Massive Collaboration and Coordination Infrastructure

A light infrastructure to support massive, open, and decentralized collaborative networks

This page was created on Jun 21, 2010 and was last updated on Dec 24, 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.

EXAMPLES

Multitude Project itself is built on this infrastructure

Template for massive social projects: Watu Afrika

Example for an open enterprise SENSORICA

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General Concepts

See the "Building an open and decentralized organization for social change" manual.

This presentation is still under construction. Contact us to contribute.

Create a Google account

All Google services are accessible with the same account. If you build your infrastructure on Google, members will only need one password for everything.

Communications/coordination tools

Open a Gmail account

Subscribe for Google+, this will help you to share things with your collaborators.

webinar: You can use Google Hangout, or open a free Open Meetings account, go here for help.

Get Google Talk for your Gmail account for chat, voice/webcam conversations in small group.

Some prefer Mumble, for voice chat, but it requires more skills to set it up. See also Teamspeak. You can also use the free version of Join.me for presentation and desktop sharing. You can use webchat.freenode for text chat. Use Cryptocat for encrypted chat.

(you can embed most of these modules into your website)

Communication/collaboration tools

Create a Google Group. You can set it up as a simple mailing list or as a forum. Other options: BigBlueButton.

Use Doodle to set up date and time for meetings. Use TimeAndData to calculate time around the world.

Create a free website

Open a Google Sites account, see Example. This site will be your Home. It is a window to the public and your main resource for coordination and collaboration.

You can integrate your Google Site with your Google Group (a mailing list) and with Google Moderator.

Create a free blog

Open 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

You can think of it this way: your some pages of your Site are the windows of your "store", you only put there finished stuff. Other pages, including your Google Group and Gmail, 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 tools

Open a Google Youtube account (use it to store videos and to diffuse video content).

Open a Google Picasa account (use it to to store pictures and to diffuse image content).

Open an Google orkut account, a Facebook account, and a Twitter account (social media channel, communication and coordination).

You can also go with Reddit account, Digg, Rebelmouse, Pintrest and 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 it AUTOMATICALLY spreads.

Knowledge mining

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 base

Open a Google Knol account - this acts as a sharable knowledge base

Use Diigo to collaboratively gather information and to structure it.

Project management tools

• • Pivot Tracker - integrates well with Google

• Redmine

• Project Open

• Trello

• Google Docs - Spreadsheets forms and lists

You can also use embedded lists gadgets on your home website as project management tools.

Content management and productivity tools

Open a Google Docs account and you get

1. word processor

2. spreadsheet

3. forms

4. slide presentation

5. drawings

You can share and co-edit all documents 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 stuff, 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 as content management tools, to store and manage videos and pictures respectively, which you can embed on Site and Bolg, and distribute over Social Media.

Use Google Calender to create and share events with your collaborators (see example bellow). See also Doodle. You can use timeanddate to communicate time coordinates unambiguously around the world.

Use Diigo, to gather and share links, to annotate webpages and share, a to collaboratively gather and structure data and information on the Internet.

See also EtherPad - Open Source, a fast way to co-edit simple text.

Examples

Strategy and logistical tools

Use 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 negotiation

Use 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/services

Open a PayPal account

Network tools

Open an account to Google Analytics. You can link Sites and Blog to Analytics to analyse your traffic.

Other important tools

Backup all your websites with http://www.httrack.com/ for example, it's free and open source.

Other collaborative platforms

OpenAtrium

BetterMeans

n-1

See also Theoretical background of organization

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Suggestions?