I’ve been thinking a lot recently, about the concept of ‘Community’. My VP position on the Board means that I engage with a lot of other folks in other organisations – other User Groups, Oracle, other bodies that represent different aspects of Higher Ed. I’m in a slightly different position (quite literally) from many of the other Board members As some of you may know, I’m not American (I’m a Brit..) and my main reason for being on the Board is to represent the views and wishes of the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) community of HEUG members. I’m in my third year of Board membership now and in that time, I have seen the EMEA community mature and expand to the point where we now have our own local forums on HEUG on-line. These provide the first layer in Community support – they allow members of the community to start to talk together to solve their common problems. Here in the UK, for instance, everyone is scratching their heads over Points Based Immigration and having a forum in which to discus things is invaluable. The natural next step from those discussions is for groups to collaborate to resolve those common problems, and again, I’m seeing that happen more and more in an EMEA context.
All of this is really heartening, of course, and we should never lose sight of how lucky we are in Higher Ed that we are so free with information and will always share it with other colleagues – just spend some time at the Alliance Conference and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
So, what’s the point of this short, but rather rambling blog? Well, we’re all part of the global Community in Higher Ed. Its surprising when you start to look at problems solved in one group, thought to be specific to *their* needs, that it can end up solving someone else’s problem the other side of the world. Believe me, it does happen.. So maybe what I would like you today as you read this, is just think for a moment about the other 17,999 people that might read your post on HEUG on-line and how you are playing a part in helping people, quite literally, all round the world…
Scary thought, isn’t it…