[Pattern-language] response to the question "What next?"

[Doug Schuler]

This is my long response to Mike Gurstein's simple question: What next?   Sorry for the length — I hope it's useful!   it started with the 10 Categories list I sent out last week.  Thanks!    — Doug

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Thanks Mike. 

It's always been my contention that if we don't organize we will lose — at least to some degree. (And to me "winning" means gaining some influence on the future, i.e. it’s not a zero-sum game.)

We must be more organized, and neither a market-based or top-down hierarchical approach will work. And, waiting for the right approach to emerge means that we miss the boat. The NSA, Google, Facebook, etc. etc. will grab the reins and never them go. Let's not forget that Chicken Little is sometimes right... 

I believe that a pattern language* approach can provide one possible way to organize people — but with a light touch. With a small amount of change in our work we can help ensure that we’re coordinating better, while working more-or-less independently. 

A pattern language is intended to be holistic. In other words, if we (writ large) are hoping to help shape the the communications and information systems that are used in the future, we need to be working in LOTS of different areas — and the work we do should be mutually reinforcing. For example, while I totally support your efforts to get more voices represented in bodies that are deliberating about the future of the Internet, I don't feel that that should be the whole of our campaign. (I’m of course not saying that you’d claim that it was.) 

So, to get out of theory and into action, what would we do next?

I think we would need to start developing patterns for the categories I suggested. This means thinking and writing about actions that we’re probably doing  already and what we think we ought to be doing. At the same time, however, we want to be putting these patterns into action — and this will take different forms when used by different people in different contexts. 

And while we’re doing that I’d also suggest looking into "meta patterns." Aldo and I have discussed these to some degree; they are basically patterns about patterns; how we develop them, how we use them, how they’re supposed to be used in conjunction with each other — their linkages etc., how we self govern the process, and why are we doing it. 

This approach is described as We make the road by walking by education liberators such as Myles Horton and Paulo Friere, as well as technologists such as Tim Berners-Lee, when he said, we make the future by building it. (Thanks to Fiorella for reminding me of this!) And the Internet itself also was moved along in this way in the pre-corporate, pre-NSA days, via RFC’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Request_for_Comments). 

It sounds complicated but I don’t think it is. We’ll never speak with exactly one voice but this process could help us see where we are and what we can do.

Thanks!!

— Doug


* I generally agree with the definitions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_language. Patterns are statements of actions that can be used over and over without using them the same way twice (From The Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander). And a pattern language is a coherent, holistic collection of these patterns. The important elements of pattern languages for me are the holism, the integration of theory of theory and practice / thought and action, the acknowledgement of local context, the generativity of the patterns, and the explicit claim that the forces that we advocate with the patterns are intended to divert existing forces and help build a better society. These ideas were explicit in Christopher Alexander’s original writings and I’d dispute (to some degree) the definition of patterns as merely “good design practices.” You can get an idea of what I think patterns are by looking at our collection at http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv. (I couldn’t find an online list of the 136 patterns in the original book, A Pattern Language. It should be noted that the pattern language approach has been adopted by people in many fields, from interface design to  permaculture to education and so on. 




Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org
https://twitter.com/doug_schuler

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Public Sphere Project
     http://www.publicsphereproject.org/

Creating the World Citizen Parliament
     http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament
     
Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) 
     http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv

Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book)
     http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601






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