Conversation

Amy X Zhang
@amyxzh
Typically, a group discusses a project in a discussion tool like Slack then moves to a writing tool like Docs. But this has problems: no link from doc to chat, large upfront work for the initial (biased) drafter, draft is then harder to evolve, discussion scattered, ideas lost.
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Amy X Zhang
@amyxzh
By *interleaving*, groups can more smoothly transition from discussing to coalescing and back. Instead of a main discussion phase followed by writing phase, interleaving allows for many discussion + writing feedback loops that proceed at different paces for different sub-topics.
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Amy X Zhang
@amyxzh
As a result, groups create *living summaries*—artifacts that can grow w/ new discussion as collaborators join & ideas + feedback arise, and can shrink as collaborators come to consensus & ideas get merged. All intermediate work is linked so you can trace how the artifact evolved.
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Amy X Zhang
@amyxzh
In Sunny's evaluation, she found compared to a Slack+Docs control that w/ smaller (~5 ppl) groups, benefits mostly involved greater organization, while in larger (~16 ppl) groups, groups were more inclusive of all participants & more comprehensive in their final writing.
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Amy X Zhang
@amyxzh
If this sounds interesting for you to try out, you can go to wikum.org and create a new discussion to play with it yourself! The tool supports creation of both public and private Wikums, access control, realtime collaboration, notifications, subscriptions, etc.
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