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As I wrote a few days back, one of the threads underlying much of my thinking over the past year has been how we might use technology to nudge “scholarship” in a more publicly engaged direction. As a good STS do-bee, however, I’m the first to say that the technology isn’t what effects change, but rather it’s the people using it. That in mind, I’m heading off to the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this Sunday for a group experiment in new modes of scholarship.

The original idea came out of an ECHO workshop that I ran at GMU a year and a half ago. A few of us (Julian Kilker and Alex Russo, to be precise) were talking about the general isolation of research and writing in the humanities, and wondering if there were some way to set up a more collaborative research project. Somehow (I can’t recall exactly how), we hit on the Consumer Electronics Show as an intriguing site, one which was way too big for any one person to tackle as a researcher. What if, we thought, we could get a bunch of scholars from across the disciplines together in that one place, turn the pack loose on the site and then bounce ideas off of each other? What kind of scholarship could that produce?

Over the next year and a half, the idea mutated a bit; at some point, it took on the name “Swarm Scholarship.” We looked into funding, but nothing really panned out. Finally, at this year’s SHOT meeting in Las Vegas, we decided to do something about this for real, on the cheap. Julian could line up housing and some space on campus through UNLV, and the only other costs for participants would be airfare and food. In the span of a month and a half, we circulated a proposal (see the full proposal below) via a few mailing lists and word of mouth, and received dozens of expressions of interest.

So, on Sunday about 15 scholars from around the country will be meeting up at Julian’s house in Las Vegas. We’ll compare interests, coordinate schedules, and then spend the next two days immersed in CES. Afterwards, we’ll spend the better part of a day giving from-the-hip “talks” on our ideas-in-progress, then head home to write. The goal is to get this published in some form or another sooner than later, aiming for something with the substance of scholarship but the latency of feature journalism.

And I’m sure I’ll blog more about it sooner than later.

Swarm CES 2007 call for participants

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is one of the focal points in the landscape of contemporary consumer culture, but one which as of yet has been mostly overlooked by scholars of technology, society, and popular culture. Its massive sprawl—both conceptually and physically—far outweighs the abilities and resources of any single scholar, so we propose a different approach: this January 2007, we invite academics from across the humanities and qualitative social sciences to join us at in Las Vegas for 3 days of collaborative, on-site research. No predetermined topics, no disciplinary approach preferred – the only requirements are that you study some aspect of technology in a social/cultural context, and that you be willing to try a new approach to research and collaboration.

The premise underlying this “swarm scholarship” is straightforward: if we each take a crack at CES, but in a coordinated way, the result will be more interesting, more inclusive, and potentially more insightful than otherwise possible. We hope to demonstrate that such scholarship can be fast, agile, and responsive to contemporary events. Costs should be little more than a plane ticket and in some cases a car rental; housing will be available with UNLV faculty members, some of whom will be participating in the project, and free Press/Analyst credentials can be arranged for the trade show itself.

Here’s the plan: CES runs from Monday, January 8th through Thursday, January 11th, 2007. We will gather for an introductory dinner Sunday evening (the 7th), in order to meet each other and discuss ideas. Monday and Tuesday are relatively unstructured in the daytime; participants are encouraged to attend the show, inductively developing and fine-tuning research questions and gathering material. In addition, the resources and Special Collections of the UNLV research library located about one mile from the convention site will be available. Both evenings, we’ll reconvene for dinner and debriefing, exchanging materials, and discussing ideas and suggestions for the following day. Finally, on Wednesday morning we’ll gather on the UNLV campus for a more structured activity: 10-minute “idea-in-progress” talks, each followed by discussion.

After we all head home and decompress from this intense (and hopefully fun) few days, we’ll each write something sooner rather than later, aiming for generally accessible 20-30 page articles. We’ll collectively decide how to publish the results (potential options include a journal special issue or an edited volume, as well as more unconventional new media options), but the goal is to produce a finished work by July 1 (within six months of the show itself).

Comments 4 Comments so far. Leave a comment below.

Bill Anderson,

January 2, 2007 at 12:09 pm

This looks like a great conversation, and one that is sorely needed. In my experience collaboration is oft talked about, but little practiced. By that I mean that I’ve found it difficult, but for a few exceptional circumstances, to sustain collaboration. Most of the time I discover that my cohorts really want to work on their own. So I’d be very interested in what you all uncover in your discussions.

And while the idea of papers is good, how about a collaborative effort, published perhaps as a static wiki page with an open discussion page? And in the age of over-information why not try for 10 pages? Maybe academic pressures dictate otherwise, but shorter is more likely to be read.

Josh,

January 2, 2007 at 12:32 pm

Speaking for myself (we’ll be hammering out the specifics of “publication” one of the evenings of CES), I’d love to see short-ish (10-15 page) essays, collected in some form, with an introduction and methodological section about the process built via communal wiki.

Susan Wyche,

January 8, 2007 at 2:02 pm

Have a great time in Las Vegas! I used to attend the International Housewares Show in Chicago and always wondered why I was the only academic.

Next year I’ll be out there with you!

Dr. Wife,

January 10, 2007 at 3:39 pm

Peer-review has always been the hallmark of academic research, but in the past has involved multiple drafts snail-mailed to reviewers, where they languish on desks under stacks of paper for months. It’s interesting to think that this system, which results in a study being published a year or two after it was conducted (and perhaps a year or two after it became obsolete)may be attacked from the side of virtually instantaneous peer-review, whether it be wikis or your swarm technique. You could argue that these peer-review processes are actually more rigorous, since the number of reviewers is potentially unlimited. A lot of medical journals in fast-moving fields have already gone to e-format, which has the advantage of small submission-to-press lags as well as greater reference potential through internet searching, etc. I wonder if wiki-journals may be next. It would seem to support a model of strong inference that is sadly lacking…as we see when we learn more in five minutes of conversation with peers at a conference than in a year in between of reading journal articles…

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