New Counter Projects - Many little interactions to Build Collaboration

For this half of my project I have not really done a project and a counter project per se. I have more just done a bunch of little interactions or approaches to projects. For instance, the competitions, the external collaboration, the workshops and seminars. I think the counter project for me has been the working near but not exactly on the topic in many frames of reference and on many examples of collaboration. I think during the time, doing these interactions, I have come to provide a clearer definition of collaboration, or at least in the sense that I have looked at it here. The way I have come to think of collaboration is as any form or interactive decision making, for instance, the interaction to work out how to make really simple decisions, such as what to have for lunch with a friend, is an important example of day to day collaboration. I think the same fundamental rules apply regardless of the complexity and context of the desiccation being made.

After coming to realize this I was able to put my project in finer terms by simplifying definitions and clearing up some of the confusions I still had about what I was doing.

The Things I Read to Know More (References)

Another aspect of my Research Methods class was to create something like an Annotated Bibliography to help recognize the influences on the project of that class. This was a great experience because I looked at how many different articles specifically dealt with the problems I was interested in. It also made it clear to me how far from academic this whole experience has been but how that may not really matter at all. I think I was intrigued by the fact that on a large scale most of my sources and the information I was using to help me think of solutions to the problems at hand were completely informal, even as poorly demonstrated as things like online tutorials to do "Lifehacks" or optimize ones living method. In any case, the real point of interest to me is that the things I read for these two projects were in almost every way shared assets, due to the project's vague similarity and due to the similar notions of user and creator that are involved in each one. What I mean by that is that I read many many hours worth of content that influenced my project though the interest I had in the content, more than though the value of the content for its own right.

Here is link to the Annotated Bibliography as a public document noting my interaction with a small selection of the articles read. Here is a link to the project ReBlog, the entirety of my references throughout the project.

Proposing Alternatives, Designing Solutuions

To solve some of the odd circumstances that appeared after returning from China I had to do Research Methods in my final semester. This meant that I was working on learning how to do research and construction, in the context of a large year long project, as I was doing the large year long project, this one. That caused its own set of problems, however, I found the outcome interesting. The project I chose to center my attention on for the duration of the Research Methods class was a development of the Design 2.0 system based around the prospect of creating it as a business system. In particular I was interested in creating an attention economy supported system, as it would allow for free user interaction and better user information. In any case, I think the most interesting thing about this project is that I was not actually doing it, I was just thinking about it in an attempt to get some good insights on how toy make it into a better business and subsequently a better solution to the collaboration issue at hand. After some time I realized that the best way to develop in this manner would be to embody as many as possible of the actual final decisions in the theoretical mock up I would hand in at the end of the semester. Thus I did and found a rather new solution set which has actually effected my solutions for this project as well. In particular I realized I could use a solution called fileTree, something I have been working outside of school for a few years, to help support the information management. This proved to help me describe the decisions that would be made to discuss the information level of both projects quite amazingly.

UPDATE: Here is a link to the project proposal for Research Methods. Please note, it is done in the form of a business plan as my situation was not similar to the rest of the class. Because I am potentially interested in utilizing some of the ideas held in this plan it will require a log in to view. If you are my teacher you have already been invited, otherwise leave a comment and we can discuss this.

More Competitions and Images

As I previously noted, I have recently been involved in collaborating in some competitions of various kinds. Here I am just going to post a link to some images from this collaboration.

Reporting Failure, Being Refused

Last week in class I reported to Malte that my project was sort of failing and that I would be talking a different approach from now on, as previously mentioned on this blog. Later in the week I also told Soumitri the same thing. In both cases however the disagreed, on at least some level. This was no surprise really, I think calling it a failure was asking to be told I was wrong, there is a lot of other stuff for me to do and a lot of work still to be done.

Malte suggested I do a few things:

1. Get involved with lots of competitions - He thinks this is interesting because it will evoke design results as part of a large system. Something that I suppose is quite important part of what is done in this project
   
2. As he has previously said, I should take part of collaboration projects lead by others - As explained earlier, this would help me understand the positions of people taking part in my project. My response was of course that I am sort of doing this already with a few things I am working on.
   
3. Treat competitions as short run projects - I think the idea here was to do a competition as a short run project with some other members, local and or remote, to get a quick incentive driven team. He feels that the lack of developed incentive might be what caused some of the failed issues in this project.
   
4. From there we talked abstractly about why people want to take part in collaborative systems - This is something I have addressed on numerous occasions however I think revisiting it may be quite important. We talked about the incentive as a context centric asset as opposed to an absolute value thing. That is to say, working for passion as a commodity as opposed to working for money or, a lack there of, which seems to have been a problem for the system.
   
5. In particular, Malte suggested time swapping with colleagues to get collaborators - This is quite an interesting suggestion. I am not sure how well it will work because I traditionally have no faith in how other people value their contributions to a project. I think I would happily stay up 3 days to help people finish projects but most people would not do that for me. I am not sure why, perhaps because I love this kind of work or because I treat it as a form of social interaction, and others do this less so. In any case, I am not sure how this work swap system will work but I am going to give it a shot.
   

Soumitri also gave me a few comments however I had no pen and pencil in had at the time so I think I have forgotten them all. In this case I am just going to write a few things that he might have said.

1. Not a failed project just a failed group - This was a good point that I did not want to admit might be the case. It is highly likely that making interest driven social design systems is not impossible it may just be that most people in the world do not want to take part, or moreover, the people I chose are not the right people to take part. Obviously open source development works but I sort of wanted to stay clear of these parties, as I mentioned earlier. I think Soumitri's mentioning of this fact made me thing about what could be called the rules of engagement. There is something more that I need to have, than a group of people who say "I am really interested"
   
2. Give some incentive - I seem to recall he was interested in my re angeling my approach to the participants so that people would have more reason to be involved.
   
3. Use the same popularity that leads people to use computers, the internet, and facebook - We talked a little about this and I think the outcome was that some sort of "fun" needs to be had for people to be involved. This concept of fun is pretty vague as in some cases it is not really fun at all but just useful. With no other incentive mechanism, I think this is a decent goal, applying it may be more difficult though. I think this may even be associated with the concept of social interaction. For some reason I want to engage with people to work and I do not care who that much. Other people however, do not seem to see the same thing as good.

Ok I think that is it. If Soumitri or Malte read this blog it would be nice if they could correct any misunderstandings I have from their critiques in the comments.

Thinking of Buiness

So I was reading away, as I do, and I came across an interesting little piece of modern web which acts as a business objectives and management solution. It seems decent and looks like it would be a great back end for a more populated version of this project.

The project is called PlanHQ and it has a pretty decent tour.

Internet Startups and Failures

I came across a silly little game called Sim Web 2.0 representing some of the dynamics of internet startups.

Today I have decided that at least some of the core aspects of my project have failed. Namely the active part that never really got clear of the ground. I believe this to be the case because although I have a collection of "interested" users there is not a sufficient throughput of information and activity on the project site. This is of course quite sad but it is also could be quite informative.

In reaction to this failure I think there are a few potential developments. Firstly, I am considering trying a number of much smaller projects on various other network driven systems, perhaps based around packages like facebook or some of the ready made collaborative systems. I think another potential development would be to send out some review content asking people engaged in this system to give me more context. The hardest part of this of course is that I need to find a way to help people overcome the fact that they are sorry that they could not be involved because they were too busy. One last thin is the prospect of making the design stages or process secondary to the act of collaboration. Perhaps the "network of friends" structure that I always talk about should be valued more and the friends aspect of it should be made more realistic...

Any suggestions?

Carve Out and Passion for Participaton

As some people know I like Chinese things and recently I came to know a small group of Chinese students working on something they call a "carve out", which is basically a small project that is fairly specialized and that is based on participating with friends and colleagues a like. This really interests me of course because some of the driving things behind my interpretation of good collaboration are that it is based on the "network of friends" system that I have previously discussed and that passion driven participation is rampant, which I think should govern the world. So this is great and I think this might just fall into the category that Malte had suggested I create. One in which I am participating in someone external's project. In this case it is not so much that I am actively part of their project more that I am helping them with decision making on some aspects, however I think the general thing is there. I am working with them and being governed by them. So far it is not very developed, we are just talking about ideas at the moment but I think it could become something engaging.

Mid Semester Further Review

A week after my Mid Semester presentation I was given formal feedback from my lecturer Malte. This went quite well and we talked through some of the issues of it all. Here are some of the things that were brought up.

1. Clarify what is going on more at the beginning of the presentation next time.
2. For whom and why and what - Basically he was wondering if I could demonstrate the answers to questions like these in my presentation. I think he though I was a little bit confused about whom and why.
   
3. Become part of another team. Join another project that i can be part of. I think this is a great suggestion and I hope to be able to do it. Currently I am trying to get people in my community to host a project, even if it is just between the two of us but most people are pretty soft core in this regard.
   
4. My lecturer things that I should have 3 components
1. Set-up getting collaborators - Design 2.0
   
2. Real collaboration - The competition work I am doing with Soumitri et al.
   
3. Part of someone else's project - Non as of yet but hopefully one soon.
   
5. He would like me to find ways to succinctly suggest my background and the project as it is.
   
6. He also found my presentation too conversational. He suggests bring in some fundamental images at the start to allow people to fit in better. Perhaps a map of the project approach or something along these lines.
7. He then suggested that a map like this is in some ways what could also be the final design outcome for the overall project
   
8. He asks, Counter project and major project work together but how? Outline direct pros and cons and related materials. I think this also extends to the 3 types of collaboration outlined above.
   

Copyright Ideas

As a development from the talk given by Elliott Bledsoe the week before last at that workshop I have written um a few thought on the matter of open copyright.

1. The person that puts something online should be responsible for its rights. This can take care of a lot of issues of allowance of information.
   
2. New media should NOT have local copyright laws. The internet is global. New Media is global.
   
3. Human readability in licensing is essential. Without this the problem will not actually change
   
4. Licenses Stacking is pretty good. This means that people creating licenses can customize them quite a lot.
   
5. Creative Commons being too structured and requiring too much Attribution. This is a major issue. CC is for dorks. There is no system to work around your own needs. This ether needs to be made more easy or absolutely impossible, like a blanket clause.
6. Attribution is needed but it is ambiguous how this can happen well. In a lot of cases it is impossible to enforce and on some media it is to hard to do at all. This is a major problem, perhaps situations where attribution is not occurring could by default become commercial uses.
   
7. Two Problems with people in this market.
   
1. People do not implement copyright and do not care about it. These are most people who like doing something and care less about money. Passionate individuals who do not have a reliance on money.
   
2. Those who do, do not do it nicely. This group are people who are involved in some industry and do not think enough about the users. People like Metallica and Prince for example but also many other media sources such as the New York Times.
   
8. Look at for some notes on things of interest http://wiki.lessig.org/index.php/Main_Page
9. Humanise Copyright (this might be the big issue) A huge problem with copyright now is not that it is that bad but just that it is not understood. There is nobody who really understands all the rulings in the Copyright act in the united states and this is quite problematic. This issue needs to be simplified more than anything else. So it is predictable and understandable, well known and respected.
   
   
   

Trickle

So the whole design 2.0 community is moving pretty slowly. I am going to shift things back another week. Which is still fine because I have some extra time but it is a little annoying.

Today I have started posting more items in the design requirements section for project one. I think I will get to do more of that tonight and perhaps add some stuff to the similar section in project two. For the time being things are close to at a stand still but I think as the design aspects come in people might become a little more engaged.

Lastly, my time is being spent mostly on external things now. For instance looking into the success and failures of other systems. More on that later.