I’ve gotten a good collection of Amazing Stories of Openness so far for my August presentation at the Open Ed Conference.

But you know what?

I want more.

I’ve got a bunch of messages, sweet tweets about what a great idea it is, or “I’ll work on it”, but folks, c’mon, this is not all that hard? I’ve outlined examples. I made a comic version. I’ve put a call to respond on YouTube.

What is so hard? Is it worrying about being “not Amazing” enough?

All I need is a small story of how a time when you shared something online, a blog post, some media, that someone used it, connected with you, got you a visit or a job just as an unexpected outcome of sharing on the Open Web.

I’ve been video recording people in Skype or with my Flip, but really, all you need to do is send my a little background info via my Google Form and send my an audio and/or video file with a 2-5 minute (or whatever length) recording of you telling a story.

And you know what? All you folks coming to Open Ed who just talked about sharing a story? I dare ya to come to my session. I call into question your Openness! I dare ya! I double dare ya!

cc licensed flickr photo shared by kevinclark

That’s the last I will badger you. Pfffffffffft.

modified from an original January 1935 issue found at the archive from Galactic Central

Amazing Stories of Openness
While the Open Education movement focuses on institutional issues, a large ocean exists of powerful individual accomplishments simply from tapping into content that is open for sharing and re-use. As colorful as old covers of “Amazing Stories” magazine, this presentation shares moving, personal stories that would not have been previously possible, enabled by open licensed materials and personal networks. Beyond my own tales, others have been culled from the net, and I ask you to share your own.

While open courseware is important, there is much more that happens to us as individuals as we break old conventions and actually freely share our content online.

I want to help promote the concept of wide open sharing by highlighting examples of Amazing Stories of Openness– things that people have gained from that were initiated from putting something they made, wrote into the open space of the web, stories of things that would not have ever happened without this space.

What the heck am I talking about? My own examples include ones outlined in Only on the Web:

• An HTML tutorial I shared in the mid 1990s was voluntarily translated into Icelandic by a teacher in Isafudor, later leading to be being invited to Reykjavik to run a workshop for teachers.
• A German rock band named “The Sea Level” found an old photo in my web site of the sea level sign in Death Valley– they used it for the cover of their CD and I got a copy of it!
• During a workshop in Tasmania, Australia, I was telling the audience about the amazing thing on flickr where I had posted photos of flowers labeled “Unknown flower” and people on their own found the photo and helped identify it. I chose one at random, and the person who had commented on my photo was sitting in the room!

This is the Tom Sawyer Fence Painting School of building presentations! I’m looking for your stories to tell to an audience at the August 2009 Open Ed Conference in Vancouver. If you complete the google form below (or find it directly at http://bit.ly/amazingstories) I’ll respond ASAP and hopefully we can set up a way for you to share your story (if not I have to build a presentation around just my own stories, yecchh).

How about it? It does not have to be super amazing, it might just be a colleague you discovered via open content, or a project that happened because of commons interests, or maybe something even more amazing.

Pixton Version of this Call For Stories

Thanks!