Youth Development as Drama-fit
A short note about a 99-minute conversation
This morning I had a 99-minute call with Helen Li who is the founder of Dominos Philanthropy Academy. The primary theme of the conversation is about applying theories to youth charity education and youth development in general.
I briefly introduced my journey of epistemic development from 2019 to 2022. I spent about 60 minutes sharing my story and some core ideas of several major works.
- 2019: Wrote a book titled Curativity.
- 2019: Started CALL in order to support an action curation platform project.
- 2020: Cut the link between CALL and the project and moved to the Knowledge Curation direction.
- 2020: Started first major knowledge curation project: Activity U.
- 2020: Edited a book titled Activity U.
- 2021: Edited a book titled Project-oriented Activity Theory.
- 2021: Wrote a book titled Platform for Development.
- 2021: Closed phase I of the Ecological Practice approach, moved to empirical research from theoretical development.
- 2021: Closed an empirical research project: The D as Diagramming project (Phase I).
- 2022: Returned to the topic of Developing Tacit Knowledge and developing a new concept called Thematic Spaces.
We have known each other for ten years. Before 2014, I spent most of my spare time in digital non-profit communities as a digital activist. From 2014 to 2015, I transformed my focus from nonprofit activities to theoretical learning. Since then, I have been spending most of my spare time learning Ecological Psychology, Creativity Research, and other related subjects.
2014–2020: Ecological Psychology and Creativity Research
2014–2018: Action Science, Activity Theory, and Cognitive Science
2018–2019: Practice Theory, HCI, Strategy, and Work
2020: Social Theory, Social Media, Information Systems, and Platform
As a pioneer of youth charity education in China, Helen was busy developing a brand new social practice from scratch. We spent about 39 minutes discussing the long-term activity of finding the purpose of life in the context of youth charity education. The main purpose of the discussion was to find some connections between psychological theories and youth development and the education of life meaning.
I adopted Activity Theory, Lev Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory, Self-Determination Theory (SDT), and Ecological Psychology for our discussion. We also discussed some Practice Perspectives and Operational Heuristics. These two terms are adopted from the model of knowledge curation (see the diagram below).
Based on the above discussions, we also explored some possible directions for further development.
This is a wonderful conversation.
After the meeting, I adopted the ECHO Way meta-diagram and designed a new diagram called Drama-fit.
The ECHO Way (v2.0) is a practical framework for Knowledge Curation and Boundary Innovation. The core of the ECHO way is the following diagram. In fact, this is a result of Diagram Blending which means a process of curating several diagrams together. The original sources of the diagram are three primary diagrams:
- Theme U
- Project I
- Container Z
The Theme U diagram presents six themes in a U shape. Theme U is not only about six themes, but about representing complex thematic relationships with spatial mediation. For example, I used the following diagram to explain Pairs of Opposite Themes with the Theme U diagram.
I used the U shape to summarize key clues within our conversation. For example, the Left side is Supportive Environments which highlights three types of environments:
- Network of Communities
- Proximal Context
- Mediating Tools
The right side is Dramatic Experiences which is inspired by Career APIs, a heuristic tool I made several years ago:
- A: Agenda of Times
- P: Problems of Domain
- I: Personal Issues
I have introduced the Career APIs diagram in a previous article. The diagram is made with the Tripartness meta-diagram. The A (Agenda of the Times) is located in the “Organization — Community” zone, the P (Problems of Domain) is located in the “Person — Community” zone, and the I (Personal Issues) is located in the “Person — Organization” zone.
The above diagram used my own experience of searching “Google Wifi” on the App Store. You can find more details in the original article.
The purpose of the Career APIs is that we can detach from a cognitive domain and attach it to another cognitive domain.
Project I is inspired by the Developmental Project Model. I changed the shape and layout in order to make a Diagram Blending that can be used for curating two or more frameworks together.
This means the ECHO Way is not a primary framework since it connects to other frameworks. You can find more details about the Developmental Project Model in this article.
I consider this experience as an example of Developing Tacit Knowledge.
Why?
Our conversation was insightful and messy. There are many clues that could be claimed as Potential Knowledge. In a previous article, I defined Potential Knowledge as a future thing unknown based on a present thing known. You can find a case study about Potential Knowledge/Actual Knowledge here.
By turning our clues into a diagram, we built a model of our conversation. Then, we can use it again and again. Helen could talk about these clues with others.
The ECHO WAY is a three-year journey. Each year I take one step.
- 2019: Practice-based Reflection
- 2020: Theory-based Reflection
- 2021: Theory-Practice Dialogue
In 2022, I hope the ECHO way (v2.0) could lead to a community of boundary innovation. Let’s make Collective Echoes together!
I’d like to invite you to explore boundary innovation with the ECHO way. You can use the ECHO Way (v2.0) to visualize themes of a domain and design a developmental project for yourself and your peers.
There are three types of purposes for adopting the ECHO way for Boundary Innovation:
- ECHO for Self: You just use it for your personal innovation.
- ECHO for Others: You use it to help others with their personal innovation.
- ECHO for Team: You use it for your team in order to achieve collective innovation.
Different types of purpose require different levels of applying the ECHO way because different contexts need different kinds of knowledge. For the context of ECHO-for-Self, you might just directly use the ECHO way as a general thinking tool. You even just use one diagram of the ECHO way without applying the whole process and its related methods.
It all depends on your needs and situations. You can find more details here: The ECHO Way (v2.0).
You are most welcome to connect via the following social platforms:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliverding
Twitter: https://twitter.com/oliverding
Polywork: https://www.polywork.com/oliverding
Boardle: https://www.boardle.io/users/oliver-ding
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