The New Book
Using a Virtual Cafe

Using a Virtual Cafe

The content of technical books usually has a substantial historical background. It tends to be formalized as a chrystallisation of tried and tested methods and techniques. Writing such books involves putting together the collective experiences of established experts.

Books that probe into new areas of application or research have little historical precedence. The content consists of fundamental ideas and concepts where the applications are vaguely defined and open ended. They are not "How to" books, but books that provide a tool box of conceptual frameworks. They are written for creators and strategists: people who want to explore new fields and develop novel solutions.

Such books cannot be written in isolation. They have to be written as a dynamic process that relies upon opinions and feedback from many diverse sources. Concepts are seldom viewed in the same way by different people. Every person incorporates them into their own cognitive models and gives them a uniquely different interpretation.

To cater for a wide diversity of understanding and comprehension, the Virtual Cafe has been devised as a means of combining the thinking of many people. Besides ensuring that the concepts and ideas are understandable by a variety of different people, the interaction amongst the participants in the Virtual Cafe provides new ideas and inspirational directions that transcend the author's own limited knowledge and bias.

Here are three links that provide details of the Virtual Cafe that was used in the writing of the first five books - and which will be used in the writing of the New Book:

Description of the Virtual Cafe

Using the Virtual Cafe to write books

An organic intelligence system