Doug Schuler and his co-authors will be reading from their book Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (and chatting about related topics) at Not A Number (1904 N 4th St) this Thursday, Sept 24 from 6 – 8 pm. We’ll be honest, we can’t really explain what it’s all about, so we’re going to resort to quoting verbatim from the the book’s web site:

We are now in the 7th year of a 12-year project to help understand, motivate and inform the worldwide movement to establish full access to information and communication — including the design and management of information and communication systems.

We’re working together to develop one or more “pattern languages” which can help people think about, design, develop, manage and use information and communication systems that more fully meet human needs now — and in the future.

Our “pattern language” is a holistic collection of “patterns” that can be used together to address an information or communication problem. Each “pattern” in this pattern language, when complete, will represent an important insight that will help contribute to a communication revolution.

There, get it? Well, perhaps it will help if “Ben & Jerry’s” co-founder Jerry Greenfield lets you know what he thinks of it:

“If we keep following the well-trodden paths that have brought us to where we are, we’ll never get to where we want to go. Schuler and his colleagues believe that we can get out of these ruts, and better yet, they tell us how. This work goes beyond elections and demonstrations, beyond cynicism and business as usual. It asks the much deeper questions: what kind of a world do we want and what must we do to get there? Schuler and his colleagues show us that another world is possible and invite everybody to the project. I say, ‘Let’s get going.’”

So get going!