I like it Robert,
and I dont think its saturated at all,
quite the reverse,
and, I also think this ( great quote ! )
really is newsworthy,
and would also serve two purposes,
keeping our writing focused,
and carving out a niche
in the blogosphere.

Brand is a complex concept,

With more of a collaborative effort, less hype,
less reliance of namedropping, but rather going
behind the scenes, and/or stepping back a notch,
and see the emerging patterns, through delving into
whats actually happening "out there" ie in grid computing
alternative ways of organizing activity, new ways of
aggregating people, local efforts,...

Your unique stance, Zbigniew, IS the very characteristic that would value to such a brand/blog.

But you say brand signals some kind of quality of service. For this to be true, for brand to work for you, then you've got to trust the other users of the brand to provide an equal service.

COnsidering my abliet limited experience in programming code for software and the underlining open source reality that even if your using licensed software, most expierence comes from reviewing other's attempts at solutions, I would say Microsoft is a perfect example of what you are describing.

I was also thinking about the book idea that Phil proposed in his initial post. What if we started with the idea of writing a book via blog, posted a WIKI along with our own weekly columns, let visitors add to the book along with our own contributions, and made the whole site an experiment in distributed authorship? Our weekly blog could be anything from what John talks about above, to additions to the WIKI, to ruminations on the process. We'd sit down at the end and edit it together into bookform. This might add a unique dimension to the site that could set us apart from other blogs already talking about social software, et al. Is this being done elsewhere and/or something worth trying?

Well, can't say the idea of blogging about RDF fills me with great enthusiasm ;-) But I'm coming around to the idea that a blog with Glocal Conversation as the theme *might* be made to work.

I think we'd still need to make sure there was a consistency in the main theme. Something like : exploring new ways of organizing work. That could include different types of business organization, discussion of the role played by the third sector, networked amateurs, social capital and reputation. (Including Zbigniew's social routing.) I'd like to talk a bit about alternative money and economics too (naturally), and pattern languages are of course an important tool.

I still think we have to push the "news" dimension for it to work as an interesting blog. That means contributers regularly monitoring a bunch of other sources to get up-to-date information. And it couldn't just be the same style of writing as posts to this Tribe. I really want to get beyond what a lot of people do, which is throw up their initial, enthusiastic intuitions and then don't develop it further. Forcing ourselves to find out the latest things seems a good way to escape that.

The other thing I think we might try is to get interviews with various people. I've seen these work well on programming oriented sites like www.artima.com/index.jsp and www.codegeneration.net/ . So maybe something similar could work for a GC blog.

Other points.

Zbigniew : On other more technical activities, like debugging teams. I guess what I feel about this is that, right now, I don't have a sense of how technical everyone is. In general it seems like a bigger commitment to an unknown quantity to try to build a group identity around our programming expertise. And I'm not one of those people who enjoys debugging much, so I'd need a real incentive to put much energy there.

Robert : I agree that in many cases a wiki is better than a weblog for less structured note-making and conversation. From my perspective I already keep two wikis (www.nooranch.com/synaesmed...i/wiki.cgi and www.nooranch.com/synaesmed...imaes.cgi) and a personal blog (blahsploitation.blogspot.com/).

I suppose what I'm looking for here, is something a bit different from that experience. Maybe with more structure and discipline :-)

As to writing a book. I still think this is phase 2. It's another big commitment which we might want to make when we know each other better.

So, on to a show of hands. If someone created a Glocal Conversation blog to talk about this kind of stuff. Who would be commited to contribute something like a minimum of 3 links and one short (3-5 paragraph story) per week, possibly for a small share of a tiny advertising revenue?

Also, who would be prepared to be the benign dictator, administrator, banker of the system? (I have to rule myself out of this role, because I don't have a bank account here in Brazil, and getting sent cheques is a pain.) John seems the obvious candidate or are there problems for you too? Is someone in the states better?