[wsfii-discuss] WhatIsWsfii

Thu Jan 12 02:19:03 UTC 2006

hello wsfii discussion,

i'd like to splice the thread Julian was spinning, and talk and think
about What Wsfii Is. Is it possible to find a three-sentence
description that conveys the thisness of Wsfii? Is it desirable?

i'm thinking about it, because before Wsfii.London i submitted a talk
proposal about Wsfii to this year's O'Reilly Emerging Technology
conference. It described the tracks and the plans for Wsfiis 2006.
It was accepted, but Rael asked me to generalise the talk into a
discussion of organising stances and techniques. Which is simple to
do, it becomes a talk about the How ("the tao of organising by not trying");
but i can't clearly describe the What/Why, and i think it would help 
a lot to be able to convey it simply.

at the end of Wsfii.London i felt like i had a clear "vision" of *why* the
different tracks fit together, but now i don't feel like i can
articulate it. I fall back to philosophical, zen type statements, like
"an integral whole larger than the sum of its parts" or "enacting a
practical philosophy of doing what you enjoy, better, talking to other
people about it, and connecting the parts at the edges" . And i think 
http://www.okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WsfiiMemorandumOfUnderstanding 
doesn't describe anything: it doesn't describe WhatIsWsfii. 

There are plenty of people creating gatherings that have "Wsfii
nature", like Sascha and Tav, that are an expression of what they were
already doing before. But Wsfii, in being, should create more Wsfii.
That is the point of Rufus and i going to San Diego to talk about it:
to encourage others to "hack your own conference", and to "be Wsfii" 
by magnifying the things they enjoy doing, getting people that they 
enjoy talking to get together, and connecting ideas at the edges. 

This looks like a bootstrapping problem. One the one hand i am happy
to wait until it becomes more apparent What Wsfii Is; on the other i
want to co-create enough of a description that more people can be
inspired to join in and help describe it by having their own Wsfii. 

I'm sorry that i was flitting around like a mad organising bat during
London pre-week and unable to participate in the creation of the MOU. 
Let's pick it apart a bit, as it's where We are starting from:

 We declare Wsfii, as an ongoing international process of multiple,
 local action oriented events which provide space for people to come
 together, to share experiences, present practical solutions, to learn
 and to build, all kinds of Free Information Infrastructures.

 Infrastructures, are shared across language, cultural and other
 boundaries, and are natural meeting points for people. We want to
 promote affordable, non-bureaucratic, participatory, do it yourself,
 self-governing approaches in a wide variety of fields. 

- What is Information Infrastructure?
- What is Infrastructure?
- What makes it Free?
- Why are you trying to build it?
- Why should i help you?

It's easy to create long, essay-length, speech-length potential
answers to these questions. But a lot of the non-free information
infrastructure eats time, eats headspace, eats psychic energy. 
I want what Matt Webb called an 'engram bullet' that conveys Wsfii. 
Is that conceivable now? i ask because i cannot answer.
http://interconnected.org/notes/concepteasy.html

http://www.okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WhatIsWsfii ?

-jo