Humanize the Earth!

Ted update

Each of these could be it’s own post, but I’m just going to lump them all together, including the ones I’m not going to write about now. link

• LocalNames and WordPress plugin

It’s still crashing the blog, so no news yet. Hopefully soon.

• Future of Wiki Conferences

WikiSym looks like it’ll be in Montreal next fall. I’ve been invited to be part of the planning committee. Recent Changes Camp is also in Montreal in May. There are rumors it’ll move to coincide with WikiSym, but we’ll seen. WikiMania bids are in. Perhaps Europe. Perhaps Asia. Perhaps Alexandria, Egypt.

• Opening Space at a traditional conference

I’m still punting on this one. I’ll link to Gerard’s initial post about this when I finally reply in full.

• Inviting others to build groups in the Humanist Movement

Punting on this one for now as well.

• Air travel and terrorism

If we (the West) were really in a war with “terrorists” we would’ve already lost. Air travel is so disrupted as to make it hardly worth going. On the other hand, getting us used to putting up with crazy delays, searches and inconviences could be very useful for governments that like their populations docile. Coincidence?

• BeyondYes, large-scale decision-making

Brandon CS Sanders and have started a new business called BeyondYes. We’re working on corporate structures and stuff now, but our principles line up, and we’re looking for people interested in hiring us now. “Hire us for what?”, you ask. Well, to help your group make decisions, of course.Let’s say you’re the WikiMedia foundation, the organization that runs Wikipedia. You need to make decisions about what’s most important for the next release of the software. Maybe the way you’ve been doing it works pretty well. The community makes comments here and there, perhaps even well-organized, and the developers make recommendations based on those comments and their own inclinations and the lead developer makes the decision. Sounds pretty good. And what if that process is leaving people feeling as if they’re not part of the process? That’s where we come in. Using our process, we can help your community (including developers) make decisions that pretty much everyone agrees on.

Or let’s say you’re ICANN, the organization responsible for domains (one level above the companies actually selling domains to you, they decide if .com, .org, etc are enough or if applications for more, like .berlin, make sense). How do you satisfy all of your public and private consituencies around the world to make a decision? Right now your board takes all kinds of input and then votes on a plan. With out process, all of those consituencies can be directly involved in shaping the plan, both getting their own concerns heard and addressed, and helping to make sure the same is true for all consituencies.

Have another idea for a large-group decision that could use some help? Let me know and we can talk about what your goals are and see if there’s something we could help wtih.We are currently looking for our very first paying customer.