Some additional thoughts...
A producer at this critical time of the medium
is also the one who should be growing the
community skill base. Part of the upfront
analysis is sorting strengths of the contributors, sorting
the talent, and ensuring that the goals of the
production can be met by the talent, or ramping
down the goals accordingly. We always want
to be absorbing new talent and we always need a
base of solid known talent. IMHO, we are
responsible to the play, the players, and the
art of playing. Each has needs.
There is mental health maintenance. What
visibly and sometimes invisibly affects one
affects all. While all cultures have different attitudes,
a production is its own community for the duration.
Theatre is famous for the "we are a family until the
after the sets are struck" attitude. It is very important
that the producers understand and work on the
*spirit* of the group. Most of the time, egoboo
economies are in effect, so praise lavishly, criticize
as little as possible, accept all blame. Because
so much of our collaboration is online, there is the
luxury of thinking about what we write. This is
truly an "as the twig is bent, so grows the tree"
issue.
For all the laid back things we did in
IS, I laid awake nights worrying. In the long
run, it wasn't necessary because we had
some consummately skilled and mature
contributors. We also had newbies who rose
to the level of competition once they saw
what that level was. Very good results come
from those who accept challenge particularly
when they realize the stronger among them
will help them. The producer should try
wherever possible to arrange mentoring
relationships among the contributors if only
to encourage them to seek each other out.
On the other side, accepting leadership and
the decisions of leadership is very important.
Online collaboration takes a lot of practice.
So far, we have two major examples of this
in the content community and both have done
well. Partly, this is because folks experienced
in large production work are in the game, and partly,
the VRML history itself has been one of open
collaboration with a distinctly *artistic* flavor.
We are very lucky there.
This is global art. That is important. Many of us
come from such different cultures that what looks
inane or inappropriate to one, is perfectly acceptable
to another. For example, as Michael Palin said,
"Americans will tell you anything".
The maturity we bring to understanding
this reflects the exact maturity the world at large
needs to survive as our technology continues to
erode the traditional insulating materials of time
and space among distinct groups.
Len
