When you're asking people to do work for you, especially unpaid work,it helps a lot if you already have a personal relationship. In staffing next year's OOPSLA essays track, I want to find committee members who are well known, interdisciplinary, and like novelty and change. I know some - never enough - people like that in software, but I know fewer outside software. So I'm going to do something quirky: diffuse invitations through a network. Here's how:

1. On one of my unused wikis, I've placed a list of people who I think would fit well with our plans and might find the opportunity interesting or even useful. (Right now, they're Malcolm Gladwell, Rodney Brooks, Lucy Suchman, Etienne Wenger, Corey Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Edward Felton, and Eszter Hargittai.)

2. If you (a) know someone who is more likely to know the person named than you are, and (b) think that intermediate person would find the idea of the essays track interesting enough to forward it on, send them the text you find here.

3. But incorrigible optimist that I am (heh!), I'm afraid of a sorcerer's apprentice situation. I don't want intermediate people or the final recipient to get an annoying amount of email. So before you send mail headed for a particular person, check if four people already have. If four people have, don't send mail. Otherwise, do send mail and leave a note on the wiki.

4. If you know one of the targeted people, contact me so that we can arrange an introduction.

Thanks. Let's see what happens...