(2015-01-23) Caulfield Makers And Users

Mike Caulfield: “Users”

What interests me most in ds106, for example, is not the making (Maker), but the co-making (Collaboration). In these projects I see a chance for an engagement that is less ego-driven, less divisive, and ultimately more useful to society. In the years since Gutenberg I think we’ve managed to get the single brilliant author thing down pretty pat. It might be time to try something else.

Back in 2010 I was getting a coffee with Jon Udell, and he said something that has stuck with me. He had been trying to get people involved with community by encouraging production of various things, but it wasn’t working the way he planned. He said that there was a point he realized that he was trying to make everyone a writer. And everyone’s not a writer.

His obsession with getting people to share calendar feeds seemed odd to some people, but for him it was (I think) about something bigger. Were people to simply share community calendar feeds with a hub, we could solve far more community issues than a roomful of bloggers ever would.