From the beginning, we wanted Spark to be a collaborative radio show.
So far, that’s happened mostly through this blog. We use it to solicit questions for upcoming interviews, post raw tape, ask for your comments and story ideas, and then we include these things in the radio show.
But blogs aren’t always the best way to collaborate on something like a radio show. As Luke Closs explained to me a few weeks ago, a blog is a one-to-many form of communication.
So that’s why we’re really pleased to announce the Spark Wiki. We hope it will complement this blog and the radio show (and podcast). Right now, it’s an experiment: a place to collaborate on story ideas, suggest guests, music selections… whatever. It’s a many-to-many form of communication, and I’m really excited to learn how we can use it to make more participatory, collaborative radio.
The Spark Wiki lives here. You’ll find links to the most recent changes in the sidebar of this blog, or at the recent changes page. If you have an RSS reader, and want to keep up to date, watch the RSS feed.
So go, poke around, and start contributing.
Very special thanks to Luke Closs and Socialtext, who helped make this happen.
Sounds like CBC wants journalism students and well-informed and intelligent Canadians to do their research for them!
Well, I suppose there’s no harm. It seems like a win-win situation, we’ll have to see where it goes from here. It’s definitely a successful idea that’ll be used towards a new concept. Let’s hope it works.
Thanks for the well-wishes. Actually, to be honest, it’s quite a bit of extra work to maintain the blog and the wiki. We’re doing this because we genuinely believe in making radio/web content in a more collaborative, open, and transparent way. As you say, we’ll have to see where it goes. We look at this as an experiment that, with luck, all of us will learn something from.
I would like to hear a show about the corruption of “geek culture”. So many people are calling themselves “geeks” who aren’t geeky at all. In fact, they’re really ambitious, cut throat and aggressive, toxic a-type personalities who poison other peoples’ reputations with lies. They may not be cool, and were probably geeks in high school, but they’re not “geeks” per se anymore. They just use geekdom to disarm others, and sneak their way into being trusted. If real geeks are docile and unassuming, fake geeks are like radioactive viruses and destructive to well-functioning environments. Beware.
Also, fake geeks make terrible sysops.