In a meeting in San Francisco with Etienne Wenger in 2008, we were discussing the critical role of a weaver in the field of Communities. It is more commonly known as a community manager. Etienne described this ‘community weaver’ as someone who is a Social Artist. This was the first time I had heard this term, yet when he described what he meant, I felt validated in the work that I’ve been doing for years. Being a weaver, or what Richad Koch calls, a SuperConnector.
Recently a former colleague was mentioning that they missed my role in the community. She was lamenting the fact that I’d rolled off that closed community project as I was invited into a new community project. What she was described to me in great detail in terms of the void that I
left in the community was that of the Social Artist role. This is why I’m writing this blog post, to help provide more visibility and credibility to this capability as it’s not yet mainstream and therefore something that CEOs and other Executives don’t value within their organizations.
Wikipedia describes it as a technique, “Social Artistry, [6] represents a new model for leadership. Houston, working through the United Nations Development Group, has been training leaders through this modality since 2003. Under the direction
of Monica Sharma, [7]then Director of Leadership and Capacity Development for the UN, Houston traveled to developing nations throughout the world bringing Social Artistry techniques to leadership groups. As of 2011, Social Artistry trainings and projects are ongoing in a number of countries and new leaders are being trained on a constant basis. This work is supported through The Jean Houston Foundation.”
Puzzle Pieces Cory Doctorow from London, UK
Social Artistry is a leadership skill where someone provides the glue and holds the entire community or network together. They have an innate ability to see strange divergent connections between disparate concepts together via culture, human beings, and notions of progress and development. They link the unlinkable. They foster a feeling of connectedness despite the divergence and most importantly they communicate openly and authentically. They make what could feel like a fragmented bunch of networks, instead the sense a community has is one similar to that of a puzzle that was recently completed, when you as a member visualize that last single piece snapping into place, which resonates
with your interpretation of that image. It just fits.
