Ward Cunningham on the Crucible of Creativity
Impressionistic transcript from Ward Cunningham's opening keynote at wikisym...
I don't need to explain wiki to this audience. It;'s so tiny it doesn't need explanation, but you don't understand it until you have been there and done that. It's you and the community that participates that makes it real, gives me perhaps too much credit. My hope is that wiki becomes a totem for a way of interacting with people. Tradition in the work world has been more top down, while wiki, standing for the Internet, is becoming a model for a new way of work. Largely driven by reduced communication costs, it changes what needs to be done and how it's going to get done. I hope that the wiki nature, if not the wiki code, makes some contribution.
A wiki is a work sustained by a community. Often asked about difference between wiki and blog. Something tangible is ve The blogosphere is the magic that happens above blogs -- the blogosphere is a community that might produce a work. Whereas a wikis a work that might produce a community. It's all just people communicating.
One's words are a gift to the community. For the wiki nature to take whole, you have to let go of your words. You have to be okay with that. This goes into the name, called refactoring. To collaborate on a work, one must trust. The reason the cooperation happens is we are people and it is deep in our nature to do things together. Important to make a distinction. Cooperation has a transactional nature, we agree it is a mutual good. Collaboration is deeper, we don't know what the transaction is, or if there is one, but if I give of myself to thsi collablration, some good will come out of it. You have to trust somebody to collaborate. With wiki, you have to trust people more than you have any reason to trust them.
I just met Ward Cunningham last week at Web 2.0, he will be missed in the Patterns & Practices Team and I wish him well in his new endevor.