Doc Searls posts a nice metaphor about publishing, collaboration, and blogging this morning:
I've been pushing large rocks for short distances up a lot of hills, for a long time. Now, with blogging, I get to roll snowballs down hills. Some don't go very far. But some get pretty big once they start rolling.
This describes my very happy experience with the polar music meme I pushed off nearly a month ago. It affords a nice example of Web-based collaboration. We began with a blog post, where I floated an idea, with an image and a couple of links added. Comments began to appear, adding more information. I received still more suggestions via IM, email, and phone. All of these led me to a followup post, then another. One fine participant queried one of his networks, to which I did not have access, and harvested more goodies. To hold this sprawling stuff, I quickly opened a wiki page, which grew.
Blog post, blog comment, IM, email, email list, phone, wiki: all mobilized by interest and an ad hoc social network to create useful knowledge. That snowball went downhill indeed, and I'm grateful.
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