Introduction

The theme of BigHook2010 is Cooperation, or, perhaps, Co-Operation. There are several senses of the word.

In one sense, it's the opposite of top down, directive-based control.

In another sense, it's just plain old working together. Some say that it's working together for mutual benefit, but perhaps the benefit is inherent in the work, or emergent from it.

In another, it's about the lower costs of coordination and organizing that Clay Shirky wrote about in Here comes everybody.

In biology, it's about interaction among organisms living in an ecosystem.

In an important sense, it's about HOW working together works, i.e., under what conditions co-operating becomes self-reinforcing or, conversely, how piece-part operation becomes maladaptive. It's about the loose glue that joins the small pieces that make our world.

One specific instance of co-operating is Moore's Law, where making transistors smaller means they can be closer together, hence, cooler, faster and cheaper. Another very similar phenomenon is mesh networking. Social cooperative phenomena include money, language, networked software apps, traffic norms, social norms in general . . .

Several BigHook2010 participants have been musing on how cooperation scales, that is, how to make very large systems cooperative. Brough Turner observes that . . .

. . . for limited resources (rival goods) we have markets and the kinds of commons that Elinor Ostrom studies. But there are equally as strong frameworks in place where peer production of knowledge or other non-rival goods has succeeded.  Wikipedia has a strong governance framework in place.  Open source projects like Linux have well developed coordination structures and rules of behavior.  Academic research conforms to all sorts of rules as to who can use whose data how soon, etc., etc.

Brough then asks, "How do you structure a community in which cooperation flourishes?" Good question.

Agenda

Wednesday, 9/8

Noon to 1:30 PM: Check in, lunch, swimming, meet fellow participants
1:30 to 3:30 PM: Session 1a: Introductions
3:30 to 4:00 PM: break
4:00 to 5:30 PM, Session 1b: Intros, cont'd, Intro to "Cooperation"
5:30 to 8:00 PM: Dinner, fishing
8:00 to 9:00 PM, Session 2: TBD
9:00 to whenever -- Five-minute talks on whatever people want to talk about . . .

Thursday, 9/9

7:00 to 8:30 AM: Breakfast, fishing
8:30 to 10:00 AM, Session 3a:
10:00 to 10:30: break
10:30 AM to Noon, Session 3b:
Noon to 2:00 PM: Lunch, swimming
2:00 to 3:30 PM, Session 4a:
3:30 to 4:00 PM: break
4:00 to 5:30, Session 4b:
5:30 to 8:00 PM: Dinner, fishing
8:00 to 9:30 PM, Session 5: Spectacular Musical Event
9:30PM to whenever: BOF Sessions

Friday, 9/10

7:00 to 8:30 AM: Breakfast, fishing
8:30 to 10:00 AM, Session 6a:
10:00 to 10:30 AM: break
10:30 AM to Noon, Session 6b:
Noon to 2:00 PM: Lunch, swimming
2:00 PM: Adjourn