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/