ChangeMedium

ChangeMedium is coming to Montreal on December 18th. Following up on his participation at #cmToronto, Status.net founder Evan Prodromou has invited us to join them at their first ever StatusCamp. Status.net is the open source micro-messaging platform that can be hosted independently as a private or public platform like laconi.ca. For us at ChangeMedium public micro-messaing is at the heart of this inflection in the web and at the core of the medium for change. That perspective is what hope to bring to StatusCamp.

On December 18th the entire Status.net team will be together to host an unconference led by Jon Phillips. It’s an excellent opportunity to understand, explore, and apply this medium. In typical unconference fashion what we do is up to you. And in typical unconference fashion, what we’ll do is what we need to move forward.

In that spirit I’m putting out the call to all you folks interested in making change using the medium of change. Status.net has opened their arms and their community. Let’s show up and return the spirit. How can we advance our understanding, contribute to, and apply this medium for change?

Contribute your thoughts in the comments or on the wiki. In or near Montreal then come on out for the 18th. Just email jon@status.net, message him on Identica, or put yourself on the wiki.

Let’s help make the medium of change.

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The proprietary/open balance in startup mode.

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I’ve written some before on our efforts to peer-produce Shouldess Inc. (^shldlss), the developer of VenTwits and the for-profit cohort of the Social Venture Commons (^svc). We’ve decided to launch early and iterate rapidly with VenTwits and its group focused cousin GroupTwits (to be turned on soon). We’re also planning to open source our code once we’ve rebuilt a core based on how people actually use it.

I believe in the principles and power of peer-production but am finding it a constant tension as we build the for-profit startup. A big part of that I’m sure is my experiential conditioning. What’s been most recently tested is how much of our business strategy and development plans should be in the public domain.

Taylor Davidson, who is stepping up to help on the financial modeling and strategy side asked me point blank. I fumbled some lame answer that didn’t really say anything. As I’ve sat with it now for a couple of days, I’m actually questioning what if anything should be kept private. It comes down to speed of execution and I also think that the more broader the engagement the greater defensibility we have – provided we execute. If people are a part of it, they’ll rally to support it.

What do you think? Is there anything that should be kept private? Why? What are the risks? What are the benefits?

Right now I’m feeling ready to open everything up and push this experiment even further.

Foolish or fruiful?

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