Subscribe to this news feed (RSS) Collaborative Futures Launch(es)Collaborative Futures will have two launches, one in Berlin on Saturday Feb 6 (1700) during the transmediale Festival <http://www.transmediale.de> and one in New York on March 4 at Eyebeam <http://www.eyebeam.org/feeds/announcements/pre-order-collaborative-futures-now>.
04 Feb 2010 - 03:03 by AdamHyde
Collaborative Futures"Collaboration on a book is the ultimate unnatural act."
There is something exciting about holding a freshly printed book in your hands that you helped create. Today I went to the printers and looked at a test copy of the Collaborative Futures book we finsihed last week.
It looks great!
This book was written over 5 days (Jan 18-22, 2010) during a Book Sprint in Berlin. 7 people (5 writers, 1 programmer and 1 facilitator) gathered to collaborate and produce a book in 5 days with no prior preparation and with the only guiding light being the title 'Collaborative Futures'. These brave collaborators were: Mushon Zer-Aviv, Michael Mandiberg, Mike Linksvayer, Marta Peirano, Alan Toner, Aleksandar Erkalovic (programmer) and Adam Hyde (facilitator). The event was part of the 2010 transmediale festival <www.transmediale.de>. At the time of writing 200 copies are planned to be printed next week through a local print on demand service and distributed at the festival. Many thanks to Stephen Kovats who supported this enterprise with conviction. Without Stephen's commitment to the project it would not have been possible. Also thanks to Laleh Torabi for designing the cover. The difference between the Collaborative Futures and other Book Sprints is that this is the first sprint to make a marked deviation from creating books which are primarily procedural documentation. FLOSS Manuals has produced many fantastic manuals in 2-5 day Book Sprints. The quality of these books is exceptional, for example Free Software Foundation Board Member Benjamin Mako Hill said of the 280 page Introduction to the Command Line manual (produced in a two day Book Sprint): "I have written basic introductions to the command line in three different technical books on GNU/Linux and read dozens of others. FLOSS Manual's "Introduction to the Command Line" is at least as clear, complete, and accurate as any I've read or written. But while there are countless correct reference works on the subject, FLOSS's book speaks to an audience of absolute beginners more effectively, and is ultimately more useful, than any other I have seen." But Collaborative Futures is markedly different. To ask 5 people who don't know each other to come to Berlin and write a speculative narrative in 5 days when all they have is the title is a scary proposition. To clearly define the challenge we did no discussion before everyone entered the room on day 1. Nothing discussed over email, no background reading. Nothing. Would we succeed? It was hard to consider this question because it was hard to know what might constitute success. What consituted failure was clearer - if those involved thought it was a waste of time at the end of the 5 days this would be clear failure. All involved had discussed with the facilitor the possibility that the project might fail (transmediale also discussed this with the facilitor). Additionally, as if this was not hard enough, we decided to use the alpha version of a new platform 'Booki' <www.booki.cc> that we had created specifically for Book Sprints and collaborative book production. One of the Booki developers (there are two) – Aleksandar Erkalovic – joined the team in Berlin to bug fix and extend the platform as we wrote. It is difficult to over-state how difficult this could potentially be for all involved. It would be like living in a house, trying to sleep, get the kids off to school, have quiet conversations with your partner while all the time there are builders moving around you putting up walls and nailing down the floorboards under your feet. Not easy for all parties.
Last but not least, while this sprint built on much that had been learned in previous Book Sprints we had to develop new methodologies for this type of content. So during the week we tried new things out, tested ideas and reviewed their effectiveness. All in 5 days.
So...this is what happened....Day one consisted of presentations and discussions.
During this first day we relied heavily on traditional 'unconference' technologies – namely colored sticky notes. With reference to Unconferences we always need to tip the hat to Allen Gunn and Aspiration for their inspirational execution of this format. We took many ideas from Aspiration's Unconferences during the process of this sprint and we also brought much of what had been learned from previous Book Sprints to the table. First, before the introductions, we each wrote as many notes as we could about what we thought this book was going to be about. The list consists of the following:
Then each presented who they were and their ideas and projects as they are related to free culture, free software, and collaboration. The process was open to discussion and everyone was encouraged to write as many points, questions, statements, on sticky notes and put them on the wall. During this first day we wrote about 100 sticky notes with short statements like:
...and other cryptic references to the thoughts of the day. We stuck these notes on a wall and after all of the presentations (and dinner) we grouped them under titles that seemed to act as appropriate meta tags. We then drew from these groups the 6 major themes. We finished at midnight. Day two – 10.00 kick off and we simply each choose a sticky note from one of the major themes and started writing. It was important for us to just 'get in the flow' and hence we wrote for the rest of the day until dinner. Then we went to the Turkish markets for burek, coffee and fresh Pomegranates. The rest of the evening we re-aligned the index, smoothed it out, and identified a more linear structure. We finished up at about 23.00 Day three – At 10.00 we started with a brief recap of the new index structure and then we also welcomed two new collaborators in the realspace – Mirko Lindner and Michelle Thorne. Later in the day, when Booki had been debugged a lot by Aco, we welcomed our first remote collaborator – Sophie Kampfrath. Then we wrote... at the end of the day we restructured the first two sections, did a word count (17,000 words) and made sushi. After sushi we argued about attribution and almost finished the first two sections. Closing time around midnight. Day four – A late start (11.00) and we are also joined by Ela Kagel, one of the curators from transmediale. Ela presented about herself and transmediale and then we discussed possible ways Ela could contribute and we also discussed the larger structure of the book. Later Sophie joined us in real space to help edit and also Jon Cohrs came at dinner time to see how he could contribute. Word count at sleep time (22.00): 27,000. Day five – The last day. We arrived at 10.00 and discussed the structure. Andrea Goetzke and Jon Cohrs joined us. We identified areas to be addressed, slightly altered the order of chapters, addressed the (now non-existent) processes section, and forged ahead. We finished 2200 on the button. Objavi, the publishing engine for Booki, generated a book-formatted PDF in 2 minutes. Done. Word count ~33,000
There are now 300 copies being printed for transmediale :)
29 Jan 2010 - 03:09 by AdamHyde
Ardour Manual Done!The wonderful wonderful manual about Ardour is done! It was produced in a Book Sprint / Workshop held at moddr_ in Rotterdam and lead by Derek Holzer. Its a super good manual and designed to help the newbies get to grips with Ardour. The manual was largely written by participants of a workshop about Ardour. The writers knew very little about Ardour to begin with and then documented the software as they learned how to use it.
Truly an outstanding effort and proof that good manuals can be written by students. Its success is also due in no small part to the workshop leadership of Derek Holzer and the background organisation work of Walter Langelaar. Derek has been a new media artist and workshop leader in many areas related to free software and audio. You can see the manual here:
Spread the word!
09 Dec 2009 - 00:41 by AdamHyde
FLOSS Manuals becomes 1000!Today FLOSS Manuals hit the 1000th registration on the English site! It doesn't seem possible, since we started the year with under 200 registrations...quite a rapid growth, and we are adding more and more contributors, manuals, and translations everyday to help with the distribution and use of free software. woohooo!
11 Nov 2009 - 04:20 by AdamHyde
GSoC Sprint done!We finished the Google Summer of Code mentoring Guide in 2 days! Then I stole off to a print on demand service and got some copies printed for the participants of the sprint :
I will give books out tonight, and Leslie from the Summer of Code program will distribute 250 photocopied guides. Its also available as an epub for digital readers.
24 Oct 2009 - 09:39 by AdamHyde
Google Summer of Code MentoringWe are in the middle of a Book Sprint for the Google Summer of Code (GSoC). Leslie Hawthorn invited several people to work on a manual to introduce new mentors to GSoC. Its a short 3 days sprint and the manual will be ready for the GSoC mid term meeting which stats on Friday.
22 Oct 2009 - 06:32 by AdamHyde
FM ePUB tested on AndroidRob Myer kindly tested a beta FM epub on Android. Displayed below is the Introduction to the Command line book displayed on his phone :
The first page of the manual :
Another page :
06 Oct 2009 - 22:12 by AdamHyde
FM -> ePUBOk, so at FLOSS Manuals labs Douglas and Aco have been busy. We are currently extending our import and output possibilities. In the lab we can currently create ePUB from FLOSS Manuals sources on the fly. This means that we have content friendly for ereaders, iphone and other portable devices.Free manuals for free software...everywhere....
Its working now and will soon be available through the FLOSS Manuals output engine - Objavi. Douglas has done a good job on this code, and we will announce its imminent release on the FM mailing list first, then on this blog. In the meantime, here are some photos to prove it works...these are taken from the Audacity manual working on the Sony reader :
02 Oct 2009 - 01:09 by AdamHyde
Mate..While in Buenos Aires for the Wikimania conference I met with Yaco - FM-er and free content champion. Yaco gave me a cool Mate cup with FLOSS Manuals engraved on it!
Mate is good for keeping awake so I think it will become our friend at Book Sprints :)
18 Sep 2009 - 01:31 by AdamHyde
Archive.org Sponsors DevelopmentWe are very happy to announce that Archive.org will part-sponsor the development of Booki. Booki, for those that do not know, is the new book-wiki platform being developed by FLOSS Manuals.
18 Sep 2009 - 01:27 by AdamHyde
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