Collaborative Writing or “How the Gangplank Manifesto was written”

So one question I get asked all the time is.. “What is Gangplank?” I like this question as it let’s me talk about things I am very passionate about. However, it means that this information is probably not readily available to people and that’s a bad thing. So Joshua Strebel relentlessly has been asking me to put something together. I struggle with this because too often I think people get hung up on Gangplank being a building for events or a co-working facility or an educational venture or even an incubator. While it is all of those things, it is much more than that. The classic the whole is greater than the sum of the parts problem.

I was chatting one day with Chris Young about my frustration with not being able to aptly express myself in words on paper. He did a glorious thing and just let me talk, the whole time taking down notes as I explained what Gangplank was to me. He shared his very terse but powerful set of bullet points with me when we were done and I was amazed. He captured the very essence of what I felt in so few words. He used a technique that helped created the Agile Manifesto to extract what Gangplank values by contrasting it to what existing values that are commonly held in high esteem.

A few days later I met with most of the Gangplank Anchors and other trusted individuals and we hammered out a rough draft of the “Gangplank Manifesto”. We spent a fair amount of time choosing which words we used hoping to express ourselves properly. I then shared what we had with many regulars of Gangplank for feedback to make sure we were not grossly mis-representing the ideals. Like all things we probably have gotten it wrong and will need to make some adjustments. Here it is in it’s fairly raw form…

Gangplank Manifesto

I think the manifesto dove tails nicely with our originally posted “beliefs” that we came up when we original started formalizing Gangplank (see below). Hopefully the this helps turn the question from “what is gangplank” to “how can I help shape the future” as then I get to hear what you are passionate about!

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Gangplank “Beliefs”

In its most general sense, Gangplank is a set of beliefs:

We believe that Phoenix can be a fantastic center for innovation—once committed.
We believe that web professionals should focus on collaboration over competition, and that ideas should be shared freely.
We believe that small businesses, micro-businesses, and freelancers, bridged together in common cause, will be the core of this revolution in Phoenix.

2 Responses to Collaborative Writing or “How the Gangplank Manifesto was written”

Pingback: Gangplank Manifesto | Gangplank Phoenix
WesleyTech says:

July 8, 2009 at 2:48 pm

Awesome manifesto! I just started getting involved via #GangplankNW. Hope to make it out to central command one of these days.