As usual, I have way too many balls in the air and way too many ideas happening at once.  It’s exciting but every silver lining has a touch of grey. (hat tip , Robert Hunter).

I continue wearing my multiple hats as part of the school’s Open Learn Lab. I still have no title, although ITS calls me the Project Champion (thank you).  I actually prefer “Chief Instigator”.  Anyway, it continues to be me as server sys admin, dev  ops, open pedagogy evangelist, WP developer, inventor, faculty professional developer, and chief pixel washer.   We are digital, so there’s no bottles to wash anymore. Just pixels.  This year I do have two fantastic  enthusiastic student interns that are convinced we’re going to revolutionize higher ed. On top of all that, there’s still the half-load of teaching and course development.  And in a community college, once you’ve done the governance & faculty leadership gig, it kind of sticks to you – especially if you’re trying to get the Lab “institutionalized” (translation: into the org chart & budget permanently).

So I’ve been spending most of the past year trying to figure out for folks where or how “open learning” fits into the college – ours or any community college.  I think I’ve been making progress on that front with the Commons of Our Own idea.  But then David Bollier at OpenEd17 steps into my world with his talk of the commons.  BAM.  The grey cells start firing at accelerated pace.  The economist part of me starts kicking in and I’m off to the races.

Bollier gets me to start researching and reading and listening to Elinor Ostrom.  Now I’m embarrassed to say that while I had a most passing familiarity with her work, I hadn’t until now taken a deep dive.  My loss. That’s both the silver lining and the touch of grey.  Her and Vince Ostrom’s ideas on governance of commons, polycentric complex economic systems, and the differentiation between commons as behaviors vs common pool resources has the little grey cells firing like a fourth of July fireworks finale. Silver. Lots of silver.  It’s all coming together.  My multi-disciplinary career and background, the Open Learning Lab, the tech, higher ed governance and policy, pedagogy, and what we need to do for people.  BAM. Silver linings.

Unfortunately, I’m not a young man. Touch of grey around the temples.  Ok, ok, ok, lots of grey throughout.  I get a feeling that I missed my calling and a chance to really do some interesting stuff in this commons area.  I could have done so, so much but my education didn’t really expose me to the Ostroms or the Commons (except for the myth of the “tragedy” thereof).

So I’m kind of overwhelmed now.  Today, while out on my walk, I listened to Elinor’s lecture at Indiana U just after her wining the Nobel Memorial Prize.  I found myself alternating between shouts of “yes!” as I connected her ideas to our present situation in open learning and higher ed, and  then followed by waves of sadness and perhaps tears (“no, you have something in your eye!”) as I realize what could have been personally.  As I said, I’m not a young guy.  I’m gonna have to make the most of these years left.  There’s a lot to do and lots of connections to make.  Collaborations about innovation aren’t the easiest thing to put together at a community college.

I promise I’ll blog and tie all this stuff together.  I have to.  I promised to talk about it at OER18 and OEGlobal 18 in April.

Here’s the lecture:

And, hat tip to Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.