This section is dedicated to outline projects that I would like to see realized either by others or by myself. So everyone who shares some these visions is welcome to participate.
[community] Oststern
Inspired by the Südstern, Ostersten is dedicated to the people from Upper Lusatia. It is the idea to build a community of people that were born or grew up in the Upper Lusatia and who have stayed abroad for more than two years. The community is meant as network of supporters who help each other, whether abroad or after returning home. Oststern aims to strengthen the region through persisting personal relations and should become a source for prosperity and improved living conditions in the region.
[tool] Reclaim | Rebuild :: Mendeley
If you are among those researchers who can not live without Mendeley any more you should be scared about what would happen if they would shout down their services. Literature management with Mendeley has become so important that whole projects depend on it. Nonetheless it might not fulfill all your needs regarding organizing, sharing, and working with science literature. Both issues could be blown away by reclaiming all the data you’ve put into the Mendeley cloud. All you need is a rebuild of the Mendeley Desktop that is compatible with the open sqlite database that it is currently build on. The Mendeley API could be used for an initial download of additional data. Like diaspora a distributed social network could be build.
[book] Lonely Regions
Backpackers are very familiar with the Lonely Planet guide books that are available for almost any country in the world. Because of the macro perspective many local and regional places are getting neglected by concentrating on widely known spots such as big cities, great natural reserves, et cetera. Lonely Regions is going into detail by capturing travelers needs on a very local scale. Structure and layout will be adopted from the famous brother but the content will be contributed by locals and translated into English to widen the audience. Finally these guide book is meant as a series about different regions. As a first try I would like to write an edition about the Upper Lucatia.
[book] Pattern Language on shrinking Regions
In past decades many European regions experienced a demographic change caused by disappearing industries, economic drawbacks, and changes in lifestyle of (younger) people. The consequences require political and social action. In some regions in Europe these actions were successful while they are still unknown in other parts of the continent. The attempt to document the core of these successful solutions aims to communicate actions to overcome a downward spiral of shrinking regions.
When thinking about these issues I do have a particular region in mind. Its the Upper Lusatia that suffers from a deep brain drain and social-cultural changes since the 1980.
See also: http://www.reliableprosperity.net/valueadded_production.html
Ideas for interesting Pattern Languages
- Components of CSCL-Scripts
- Collaborative Writing
- Data Visualization
- Pushing Open Data