Work Group 15M.cc

> Description
> Goals
> Methodologies
> Ways of Participating

Description 

On May 15th, the manifestation summoned by ¡Democracia Real YA! (Real Democracy NOW!) gave way to what has been known as the “15M Movemet”, an unprecedented awakening of the collective conscious in Spain. From that day on, hundreds of people have become regulars to the Puerta del Sol area and some of them, like ourselves (Pablo Soto, Stéphane M. Grueso and Patricia Horrillo), started to report what was happening through social networks and blogs.

The three of us shared a common goal: contribute our two cents worth to the movement. For this reason, we have decided to dedicate a year of our lives to the creation of a transmedia, collaborative and non-profit project under a copyleft licence (specifically Creative Commons’ BY/SA 3.0 ES). On May 15th 2012 we plan to publish a book and a documentary, they will be free for the public to download through an interactive web that will host many contents. From that day onwards, we will start disseminating these works by translating them to other languages, through global distribution and by being present in all types of forums in order to make 15M known.

Within this project we will also experiment with the collective creation and we will apply some of the principles of free culture. As a creative proposal, we will try to adapt techniques for the development of free software and document our experimental process. For the different works, we will ask for the community’s collaboration in different sections between which we want to establish a constant and multidirectional, and thus enriching, communication.

Goals

The main goal of the project is to spread the 15M Movement among the largest amount of people possible. The translation of the works to different languages and the presentation of 15M.cc in as many places as possible, as well as via internet, will help meet this goal.

Due to its collaborative nature, its copyleft license, and our desire to make these three works that speak about 15M accessible to everybody, we will have the opportunity of researching on the notion of commons. By working collaboratively with a community and having many individuals participate in its development, the work process itself will be an experiment of how it is possible to coordinate, with many different tools, not just labor, but collective creation as well.

Even though our starting point is based on an individual investment of time, money and material, we do not reject the idea of recovering, at least, the economical part of that investment. Therefore, the project itself will be a financial and production experiment in the field of free culture. We will publish the project’s budget as well as the possible earnings that we might have (donations + crowdfunding). If the amount received were to exceed the project’s estimated budget, the surplus would be destined to an even broader dissemination of the works.

Methodologies

We would like to establish ways of collaboration that are not limited to online resources, in order to not exclude people that would like to participate but that do not work with social networks or do not know how to handle them. Therefore, in addition to the series of forums liked to each one of the works, we will also organize on-site meetings to facilitate the communication among the initiators of the project and the community.

For the book
In order to write the book, the coordinator will make an idea tree, the concepts within said tree shall be developed by the community. Once all these units of content are defined, we will proceed to remix the texts, which will lead to the creation of the book. The originals, crediting the corresponding authors, will be published in the website.

For the documentary
There will be a public outline of the documentary in order to give the community a chance to evaluate it. Afterwards, through a forum (both virtual and on-site), collaborators will be invited to share what they think would complete the documentary’s definitive skeleton. For this exchange of ideas to be productive and not come to a standstill, the coordinator will establish a system for decision-making, where he will have the last word (benevolent dictator). Once the work is done, there will be an exhibition prior to the definitive montage to gather helpful commentaries from the collaborators to touch up any possible rough edges.

For the project
For the sake of transparency, we want to the project’s budget to be open to the community. This budget will specify all the expenses that come with 15m.cc. Even though it is a non for profit project, we do not reject the possibility of recovering the investment that we are going to make during this year, and if we are able to do so, whatever amount that surpasses the initial investment would be used in a new projects with the same principles of 15M.cc, i.e. themes of a social nature and developed and distributed under a copyleft licence.

 

Ways of Participating (participant profiles)

For 15M.cc to be a success we need very different kinds of contributions that encompass the three basic stages of the project: make it known [1], develop the works [2] and disseminate it [3].

[1]During the first stages, in addition to the gathering of audiovisual material of all kinds (videos, photographs, music…), we will also need to write texts on the concepts that are involved in the movement and that will be in the idea tree.

[2]Each work will need participants with different profiles (which are described below) although, all of them, will be asked discuss certain aspects of the project: which are the concepts included in the idea tree, what should appear and what should not in the documentary’s outline,… For that purpose, we will create forums that will let us handle the community’s participation.

[3]Once the works are completed, it will be of great importance to count with help for the project’s distribution, both inside and outside of the Spanish boarders. Therefore, all kinds of connections with entities of any nature will be essential to enable us to travel to all kinds of different places and explain the basic fundamentals of the works and of 15M.cc itself.

For the book
Once we have the idea tree, which we will the core of the book, we will need people that want to write about these concepts. For the more technical topics, we will look for specialists to help better understand the more complex aspects (lawyers specialized in intellectual property,…). For the physical presentation of the book, it will be necessary to count with a designer/lay out designer to work together with the coordinator of the project to develop a template that will meet the books requirements both for the printed and the digital version.

For the documentary
The videos and the photographic material that we are gathering does not necessarily come from audiovisual professionals, but rather from any citizen that has recorded or taken photographs of events regarding 15M. In addition to the raw footage, we will also need an infographist/3D technician to illustrate certain aspects of the movement as well as an editor or an editor assistant that can help the documentary’s coordinator manage and classify the audiovisual material. We will also need to subtitle the documentary to several languages, for this we will need two different kinds of collaborators: a technician for the addition of subtitles and translators to write the texts in several different languages.

For the web
Initially, to be able to develop the web in the style of a wiki but somewhat more complex and interactive, we will need: animators/programmers for HTML5/javascript and web developers. Once the web is created, it would be interesting to have archivists to help us classify and order all the existent material and be able to place it on the web with certain criterion.