Power of Foswiki

In Twiki and Foswiki: Ship of Fools I took the odd organisational sculpting perspective. And subsequently participated in the Foswiki Summit 2009 in Hannover two weeks ago. I promised “more 2 follow …”

Walking my Talk and Talking my Walk

Foswiki forked and quickly learned from what happened and installed an Association at the recent Summit. The association is not only useful for protection while adhering to legacy system rules. We win by giving the keys to a crew of rowdy perjured rascals, and by community-centered politics to drive steering. In general, open source associations are a “direct” opportunity for community members to contribute their energy, passion, talent and, yes, also money.

And what is the Foswiki community?

Contributions are not restricted to coding. Screencasting, making (funny and/or sexy) video’s for reaching out to possible new end-users that may be served by the community (and that upon looking further find an extremely sexy wikitool), translating documentation to local languages, supporting (other) end-users on the forums and through other channels, organising and participating in coding dojo’s and other fun choreographies at events for giving the core a development boost, are all acknowledged and appreciated contributions.

Innovation boost of products and service growth

I anticipate the current community-centered Foswiki strategy will hold space for and give end users the freedom to create and drive innovation boost of products and service growth. Why? The existing Foswiki already is an exemplary tool offering “differing but complementary approaches [to] information-storage, creation, and dissemination”, in short, it is an “association platform” going beyond what the public formerly expected of websites. In addition to bringing people together in the association, in a board, task forces and face-to-face meetings, many other channels are used by the Foswiki community, also during the Summit itself. The integration of the emerging array of tools collectively known as “Web 2.0”, of which Foswiki itself is one, offers additional efficient and effective means for people to collaborate, create and share knowledge and information.

My Two Feet

I expect a renewed culture to emerge, one that values co-creation and openness to collaboration next to centralized structures and processes that are required for protection, yet do not overregulate. On the whole, something that might attract a lot of people. I see opportunities for exploring new ways of doing business together, and feel confident I can contribute something useful in return that aligns with my energy, passion, and talents, while serving the building of more connections. My Two Feet are heading in Foswiki direction for that.