transcript of chat re structures, etc
Subject: transcript of chat re structures, etc
From: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
Date: 5/21/10, 14:10
To: Clark Robinson <robinsonchicago@gmail.com>
CC: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>

me:  Wow! E D Kain, I follow his stuff on T/S, he is great.
 Barrett:  I don't think I've seen it yet, I'll take a look
also
just had a couple quick thoughts
 me:  Justin Commu looks great, too, I will get something off to him later today, and some other people
 Sent at 12:33 PM on Friday
 Barrett:  Have participants randomly matched and assigned a collaborative method and task
we should think up several sorts of methods by which two people could collaborate in a particular "structure,"
and then randomly assign two participants to use that structure in coming to a conclusion or accomplishing some small task
this would give us insight into what might work best
also, having two participants randomly collaborate in general might produce interesting results due to the mixing of various skill sets
another thing
Scott and I talked the other day about having there be a probability that any info pushed forward into either networks would have a chance of appearing somewhere else randomly in the network in addition to where it would usually be sent
 Sent at 12:37 PM on Friday
 Barrett:  as means of ensuring that the raw material on one end of the network has a chance to appear at another portion of it, which I think will clearly have certain differing characteristics due to being "inhabited" by bloggers who have linked to each other, in the case of the media network
and which would thus possibly do something better with that raw material or have some other insight into it than would those from the region of the network from which it originated
it's a small thing, but possibly helpful
 Sent at 12:39 PM on Friday
 me:  so a blogger on a lower echelon whose posts have merit but are being stifled by his immediate superior would have chance
 Sent at 12:41 PM on Friday
 me:  chance of wider readership despite an idiosyncratic bias of the blogger who brought him in
 Barrett:  yeah, and in fact I think we should also integrate in similar methods to tackle any structural deficits that are still going to exist, like that one
 me:  up in the paired collaboration model I am not sure what you mean by 'structures'
 Sent at 12:44 PM on Friday
 me:  i am fishing for an example I guess
 Sent at 12:45 PM on Friday
 Barrett:  sort of like this
there are various games like scattegories, scrabble, various card games, charades, whatever adults play at shitty parties
and these all either have participants interpret input from each other or produce it together, according to certain rules
we could design various procedures in a similar vein
intent on producing different sorts of results, as if they had been filtered, distorted, magnified, etc
metaphorically
we would then draw conclusions based on how the participants deemed the process method and what we see in the results
and perhaps implement similar novel methods when it comes time to setting up the governing network
or a template for procedures within sub-projects like Africa
 Sent at 12:49 PM on Friday
 Barrett:  I'm going to ask some of our more abstract-professioned participants to try to think up such methods
additionally
we should set up another document
containing various questions about both specific and general aspects of what we're doing and what we should be doing
basically, little "reports"
that can then be displayed in whatever documents deal with the aspect in question
 Sent at 12:53 PM on Friday
 Barrett:  this is just a way of making sure that our participants have quick and easy access to everything that needs to be considered or determined and thus doesn't miss a chance to contribute his expertise or ideas
 Sent at 12:54 PM on Friday
 me:  sort of sounds like we need an "internal systems" team (forgive the bureaucrat-speak) to find or maybe build the automated support for the interfacing of these pieces of content, This new guy Justin Commu sounds as if he could do that
 Sent at 12:58 PM on Friday
 me:  although if he is  currently looking for employment, he may not have much time, once he finds it
 Sent at 1:01 PM on Friday
 me:  how do I save this chat?  I guess I can paste it into an e-mail and send it to myself
 Sent at 1:04 PM on Friday