Web-first publishing for book on collaboration

If you believe in collaboration, co-creation and the creative benefits which that can bring then it make sense to evolve your thinking and its products with others. Antony Mayfield at the Open blog alerts us that Charles Leadbetter publishes latest book, We-Think, web-first

The paper book won't be published until next year, Mr Leadbetter explains:

As I was researching and writing We-think over the past eighteen months and more, it became increasingly evident that I could not write a book about collaborative creativity in a traditional way. My argument is that creativity is invariably collaborative and that opportunities for largely self-organising creative collaboration are going up the whole time. Seems odd then not to apply that thinking to the book itself.

That is why - with the full support of my publishers at Profile - I am releasing the book in draft form before its formal and physical publication, planned for summer 2007. Most of the first draft was made available in September 2006, with the final chapters following. I hope that by opening the book up to readers' comments before it hits the bookshops we can make it a better book. When you write a book you gets lots of comments from people after it is published, by which time it's too late to do too much.

But the point is not just to make We-think a better book. The point of the book is to provoke a conversation about the emerging opportunities for us to organise ourselves in ways that are more collaborative and creative. By releasing the text ahead of time we hope to start that conversation earlier.

Antony adds: This is in the fine tradition of books like The Long Tail which were written with an accompanying blog.