The more we hear people in the Czech forum sharing their experience of trying to get through situations that come along in their lives, we cannot but notice some similarities as well as varieties of solutions they tried out. Would it be too bold, in-fact, to try to put our minds together and see if something practical comes out of them?
I do believe it is actually manageable:) As we discussed it today, we imagined a “Life-Survival” CookBook, aggregating the stories and paths people shared on Edgeryders into a possible practical Wellbeing-guide. Now, the question is - how should it look like? We can hardly develop a perfect problem solving algorithm (anyway, we already have youtube and google, right ), but there are real experiences at hand which can inform real decisions. The upcoming community events present a perfect opportunity for hearing even more of them.
Czech forum will proudly serve as the testing ground, coming along with the national stereotype of real-life improv problem solving in any situation (and stubbornly at all costs, heh), we will see if we can translate our collective knowledge into a structured guide.
What is certain, the Edgeryders platform is our knowledge database by default already - how can we develop from here? And how will the chapters in our book and their structure look like? Let us see what the mysterious future brings…
Great idea… but very difficult, because of the well known difficulties in organizing lots of idiosyncratic, rich experiences into an “ontology of everything”. Any attempt to do so runs into a lot of platypi, i.e. unclassifiable stuff. The most engaging account of that, in my humble opinion, is Clay Shirky’s fantastic 2005 essay called Ontology is overrated.
If you buy Shirky’s argument, the CookBook is Edgeryders itself. All of if: not only the 55K posts, but also the web of links leading from post to post, and the 5.5K registered users, who act as the living memory of past experiences and past conversations to share them.
If you don’t, then you need to bite the bullet and try to make your ontology. The closest we have is @matthias’s encyclopedian attempt at an “operating system for the planet”, called Earth OS. But it takes a mind like Matt’s to stay on top of something that big.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by a “cookbook”. In design we talk about Christopher ALexander’s pattern language - a kind of simple framework for approaching messy problems. In Edgeryders I think the equivalent is actually the process of which you have been a part as an active protagonist: Reach out, engage people in conversation, which leads to connection, process information making it easier to see where people’s trajectories cross - and then you are connected in map of people with clouds of experiences, interests, networks that are somehow relevant to where you are and want to go. I think where we are different is that there is a methodology and tools to be able to do this at the scale of relationship-building needed in order for people to have what they need - enough other cooks. So maybe a cookbook as a presentation of chefs rather than recipes.
), but there are real experiences at hand which can inform real decisions. The upcoming community events present a perfect opportunity for hearing even more of them.