This week I am experimenting with a slightly new format for our daily posts. On Wednesdays, we are focused on swarming. Each week during a quarter we will cycle through the 7 different characteristics of swarms, presenting up to 20 or so small “minipost” articles on a particular topic of the week. The uncertain part of the experiment is precisely when I will send our daily mailing. I look forward to your feedback. Today’s topic is on openness and sharing.
The fourth characteristic of a swarmish network is that it is open and willing to share resources—both with its own membership and with others outside its network. Typically, the resources that it shares enables individuals (whether they are in the network or not) to help fulfill the plausible promise.
For example, if a swarm is all about encouraging people to host Discovery Bible Studies, then the swarm will want to give away as many template Bible Studies as possible. If a swarm is all about teaching people to tell Chronological Bible Stories using orality methods, then it will give away as many training materials as possible (including audio recordings, training sessions, etc). If it wants as many people as possible to see a particular gospel film, then it will make the film available for download as cheaply as possible (e.g. through Youtube, etc).
The point is: whatever action you want people to perform, give them the resources to perform it as cheaply as possible—so they can do the action. If you make people pay for the resources, you’re limiting your pool of potential actors.
Openness is also about using free tools wherever possible in order to reduce the cost of your swarm. After all, maintaining the network is the greatest daily expense of the network—not actually conducting the projects.
Today we’ll be posting a series of miniessays on the subject of Free Lunches, Standards, and Open Licensing for your resources.
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