After starting my ds106 journey, I soon realized I was going to be #4Life. The ds106 community network has many nodes which grow from the main hub. One node I follow along is the #ds106 Google Community of people who love to create and share their talents.
Through this community a summer theme developed for any and all who are interested in building new creations. I am now trying to absorb all the wonderful and intricate story lines created and figuring out how to jump in. The Burgeron Family was established and family members created as well as location, family histories and linkage. A summer event at the family trailer was held in 2014 for the 100th birthday of the family matriarch – Nana Lou. Workshops and classes held by Sappho, time travel trips by Cousin Ron as the story of Ron Burgeron tells his secret is told. Many adventures told by Anna Cow. Dr. M’s Treehouse, music created, and so much more!
I have discovered Bernie Burgeron, although her exact place in the family tree is still in the research stage. As Bernie’s story unfolds I find myself needing a flow chart of
- who is who,
- when is it a family member (character) when is it a ds106 #4life person,
- what art is created by family?
- what art is created by a ds106 person for family?
- am I communicating with family or ds106?
- who am I when communicating – KOnarheim or Bernie?
- how far can I build on another’s story?
- in an asynchronous environment how do you communicate creative direction with enough info to not cause undo stress for self and others?
- How do you share your own work for other’s use and use other’s work in your creations with respect and creativity?
Many of the above are self-imposed. It is ds106. You are respectful of others – but you create and build. Different tangents others may grab hold of and expand, or sometimes they just sit out there on their own and don’t connect in as complex way. Just as each contributor sees things in different ways – so will any audience that finds the information.
It is grand! I love how there is no right direction but MANY right directions to follow the story. This format includes the audience in an open story and engages one to fill in what they think is needed and not passively view in a linear path. Even if you are not creating products to continue story lines – just viewing requires one to engage in reflection, imagination and creating an understanding unique to your own thoughts. It is active story telling and active story viewing.
I still have to figure out Bernie and her story and work on an actual Fairy tale. There is plenty of summer for that to take place. I just need some simmering time to figure it out.
In the meantime, I have looked, or at least tried to see the Burgeron Family – (is it Burgeron or Burgerons – I find it both ways – but have stuck with Burgeron as that is how the name is listed in the family tree and descriptions), Bovine TX, and the Fairy Tale Festival from entering as a new viewer and the 100,000 foot level.
It seemed to me that the bi-annual story telling festival focusing on Fairy Tales needed some PR boosts.
I started with an answer to a daily create and used one of Nana Lou’s Puffin fairies:
Nana Lou jumped on it and identified me and the fledging Bovine County Burgeron PR department. From there I realized I had a job to do.
The Burgeron Family works hard at their creations and they are some of the best things out there for enjoying by others – but in a world of so much media not often found. So I began to create the Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival website.
I had wanted to try WIX as a tool to decide its usefulness as a marketing tool and if it was something others might be able to use and what the criteria might be to make it a tool of choice for specific endeavors. More on the tool in a future post, but I do love the bells and whistles of the HTML5 in a WYSIWYG when you are focusing on messaging over technical focus for a project.
I began to pull info together to promote the event – NOT replicate the content or give it a new home – but highlight and attract interest.
I had started and let the other family members know by sharing a link to a start-up via Google Community. And by gosh – it got some notice! I was faced with the place of now having shared my work, it is open to others and that brings questions, feedback and expectations. Attributions being a critical piece, I also found that is sometimes easier said than accomplished. It also has helped me realize how organizing and sharing my work in different ways makes it easier for others to use and to attribute.
As I have travelled my ds106 path, most of the work to date was assignments and sharing, but assignments were not connected to others. I missed the timing on group work in spring 2015 with radio show creation. I now have realization of the power of collaboration vs community support. Up until now, I have had great interaction, feedback, and support for personal creations. Now I was in the realm of creating collaboratively. WOW – the power in that and wealth. It does bring with it many dynamics and expectations from self and others. I can say however that the ds106 community is open and accepting and a model of how collaboration by a group is accomplished, yet very personal. Something not often found in our life chosen professions as easily.
I have taken the web site and started to inject some building blocks for more creations by myself as well as an open opportunity for others.
Since the festival is virtual and in Bovine County, I thought it was necessary to help festival goers know what kinds of activities and events would take place over the summer. Below is the overview page and suggestions.
The activities list allows for creations in several media creation paths to tell the story around the festival and the family in addition to writing fairy tales and their media tangents. I have several of my own visions for each of these areas, but not sharing at this time to keep possibilities open for others who might see a path they want to build.
- Artist In Residence Breakfasts
- Childrens’ Theater
- Behind the Scenes Tours
- Concert Series
- Fairy Garden Tour
- Out of This World
- Fairy Tales From Around the World
To stay with the PR Marketing theme, I created a News/Info and Where to Stay page. Bovine is a remote area and not highly populated. It in some ways is like the Sturgis South Dakota of Texas as its population exponentially increases during the festival. This offshoot also has potential for some building and content creation in the story around the story.
Added Note 6/14/2015: Seems the Bovine Arts Council according to the Bovine Daily paper and some town folk were concerned about the festival overpopulating the area and requiring resources. Still a bit of a political controversy and topic at the diner each day. Pluses and minuses on each – we will see what develops. Read about it in Aunt Sappy’s post.
All this just percolates in my head and is mushrooming into so many paths of possible creation. It is the synergy of connectivity to others and collaboration vs collaborative support. I hope that others may find some inspiration and share their creations as they build or connect. I also hope that I can build and connect from the work of others and do so in a respectful and creative way to take things to new dimensions in my learning. The greatness of building is the beauty of using the strength and quality of pieces to create new iterations and dimensions – which in turn should spur yet more creativity.
Please share your creations and ideas either here, via Twitter #ds106 and #bugeron106, or drop a message from the Bovine County FairyTale Festival contact page.
and as many in the ds106 path know – this is only the start of the story- not the end – more as I go on and discover and experience…. 🙂
The biggest difference I see between your wix site and the open DS106 WP site is that your ‘content capture’ or curation is not collaborative, and your wix site assumes your personal name in the URL. The wix site itself is presented very professionally, and the WP site is by its collaborative nature, a bit of a creative and spontaneous maze. I think the freedom in the WP site and spontaneous G+ postings have allowed for maximum creativity- not 100% sure- would be interesting to explore. One could really take the DS 106 Burgerons WP site content and arrange it in a myriad of ways depending on one’s interests- however, you have given me ideas with your work 🙂 Looks like a lot of organization has gone on behind the scenes.
You continue to help clarify and provide your guidance of how the Burgerons Story work connects – thank you.
This is a lovely post that shows your learning process and how tough it can be to make sense in this DS106 world…We have to take in from self, take in from others, make sense of what we take in and then make choices to intervene. What underpins our interventions is what we want to learn and where see the story can go…and our sense of what makes a good story, I guess. In this Burgeron Family story so much is unplanned and emergent and we have disparate needs and asynchronous participation. We probably need to get together on a hangout to share some mental models soon. Let’s wait until Nana Lou is back from her latest time cycle adventure…meantime, not one right path but many right paths for this story to go…I love that!
Thank you Mariana. I rather like the unplanned and emergent format and the snowfences (bendable and flexible) over steel fences (rigid and liner) for creating and working together as well as working independently from the work of others.
The universe will unfold as it should and each will see it in their own frame. How great is that? 🙂 So fortunate to see so many different pictures and enjoy them all.