog post put together by Debbie, she gets to mention the video itself, but I eventually found out about it through Nancy White, when she shared it over at her own blog under “Debbie Kroeker’s Thoughts on Connectivism“, thanks to a hat tip from another one of my favourite Learning 2.0 folks, Stephen Downes, at OLDaily, who references the always insightful George Siemens (Another good friend as well I am surely looking forward to meeting up in the carbon for the first time, after all of these years interacting online, in Milán, Italy in June 2011) with one of his very thought-provking ideas: “Have you ever thought about how completely irrelevant structured learning is?“. Ha! Talking about connectedness… with a purpose!

Not to worry, I will be coming back to this idea in a couple of minutes, so you will see what I mean, but for now, and like I have mentioned above, I would certainly like to encourage you all to have a look into Debbie’s video, which lasts for nearly three minutes, and which contains inspirational, learned quotes like this one:

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn” by Alvin Toffler

There is very little more that I would be able to add in that regard that I couldn’t have agreed more with by a long mile, so I better cut through the chase and embed the video clip over here, so you can start watching it and be prepared to be blown away, big time!:

Thoughts on Connectivism from Debbie Kroeker on Vimeo.

Pretty amazing, don’t you think? I told you! 😉

Well, what about my point on Connectedness, (Yes, with a capital “C”), right? Let’s see… For a long while, I have always wanted to find an excuse to be able to inject in a blog post one of my favourite YouTube videos ever and connect it with the kind of work I do as a social networking evangelist. And lo and behold Debbie just gave me such lovely opportunity. In her blog entry she references the absolutely delightful piece of work by Eric Whitacre has been working on “A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong“, whose end-result is this mind-blowing Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 2.0, “Sleep”, and which she used as background music for the clip.

Have you actually taken a look into Eric’s 14 minute long TED Talk on how that experiment came about in the first place and the discussion on the final outcome coming from v1.0? Goodness, if you haven’t checked it out just yet, I would encourage you all to have a look at your earliest convenience! It’s one of those rather inspiring pieces of art, creativity and poetry put together by our unique humanity that surely helps us understand a whole new world under Connectedness and how technology is helping make it a reality for us all today. And I am not exaggerating it a single bit there! Eric’s account of the project he’s been working on for a while is not only rather stunning, but also incredibly moving, as he gets to share some wonderful insights from those folks participating in the choir long the way sharing their own story. Total strangers, with a purpose for doing good, delivering big time and making us all experience shivers running up through our spines with goosebumps galore all the way through.

That, folks, is what connectedness is all about; that’s what social networking out there on the Social Web is all about. That’s why I am really excited to finally find the chance to connect one of my favourite videos with the whole concept of (social) networks describing how they operate, whether business related, or not. Because, that, folks, is no longer what we do, or how we behave in a business context, or elsewhere; it’s, actually, who we are, as human beings, and the kind of impact technology is having nowadays in all of us in helping shape up that own perception of ourselves for the better!

Thus, allow me for a minute to share with you all, over here, what I mean in a more visual, graphical way. Go and grab a cup of coffee, or tea, sit back, relax and press the play button on this video:

Then, when you are done, go and grab another cup of coffee, or tea, and watch version 1.0; the one that sparked the whole thing; the one that shows why there is no way back, why instead of neglecting it all, we may as well continue to embrace it and help prepare for the change that’s coming. The one that’s already here! … Go out and Connect!