Conversations and Knowledge, Fast and Slow - Developer Wiki (Massive Wiki)

Discovered a record of a conversation in the massive.wiki OGM group (happened before I arrived) that captures some of the goals I would love to participate in.

[Pete]: "we could, and should, be better at collective memory, collective thinking, and collective intelligence... level up from an oral culture that thinks big thoughts but doesn't do much else together, to ... [using] reading and writing and drawing to create persistent artifacts and thinking spaces... For OGM, and other communities... a community memory/brain, that contains "what does the community remember", and "what is the community thinking about"". Because, while some participants take notes from the calls, "how many of us find those artifacts and curations accessible, and useful? how much do we know, together, rather than individually?"

He (rightly) emphasises the role of community: "a community brain

• allow the community to think together asynchronously ... variety of time scales... hours and days ... to years...
• accessible to most of the community, and is edited by many in the community.
• represents persistent, accretive knowledge and wisdom, of the entire group"

Exactly the approach to community we've taken for K4P.

Based on what I've seen, this went the way of most discussions in online groups: more talk, no action. This Pete foresaw: "we need to decide to do it together. we need to decide what we want to build and do together".

However the discussion appears to have quickly focused on tools, particularly Miro. [Hank], however, encapsulated the idea of the pilot project I would propose later:

• "Take an issue of mutual interest... societal challenge), and map the existing technologies worldwide, already in use (or on drawing boards somewhere), that can be used to address it
• map 'best and worst practice'.
• consolidate 'collective intelligence' and apply it in practice to a real-world situation".

The entire conversation was sparked when Peter read "this Alan Kay interview in Fast Company... about "oral society" being ... something that humans do naturally... reading, writing, drawing ... are invented ... allow humans to reach another level. Engaging in another level of thought takes practice and effort, because it requires using our invented technologies on top of our natural, built-in ability to do oral culture."

Which is why "this went the way of most discussions in online groups: more talk, no action": while participants write their own notes of OGM and similar conversations, "we don't have a culture of writing them down together. Of reading them back to each other, together... we're missing an opportunity to level up ... become collectively intelligent".

How to overcome this?

• "one person talking, one person listening, and one person trying to keep up with written notes ...
• three-person conversation feels more collaborative ... the conversation is more shareable...
• [swap] the talking, listening, and writing roles around, usually at the end of each expository turn...
• after the conversation, with all its notes, video & transcripts, chat history... "harvest the exciting news and thinking... map what was talked about, what the group thought...".

Harvesting, however, takes hours, and "there's no way to be interactive. "Did you mean this or that?" "Did you consider this other thing?" ... all of the sensemaking ... happened in their [harvester's] heads... it's possible to write a summary... [but that's] knowledge archaeology... a rough picture of a tiny slice".

So better than harvesting: ""interactive knowledge creation", with artifacts unfolding during the discussion." It doesn't preclude post-event enrichment, but the focus should be "to mesh real-time oral culture and asynchronous interaction, starting at the point where we are co-braining in real-time."

This means the conversation must slow down, so will this drain it of energy and spontaneity? Not if we practice at it, which means practising at being "productive, thoughtful, and spontaneous... [we'll] come out of conversations not just with a good feeling, but actual artifacts around which we can continue to remember, think, and evolve."