[FM Discuss] [Fwd: Access Space & FLOSS Manuals Project?]

[adam hyde]

some of you may remember James from Wintercamp. He sent me this email
(below) and said it was ok to forward to the list :)

I said it all sounded great - for those that dont know, the access space
book was a educational manual done with drawings (comic-like).

I really like the ideas he has about educational materials and where he
is going with it

adam

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: James Wallbank 
To: adam hyde
Cc: Felipe Fonseca
Subject: Access Space & FLOSS Manuals Project?
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:54:07 +0100

Hi Adam,

I thought I'd get in touch before you and I meet in Berlin, just to 
follow up our previous conversation at "WinterCamp" in Amsterdam.

If you remember, at the time we were distributing our "Grow Your Own 
Media Lab" publication, and we were discussing whether, and if so, how, 
FLOSSmanuals might interact with less manual-like, and more "artistic" 
publications.

There's a serious reason why we opted for this more narrative, more 
suggestive mode of communication, rather than the immediately obvious 
"How To" document.

We realised that the principal trouble which media labs get into isn't 
technical, nor does it relate to the "facts" of organsational structure 
and practices - rather it's an holistic problem that emerges from the 
microculture of the group, its funding mechanisms, structure, personal 
relationships, conception, local politics, marketing, community 
enthusiasm and more. We wanted to present a synthesis, rather than an 
analysis, of good practice - realising that an analysis (no doubt 
entitled something like "A Sustainable Model of Community Empowerment, 
using Innovative Approaches to Technology Re-use, Self-Directed Action 
Research Projects, Peer Learning Networks and Creative Engagement") 
might be of academic interest, but wouldn't actually be read, or be 
comprehensible in such a way as to spawn new projects.

We're now looking to develop a "Version 2" of Grow Your Own Media Lab, 
which, again, we intend to publish with a Creative Commons License (or a 
similar license if the one we've opted for - sharealike - isn't 
suitable; we may be able to re-license at this stage, when there are 
only 3 authors).

I'm wondering whether it might be a test case for thinking about the 
"synthetic" rather than the "analytic" mode of communication as it 
relates to FLOSSmanuals.

I'm also wondering whether we could use the generation of a Version 2 as 
a chance to re-code the source and refine the toolchain which we used 
for Version 1. At the moment the publication comprises an OpenOffice 
document which includes PNG graphics for each page. The text, is all 
embedded in the graphics. It would be much, much better if we could see 
how to de-couple the graphics from the text so that translations can be 
made more conveniently.

The translation into Portuguese is something that Felipe Fonseca (and 
others in Brasil) are working on. If we get this right then we might 
generate both an English and a Portuguese Version 2.0

Anyway, I don't suggest that the publication itself is something that 
can actually be achieved at SummerCamp, but it would be good to have a 
chance to discuss the issues and make a plan for the work to be done later.

What do you think?

All the best,

James

-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 15 2230 54563
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

"Free manuals for free software"
http://www.flossmanuals.net/about