Tools for Dialogue and Deliberation on Wicked Problems

Collective Sensemaking for Science and Journalism

How can collective sensemaking capabilities be built into journalism? Or into science? Or into science and journalism together? Next month in Barcelona – and as of now here – we will be federating answers to this questions. Please contribute your ideas. As a seed to this conversation, please see our TNC Prototype, where Compendium, Cohere and Acrobat Professional are used as Lego blocks to develop a pattern where scientists, journalists and 'the crowd' cooperate in creation and verification of new insights.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jack Park on October 23, 2011 at 16:53

Consider the notion of a heads up display, which is a set of views in front of you that do not interfere with your focus of attention, but still make information readily available. The typical example of a "HUD" is found in fighter airplanes where an image that contains specific information is beamed up to be displayed on the canopy where the pilot is looking.

Mark Szpakowski talks of a personal knowledge garden he calls Identi-Me (a portal that exists as a representation of my identity, my interests), which is just like a any page being visited on the Web, but with side bars that know the context (URL, personal interests, etc), and keep relevant information, tools for annotating, linking, notetaking ready at hand.

This notion of a HUD applied to journalism is exactly Mark's Identi-Me, where a journalist is composing a report. In that context, keywords (tags) have been entered, causing the system to arrange resources to assist in the composition. In a prior scenario, the journalist is researching for the report, setting up those keywords and resources, while the garden links those to related resources in the background.

All of that is predicated on collective sensemaking; many others, some not even interested in the same topics, have tagged, annotated, and connected resources that ultimately serve the journalist in one way or another. It is as if millions of people have contributed Compendium documents to Cohere, and wired ideas in those documents together into coherent stories which are there to support augmented journalism.

Permalink Reply by Dino Karabeg on October 23, 2011 at 20:18

Thanks, Jack! Would you consider submitting a contribution to the workshop, and presenting online? Even a half-page is enough, for each track. I will post the details here in a moment.

Permalink Reply by Jack Park on October 23, 2011 at 20:59

Presenting something, say, over Skype, sounds reasonable. Actually sounds like a good idea. Must look closely at calendars, etc.

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