Saturday, October 4, 2014

Introducing the Participatory Narrative Inquiry Institute

Well, folks, I've gone and got myself mixed up in another crazy scheme to save the world.

The PNI Institute is a new membership organization for people who are enthusiastic about growing and improving participatory narrative inquiry. It has been created as a collaborative effort by Aiden Choles, Ron Donaldson, Harold van Garderen, and myself.

Our group is in its early days, but we agree on a few important things:
  • Our focus is on quality and constant improvement;
  • we want to form a self-organized, fluid network of equals;
  • our diversity is our strength;
  • we want to share our knowledge with each other and with the world; and
  • we want to keep doing PNI, so we will collaborate on getting funding for PNI projects.
You can read more about these founding ideals on our about page.

Right now the pni2.org site hosts a group blog, to which I will be posting monthly (don't worry, I will keep this blog up as well). I've already written my first post, in which I recount my history with PNI and list my hopes for the institute. (The other first posts are also worth reading. The diversity of the group is already exciting!)

We plan to expand our membership, though exactly how we go about doing that is still in discussion. An online forum, a collaborative wiki, an online peer-reviewed journal, and some sort of unconference are all being discussed as well. Expect to see more details on the pni2.org web site as time goes by.

If you have any ideas about what sort of organization you would like to see grow around PNI, or if you want to get involved in the PNI Institute, please let me know, either in the comments or in email. I'm all ears.

One more thing: I will be in Washington, D.C. from the evening of October 15 to the morning of October 20, to attend the NCDD conference. If you live nearby and would like to meet me in person, send me an email and we'll see if we can connect.

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