I should tell you what I mean by working open. And why.

What it means is that I’ll be blogging about how I’m creating an open publishing company. What needs to be done, achievements, frustrations, ramblings. I’ve started a GoPlan space for my project and it has a blogging feature so I can feed right into this space. (I like the idea of doing the same for each artefatica project as well. To help teams stay on track and to document the evolution of our creation and collaboration.  I’m interested in shedding light on what it means to work together. Bumps and all.)

There are a few reasons why.

• To walk my talk. As a communicator and advocate for knowledge sharing I’ve spent years convincing my colleagues to blog and to leave traces so that others can learn from them. I’ve told them it’s better to give away what they know. That it will improve their competitiveness, not weaken them.
• Great way to build an audience. I’m gonna make books, organize events, sell stuff, build communities around ideas. I want you to participate, come create with me, buy, and tell your friends all about us. Best way to do this? Be authentic. Share.
• I like helping others. You want to start an open publishing company too? Great. Follow us and learn from our successes and failures.
• I like receiving help. The more I talk about what I’m working on or struggling with the better the chance some nice person will send me a great idea or solution.
• Free culture and openness matters deeply. It will change our world. So I want to embrace it at every level of what I do.
• I’m terrible at keeping secrets. Although I do succeed some of the time ;)

So there you have it. Next I want to share some of the great examples I’ve come accross after stumbling on this idea. I am not alone.

That’s still part of it.  But the idea has evolved and expanded as I’ve struggled to explain what I want to do, why, how it can work, and why others should join me. I realized that there was more: Creative Commons licensing expands the pool of content I can publish and provides a better way to distribute new content. I can create more than books: networked objects, events, communities, feedback loops, second editions that incorporate readers’ contributions. Books with no boundaries.

Thanks to the help of many people (you’ll have to come back if you want to find out who) Artefatica is now a reality. We’re working on our first project, sorting out all the details, setting up systems. Oooooh there are lots of little things to figure out. Much learning, which I will share with you along the way.

So this is the first step. I am so not ready but am going to move forward despite that. It’s important for me to do this publicly. Because it’s going to be excellent. I don’t care that the name is weird, that the site does not have its own URL, that this is an old WordPress template, that my copy is not ready.  Because I believe in this so much that I’ve decided to open it up, allow you to watch me stumble, and focus on the doing.

This is about celebrating creativity, the commons, the amateur. It’s about what we can accomplish together. It’s based in love, passion, and enthusiasm for a new way of working with and of relating to others. A new way of doing business. I can’t wait to tell you more. Hope you’ll join me on the ride.