Hello!

Achal and I spoke at a publishing conference in Delhi last month - I had forgotten to send the presentation. I spoke about my experience from a publishing and Pratham Books experience while Achal spoke about Wikimedia, Wikipedia and the Commons.

"Wikipedia is a stellar example of how collaborative material is being produced and published on the internet. Today, the idea of a knowledge commons has gained enough ground to have meaningful consequence. The real tragedy of the commons is that it's not being being adequately used - in publishing at least. This is puzzling, because publishers - especially in the "other English speaking world" - have long been bedevilled by 'content' or 'creators' (too little) and 'costs' (too much). Finally, we seem to have a way to do what we always wanted to but never could. Why then are people with enormous expertise in editing, design, marketing, distribution and packaging still wary of this vast, growing and completely free to use repository of work? And did we mention it's free to use?"

Slides here: http://www.slideshare.net/prathambooks/commonssense-now-like-never-before

Thank you.

Best,

Gautam ________ http://social.prathambooks.org/