[CREATE] LGM11 panel proposal: attracting new devs

[Mushon Zer-Aviv]

On Feb 21, 2011, at 4:17, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:

> All fodder for discussion at LGM. Certainly we need to get out of the dark ages of documentation as an afterthought.
> 
> Greg
> 
This is actually a huge issue I recently discussed with Adam Hyde of Floss Manuals. FM was initially established to address a blind-spot for Floss — documentation. It developed the book sprint documentation methodology which I am sure you guys are familiar with. 

Last year I participated in "Collaborative Futures" the first book initiated by FM that was not documenting a procedure but describing the past, present and future of open networked collaboration. It was much much harder, but there was something there that really clicked. And after a second sprint on the book I actually think it's a quite recommended read. (and it is always available for further editing)

What I proposed to Adam is that FM could start experimenting in writing manuals for software that was not developed yet. Basically asking "how would we like it to work?" before we say "this is how do you need to use it." This would actually be addressing another blind-spot for Floss which is strategy. 

I know Adam is really excited about this idea and maybe LGM could be the first place to try it out. Do consider it would probably not work the first time and would need some iterations but it could be a much needed intervention into a process that we all agree needs some challenging. 

The infrequent lurker,

Mushon Zer-Aviv
Mushon.com | Shual.com | @Mushon
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