StickyWorld and the ‘Collaboration Cafe’

About 18 months ago I met Slider Studio architect Michael Kohn when he presented at the first Be2camp event I co-organised, at London’s Building Centre. I have remained in contact with him ever since (he spoke about principles of democratic design to another Be2camp event in Birmingham last August) and have just received an invitation to attend the 4 March launch of a month-long “Collaboration Cafe” at the Building Centre, marking the end of an 18-month research project – StickyWorld – undertaken by Slider Studio and funded by the UK’s Technology Strategy Board.

StickyWorld is a prototype project review and exhibition platform for creative business and education. The final month of the project opens up ongoing collaboration between six different organisations to wider engagement of the public and visitors to the Building Centre. The ground-floor cafe area is being transformed temporarily by an installation created by University of East London Unit 9, who are using StickyWorld, and Slider Studio is undertaking a ‘sticky note survey’ on collaboration within education and design practice, and with clients and communities.

I’m looking forward to seeing how StickyWorld has progressed since the first release I saw about six months ago (I have just signed up to get a private beta StickyOffice account), and to hearing how it is received by participants at the “Collaboration Cafe”. It incorporates many principles from Web 2.0-type applications, potentially widening the scope for collaboration beyond that made possible by conventional, industry-specific construction collaboration technologies.

A conference event at the Building Centre is planned for 30 March on the state of collaboration, which I will be contributing to, wearing both my Be2camp and my collaboration technology ‘hats’.

Update: The urbanism blog Polis also has a post on this topic: ‘StickyWorld’ and an Alternative Approach to Democratic Design.