Today, one could argue the largest repository of our stories is in Wikipedia. These stories were communally co-created, not defined by authorities, a radical departure of how knowledge had previously been defined.
In a sense, this radical reconfiguration directly parallels the themes articulated by Eric Raymond when he talked about open source software in The Cathedral and the Bazaar
I find it curious that while Ward developed the wiki to share the stories of the early Agile practitioners, arguably the greatest impact of the original wiki engine has been in its use to re-imagine the nature knowledge.
But, by the nature of this communal co-creation, convergent thinking is forced upon the process. That is, that the community works toward a telling of the story that everyone can agree on.
One could argue that what Ward has created, with the Federated Wiki, is an engine that enables potentially another profound transformation of the nature of knowledge. One that empowers us to share our divergent thinking.
For, in the Federated Wiki, we each become our own story tellers. We are able to tell our stories in such a way that they can be easily shared and interconnected with others. By so doing, in a sense, we move from a model of authoritative knowledge, to communal knowledge, to federated knowledge, a move that could, potentially have a profound impact on how we learn and create.
A few additional thoughts
When I made my commitment to meditate daily, I found, over time, subtle changes in how my mind was working. It felt as though I could more easily find that center place of quiet from which I could interpret the world with greater clarity.
As I walk this new path of daily documenting my Learning Journey, I am finding another, subtle shift in the way my mind is working - an increased acuity as I wiki and practice the art of reflection. It will be interesting to see how this experience plays out.