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Question 113 of 365: Why do we need collaborative email signatures?

Published on April 23, 2010, by in 365 Questions, Uncategorized.
Gmail's Black Dot, Do you see it too?
Image by Gubatron via Flickr

I feel more complete when other people come into my space than when I go into theirs. I feel as though they are reaching out to me, especially if I haven’t given an invitation that must be accepted or rejected. Mass participation in something I helped to create is like no other sensation I know. It is as if I am being chosen from all of the activities that exist and when I see other people take part and engage in the act of co-authoring something, I feel energized and warm. It is those moments of potential when I notice I am not the only one with a particularly interesting idea that seem to lead to everything else. It is as if my mind bounces sets up everyone that is engaged within my head as a pinball machine and bounces the ideas back and forth. And then when the words start to come, the transformation from idea to reality is so complete and beautiful that I pursue it like my son pursues a new tiny raisin box. I can’t be the only one who sees collaboration like this.

So, I had an idea.

What if I demonstrated my value for collaboration within every communication that I sent out? What if I showed people that I believe in crowdsourcing and co-creation within every one of my utterances? What if I left an olive branch out there for others to grab ahold of no matter whether my tone was repentant, forceful or self-abasing in my voice?

As I thought about all of the ways in which I decry a lack of communication and collaboration, I had never really given others an option of exercising their collaborative muscles without first giving them concrete parameters for doing so. Collaboration always had to be for a specific purpose, rather than just for the joy of being a part of creating something together. I knew that I had to show co-creation in the contexts that others envision, rather than just opening up the possibility of letting collaboration happen.

In the hopes of spontaneous collaboration, I have set up an open Google Doc that is now a permanent part of my e-mail signature. With every reply, I will be telling people that I would rather be contacted through collaboration than through a phone number. I am telling people the ways in which I connect must be within a co-created space rather than on “my turf” or theirs. While this may be nothing more than an experiment, I am now inviting everyone to come together rather than simply take a look at my identity. And, I encourage others to do the same.

What if we all used collaborative signatures? What if we found ways to promote the values that we say that we have signed on for? What if we didn’t point people to our websites and our blogs, but rather we pointed them to take part in branding our conversations with everything that they bring to the table? What if we learned from one another without the boundaries of a single e-mail thread? What if we created the spaces for solving common problems and what if we actually solved them?

I get why specific spaces work so well. I get why Facebook and LinkedIn are so wildly popular. You know what you are supposed to do there. You are supposed to share information about yourself and establish a presence that others can come and interact with. What I am proposing is a departure from this because I am advocating for a space with undefined identity. In fact, the way I created the link to share the Google Doc, pretty much assumes everyone is anonymous unless they login from the Doc itself. I am also proposing a space that can change ownership and focus depending on who is there and how it is being used. Because people can exist in real-time within the document’s chat area, conversations can happen and then disappear. Because people can leave semi-permanent notes and ideas for one another, it is like having one massive whiteboard that other people can add to at will.

Given that so many of us are working from anywhere there is an internet connection, we need an office whiteboard that can be doodled on and graffitied. We all need a space that doesn’t have the parameters of meeting notes and agenda items or informal sharing that drifts by in a stream of tweets. We need almost permanence. We need open-endedness. We need collaborators.

And we should show this need every chance we get.

So, here is what I am starting with. Create your own space:

This is my public collaborative document for anyone who I correspond with to take part in. It is an experiment in whether or not giving people the option of collaborating and creating together will cause them to do so, despite the very different types of people that I talk to on a regular basis.

What kinds of things can you do here?

  • Leave me notes. Leave other people notes. Drop in interesting pictures.
  • Ask a question or answer one.
  • Throw out an idea or build something new.

Obviously, this isn’t the place where you will write the great American novel, but you can take whatever is in this document and use it however you like. I am licensing everything here as Creative Commons Attribution-Only. Go bananas.

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Question 23 of 365: Is asking for permission still important?

Published on January 23, 2010, by in 365 Questions, Uncategorized.


Is it still important to ask for permission when people tell you exactly how they want you to use their work?

Is it still important when your identity is entirely public?

Is it still important when your everyday life can just as easily be a topic at the water cooler as major world events?

Is it still important when the sincerest form of flattery is the embed code?

Asking for permission used to be something that was a common occurrence when you wanted to borrow ideas or resources from one another. It used to be standard operating procedure when you wanted to contact someone that you didn’t know; you had to ask someone who had their contact info to be introduced. In another time, stumbling into the limelight wasn’t a possibility for anyone with a video camera. In that sense, you used to have to ask permission of the distribution systems (public access TV, independent films, etc.) to become infamous for your content.

No longer is any of this the case. Asking for permission has gone way out of style. It is more important to disseminate information, remix work, make contact, and market yourself than it is to take the time to ask for permission. Permission itself is an outmoded construct. Permission implies a singular ownership. Permission requires one person to know things that others cannot without it. Permission is hierarchical. It is anti-flat world. It is against the commons. It is a falsehood in a world where you can “follow” anyone or where life streams aren’t questioned as being too invasive.

Or perhaps, it is all just an implied permission. Perhaps we are to the point where we are just giving each other permission for everything, where we find it is easier to share our work than it is to hide it. Perhaps permission has dissolved into the vast ocean of free content that exists. Perhaps the only people who are still fighting for permission are the ones who are trying to hold on to the remnants of intellectual property that have been usurped by other, more open outfits.

On the other hand, I hope I am not making the case for everything to be in the public domain. I am not communistic in my view of our lack of permission asking. Rather, I believe in attribution. I believe in purchase. I believe in obeying the wishes of content creators. But, I also believe that a society that does not ask for permission is one that forges a trust that should be sacrosanct. If we all understand what it means to build something together and to reach for better ways of learning, creating or working then we can collectively pull everyone out of poverty. We can collectively attain transparency. We can work together to be productive, profitable, and passionate.

If we don’t ask for permission, we must act in everyone’s interest.

We must be a plural society if we are to be this connected. I do not believe that this is too idealistic when we are no longer separated by 6 degrees of separation. When we literally can connect with anyone in the planet by 1 degree, everyone is our neighbor. And, most of the time, you don’t even have to ask your neighbors for help when you are in trouble. Help just comes.

© Learning is Change