20 minutes to say what "free math" and PM.org are all about and why they are important.
Considering that we were invited to this conference by the mathematics community, I am approaching the talk chiefly as one of "marketing/evangelizing" our effort to perhaps the core constituency it is designated for.
Actually, this isn't quite true, and therein lies much of the opportunity and challenge: PM was more intended for the wider mathematics community, as opposed to just the "official" academic segment. This is an opportunity: we want to get a hefty chunk of academia "behind" PlanetMath, helping to support it financially and in terms of content and management. But this is also challenge: how do we explain to academia how PlanetMath--a completely new beast to most of them--is something that is good for them, good for the field of mathematics, good for the general public, and not a threat to the scholarly world?
So, what I will attempt to do with this talk is to explain what PM is, motivate it, explain what is so good and unique about it, explain where we are thinking we want to go with it, and discuss how the JMM denizens can become a part of this.
--akrowne
Given these goals, I suggest not just saying what makes PM cool, special, or different, but putting the talk (or a big part of the talk) in the form of a sequence of call/response pairs, where the calls come from academia, and the responses come from PlanetMath.
What I have in mind is at outline of PlanetMath and Free Mathematics.
With some warm-up definitions, and some closing comments, e.g. for improving pedagogical metadata and enhancing the collaboration section, you'll have plenty of material.
Many of the points from your outline will come up in this talk, in your spoken side-remarks, but folks won't get overwhelmed with a bunch of complicated slides, which they have to decide whether to remember or not. If you can show them only memorable things, they won't have to invest in that kind of decision.
--jcorneli
I'm planning to use an outline like this for the talk, and just use PM for the visual aid. Luckily I'll have a stock computer to work with; and in the mean time I'll be thinking about what to do/say/show for the visions talk.
The last talk was fun practice just talking (due to forgetting the damn converter-cable)… I'll have to watch the video to see how that actually went.
The one modification to the above outline is to try to explain up front what "free math" is, and since we are finally starting to have some things written up on that, I think it shouldn't be hard to say something convincing.
--jcorneli
(Actually, I think that the "free math" is really almost sufficiently outlined in the outline; I'll think about this some more, and be sure to talk about it in my banter. If anyone has specific comments on this or other points, please add them to the outline page.) --jcorneli
draft outline of PlanetMath and Free Mathematics
So basically the above is split into four main parts. I think the logical order of them makes sense: define "free", present PM.org, motivate "free", talk about developmental directions based on this, give ideas for how people can further these. What do you guys think of this? Of course, there are specifics that are probably missing as well. Let me know. --akrowne Mon Dec 19 03:48:08 UTC 2005
Looks long. Why don't you kick off the revisions by first sketching the goals of the talk at 2006 JMM. --jcorneli
Added goals. I guess it would be good to see what y'all think of that, first. Eagerly awaiting! --akrowne Tue Dec 20 04:14:27 UTC 2005
It sounds like too much for 20 minutes to me — it looks more like the outline of an hour-long (or even hour-and-a-half-long) lecture to me. While all the points you mention here are good, there seem to be many more of them here than the average audience member who is not already familiar with the project is likely able to assimilate in twenty minutes. My advice would be to go over this list, pick out a few main points, paying special attention to selling points which are likely to impress an audience of professional mathematicians as well as replies to one or two of the most commonly voiced concerns about the feasibility of the project and focus your talk around geting this handful of points across. If the listeners finds what you have to say interesting, they will look at the printed version and pick up on the subtleties there, whilst, pardoxically, if you mention all the details in the talk, they might not be so interested and forget even the major points. I remember how, a few months ago, most of my preparation for my bottleneck lecture consisted in figuring out what to omit — one heading was completely omitted on purpose and one or two others were summarrized in a sentence or two so that I could better focus on the main point.
Another thought that might help impress people would be if you could have a demonstration. Let the audience see for itself how convenent and useful PlanetMath really is by looking up a topic or two and clicking on auto-links to look up some related definitions needed to understand the main definition. Such a five-minute demonstration ought to convince most people that PlanetMath is a lot more convenient than having to put down what one is reading and fumble through a half-dozen books to hunt down definitions and then have to remeber what one was doing in the first place before one made the detour — it puts mathematical knowledge at one's fingertips and allows one to look up background material without missing a beat. Likewise, you might show them an example of a correction and of a discussion about some topic to illustrate how the feedback and review processes work. Also, by giving this quick introduction to how to use the resource, chances are good that audience members will go home, try it for themselves, and hopefully get hooked.
Also, I think that the most powerful argument for free math is that it corresponds to the practise of working mathematicians — most mathematicians freely copy and reuse the mathematical literature as if it were in the public domain. What we are proposing here is nothing strange, it is simply being honest about what mathematicians instinctively feel is the most productive way to make use of their literature.
--rspuzio
I took your comments on making a demonstration and ran with them, above. I definitely like your "get audience hooked" approach.
--jcorneli
Thanks guys, I will think about your very excellent suggestions. --akrowne Tue Dec 20 16:25:47 UTC 2005