Christine Graf's blog

Over the last few weeks I was working with Allen Langford (@FxNxRl), Jeremy Wilken (@gnomeontherun), Javier Gomez (@JAVI_GOMEZ) and Peter Martin (@pe7er) on a proposal for a new structure for the Joomla Project.

There is a big need for a new leadership structure and for a greater active involvement of the worldwide community.

So we came together and wrote that proposal which we would like to understand as a starting point for an open discussion which finally ends in a common, wise decision about the further direction of the Joomla project.

Read it here, comment, get in contact with the people from the working group, the different leadership teams, discuss it in your local/regional communities!

Individual versus group needs and where do I fit in?

The Joomla Day New England was the second Joomla Day I attended and the first where I gave a presentation. It seems that I hit the nail with my topic as there were lively discussions during and after my session and I was asked to write everything down.

So here it is ;-)

I consult and coach different kind of companies regarding their organizational structure and guide them to develop and implement necessary changes. Doing this I use the methods of Transactional Analysis (TA), a psychological theory, based on psycho-analysis and psychotherapy.

It is used in counselling, organization development, education and psychotherapy. There is a set of models which helps to understand why we think, feel and act like we do, to trace behavioural patterns and ways of thinking, reflect on these and learn to develop alternatives, that will lead to a change of the everyday (working) life.

I am not directly involved in the Joomla project nor do I have strong relations to many members, I just got in contact with some of them and, from my outside standpoint, I was looking with my TA eyes at the visible processes of the Joomla project.

Places2b is a European partnership project which began one and a half years ago. The project's main goals are to bring together those people interested in opening communication channels with various stakeholders of their community, in a participatory process, and to create a local tourist guide.

Although the initial group was fairly big, a natural selection of people wanting and willing to work was soon established including those that first ensured that this non-profit making initiative was of no danger to their personal undertakings. With only a few participants from Fitou, 4 roundtables were successfully launched and the local tourist guide, is just weeks away from being finished.

The two-years learning partnership project ETRUST comes to a close and on this occassion I would like to reflect on what we did and learned.

The project aimed to improve the well-being and safety of migrant workers by encouraging employers to use effective e-learning content as part of a blended training approach to Health and Safety. We started with researching the laws and regulations of H&S trainings in our countries and Europe. Partners identified and evaluated e-learning content and tools that support Health and Safety training. On that basis, we analysed them and compared these on a European level. This led us to an insight to the situation of e-learning for H&S trainings and the rules of this market.

As the first year of the places2b project ends in few weeks, it's time to summarize a bit what we have done and achieved so far.

We at cocoate.com aimed to start building a network of local actors and association as the basis for a common development of our village. The first talks with the biggest association in Fitou, VHV, were promising but when it came to binding actions, they quit. So we started from the scratch, distributed project information in the village, made some public presentations and we got an amazing group of people which are enjoying to explore and share and start such a community process in our village.

Together with Isabell, I presented our experiences implementing Drupal, or at least open source software, in European educational projects

I was writing some project applications for educational projects in the last weeks. Its hard work and I could not have manage that without exchanging my ideas with Isabell and Hagen, without their feedback and support. There are always some tricky points in such applications and you have to answer, amongst others, how you will sustain the envisaged impact of the project beyond its lifetime. This is tight connected to the methodology you will use to achieve the aims of a certain project. The following generalized summary mirrors the main points of what I have written for different projects. These points might be not really spectacular, in project reality often difficult to follow , but essential to sustain the impact and for further development.

I had the opportunity to attend the Global Tourism Forum (GTF) in Andorra on Monday this week. Approximately 200 representatives, leaders of global players in the tourism industry, politicians and lobbyist where attending that event, organized by UNWTO.
The forum was hosted by the government of Andorra, sponsored by Visa, Andorra Telecom, Feda, the Andorra energy supplier and the media partner was CNN.

The motto of this event was “Building New Models for Tourism Growth, Competitiveness & Responsibility“ and I was curious to go there as I expected some inspiration for our places2b project which is focused on the development of sustainable structures for local based tourism.
I have to admit, I got some doubts after getting the invitation from the General Secretary

be a good tourist, spend your money here at this wonderful place.