One of the things I had in mind with NCN from early on was to establish an
infrastructure for collaboration, i.e. many independent nodes in an
electronic network that could grow to any size, and where the nodes could
share information between each other as needed.
Now that seems to be closer to being manifested.
For one thing, what is happening is that networks are bumping into each
other. Some of you coordinate large or small networks of people,
organizations or websites. And the thing is then: how do we coordinate
networks of networks?
Some people who join NCN might also be interested in joining another
network. Maybe they want to know about Bruce Schuman's United Communities
of Spirit, maybe they want to add their website to Joshua Shapiro's NA-NET
network http://www.execpc.com/vjentpr/nanetglb.html. Or any other network
that is cooperating. Or maybe they don't care about any of those. The idea
is that you can have the choice, and that we might be able to transfer
information around automatically.
For example, Bruce Schuman <bruce@origin.org> is doing a lot of interesting
work on the United Communities of Spirit site
http://www.silcom.com/~origin/ucs.html. On-line member database, on-line
polling, searches, etc. Some of it parallel to what is in the NCN member
database. We could work out a common protocol where it would be easy for
somebody to choose to be a member of the other network too, and to have
one's profile automatically transferred. Only if one chooses to do so, of
course.
Another area of possible collaboration is between idea gathering sites.
I've maintained the Global Ideas Bank http://www.newciv.org/GIB/ for the
Institute of Social Inventions for a while, which contains thousands of
ideas that people can rate on-line. Paul Stevens <paul@coal.nl> is
developing the Global Suggestions Box http://www.coal.nl/newciv/gsb/
consulting with Greg Wright <greg@newciv.org>, which will allow submission
and storage of ideas along similar lines. Marcio Bezerra
<m.bezerra@ep.petrobras.com.br> is doing WIN - the World Ideas Network
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1887/. And there are things like the
Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. It would make great
sense if these databases could complement or supplement each other.
Searching each other's directories, transferring ideas between them when
appropriate, etc. Paul Stevens is working on some approaches for that.
And then there is the thing of event calendars. In Los Angeles there are so
many events going on, and so many people announcing them to different lists
that it is easy to either get multiple copies of each, or to miss events
one wanted to go to because one didn't have the overview. John Tibayan
<john@globalvisions.org> has an automated event calendar on his site at
http://www.globalvisions.org/calendar/calendar.html. We could very well
work out a scheme where different event calendars could share information,
avoid duplication, provide customized listings, etc.
As far as I am concerned, the issue is how to develop an infra-structure
that allows people to easily be involved in and informed about what they
want, and not bothered with the stuff they aren't interested in. And the
issue is how to avoid re-inventing the wheel many times over. Many
networks, groups, and sub-groups have similar needs for online facilities.
Web pages, member databases, calendars, chat rooms, conferences, etc. I
would really like to see it be easy to create a new online workgroup or
network, being able to use freely available, easily configurable tools, and
be able to easily link up with other workgroups and networks.
If any of you technically minded programmer types are interested in getting
more involved in growing such an infra-structure, let me know, or contact
one of the other people mentioned here.
- Flemming
o o
/ \------------------ Flemming A. Funch ------------------/ \
/ * \ World Transformation/New Civilization/Whole Systems / * \
/ * * \ ffunch@newciv.org / * * \
o-------o----------- http://www.worldtrans.org/ ----------o-------o
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