A light infrastructure to support massive, open, and decentralized collaborative networks This page was created on Jun 21, 2010 and was last updated on Jan 02, 2012 Communicate, Collaborate, Coordinate YOU HAVE the tools! This type of infrastructure can support massive open and decentralized collaborative networks. It is a LEGO-type infrastructure, which means that it is modular, composed of inter-operable individual services. It is entirely FREE, all services used are available for free on the Internet. This particular example is mostly based on Google free products/services. Almost all of it runes on mobile devices like the iPhone and the Google pone.
The entire infrastructure can be put together and deployed in only a few hours. Because it is free and easy to assemble it is the perfect solution for very dynamic and massive actions. It enables massive movements to form spontaneously and to act swiftly. After it has served its purpose it can be simply dismantlement. Thinking on a longer term, its development and maintenance is almost entirely delegated to Google and others who offer modules compatible with Google's platform. This infrastructure can support different types of organizations: social projects, activist organizations, knowledge organizations, organizations for innovation production and distribution, etc. EXAMPLESMultitude Project itself is built on this infrastructureTemplate for massive social projects: Watu Afrika Examples of dynamic and massive social movements: Rosia Montana, Occupy New Economy Example for an open enterprise Matchmaking Device DN or SENSORICA Example for an open network of food production and distribution Ask for a copy for any templates, Contact us for assistance Join the discussion General ConceptsSee the "Building an open and decentralized organization for social change" manual. This presentation is still under construction. Contact us to contribute. Create a Google accountAll the Google services are accessible with the same account. One password for everything.
Open an iGoogle account. This is your command center. All Google services you subscribe to can be integrated into your iGoogle page.
Communications/coordination toolsSubscribe for Google+, this will help you to share things with your collaborators.
webinar: open a free Open Meetings account, go here for help.
Get Google Talk for your Gmail account for voice/webcam conversations in small group. You can also use Google Hangout for video conference, or Skype. You can use Join.me, the free version for presentation and desktop sharing. You can use webchat.freenode for text chat (you can embed most of these modules into your website)
Communication/collaboration toolsOthers: BigBlueButton Use Doodle to set up date and time for meetings. Use TimeAndData to calculate time around the world.
Create a free websiteYou can integrate your Google Site with your Google Group (a mailing list) and with Google Moderator.
Create a free blogOpen a Google Blog account
Blog, Google Sites, Gmail, Google Group can be integrated together. Whenever you publish something on your site or Blog this will appear on your Google+. You can also post on your Blog from your Gmail or from Google Groups. You can also syndicate your Site and Blog, so that visitors can transmit content through their own social media. Use
Think of it this way: your Site is the window of your "store", you only put there finished stuff. Your Google Group and Egamil, is the back-store. This is where your collaboration goes on, this is where you are brainstorming, negotiating, etc. Your Blog is the daily journal, use it to keep everybody (collaborators, customers, etc.) posted with new developments.
Google sites is now automatically integrated with Google Translate, so your pages in almost any language can be translated into almost any language, shattering language barriers.
Social Media and Viral Marketing toolsOpen a Google Youtube account.
Open a Google Picasa account
Open an Google orkut account
Open a Facebook account
Open a Twitter account
others...
Use Picasa and Youtube to upload photos and videos on the Internet. They both integrate very well with Google Sites and Blog. You can embed pictures, pictures albums, videos, and video lists with only a click of a button. Blog integrates well with Digg, Twitter and Facebook, so every time you publish a blog post, from your Blog or directly from your Gmail or Wave account it AUTOMATICALLY spreads.
Knowledge miningOpen a Google Reader account. Use this tool to share with your collaborators your readings, your favorite links
Use Google Scholar to search for specialized scientific papers, build databases and share it with your collaborators Use Google Books to search for books, build databases and share it with your collaborators
Knowledge baseOpen a Google Knol account - this acts as a sharable knowledge base Use Diigo to collaboratively gather information and to structure it.
Project management tools
You can also use embedded lists gadgets on your home website as project management tools. Content management and productivity toolsOpen a Google Docs account and you get
All these documents you can share and co-edit in real time. Moreover, you can post spreadsheets, graphs and charts on your Sites. You can use them to keep your records, to make calculations and keep accounts, etc. All your office can be based on Google Docs. Moreover, you can use forms in democratic decision making processes - see example bellow.
Open a Google Sketchup account to create 3D models of your product, to co-create these models, to share them with your collaborators, and to easily integrate them into your Sites and Blog. Use your Google Youtube and Google Picasa accounts to store and manage videos and pictures respectively, which you can embed on Site and Bolg, and distribute over Social Media. Use Use Google Calender to create and share calendars with your collaborators (see example bellow). See also Doodle. You can use timeanddate to communicate time coordinates unambiguously around the world.
See also all other productivity gadgets that you can subscribe to from your iGoogle account, and to put on your iGoogle page, the command center. Youtube and Picasa can also be used as content management tools, where you can store and organize your videos and pictures. Use Google Bookmarks to gather and share lists of links. See also Diigo, a better free service to collaboratively gather and structure data and information.
See also EtherPad - Open Source, a fast way to co-edit simple text.
Examples
CalendarUse Doodle to set up date and time for meetings. Use TimeAndData to calculate time around the world. Strategy and logistical toolsUse geo-mapping with Google Maps. You can create your own maps, using my maps functions, where you can identify points of interest, trace perimeters, show trajectories, and share that with your collaborators. You can use these tools to plan location-specific marketing actions for example.
You can click once on the blue things on the map
Decision making and negotiationUse Sites and Google Docs/forms to embed forms for people to vote on, as a democratic decision making process. Forms automatically generate spreadsheets, the results can be posted in real time. See Examples
Use Google Moderator: Collaborative Q&A for group events.
Google Moderator will help keep discussions on track by allowing users
to both suggest questions and vote on others' questions. Go HERE to see how to integrate it into your Google Sites. See example on this site. See also Doodle.
Financial tools/servicesOpen a PayPal account
Network toolsOpen an account to Google Analytics. You can link Sites and Blog to Analytics to analyse your traffic. Other important toolsBackup all your websites with http://www.httrack.com/ for example, it's free and open source. Other collaborative platformsContact us for assistance.
|
|
|
|
|
Home >
Massive Collaboration and Coordination Infrastructure |
 EVERYTHING created by the Multitude Project is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. |
