iterating toward openness

I love the fact that there are so many people out there (you!) who are willing to share. This latest bit of love is directed at Scott for his absolutely brilliant (and exquisitely well-timed, for me) essay Planning to Share versus Just Sharing. The headings give you a taste for this classic compare and contrast piece juxtaposing our individuals’ sharing practices with those of institutions:

- We grow our network by sharing, they start their network by setting up initial agreements.
- We share what we share, they want to share what they often don’t have (or even really want).
- We share with people, they share with “Institutions.”
- We develop multiple (informal) channels while they focus on a single official mechanism.

The paper reminds me somewhat of Clay Shirky’s A group is its own worst enemy. D’Arcy says, “Sharing works because you do it. That’s all there is to it.” After reading Scott, Tony is left asking himself, “I wonder if we have any more SocialLearn planning meetings this week?” I find myself asking the same question about new open projects whose planning I am participating in. Thanks, Scott, for the uber-timely and super thoughtful post!