Jenny Ambrozek and team used a collaborative environment (in this case, a wiki) to author an article on "Connected Intelligence." The wiki can be found here: Learning Through Participation and Connecting Intelligences: Experimenting with a Wiki to Co-create an Article
The project was very interesting in its introspection on what was working, and what wasn’t, as the process evolved. The page on "Lessons," in particular, provides a great data point into what actually happened.
"June 29, 2007, with deadline looming. co-author Jenny Ambrozek posted
an article update and invitation to participate to the 21st Century
Organization blog 21st Century Blog
June 30 Knowledge Jolt blogger, Jack Vinson, blogged about our article writing experiment Jack Vinson Blog
July 2 Jenny Ambrozek in checking Technorati www.technorati.com for activity around our blog post also noted Jack Vinson’s Policies Can be Changed post and added a comment.
A Facebook www.facebook.com and email exchange followed. The Jack Vinson Wiki Page was created and we captured Jack’s insights about “policies” impacting knowledge sharing and learning in a real laboratory.
It took the wiki+blogs+Technorati+Facebook+email to gather the laboratory example.Co-Creating Takes Time
It was 14 weeks from wiki creation to article deadline but the bulk of
activity happened in the last month. The authors had competing
commitments and it was only as the deadline approached and focused
their attention that real structural activity began. What we didn’t
realize was that although a collaborative product benefits from
connected intelligence, the production cycle must allow for more review
and reflection by the various participants.
Unknown is how many more people we could have reached, and how much
richer or different, this article would be if we had started outreach
earlier. As the wiki remains open so readers can contribute their
reactions and tell us what we’ve missed.
"
Check out the analysis of the evolution of the wiki here.
photo: tanio
Chris, Thanks for sharing and aiding reflection on our article co-creating experience. For the record the inspiration for our “introspection” (great word), about the intersection of tools came from Nancy White. As I’m familiar with Ronald Burt’s writing about “structural holes” and where opportunities lie in networks and organizations, when Nancy said during a phone call:
“it’s the space between the tools where things happen.”
I paid close attention to the ecosystem of interactions and technologies our collaboration involved.
And I wished I could have contributed more to the article beyond my case study. There were a lot of interesting things happening in the article that had me thinking. Maybe if there had been more time.