[FM Discuss] how to show off booki?

[Edward Cherlin]

I like it, and I want to be part of it.

If we think in terms of a standard documentary, we need several camera
crews to be around at the point where we first make contact with a
prospect group for a new manual on some new piece of software with
applications of general interest, and have them follow the parties
around for some time.

I am going to use ushahidi as an example, since they are fantastic in
themselves, and have applications from mapping election violence in
Kenya to gathering and analyzing data from people with various medical
conditions. I sent a description a few minutes ago. OpenMRS is another
excellent possibility where I gather we have some real possibilities.

Whichever we choose, we want film from the field, wherever the most
compelling applications are. For OpenMRS the starting point might be
AIDS or Multiple-Drug-Resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, as in the
documentary Rx for Survival that played on PBS. I know people who
worked on defusing the election violence in Kenya. I have no idea
whether film from the events is available, but there would be no
problem arranging interviews, and having them return to the locations
where they worked.

Then we want film of face-to-face and online talks, planning, the book
outline, the sprint and publication. The sprint can combine film of
people working together or apart with an animation of the book coming
together.

Then we can go non-standard, and have an interactive Web site where
people can explore any aspect of the project, somewhat like an
architectural flythrough, with the ability to switch from
architectural drawings to visualization to the building process to the
finished building on demand.

Then we can write a book about the whole process. ^_^

If we get serious about this, I will think up a lot more detailed possibilities.

My set of questions includes

Whom do we know who does documentary films?

Funding? Could this be organized in somewhat the manner of Wintercamp
in the Netherlands?

Blender for animations?

What other software have we documented that we can use in this process?

I can imagine in the most favorable case that we could have a week of
planning followed by a one-week sprint. This would minimize logistics
and a few other essentials. We would want to have a few trial runs
beforehand, to be able to bring together enough writers, editors,
artists, etc. with book experience and subject matter knowledge.

What projects do we have lined up that we can practice on?

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 10:10, Joshua Facemyer <jfacemyer at gmail.com> wrote:
>  I assume that would mean a screencast, although it probably wouldn't hurt
> to put some real life footage of a sprint in it.
>
> I would think the most important things should be highlighted - concurrent
> editing, history, ease of use, different types of output, versioning, etc.
>  Maybe pick 5 or six things, keep it very simple, but make it obvious.

Not too technical. Keep the focus on what the customer wants to
achieve, and what the audience cares about. Writing a book in a week
with everything going on in parallel is still startling enough. We
will have no trouble showing off a multitude of elements of the
process as they arise naturally.

Again, if we get serious, I will have no trouble coming up with a
draft list of capabilities (not features) to demonstrate. I am sure
that others will be able to do the same. Hey, it will be just like
book design!

> I'd be happy to help with this, but I'm not the right person to decide what
> features to highlight (or whether this is the correct direction).
>
> JF
>
> On 08-17-10 8:36 AM, adam hyde wrote:
>>
>> hi,
>>
>> I just had a very interesting chat about finding potential funding for
>> FLOSS Manuals and Booki. One question that came up was - how do we show
>> people Booki in action so that funders would 'get it'?
>>
>> A suggestion was to log in while a Book Sprint was in action but this is
>> obviously a little tricky since it would require either a good deal of
>> logistics or luck to make sure a sprint was happening at the right
>> moment.
>>
>> The next 'obvious' proposal was to make a movie.
>>
>> Does anyone on the list have any other ideas? Also, if we did make a
>> movie, is there anyone that would help with this and what would a movie
>> like this look like? Any ideas?
>>
>> adam
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>



-- 
Edward Mokurai (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) Cherlin
Silent Thunder is my name, and Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, the Truth my destination.
http://www.earthtreasury.org/