The Idea: A proposal to have hosted 'conversations' on blogs to
allow more cross-pollination of ideas and more interactivity between
bloggers, in order to bring good ideas to fruition.
Ottawa economist Jeremy Heigh
has been exchanging thoughts with me about how to make blogs more
conversational. There seems to be a growing consensus in all eight
communities that I'm part of -- natural philosophers/environmentalists,
business advisers/theorists/entrepreneurs, technophiles/social
networkers, progressives, artists/storytellers, Salon bloggers,
Canadian bloggers, and physical neighbours -- that context-rich
conversations are the key to learning, to understanding, to persuading,
to knowledge transfer, and to achieving grassroots change, but that
weblogs are not, currently, very conversational.
Jeremy's idea, which he originally conceived as a mechanism to get
bloggers some income for writing, was to ask a specific group of
bloggers to post their articles or thoughts on a specific series of
topics or questions, to a hosted site. I think it's a great idea, but
I'd be tempted to push it in a particular direction, and abandon the
idea of using it to generate revenue (at least directly -- if the
conversation generated enough 'wow' it might lead to revenue
opportunities for the participants).
I'm not a big fan of debates, which seem more focused on scoring points
than surfacing insights, and which are inherently adversarial and
non-collaborative. They may be entertaining, but they're too
competitive to be really productive. I also think James Surowiecki has
staked out quite clearly the things that crowds, not small groups of
'experts' can do best -- making decisions from a discrete set of
alternatives, making predictions, and solving coordination problems. So
I would want the thrust of the 'conversations' to be highly creative
and collaborative activities -- brainstorming, model-building,
teaching, designing, organizing -- the types of activities that small,
informed, diverse groups do well.
Here's a first cut at how I would envision it working:
- The host would come up with either (a) a question (one better
suited to small-group exploration than 'putting to the crowd'), or (b) a
vision to be achieved. Example: How
could we overcome the huge disconnect that exists today between the
people who have great ideas and the people who have the money and other
resources to realize those ideas? The host would write a 1-3 paragraph context-setting explanation of the question or vision.
- The host would research who might be the best 3-10 people
to address this question or vision. These invited participants would
each think independently about the question or vision and each produce
an Initial Thoughts document (200-500 words) which the host would
publish on the host blog. Then, at and for a prescribed time, there
would be a 'live' conversation via Skype, moderated by the host,
between the selected participants.
- The Initial Thoughts and the edited Conversation would then
be podcast and the mp3 of the podcast would be posted on the host blog.
The conversation would be transcribed and posted to the host blog. The
participants would post either a link to the transcript and podcast,
or, if they wanted, they could post the entire transcript and/or
podcast on their own site, with a request that all comments be posted
to the host blog version (so that all the comments are in one place).
- The facility for additional individual posts (participants
would get short-term author access on the host blog), and additional
Skype conversations as agreed upon by the participants (also
transcribed) would be made available on the host blog for a set period
(3 days, or a week perhaps).
- An archive of all conversations, posts and comments could
be produced and sent to movers and shakers who might be inclined to act
on the ideas that emerged, for those movers and shakers who do not
normally go online.
And here are the inevitable questions:
- If you were asked to participate in one of these, would you, and why -- WIIFY?
- Is the blog format robust enough to carry the weight of one of these Conversations?
- Do you see this as a way to get more buzz for important ideas, or is it just a big echo chamber replacing a lot of smaller ones?
- Would you spend the time listening or reading to these Conversations (if you liked or knew the participants)?
- Is there some commercial opportunity here, or is this just a good way to get bloggers working together, or is it not even that?
- Is the model (participation by invitation) too elitist?
Would self-subscription on a first-come basis be better? What's the
'right' number of participants?
Painting "In Deep Conversation" by Irish artist Pam O'Connell
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