2014 – Looking Back
2014 has been an amazing year. We started with one facilitator and one trainee and have ended with four fully trained facilitators, a full support team, and a list of 21 amazing Book Sprints under our belt.
By far there are two major achievements for us this year – building out our team, and diversifying the content types successfully tackled by Book Sprints.
First our wonderful team.
Most significantly this year Book Sprints transitioned from a one person venture into a company – Book Sprints Limited. We now have 4, soon to be 5, facilitators and a lot of very good people working in many other roles. The full team now includes:
- Adam Hyde – CEO
- Katerina Michailidi – Manager
- Barbara Rühling – Lead Facilitator
- Mark Brokering – Client Liaison
- Juan Gutierrez – Developer
- Raewyn Whyte – Textual Clean Up
- Julien Taquet – HTML Book Production
- Henrik van Leeuwen – Illustrations and book design
- Faith Bosworth – Facilitator
- Laia Ros – Facilitator
- Simone Poutnik – Facilitator in training
Rene Post joined us to help get the Book Sprint client liaison in hand and we are very grateful to Rene for getting the business off to a great start.
We will bring on more facilitators in the months to come as demand increases. It seems demand is going pretty well and this year we completed 21 Book Sprints. That is almost one every 2 weeks! It could not have been possible without first building out a good facilitation crew and we spent a lot of time and effort choosing the right people and training them. The results speak for themselves – with another year where we delivered books to 100% of our clients at the end of the Book Sprint.
In addition this year we had our first book published by a major publisher when the Open Stack Operations Guide was picked up and published by OReilly Books. But perhaps most impressively we were able to diversify the type of content Book Sprints are applied to quite significantly. There are 4 standout Book Sprints that illustrate this. First we applied the Book Sprint method to the research sector and produced publications for the European Commission which covered a diversity of research topics including Neurotechnology and Urban Interaction Design. Secondly, we brought Book Sprints to the Open Education Resource sector and produced a Geography textbook for Canada. But possibly most astonishing are the last two new fields – policy and fiction. We were able to successfully apply the Book Sprint method to the production of Government Policy when we worked with the Burundi Government to facilitate their Minig Policy (the policy has since been accepted), and lastly in November we were able to produce our first work of fiction – Nameless. Nameless is a collection of short stories about life in Nigeria.
All of these four were facilitated by Barbara Rühling who is pushing the methodology into new areas and is our lead facilitator.
So, it has been an extremely good year for us and we hope to build on this in 2015. Below is a list of all the 21 Book Sprints we facilitated this year and a few other items at the bottom. All the best for your end of year celebrations and a happy new year!
FRAFOS
Berlin, Germany, Jan 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
This first Book Sprint in 2014 was also the first Book Sprint facilitated solely by facilitator trainee Barbara Rühling. In three days, a team of the software company FRAFOS together with one of their customers from Sipwise wrote a handbook for their product ABC SBC, a scalable session border controller for VoIP service providers.
Design: Juan Camilo Cruz (COL/GER)
Language: English
Public Library of Science
San Francisco, California, Feb 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ) and Amanda French (USA)
This Book Sprint was focused on developing user documentation of a free software produced by PLOS. The product was not yet in public release and in a very early stage of development so the event was used to document the existing interfaces and learn from the users how they thought about and interacted with the system. It was almost like an intensive 3 day user testing process. The results were very rich and assisted the development team to get a better understanding of how future users might think about some core components.
Language: English
Urban Interaction Design
Neuhausen, Germany, March 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
In four days, nine participants mapped out the new field of Urban Interaction Design and identified emerging trends within the field. The book entitled Urban Interaction Design: Towards City Making was presented shortly after at a conference in Venice and also made available online where it received thousands of reads.
This was part of a series of Book Sprints for ICT Research, funded by the European Commission to investigate the application of the methodology as applied to the production of academic texts. It was held in collaboration with UrbanIxD: Designing Human Interactions in the Networked City, a Coordination Action project funded by the European Commission under FP7 Future and Emerging Technologies (FET Open).
Clean up: Rachel Miles (CAN)
Illustrations and book design : Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
SaluDerecho (The Right to Health)
Villa de Leyva, Colombia, April 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER) and Adam Hyde (NZ)
15 experts of the World Bank’s SaluDerecho project came together for a 5 day Book Sprint in the Colombian mountains. The contributors from several Latin American countries wrote the book “Diálogos: Construyendo futuro en derechos fundamentales” explaining both the right to health and public policies as well as their experiences from the dialogue process that the SaluDerecho project had initiated in Central and South America.
Clean up: Juan Camilo Cruz (COL/GER) and Juan Andres Rodriguez (COL)
Illustrations: Johana Paez (COL)
Language: Spanish
Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC)
Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Spain, April 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
This was the fourth Book Sprint for ICT Research. It was organized in collaboration with the Convergent Science Network for Neurotechnology and Biomimetic systems (CSNII), funded by the European Commission under FP7 Future and Emerging Technologies (FET Open). In scenic Sant Feliu de Guixols near Barcelona, eight scholars produced a book that explains the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) framework and its implementation. The book was presented at a summer school in Barcelona.
Clean up: Rachel Miles (CAN)
Illustrations and book design : Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation (CAPS)
Nice, France, May 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
In May, seven members of the project CAPS2020 came together to write an introductory book on Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation. It was the fifth Book Sprint for ICT Research. The book launched at CAPS 2014 conference and made available for download.
This Book Sprint was featured on French TV.
Clean up: Rachel Miles (CAN)
Illustrations and book design : Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
Labcraft, UK
Stratford on Avon, UK May 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ)
The five day Labcraft Book Sprint brought together a group of people from all over the world – each with specialised experience in establishing and managing innovation labs. The book explored the subject of innovation labs across a wide range of sectors and distilled out commonalities. It was produced as original source research material for a PHD by Hendrik Tiesinga but has since been printed and distributed in electronic and print editions. A launch party was held in October 2014 in Oakland, California. A short video was also produced about the topic and process.
Language: English
Clean up: Raeywn Whyte (NZ)
Facilitation Support: Amanda French (USA)
Times Up
Linz, Austria, June 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
After having done a successful Book Sprint before, Times Up came back for a second one in June 2014 to follow up on their symposium Data Ecologies and write a book on language and tools to talk about futures. Eleven futurists wrote a book entitled “Futurish” in four days to make people curious to think about futures (in the plural). Read more in an informative blog post by one of the participants.
Language: English
On Book Sprints
Berlin, June 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ)
Participants: Mark Brokering (USA), David Berry (UK), Michael Dieter (NL), Amanda French (USA), Barbara Rühling (DE)
Possibly one of the hardest things to try – facilitating a group of facilitators to Book Sprint a book on Book Sprints! Instant vertigo! A fantastic but difficult Book Sprint. We spent 5 days in a house outside of Berlin and cooked up a framework for the thing known as Book Sprints. This book is not a how to, but it does give very interesting insights from the only people that really knew at the time on what a Book Sprint actually is.
Clean up: Raewyn Whyte (NZ)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover : Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
BCcampus Open Textbooks
Vancouver, Canada, June 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER) and Faith Bosworth (ZA)
This four day Book Sprint for a Geography textbook for first year students was hosted by the BCcampus Open Textbooks project. The project is dedicated to breaking the traditional model of copyrighted textbooks which cost a lot of money for the average student and are quickly rendered out of date. Five geography experts covered a vast range of topics, with the support of an illustrator creating one map after the other, the two organizers from BCcampus, and a librarian researching countless images, maps, and other materials with open licenses. The resulting book ‘British Columbia in a Global Context’ was both printed and made available online.
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Language: English
OpenStack Architecture
Silicon Valley, California, July 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ) and Faith Bosworth (ZA)
This was a 5 day Book Sprint and the third Book Sprint we have done with the OpenStack Foundation. Following hot on the heals of the second book which was published both as a community release and in another cover as an OReilly manual, the event was hosted at VMWare offices in Palo Alto and the small group of dedicated OpenStack technologists wrote a guide for those wanting to architect their OpenStack deployment. The book was printed and distributed and is also available free to download.
Language: English
Burundi Mining Policy
Kayanza, Burundi, July 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER) and Laia Ros (AND)
This three-day Book Sprint ventured into new grounds and tested the Book Sprint method in a new environment and in quite a different genre. Representatives of several government agencies and ministries came together with representatives from civil society and the private sector as well as a Senegalese consultant in order to write a mining policy for Burundi. The Book Sprint was organized by the GIZ in collaboration with the Burundian ministry of mining. The process was considered a success by all participants and the policy was approved by the minister.
Language: French
(heidy) collective
Berlin, Germany, August 2014
Facilitated by Faith Bosworth (ZA) and Barbara Rühling (GER)
In a three-day Book Sprint, the Berlin based (heidy) collective produced a book capturing the two-month long exhibition (and many more months of hard work) at the nGbK gallery, which they curated entitled “What is Queer Today Is Not Queer Tomorrow”. The book is both a documentation of the artworks, installations and performances which were part of the exhibition and also of the process the group went through in putting the exhibition together. This was the first Book Sprint facilitated by trainee Faith Bosworth as the lead!
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Language: English
Country Mining Vision Guidebook
Debre Zeit, Ethiopia, September 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER) and Laia Ros (AND)
In a five-day Book Sprint convened by the African Minerals Development Center (AMDC) together with its implementing partners of the African Union Commission (AU), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) with the support of the GIZ, twenty-two contributors wrote a guidebook on how to translate the African Mining Vision (AMV) into Country Mining Visions (CMV). The book “A Country Mining Vision Guidebook: Domesticating the Africa Mining Vision” was made available online and is currently being translated into French to then be printed in both languages.
Clean up: Raewyn Whyte (NZ)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover and Illustrations : Lynne Stuart (ZA)
Language: English
Institute for Democracy and Electoral Administration
Sweden, September 2014
Facilitated by Faith Bosworth (ZA)
“The Use of Open Source Technology in Elections” was written in just four days, with five contributers, in a quiet retreat setting just outside of Stockholm. The book is the first publication to look at how technology that is open source can be used in election processes. It also seeks to help convince electoral stakeholders such as electoral management bodies, governments and decision-making bodies, vendors and civil society of the validity of open source as an efficient and transparent solution to the role of technology in elections. The book was edited and designed by IDEA themselves and is currently available online.
Language: English
One Hope
Minneapolis, USA, August 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ)
This 5 day Book Sprint brought together a small group of Catholics and Lutherans to produce a book on the similarities of the two groups. The Book Sprint was coordinated to be produced in time for release of the 500 year commemoration of the Reformation (2017). Having written the book in 5 days they have a long time to choose the right cover!
Language: English
Responsible Data
Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER)
This 3 day Book Sprint was organized by the Engine Room to write a Responsible Data Toolkit as a guide for organizations working in the field of development, aid, and human rights. The resulting book “Shooting your hard drive into space, and other ways to practise responsible development data” was completed on the evening of the third day, published immediately online to download for free and officially launched the next day at the Open Development Camp in Amsterdam.
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover : Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
Cisco
Silicon Valley, California, Oct 2014
Facilitated by Adam Hyde (NZ) and Laia Ros (AND)
This 5 day Book Sprint was our first bona fide corporate Book Sprint and we worked for 5 days alongside a hand picked selection of Ciscos finest engineers. It was a very technical Book Sprint and very challenging. At the end of the 5 days the book went through an internal vetting process and then only a few weeks later 2500 copies were printed for internal distribution. The content covered a Cisco product that had only been released two weeks earlier.
Language: English
Clean Up: Raewyn Whyte (NL)
Illustrations: Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
The Future We Want
Abuja, Nigeria, November 2014
Facilitated by Barbara Rühling (GER) and Simone Poutnik (GER/USA)
In this Book Sprint, a group of eight Nigerian writers invited by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nigeria worked together on a common vision for their country to inspire others to think about the same. In five days they identified the most pressing issues of Nigeria before the elections 2015, described the present situation and developed worst-case and best-case scenarios for the future. This provided the background for a fictional narrative that evolved in a fictional market town somewhere in Nigeria. Our first Fiction Book Sprint!
2,000 copies were printed immediately after in a first print run, the book was presented at the Ake Arts & Books Festival and made available to download online.
Clean up: Raewyn Whyte (NZ)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover and Illustrations: Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
USAID
Jersey City, New Jersey, November 2014
Facilitated by Faith Bosworth (ZA) and Laia Ros (AND)
This 5 day Book Sprint for USAID produced a guide called “Understanding Power Purchase Agreements” which was written to demystify the contracts for the buying and selling of electric power. The contributors included an international mix of lawyers, engineers, regulators and finance experts including representatives from the World Bank, African Development Bank, African Legal Support Facility and several private law firms.
The book was released online on the last day of the Book Sprint and is also being printed and distributed.
Clean up: Raewyn Whyte (NZ)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover and Illustrations: Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
F5 Local Traffic Manager and Global Traffic Manager
Seattle, Washington, December 2014
Facilitated by Laia Ros (AND) and Simone Poutnik (GER/USA)
This 5 day Book Sprint produced an Operations guide on two F5 IP-Modules: Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Global Traffic Manager (GTM) with the purpose to give a better understanding and support to F5 customers. The contributors included technical trainers, network engineers, mentors and technical support. The version 1.0 was released on the last day of the Book Sprint.
Clean up: Raewyn Whyte (NZ)
HTML Book Production: Julien Taquet (FR)
Cover and Illustrations: Henrik van Leeuwen (NL)
Language: English
TEAM ACTIVITIES
As well as being CEO Adam is working fulltime for the Public Library of Science leading a development team to produce an innovative Open Source platform for the production, processing, peer review, and publishing of Open Access manuscripts. Adam is now based in San Francisco and is still closely involved with Book Sprints but will not be facilitating any for a little while.
BOOK TRANSLATIONS
In addition the Open Contracting Book we produced for the World Bank was translated in Spanish, French and Mongolian. The community also re-visited the book and produced a comprehensive update – which is a great example of Book Sprints contributing to the creation of sustainable communities around the books produced. The book was also had a release event in Ghana.
The Understanding Mining Contracts book we facilitated (involving too many organisations to mention!) was also translated into French and went through a small revision and second print release.
PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT
We also designed, built and released (Open Source) a collaborative Lexicon software for the United Nations Development Project. The software was used to produce a tri-lingual lexicon (Arabic, English, French) of election terminology.
We released PubSweet as Open Source – it is a simple and fast platform we use for all our Book Sprints.
A few months ago we also released the (unamed) software we made for managing our shared calendars and coordinating Book Sprint events.
PRESENTATIONS
Adam, the founder of Book Sprints, presented at a few conferences about Book Sprints including events in the Netherlands, Sweden, the USA, Germany, and the UK.
During the Nigerian “Nameless” Book Sprint we produced our first documentary! Out soon!