August Member Spotlight: Eugene Eric Kim

The August Member Spotlight shines bright on an invaluable member of the community and co-chair of the LLC Board of Directors, Eugene Eric Kim. Since joining the board three years ago, Eugene has been a generous, thoughtful, creative and innovative learning partner. As a champion of collaborative tools, he has ushered us toward applying collaborative technologies in all aspects of our work. It’s safe to say, we are now wiki-maniacs. Eugene is a collaborative partner on the Leadership and Networks collaborative research project, Leadership for a New Era (LNE), that seeks to promote leadership that is more inclusive, networked and collective. Eugene as a member of the LNE advisory board Eugene has pushed to ‘walk our talk’ and operate in ways that are inclusive, networked and collective. Eugene’s unfaltering spirit of collaboration aligns with the vision of the Leadership Learning Community. Eugene often challenges us to think “differently,” deepening and enriching the conversation.

Eugene founded Blue Oxen Associates in 2002 on a simple premise: What would the world look like if we all achieved our collaborative potential in all aspects of our lives? Blue Oxen's goal is to understand and explore how we can collaborate more effectively and to share its learnings widely and openly.

Over the past eight years, Eugene has helped a number of organizations on specific collaboration challenges. Most recently, he designed and led the Wikimedia Foundation's year-long, open process for developing a movement-wide strategic plan. Over 1,000 people participated in the process, which helped articulate key priorities and has already led to important shifts for the movement that's responsible for Wikipedia.

Eugene is particularly interested in how to shift our thinking away from "organizations" and more toward "organizing." In this vein, he's currently working with the Monitor Institute to develop scenarios for the Knight Foundation on the potential impact of network-centric practices in the near future.