Unconferences are crazy time. The upcoming Wikicamp.in is no exception. I along with Prasad of Universal Print System, initiated the Wiki2Booklet. We wanted to get the feel of collaborative book making possibility of the wiki. And also learn a few aspect of the wiki technology so that we can apply them in our day to day business activity.
We were a bit disappointed at the the lack of traction as on Friday morning: We wrote it off as dead turkey! Then during the organizer’s event walkthroug meeting, Wike2Booklet came up for discussion (Thanks Syed for thoughtfully inviting us to the meeting!). I was amazed at the way Kiruba smoothly enlisted volunteers for the booklet content. The Booklet became a reality within no time. As Kiruba puts it: we walked the talk! Kiruba has a lucid discription of the evolution in his Unconference book announcement.
I was the one doing/overseeing the cover desing, and text layout. I would have been more happy if the content was tuned to layman, and a few more rounds of editing. Well, there is always the next version. During the layout process, I was surprised by the lack of readymade, working tools to suck content out of a wiki as a pdf file or some other formatted file than can be used as a base for layout and formatting. The all too many links in the content were a real bitch to work on. Hari of UPSL was at it the whole night doing it meticulously.
The front cover page has a gapingvoid.com cartoon plus a area for autograph.
The back cover page inner is a tribute to the multiple versions of logos that were contemplated before the wikicamp logo was finalized. This is what I love the most. There were 43 logos. And it reflects the spirit of wiki, wikicamp, unconference in a major way. Featuring in the wikibooklet is a fitting tribute to the labour of love!
And finally the back cover with the Blue monster microsoft cartoon of gapingvoid juxtaposed to the wikipedia logo. The message is, while microsoft is struggling to reinvent itself the Wikipedia is changing and enabling change effortlessly.
Popcorn: I specifically did not give credit in the booklet to Hugh for his cartoons. The idea is, gapingvoid is so widely known, that not giving credit is the credit!
Overall, it was a educative and high energy exercise. Will I do it again: I will, I will!, but only after investing on an editorial resource and better tools.
Amazon Mturk earning can now be encashed in Indian Rupees… This is good news especially in the context of the money earned with Mturk cannot be used to buy digital content like Amazon shorts. ( Last year this restriction was not there, now due to DRM or some other reason no Digital Downloads to Third World )
Amazon Mturk is a unique service for using Humans to accomplish computational tasks that computers are bad at. To quote Amazon:
Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it.
And here is a more elobrate explanation of Mturk from the FAQ:
For software developers, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service solves the problem of building applications that until now have not worked well because they lack human intelligence. Humans are much more effective than computers at solving some types of problems, like finding specific objects in pictures, evaluating beauty, or translating text. The Amazon Mechanical Turk web service gives developers a programmable interface to a network of humans to solve these kinds of problems and incorporate this human intelligence into their applications.
For businesses and entrepreneurs who want tasks completed, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service solves the problem of getting work done in a cost-effective manner by people who have the skill to do the work. The service provides access to a vast network of human intelligence with the efficiencies and cost-effectiveness of computers. Oftentimes, the cost of establishing a network of skilled people to do the work outweighs the value of completing it. By turning the fixed costs into variable costs that scale with business needs, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web service eliminates this barrier and allows work to be completed that before was not economical.
For people who want to earn money in their spare time, the Amazon Mechanical Turk web site solves the problem of finding work that they can do wherever and whenever they want.
Amazon Web services in general, and Mturk in particular is a very promising technology. And the amazon’s charging model of ‘pay-by-pint’ is all set to revolutionize the web based/web scale application building/deployment/innovation.
The rupee based payout can dramatically change the way BPO and rural computing/rural development landscape. The and the huge housewife population looking for work can be gainfully employed with exceptionally reduced risk for both the employer and the employed.
I checked out the registration process to withdraw earnings in Indian Rupee, hmmm…., you need PAN number or passport to get verified…. This is shattering my housewife gainful engagement plan. Well, when you are transnational you have to play it extremely safe. And Amazon is just doing that.
Good luck Amazon Web Services team. Good luck Mturkers.
For a long time I’m exploring second life along with my client Universal Print System. Recently we started making Machinima movies. With the Wikicamp.in event in the horizon, I thought it is a good idea to test out our video making with a promotional video of wikicamp.in. Idea is to get some quick feedback from the community and learn a few tips on video blogging.
Here it is… feel free to comment, suggest changes.
There are some really interesting secondlife adventure planned at different levels of execution. Let us see how this advances them…
I’m going to celebrate Maha Shivaratri at the Villiangiri. On Maha Shivaratri day, the natural situation is very supportive for meditation. You can experiment with it by just keep your spine erect, close your eyes and meditate.
In recent times I’m talking to a lot of people about the social media revolution. Invariably I’ll mention Wikipedia, Flickr, Blogs and SecondLife. Blogs are easy to explain with the diary analogy. But wiki is bit counter intuitive. I usually bring in the traditional Car Festival analogy( not to be confused with the politically motivated Rath Yatras) to explain that Wiki is not a new concept but the good old Car Festival spirit in action with a technology spin.
The democratizing power of the social media is reflected in the blogs and wikis and the endless web2.0 trends. Individual freedom( reflected by blogs) and collective action/progress( reflected by wiki/wikipedia) is indeed advancing democracy( to democracy2.0; one day I will kick the 2.0 habit .
Jimmy Wales whose initiative brought alive the Wikipedia is going to be there at BlogCamp.in. His/and the Wikipedia communiti’s vision is to make the wikipedia available to every person in the world. And they are ready to bridge the digital divide to get this done.( Wikipedia in numerous regional languages is a good example of how Wikipedia community is addressing the digital divide by bridging the language divide). Since bidging the digital divide is close to my heart, I’m thrilled such an event is organized. Now it is kind of routine to expect such quality events from the Knowledge Foundation, the cheerful energetic folks that brought BarCamp, BlogCamp, Proto.in.
From the participants list it is clear( Doctors, writers, students, and of course techies) that it is going to be a true Car Festival at TIDEL park!
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