I have almost gotten through four book clubs now. Five if you were to count the sessions of Beau's I sat in on YouTube. Every time after the book club I have gone through a period of not being able to use roam. I am sure I would have used the roam better if not for the graph discourses. It is frustrating. My introduction to the programs was skipping through Beau's recordings of his sessions. The main operating protocol for everyone is to figure out how to take notes in some way and then tell everyone how they have done it. Most who do it ask for money in return. In principle what I expect from being part of the club, is collectively I can know how to take notes better. I have written and stated many times that I am a huge fan of plain vanilla roam. To be productive on the system, you don't need anything else than the agency to write and connect what you have written. On the book club, it is an opportunity to do that as a group and see what becomes of the activity. The problem of roam and the community at large is there are no designated onboarding spaces. Even if it’s there it is somewhere in the very many public and private graphs that only a few know about. Making something collectively was an idea I was interested to pursue and investigate the possibilities at stake. But after RBC4, 5, and now 6 as an activity it seems even roam doesn't have much say on how to manage a shared graph.
I had what I thought was an interesting page for my RBC4 work. Things started going all over when I moved it from the shared graph into mine. In 5, I simply couldn't understand what was going on. It was mentally quite taxing to sit up late in the night and not comprehend the presentations. The breakout rooms were fine, if I would have made it till there I probably may have had progress but the timing is brutal. What made RBC4 better than five was that it was held on a Saturday and around 1 in the morning here. It is much better than 2.30 on a Monday morning. The sessions can go on till 4, 4.30 which is not very practical. If not for covid all of this wouldn't have had happened. I am therefore grateful for the opportunity but there seems to be a cost to participate. The roam organizer’s discussions have for this time around killed any meaningful development on what are the avenues in creating knowledge collectively. Book clubs can be sessions to review work done over a period of time. This was the opportunity presented at RBC6 but as a vision, any vision for that matter needs to be shared. Without a collective direction, there is no collective knowledge-making exercise. When I got my two months of work logged on roam, the shared graph seemed like the next frontier but that aspect of research on the app has, you could say failed. I have had four book ideas that are at various stages outlined in the personal graph that I have. For when my subscription closes in February, I don't think there is enough time to finish all three but try and close just one. For now, that is the direction ahead. Just collect all the personal notes and direct that into a Kindle document with a broader conceptual outline it is trying to address.
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