[FM Discuss] collab futures II

[adam hyde]

info as promised...


---------------------------------------------
Collaborative Futures 2nd Edition Book Sprint
---------------------------------------------
In January 2010 six authors and one programmer were locked in a room in
Berlin and were assigned by the Transmediale festival to collaboratively
write a book titled "Collaborative Futures".

5 days and 33,000 words later the first incarnation of Collaborative
Futures was finished online, and sent off to be printed. 5 months later
the original authors together with three new people and will be locked
in Berlin and New York to produce the second edition of the same book.

They will be joined by additional guests and contributors who will drop
in or contribute remotely on the Booki.cc website.


* We will meet every morning at 9:30am and will write until the sun or
our minds sets (the later of the two).
* We will use the Booki.cc online software to write, edit and
collaborate. 
* We will edit the existing work, possibly even replacing full chapters.
* We will write new chapters to extend, complement and possibly
contradict the existing ones.
* We will eat and drink in the space and will have dinners together on
the three days.
* We will argue and fight against each other and against the paradigms
of this collaborative effort and its tendency to subsume our conflicting
voices.
* We will produce the 2nd edition of the Collaborative Futures book by
the evening of Friday, June 25th.


Get Involved
To help writing and editing the book register and contribute through
http://www.booki.cc/collaborativefutures/edit/

Dates: June 23-25th

Some meta info...

The greatest irony of the collaboration that produced the 1st edition of
Collaborative Futures was its partial failure to incorporate
collaborators beyond the core group that spent a week in Berlin working
face to face. As recounted in the 1st edition's epilogue chapters
written by collaborators in Berlin who did not start with the core group
did not "fit" and a walk-in collaborator could not be accommodated. It
proved impossible to open up the real-time collaboration to potential
remote collaborators. However, some additional collaborators in Berlin
helped with copy editing and one chapter was contemporaneously written
by a friend (Bossewitch) of one of the core collaborators (Mandiberg),
shepherded by that collaborator.

A 2nd sprint planned for late June mandates temporally and
geographically distributed collaboration:

      * builds on 1st edition (temporal) 
      * face to face sprints in New York and Berlin (geographic and
        slight temporal due to time zone difference) 
      * remote collaborators will again be invited -- if in theory but
        not practice, they should not be invited

Thus, herewith are some possible practices for the face to face sprint
teams, remote collaborators, and potentially for future collaborators
beyond the 2nd sprint, whether via concentrated sprints or as the book
is discovered and someone is inspired to make a substantial
contribution. These practices aren't gospel: they hopefully aren't
mostly wrong and are definitely subject to revision. 


For new collaborators, any venue 


Read the previous edition. This is the best way to ensure your work will
complement the existing text -- whether your work is to be
complimentary, critical, or expanding.


For all collaborators

If you're not sure how to contribute and perhaps not sure who to ask
what is needed, here are some valuable activities that require little
coordination: 


      * copy-edit existing text 
      * annotate existing text, e.g., by adding references where needed
        or by finding images that illustrate the text 
      * write a completely new chapter; case studies in particular can
        be independent, but having read the book, can be tied to
        existing themes

Whether you have a clear idea for your contribution or not, keep good
collaboration practices in mind (if you notice that an important
practice isn't discussed in the book, there's your chapter to write).
Assume good faith.


Multi-location face-to-face sprinters

Possibly the most challenging part of the 1st sprint was the start, in
which the core group, starting with two words, decided what to write
about and generally mind-melded. The necessary success here (it is easy
to imagine failure) probably contributed to the difficulty of adding
collaborators.

To the extent the 2nd edition sprints in New York and Berlin aim to
substantially restructure the book or pursue a divergent theme -- as
opposed to diving into the valuable but low-coordination work mentioned
above -- it would be good for the two teams to agree in broad strokes to
the path forward and be able to communicate that path to each other --
and to remote collaborators. Some ideas:

      * Discuss direction of the sprint prior to the sprint days. The
        first sprint did no pre-work in part to prove a point -- a
        non-manual could be successfully written in a week starting from
        only a two word theme. There is no reason for subsequent sprints
        or other forms of contribution to avoid pre-work, excepting lack
        of time. 
      * There will be a few (to many if Berlin sprinters work late)
        hours of overlap each day between the New York and Berlin
        sprints. On the first day, it may be useful for all sprinters to
        give a few minute self-introduction -- this was valuable for
        information and rapport gained in the first sprint. Throughout,
        it may prove valuable to have voice, preferably enhanced with
        video, communication on-tap for higher bandwidth cross-sprint
        discussion. 
      * When a team finishes for an evening, they should leave brief
        notes about changes and discoveries made, for maximum continuity
        during periods in which only one team is working.

Remote sprinters

Remote sprinters may wish to stick with the low-coordination
contributions listed above -- success along these lines would be
extremely valuable. If the face-to-face teams are establish super
communications, a side effect could be increased ability of remote
collaborators to contribute even where higher coordination is required.

good luck!


-- 
Adam Hyde
Founder FLOSS Manuals
German mobile : + 49 177 4935122
Email : adam at flossmanuals.net
irc: irc.freenode.net #flossmanuals

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