Please refer to the Draft Taxonomy and Draft Specification under Prototypes and Designs: Version 2 for more information.

The MOST helpful thing you can do to prepare for Monday's conversation is to review the Taxonomy and to assess to what extent the questions we are asking would adequately convey a recent project of yours in which a group worked together to solve a problem.

1) The goal of the project is to serve both as an inventory of democratic practices and as a hub for creating a community of practice. The project should promote the use of collaborative ways of working. Therefore who is the best target audience for the software?  To whom should we be "marketing" when publicizing the project?  How can we best reach the unconverted?

2) What do members of the target audience need to know in order to work more collaboratively?

3) If this community could have a set of tools at their disposal, what would they do?  What do you need to do your work?  What do you need to promote your work to others?

4) What incentives can we create to encourage people to participate?  Is the tool designed optimally for participation?  What improvements the functionality would you suggest?

5) How do we use size, color, intensity, shape and visual elements to convey the most information?  Are there design elements you like? Do not like?

6) The taxonomy proposes one vision for how groups form, cohere and work.  Do you agree with this vision?  Are there missing questions?  Answers?  Are there attributes or assets we emphasize too much?  What else would you like to know from those practicing participation? 

7) There are many examples of information visualization tools, designed to represent complex ideas through graphics.  We want both to show the Cairn but also to show the pathways between Cairns.  Are we interested in representing which projects people looked at together?  Which projects are most closely related?  Ratings of projects by the community?  What connections are the most meaningful to demonstrate?

8) The success of any collaborative project depends upon a clear delineating of roles and tasks to accomplish the mission.  Clearly, we will need people to participate in editing and maintaining the database.  What other roles do you envision would be helpful?

9) What incentives can we offer to people to take on these roles?  What is the most compelling argument from your perspective?

10) Are there specialty "sub-inventories" we should create as part of the larger tool?  For example, ought there to be Cairns interfaces customized for government, business or other domains?