[FM Discuss] collaborative futures book sprint update

[Andy Oram]

I was intrigued by this project, so I read the book quickly this evening and wrote up a bunch of comments:

http://www.praxagora.com/project_education/tmp/CollaborativeFutures_commented.html

I'd rather have the main authors pick up the comments here than cut and paste them back into the Booki files. If there's some easy way to put them in, I'll be happy to do it.

I'll reprint my main comment here, which concerns the organization of the book.

Andy

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     AO: There is a lot of good raw material here. In choosing a structure for the book, you want to make sure to start off with something intriguing that people haven't seen before. There are also standard ways to build from narrower to broader topics.

    One way to structure the book is to reorganize it into four major sections, along with some intro and conclusion, and stories you can include near the end as you do now.

    1. Examples of creative collaboration.

    This section lists current projects. Among you all, you know a lot (and even I came up with a couple extra examples) so it's unlikely that any reader will have a comprehensive view and know most of them. They will demonstrate your thesis that collaboration is powerful and has many aspects, while interesting the reader.

    2. Why collaborate, and what it looks like

    So much has been written in this area that you risk repeating the familiar. But a broad mix of topics can still make it a worthwhile section. Both the "why" and the "how" can be here. Special topics such as anonymity and reputation fit in. You give reputation short shrift; that has to be beefed up. You have to contrast anonymity and reputation, although there are ways to balance them. Two articles of my own that may be helpful are:

    http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2006/06/29/the-long-view-of-identity.html
    The Long View of Identity

    http://www.praxagora.com/andyo/professional/reputation_economies_2007.html
    Reputation: where the personal and the participatory meet up

    3. Futures

    This can get breath-takingly broad. Extending the idea of collaboration to economics is wonderful; you could spend some time on that.

    4. How to improve existing systems

    Many authors would reverse my sections 3 and 4, but I think my order is more interesting if less conventional. Stretch people's minds first, particularly because some may give up and stop reading at some point. Then pull back and talk about things we could do today.