Boone Gorges asked a great question about openness that has been itching at my mind ever since I drove out of Vancouver from Open Ed 2009: Is there a tension between individual vs communal voice (i.e. creation)? And while this post started out as a long-ish, impromptu comment on Boone’s blog post, I figured if I didn’t pay some attention to my blog this month, even roughly-whisked and half-cooked attention, I’d risk losing grip on it forever. (Thus the following instances of ellipses that stand in for confused thoughts I’ve yet to articulate.)
First, I recommend you read Boone’s post, as I don’t want to re-state his exploration of both Gardner’s and John’s Open Ed 09 thoughts here. I think there is definite tension between individualism and communalism, especially in context of creativity. Such tension may be culturally inherited, or it may be endemic in our brains. I.e., we need to work in groups/tribe to survive; we want to claim individual power and perpetuate our own unique genes. It’s much deeper and richer than that.
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As I sat in on John’s Thinkubator session I recalled how recently I had reluctantly agreed to author a full white paper collaboratively through Google Docs with a colleague. For a while we both were very sensitive to the other’s contributions–”do you mind if I enhance paragraph 10?” or “I’m going to rework your section on X, is that cool?” We were very courteously practicing the golden rule.
After a while, however, the insistence of the deadline and the necessity of coherence required us to abandon courtesy in favor of efficiency, and thus we diminished both of our individualizations of the article. We ended up with a decent article, produced in probably 75% (not half) of the time it would have taken just one of us to produce it. Do I feel like I own that document? No. Do I feel I co-own it? Yes. Do I want to take credit for it? Kind of, because in doing so I’m taking credit for someone else’s work, including their flaws. Did the structure of the project support our objectives? Yes, but I certainly wouldn’t adopt a collaborative approach for all, not even most, of the documents I author. I’d rather more closely tie my identity to my individual work, and that means making my exact contributions extricable from the original.
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On a loosely related note, I was searching for an image for a presentation the other day, had exhausted CC licensed images on Flickr or Google, couldn’t find anything on the paid license site I subscribe to, and was seriously contemplating just stealing someone else’s IP. I should preface this by saying that CC and the availability of open-licensed works has allowed me to respect other people’s © IP more appropriately (OK, I know some of you want to pick the Copyleft fight with me, but some other time). But as I was looking at this ideal image, contemplating swiping it and using it, a shudder of confusion and regret came through me, and I realized, twenty years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about appropriating the image.
No, I would not have just taken it.
I would have made my own.
Which led me to wonder, by refuting closed licensing, does openness provide a path that is “quicker, easier, more seductive”, yet diverts one away from creativity, innovation, and individual growth through distinguishing effort?
