Calling all engineers, scientists, politicians, business people, and students.

Are you interested in volunteering a little time to help Air Car build a project plan and high-level Roadmap for our Future? 

What is the future that we would all rather see for our kids? Without a plan, we don't appear headed anywhere fast at present - so lets suggest something and see where it goes.

Air Car's Roadmap projects run the gambit from science fiction to common sense - projects like food replicators, synchronized traffic-light timing, robot maids, cheap and clean cars, anti-gravity, flying cars, and and our project list is growing!.

Some projects are difficult - and others - are not so difficult. So if learning and exploration are of interest to you, we'll hope to see you participating online and in the forums.

Thanks to the unique collaborative abilities of the web, it is now possible for you to join myself and others in creating and executing an interactive, wiki-like open-source plan with a very tangible result -  Our future.

Kennedy authorized the Apollo 11 Moon mission knowing two metals didn't exist and needed inventing, and we'll begin construction on a future with similar unknowns to invent.Think of this exercise as an open-source project where the final product isn't digital nor software - rather this open-source project team builds the technologies that power the future.

Its interesting work, low-cal, and you might take something more away from the same amount of time you spent at some online IQ test. With a little luck - we'll change the world a little for the better along the way.

If we are lucky, and we can attract a community to this endeavour, funding models will need to be devised to support R&D efforts.

Before we begin, lets cast into stark relief the landscape of our challenge - in a world where $100 billion+ will be spent on war efforts in the middle east this year - no budget dollars whatsoever will be assigned to these projects. Does it make sense to anyone that projects which directly benefit society and mankind must begin this way?

This is pretty well up to all of us I suppose - lets begin...

Planning any big change can seem a daunting task. As the change becomes bigger and more nebulous (complex), it gets tougher to track all the pieces of the puzzle as they are assembled into desired deliverables. To this purpose, Project Management best-practices have emerged to explain "organized common sense" as I call it. I think its a reasonable, common sense assertion to say that any community or team that all use the same processes and nomenclature to accomplish something, will have a better chance to easily start and then execute a successful project. Just as its reasonable to foresee that a team without a shared approach will almost certainly tend to mis-start, confuse and frustrate one another.

I've learned that making a big change is an easy undertaking when everyone employs effective, transparent, best-practises and then monitors/communicates the progress of all projects well. And please - don't try this at home - believe the voice of experience when I tell you that a little expert guidance will go a long way toward keeping your project simple, understandable, and productive  - while also ensuring that important bases are covered and progress is accomplished and confirmed.

Lets begin by discussing the "Parts of a Project". In broad strokes, these generally include:

1. The Program Charter
2. 1.0 Project Requirements
3. 1.0 Solution Design - High-Level and Detail
4. 1.0 Implementation
5. 1.0 Transition to Ops - usually via a Pilot and UAT (User Acceptance Tests)
6. 1.0 Operationalization
7. Release 2.0; and then 3.0; and so on...

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READER ASSIGNMENT 1:      

Assigned Sept 16, 2007

Click on the first link above - The Program Charter and participate in the forum discussion of what should be included in the Charter Document for the future. I hope to assign sections of the work to interested readers and volunteers  - so volunteer to author or moderate any piece of the discussion that you have a passion for. To volunteer, register at Air Car Magazine online and then contact us requesting a moderator's role within the discussion forum.

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To assist in discussion during this exercise, we are going to employ the Air Car Forums to full advantage - click here to review the components of each Project Part - and lend your 2-cents worth!

Fair warning though, many decenting opinions do not (a) progress make - so I will be employing sparing editorial authority to keep things on track and moving forward - with apologies to the more sensitive players in our discussions. We'll win the war but lose a battle or two eh?

Click here to join us in the forums as we explore each "Part of Project" enroute to building a brighter future!

I will continue on in approximately 1 week's time pending the outcome of forum discussions. I hope to will see you contibuting to the discussion !

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