Translation required ...

The following arrived today

Knowledge Co-Creation between Organisations and the Public
Call for Participation in the XXX Workshop which will be held on [Date] in YYYY

Inspired by concepts such as collective intelligence, citizen science, citizen journalism and crowdsourcing, diverse types of organisations are aiming to increase engagement with the public, collect localised knowledge, or leverage human cognition and creativity. In supporting these approaches, organisations are often provoked to make their data and processes more open, and to be inclusive of differing motivations and perspectives from inside and outside the organisation. In doing so, they raise new questions for both designers and organisations:

How are systems designed to manage data, attribute work, or draw boundaries between  ”official” and externally generated knowledge? How can openness support collaborations across organisations as well as with the public where there are shared interests?

How can the professional framed context and metadata standards be connected with the just-in-time, emergent nature of amateur online collection and curation? Is the role of the professional changed by these innovations?

How can systems be designed to leverage complementary or differing motivations, and how do we conceptualise these in design? How to prompt amateurs’ contributions that may be of value for institutions and users?

Any offers on what it means?

The email attached to it ended '... one of the most relevant conferences on social computing. Hope you will find it of interest!' Um ...

Lacking in vision?

A current favourite is a poem by Kipling called the Gods of the Copybook Headings. This argues that the old sayings have stood the test of time and are much better guides than following the call of the market: Kipling in his reactionary phase, perhaps.

It contains some wonderful lines which are so appropriate for some of the funding bodies, agencies and bureaucracies with which we deal. The best is the verse:
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn 
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
How often we are told the obvious as if it were some new discovery ...

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
How could we possibly think that bureaucrats were 'lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind ...'?
Unheard of. They have lists of boxes that need ticking.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place ...
Good customer-responsive stuff then. Or try:
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch ...
By now you should be beginning to say yeeeees! ...

Love the lines; we just wish Kipling's conclusion was not so backward-looking.