Fra Mauro was a cartographer. He lived in the Republic of Venice in the fifteenth century.
I found out about him in James Cowan’s (1997) A Mapmaker’s Dream. In that account, Fra Mauro welcomed visitors from all over the world in his monastery and used their news to develop his map of the world.
I loved the idea that he could be in Venice and yet be connected with voyages of discovery and established trade routes.
I had a Fra Mauro feeling this week in rural New South Wales. Social media, particularly Twitter, brought me news of adventures elsewhere.
Jacquie Tran was on her way to a Sports Performance Research Institute New Zealand conference:
Folks, I'm giving a talk tomorrow at the @SPRINZ_AUT S&C pre-conference on knowledge translation between analysts & decision-makers in sport.
For those in #sportsanalytics and #sportscience – what are you curious about on this topic? What have your experiences been? RTs please!
— Jacquie Tran (@jacquietran) November 12, 2018
Javier Fernandez was at a #barçasportstech conference:
Just to be in the same room than @DeanO_Lytics @LukeBornn @srudd_ok @analyseFooty @mixedknuts and @the_spearman is incredible; talking beside them, mesmerizing. Sports analytics has a bright future if people in this world keep being this human and smart. #BarçaSportsTech pic.twitter.com/qoWNHPqoSS
— Javier Fernández (@JaviOnData) November 15, 2018
Mark Upton was writing about returning ‘home’ in South Australia after all his travels. In his discussion of living in fellowship he wrote “We DO need to balance and share power by exploring the dynamic interaction of leadership and followship” (original emphasis).
By serendipity, I met Jo Gibson, who lives just 50 kms away. Jo is researching leadership and followership in the dynamic way that Mark advocates. I have the good fortune to be her PhD supervisor.
I ended my week, delighted in reading a quote from Albert Mundet far away in Spain: “We compete in the short term, but we may cooperate at longer term”.
From a Fra Mauro perspective, this sharing is immensely powerful.
For many years, I have hoped that open sharing is the new competitive edge and that through sharing we transform sport in the ways that about which Mark Upton and his colleagues write so eloquently and has been demonstrated so well in New Zealand and Spain this week.
Photo Credit
Venezia (Roberto Defilipi, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
