SDN Blogs: Evolution or Intelligent Design?

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Weblog: Can a Community Create a BPX Book?

Subject: Evolution or Intelligent Design?

Date: 2008-05-19 22:25:25

From: Mark FinnernBusiness Card

Hi Dan,
You picked a good week to post this, just when I took a couple of days off ;-) So sorry, that I only now find the time to answer you.

Even though you dismiss it, I think Wikipedia is an excellent example for collaboration. Revisit the Heavy Metal Umlaut Movie from Jon Udell http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html

You will see that the page is not started with a whole structure. There is a little paragraph that then others built upon.

Your model of involving the community is for me like Intelligent Design, it can't evolve, there needs to be a guiding all knowing hand in the back ground, that lays down the structure for others to comment on.

What a Jazz band is doing, is agreeing on the outset about a framework to play in, for me that is like agreeing on the wiki as the tool to improvise in. What you did with writing out the full first chapter is like a soloist playing the first verse and only then letting the other players in, to only modify your theme on the fringes, if you deem it to be worth it.

What I am missing is the discussion with the community from the beginning. Where is the collection of topics to cover, table of content discussion, ... ? Give the community more say from the beginning.

I think you missed an opportunity for the BPX community to make this book their own, by inviting them too late to the game.

Also it is not obvious enough how my name gets into the book. This is why I added Chapter 0: Contributing BPX Community Members and put Richard Hirsch on top of the list. (Please someone else fill in the other names.)

There is more, but I am getting tired, Mark.

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Weblog:		Can a Community Create a BPX Book?
Subject:		Evolution or Intelligent Design?
Date:		2008-05-19 22:25:25
From:		Mark FinnernBusiness Card


Hi Dan, You picked a good week to post this, just when I took a couple of days off ;-) So sorry, that I only now find the time to answer you. Even though you dismiss it, I think Wikipedia is an excellent example for collaboration. Revisit the Heavy Metal Umlaut Movie from Jon Udell http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html You will see that the page is not started with a whole structure. There is a little paragraph that then others built upon. Your model of involving the community is for me like Intelligent Design, it can't evolve, there needs to be a guiding all knowing hand in the back ground, that lays down the structure for others to comment on. What a Jazz band is doing, is agreeing on the outset about a framework to play in, for me that is like agreeing on the wiki as the tool to improvise in. What you did with writing out the full first chapter is like a soloist playing the first verse and only then letting the other players in, to only modify your theme on the fringes, if you deem it to be worth it. What I am missing is the discussion with the community from the beginning. Where is the collection of topics to cover, table of content discussion, ... ? Give the community more say from the beginning. I think you missed an opportunity for the BPX community to make this book their own, by inviting them too late to the game. Also it is not obvious enough how my name gets into the book. This is why I added Chapter 0: Contributing BPX Community Members and put Richard Hirsch on top of the list. (Please someone else fill in the other names.) There is more, but I am getting tired, Mark.