WikiWednesday in San Francisco: State of the Wiki Ecosystem

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Stephen LaPorte and I are hosting an informal discussion in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 on the state of the wiki universe. We’re hoping to get a group of people actively working in the wiki world as well as “old timers” in the community (you know who you are, and we want to see you there) and people who simply love wikis to come together to discuss the following questions:

  • What’s happening right now?
  • What’s changed?
  • What’s the future that we’d like to see?

It will be held at the Wikimedia Foundation (149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco) from 6:30-9pm.

In the spirit of wikis, it will be an open and participatory gathering, and we’re expecting interesting people to attend. We’ll pull together funds to order pizza and drinks.

Please feel free to spread the word and bring guests. Just be sure to RSVP in the comments below so that we know how many to expect.

Green Festival; SF Wikipedia Meetup

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I’ve enjoyed being a hermit for most of this year, but I’ve made up for lots of lost time this past month. Got lots of great stuff to report, but in the meantime, you can catch me in San Francisco:    (MOF)

  • 6pm, Friday, November 9 at Green Festival. I’ll be facilitating an abridged, green edition of my Tools for Catalyzing Collaboration curriculum.    (MOG)
  • 3:30pm, Saturday, November 10 at the SF Wikipedia Meetup. This will be a great opportunity to meet some of the community members who make Wikipedia amazing, including the inestimable Phoebe Ayers. Word has it that there will be a few surprise guests, so definitely drop by.    (MOH)

FLOSS Usability Sprint Seeking Great Usability Practitioners

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

FLOSS Usability Sprint V is happening November 2-4, 2007 at Google in Mountain View. This one is special for a number of reasons. First, it’s the fifth one. Second, our project list is once again superb, including Firefox, Chandler, Socialtext, and WiserEarth. Third, it’s the first sprint being primarily organized by members of this burgeoning community: Daniel Schwartz and Jon Slenk.    (MO7)

The goal of these sprints is simple: Make Open Source software more usable, focusing especially on software for social benefit. Our approach is to bring catalyze collaboration between the usability and open source communities. The sprint takes place over three full days (November 2-4). It’s fun, it’s intense, and it’s gratifying. It’s a fantastic way to meet and work with an amazing group of people.    (MO8)

This sprint is shaping up to be really outstanding. We’re still looking for a few great usability practitioners to participate, so if you’d like to help some socially-oriented Open Source projects in a concrete way, please sign up. And please spread the word!    (MO9)

She’s Geeky, October 22-23

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

The tireless and talented Kaliya Hamlin is organizing a new gathering: She’s Geeky, coming October 22-23, 2007 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View:    (MLA)

The She’s Geeky (un)conference will provide an agenda-free and friendly environment for women who not only care about building technology that is useful for people, but who also want to encourage more women to get involved.    (MLB)

It is designed to provide women who self-identify as geeky and who are engaged in various technology-focused disciplines with a gathering space in which they can exchange skills and discuss ideas and form community across and within disciplines.    (MLC)

Blue Oxen Associates just signed on as a sponsor. But, I’m not allowed to register. Why? Registrations are for women only. Am I okay with that? Absolutely.    (MLD)

Intimacy Gradients are critical for effective collaboration. I spend a lot of time teaching groups how to be more open; no one needs a lesson on how to be more closed. But there are times when being closed has value.    (MLE)

I’ve expressed my admiration for BlogHer many times. Their conference has been open to both women and men from the beginning, and I think it’s worked in their favor. But their ad network is for women bloggers only. Is that a bad thing?    (MLF)

Similarly, whatever gets blogged or recorded on the Wiki at She’s Geeky will be open to all. It’s just that only women will be allowed to attend.    (MLG)

Women are a huge minority in technology. Regardless of why that is, there are many good reasons why women in technology should collaborate more with each other. Sometimes, the best way to kick start that is to create a safe space. That’s what She’s Geeky is all about.    (MLH)

Speaking of women in technology, Lloyd Budd recently blogged about Leslie Hawthorn, another person whose praises I’ve sung on many occasions. Leslie is a classic Yellow Thread, someone who deserves much celebration.    (MLI)

Quick Thoughts on BarCampBlock

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

I emerged from my summer hermitdom to attend parts of BarCampBlock this past weekend. My favorite part of Bar Camp was actually something I missed because I overslept on Saturday morning: the unveiling of the original Bar Camp attendee list (photo by Chris Heuer):    (MJC)

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1352/1176806198_263159d5ab.jpg    (MJD)

This is such a wonderful picture on so many levels. Seeing it brought back vivid memories of the first Bar Camp: the sense of excitement about what a few passionate folks had created in a ridiculously short amount of time, the forging of new friendships and the strengthening of old ones. This little touch created a strong sense of continuity between the first camp, this third year anniversary celebration, and everything in-between. It also demonstrated the subtle difference between holding space well and simply holding space. Masters of this art understand the importance of the artifact, of Leave A Trail.    (MJE)

I didn’t get to stay as long as I would have liked, but here are some quick thoughts on what I did see:    (MJF)

  • The organizers (Chris Messina, Tara Hunt, Ross Mayfield, Liz Henry, and Tantek Celik) and volunteers did an incredible job of making everything run smoothly. The hardest part of a collaborative event isn’t the process; it’s logistics. In this particular case, the organizers had to deal with a sudden spike in registrations — 900 to be exact — with no clue as to the actual number who would show up (564 on Saturday, 260 on Sunday) and a location literally spread out over 11 locations within a few square blocks. When I saw various organizers on Saturday morning, I noted with surprise how calm everything was, and everyone just looked at me and laughed. There’s a ton amount of behind-the-scenes hard work and stress required to make any event run smoothly. Kudos to all who contributed.    (MJG)
  • There were a ton of first-timers there. I saw several people I knew, and many more I didn’t. I like to see about 25 percent yield of repeat attendees at events like these, and this came close to that. I think that’s outstanding. The danger of events like these is that they become cliques. That wasn’t the case with this Bar Camp. In some ways, I think the oversaturation of networking events in the Bay Area — including many Bar Camp spin-offs — as well as the spirit of Bar Camp prevented this from happening.    (MJH)
  • I heard a few folks comment on the lack of depth in the sessions, and I experienced some of this myself firsthand. This is common at open, collaborative events, but most folks misunderstand what this means. Open Space-ish events are particularly conducive to building Shared Language among disparate folks. Deeper learning and collaboration often occur as a result, but it doesn’t necessarily happen at the event itself. You can facilitate this deeper learning at events by making them more intentional — Internet Identity Workshop is a great example of this — but Bar Camps are more meta than that.    (MJI)
  • I loved the Continuous Learning, not just from the Bar Camps that the organizers had played an active role in, but from the wider Bar Camp community. The demo party, for example, was an idea borrowed from Bar Camp Toronto, and while the execution needed tweaking, I loved the spirit of experimentation.    (MJN)

More good thoughts from Liz, Ross, and Tara.    (MJJ)