Read open-ended results from the conference evaluation survey. (Info here)

From BFD 12/09: Ed Morrison:

Thanks to all who made Defrag such a wonderful and exciting event. Here’s a good idea to follow up. Ask students to help measure the creativity of our region. Fourteen Boise State University honors students have devised a way to measure the level of creativity and innovation at work in the city of Boise.


The next Defrag will be at Lorain County Community College in April, followed by Youngstown State in late June, and Ohio University in the fall. We’ll be launching a collaborative workspace to keep it all connected.

From Network Weaving 12/09: Valdis Krebs:

Today I attended a conference on digital media at the Cleveland Institute of Art -- affectionately called "CIA" on the North Shore. A great group of people showed up.

But I could not "get" the title of the conference -- defrag??? It is something I used to do to my Windows computers when they would slow down after several months of use. So I looked up "defrag" on the web...

A process whereby parts of data files on all segments of a computer hard disk are taken from their fragmented state (with parts of files spread all over the disk), and grouped together in complete-file segments. This makes it quicker for applications to find the files they need and frees up disk space, making the computer run more efficiently.


Key phrases: "parts spread all over", "grouped together", "make it quicker to find", "run more efficiently"

Oh, I get it now... "defrag" is the geek's way of saying "networkweaving". Defragging and networkweaving accomplish the same goal -- they take a complex distribution of information and knowledge and re-organize it for more efficient processing. Of course in defragging human systems we are not just looking for efficiency alone, but also discovery, innovation and growth.

Maybe our new elevator spiel should be: "We defrag organizations and communities". What do you think?.

From Tim Ferris 12/10 Valdis defrags and defines defrag

Network Weaving: defrag? Valdis of Orgnet fame and renown explicates the meaning of the conference many of us attended yesterday. It was a "good thing", even though it seems to have brought out the Martha in me. Ed Morrison also helped all of us understand better our positioning on "the second curve" and the advantage we have in breaking out of the thinking of "the first curve." He says he will post his slides soon, somewhere, and George will be posting Ed's intro to defrag as well at Meet.The.Bloggers*

From Jim Herget 12/09:

“With Defrag, the group has hit a home run.”

Ferne Zigler: Thank you, organizers for pulling together such a refreshing experience and providing the opportunity to meet creatives willing to act quickly, no more "task force" business as usual---focus on "strategic doings." We're already following up with contacts, forming collaboratives to develop science and tech career pathways for urban youth.

Thomas Nosek: It was a very valuable day for me. Met a lot of people with whom I will continue to be in contact.

Dennis Coughlin: The start of something big. It appeared that a lot of effort went into the conference.