Hi Peg,
Sounds like an interesting project.
At 06:25 16-12-1999 -0800, you wrote:
>>>>
We will be making arts materials available and inviting people
to express their ideas not only in words but in other media.
<<<<<<<<
That is very good. Not only because it fits in with the
topic, but also because a variety in media greatly
enriches the communication.
>>>>
One of the questions we are sitting with is how to carry the
spirit of the meetings from one to the next and ultimately to the second
large gathering.
<<<<<<<<
I would look for both symbolic ways and ways that communicate
information. A symbolic way could be like a totem or talisman
that is carried from each meeting to the next, representing
the connection and uniting the spirit of all the meetings.
Information would be written impressions or reports, pictures
or other expressions from participants. I could also see
combinations of the two aspects, and a small ritual being
performed around the symbol, welcoming the spirit of the
past meetings at the start of each local meeting en sending
it off to the next meeting in the end.
>>>>
We've discussed a nineteeth "virtual" OS using an electronic
bulletin board, a regularly scheduled on-line chat time and/or a
listserv.
<<<<<<<<
I know that an electronic bulletin board generally works
better than a scheduled chat. The problem of the chat is
in the scheduling part. It is often difficult to get a
sufficiently large number of people on line at the given
time. A bulletin board (like our forums) is open 24x7 and
all the messages are saved to be seen by everyone.
Advantage of a forum over a listserv is that you can
combine a forum with a website that contains information
about the project en reports and impressions (both in
words and otherwise) of the meetings. Critical is doing
the digitizing and publishing quickly enough so that
anything that is submitted can be online the same or
next day.
>>>>
Also, there's a practical side to this question: what is the
best way to capture the documentation from the 3.5 hour community
sessions?
<<<<<<<<
First for me would be this question: what is the most
appropriate way to communicate these results back
to the participants? What kind of people are they?
How educated (both computer- and otherwise) are
they? Are they generally visually or text oriented
people? Being artistic, they might be visual and
long written reports are not going to work very
well. Second question is what else do you want
with the reports? If you submit them to the State
Arts Commission or other government officials,
they might just like written reports. But if those
are not appropriate for the participants, the
officials might not get them because they are
second priority.
I would like to know how this turns out, please
keep us posted!
Good luck
Koos
------------
koos de heer
auryn management advies
utrecht, netherlands
mailto:koosdhr@auryn.nl
http://www.auryn.nl/