Thriving too

Social Dining: Big tables + New Behaviours

I had the pleasure of have having lunch at Hub Islington last week. Laura and I popped over there to meet Amy Smith the new editor for The Community Lover's Guide to Islington and to talk to the Hub team about their clever use of The Civic Crowd website to map and connect with projects in the local community.  I really enjoyed the friendly and fun lunch – and the delicious food which magically appeared through everyone bringing and making a range of salads, soups etc. 

Food sharing in a community setting is much more than sharing big tables. There is a whole range of new ideas and behaviours springing up  - but overall from our work and study there are lots of signs that people want to spend time together in a way that goes beyond arranged social lunches and dinners – and moves towards a more inclusive, community feel, using food as a way for getting to know people in an informal setting.

And people are so clever - especially with a small amount of inspiration from what other communities are doing. In two of the workshops we did with Neighbourhood Challenge groups, one in Lower Green and the other in Boothtown, people came up with some fantastically imaginative ideas on how they could possibly use food and cooking to build relationships and using their existing resources, without waiting for big events, lots of funding... or permissions.

The Lower Green group had the idea that although they didn’t have a big enough kitchen for shared cooking on the scale they would like, they did have a big hall.  So their idea was to come together, prepare the food together, and then take it home to their own kitchens to cook it…. And then come back together to eat it.  The Boothtown group thought that rather than trying to engage everyone in a big street party straight away, that they would hold weekly suppers in the street, moving from one house to the other, growing the number of people taking part each week.

Sharing food is as old as the hills. But below are some examples of how social dining looks and feels different to a regular restaurant’s consumer-based offering (as lovely as that is too)... or indeed a lunch or dinner at a friends house.

Update: If you are interested in encouraging more social dining, where you live, or work for a local authority, here's the brilliantly easy way that the Hackney Chief Exec and team have decided to do it.

Bring Your Own Restaurant

Do it yourself fine dining on the streets of Holyoke. A plein air potluck held every other Friday.

Outdoor Community Kitchen - Copenhagen

I visited this last summer.  Every week up to 80 people in the local neighbourhood bring dishes and share a meal together.

School Kitchen in Rotterdam

Maurice Specht (right) in the kitchen of a [very inspiring] school in Rotterdam - made completely available for the community to use.

Kitchain 

Modular furniture designed for social dining in a public space.

Collaboration O 

Communal dining area at their collaborative workspace.

Sunday Soup - Meal-based micro-granting events (below pics from Bologne and New York's FEAST)

Streetfeast  A day of local lunches across Ireland - as an excuse to share good food, meet new people who live near you, celebrate our streets and show what is possible when a group of people come together to do something special. Organised by Community Lover's Guide to Dublin editor Sam Bishop, and crew. 

Social Collaborative Platforms: Scalable, Sustainable ... and Fundable!

If you’ve had a very imaginative idea but are struggling to scale up or duplicate through regular enterprise models and methods there is a chance you have created a Social Collaborative Platform without realising it. I have only recently come up with these observations, as always I am keen to know what you think.

Here's what SCPs could possibly look like

-       They are imaginative social ideas that a group of people were compelled to try out under their own steam.

-        Sometime over the last 5 years the idea was adopted by other groups of people from around the world. 

-       These ideas are replicated largely on a voluntary basis and are not social franchises.

-       The idea founders often encourge new groups to create their own logos, plan their own events, while creating some supportive infrastructure through websites, guides and advice.

-       These ideas are often strategic and have multiple effects in the communities where they are implemented.

- These ideas spread in a sustainable way by the founder groups adopting a high autonomy/high trust model of collaboration.

I have at least 6 or 7 examples that I think fit this description, by how they have been developed and how well they have scaled, but below are 4 that I know sufficiently well to describe.

Example 1 Social Media Surgeries

Started by Nick Booth & co in Birmingham.  An idea to set up free social media sessions for local community groups with a group of professionals working voluntarily. There are now 90 groups registered on their site which support the organisation of local events. 

Example 2 Sunday Soup

Started by InCUBATE, an arts based research in Chicago in 2007.  Sunday Soup is a ‘meal-based micro-granting' model.  The basic formula is that a group of people come together to share a meal and all the income from that meal is given as a grant to support a creative project. Everyone who purchases the meal gets one vote to determine who receives the grant. There are currently 66 groups across the world – the majority have been started in the last 2 years.  They have different names and logos.

Eample 3 Trade School

Started by Caroline Woolard & co in 2009 in New York. Trade School is a project that where people barter for instruction and offers everyone the chance to learn something new in exchange for skills, spaces or objects.  Laura Billings has just completed the first run of Trade School London, and there are Trade Schools being started in Cardiff, Milan, Singapore, Paris …. Trade Schools often have different logos and supported by the team in New York who are setting up the network as a co-operative.

Example 4 Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe

I put the book Hand Made together collaboratively in 2010.  The series has become the Community Lover’s Guide to the Universe – with nearly 50 local voluntary editors across the world collecting stories about new types of community projects to publish. Rotterdam was published last month and May will see the publication of Amsterdam, Birmingham and Hackney.  Editors are using the process of putting the books together to create supportive knowledge sharing networks. 

These projects are working to a different model and because they are a bit confusing and the funders are not recognising them sufficiently yet. 

-       They are largely voluntary – but they aren’t charitable.  They are about groups of people wanting to do something good in their communities and see something valuable in these ideas.  The groups recognise that the projects either help spread knowledge, bring people together sociably but productively and can be used strategically to connect people and build trust at local level.

 -       A group of people would likely be unable to pay some sort of franchise fee to the project originator because the group would be unlikely to see any sort of business model in the idea – but there is a social model.  The idea would therefore be limited in its spread by the ability of people to turn them into businesses or charities of some kind.

- Their value is often a secondary benefit and often difficult to measured (Social Media Surgeries are doing a brilliant job of capturing effects) e.g. connection and relationships potentially reduces unemployment or depression, or even crime.

These projects challenge the idea of scalability in that they are spreading because they don’t involve money. For example with Community Lover’s Guides if we had budgets we would have to limit the number of issues we created by the amount of budget we had.  The core of these projects is money free…. But people need to survive so how are they doing that? In a number of different ways:

1. Founders are achieving funding to develop the infrastructure around the project to support the networks of groups e.g. websites
2. Value and content is being created around the project from the learning and network – giving people an opportunity to help others with technical support or consultancy.
3. Local groups are supporting their projects by simply chipping in for refreshments or are using empty spaces … and generally gathering existing resources.
4. Sometimes people have other paid jobs and do this on the side. It may not feel the same as volunteering for a charity, but people still don't feel they have to be paid for everything they do - particularly if it does some good in the world.

But overall, desptite the difficulties, I wonder if there is sufficient evidence for funders to start to recognise this as a new model, that could start to sit more comfortably in their understanding of what works and why.  Sometimes it’s a social enterprise model, sometimes it’s a charity model and sometimes it’s a Social Collaborative Platform – that needs funding at the top – but not through every transaction.

If we want to see more of these very practical, very strategic and imaginative projects (which can be views as 'social tools') being developed we need to rely on more than the love that some of these projects are currently sustained on ... The model calls for funding at the top end for development and support - and smaller scale funding at community level to help with logistics.

Big Lunch is one of the few Social Collaborative Platforms which started on a fully funded footing, knowing from the start that where the funding was needed - but it would be great to see more. 

In the social innovation sector we worry about the difficulties of scaling a lot. I wonder if a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of when to use which scaling and funding models wouldn't help us all achieve a lot more?

If you wanted to you could argue that The RSA and the Hub share many of the characteristics of a Social Collaborative Platform, but they achieve funding through mixtures of membership, co-operatives, enterprise etc. But these two examples also create brands, ideas, tools, methods, start up funding etc, and foster networks and collaboration which enable others to start something (network, enterprse,etc) at local level - very successfully indeed.

I can think of 3 projects that are struggling to be social enterprises at the moment who should be thinking about becoming a valuable Social Collaborative Platform, but through lack of funding/sponsorship are unable to make what feels like an enormous leap…. To give it away (strategically) to grow.

 

Somewhereto_ … Can we have one for everyone?

I was invited to an Action Group last Tuesday on Giving Spaces at the Cabinet Office, set up by the people at Somewhereto_, led by Sam Conniff of Livity.  If you aren’t familiar with Somewhereto_, it is an amazing project which has been unlocking empty spaces for young people to experiment and use. 

somewhereto_ aims to:

• unlock space to help young people
• create a movement which will enable young people to engage with their creative and cultural passions
• transform use of space throughout local communities

To date, somewhereto_ has…

• unlocked 308,000 sq ft of space,
• negotiated 1732 somewhereto_ space matches, between young people and space holders
• worked with youth partners to engage with young people and space partners who have access to the space which young people need
• highlighted we have potentially leveraged £1.6m in premises costs^.

 I have been a fan of the project since it was in planning and have been astonished at how well the project has been implemented.  On Tuesday we heard from two young people who had used the spaces that were made available to them, not only to fulfil their own aspirations and showcase their own talents and ideas… but also to support other young people do the same.  It was pretty inspiring.

Also inspiring was the dedication  and enthusiasm shown by the local project organisers who have been taking on the tougher side – speaking to local councils and businesses to release the spaces and to cut through red tape … of which there is a lot.

The frustrations won’t surprise you. How do they get more spaces unlocked quicker? How can we change some of the systems which mean the local authorities act with extreme caution, rather that with realism and imagination?

There is certainly willing… but a long way to go …

The meeting was under Chatham House rules, but I do feel at liberty to quote the Minister that was present who called for local authorities ‘to be bolder’ and to use the ‘General Power of Competence’ to find reasons for saying yes to more of these initiatives.

I came away inspired by a brilliantly conceived project, being brilliantly executed … and wishing that we could have a bigger Somewhereto_ that unlocked spaces for everyone’s use,  as well as young people … and also with renewed conviction that these sorts of projects only work this well when there is expert facilitation.

Thanks to Sam for the invitation and to Miranda Sawyer for such animated faciliation and Oli Barrett for bringing his whistle ... and in particlar to the young people who came and shared their inspiring stories! 

Big Society: R.I.P.?

In my opinion Big Society is one of the most inspiring governmental initiatives … where has it gone?

I have been a fan from the beginning – at its core I saw the potential for this powerful idea to disrupt and transform some of the  imbalances in society that have accidentally become self-generating, arising as they have from genuinely well-meaning, but frequently out-of-date approaches to solving complex, interrelated problems.

I have seen Big Society as an energising concept that could help regular citizens see the potential of deploying their own ideas, energies and talents to making and shaping where they live, moving away from viewing their immediate physical and social environments as deliverables, external to their own agency and resourcefulness.

But sadly, there is very little of the original enthusiasm coming from No10 currently. And this seems counter to my experiences of working and talking with local government, with local councillors and with people working in central government departments.  Even in recent weeks I have had several contacts with central government departments and I have seen only a strong commitment to trying to understand and deliver the goals of the Big Society agenda. The civil service has been ‘on message’ but have also demonstrated a deep and genuine dedication to these ideas.

Outside of government even people who are aligned to another party, are fighting fiercely against inequalities or cuts, or are critical of economic policy, would support the underlying principle of helping more people take more control of their lives and communities, and prosper as a result.

The first year after the launch of Big Society generated a huge amount of criticism and debate, but by comparison over the last 12 months the government, and the Prime Minister in particular, has gone quiet about Big Society.  This is a great pity and I would like to question, and with others hopefully understand, more of the thinking that has led to this ‘hands off’ approach that has been adopted.

The criticism and debate about Big Society that we had in the first year was pretty disruptive to relationships, but it was urgently needed and incredibly valuable. Professionals working in communities in various roles were forced to examine and compare their practice, including their own roles in relation to the potential of citizens.  We blogged, argued, made peace, wrestled with our own work and generally had a period of healthy self and other criticism which has sadly largely disappeared.

Only to replaced by, and please do argue with me about this description, a general sense of everyone ‘just getting on with it’.  Pretty much as we would have been ‘getting on with it’ had the words Big and Society never been strung together.  It has not caught fire in the general population in any meaningful way that I can see?

So why has David Cameron gone so quiet on Big Society?  Was it a PR smoke screen for cuts as many thought it was?  If so the government has never been more in need of smoke or distraction, with an announcement today of a double dip recession.  If we caste our cynicism aside for a moment, perhaps the PM has been too busy with more important things such as the economy or international affairs to be paying attention to what others would describe as his ‘pet project’. 

Personally I have been convinced that David Cameron is really dedicated to the Big Society idea and it’s potential. So below are some of the potential reasons that could be the source of the ‘hands off’ approach currently being adopted.

1. Too much criticism?

 It’s pretty hard to take and there was a lot of it. Especially after launching BS in such a clumsy way originally, looking strikingly as it did like a governmental attempt to claim credit for much hard work being done for many years in communities and the voluntary sector. They launched an umbrella when what they needed was a platform. Is a ‘hands off’ approach really just a form of ‘keeping your head down’ instead?

2. Bad advice?

 The role of government in supporting the Big Society is still something of a mystery.  It is not as if previous governments haven’t attempted something similar.  It is very difficult to understand in any sophisticated way how much stimulation, scaffolding and support to give communities when they are still learning to do new things in new ways (neighbourliness aside). But it appears that these subtle mechanisms are not being determined through detailed evaluation or systematic action research.  Instead a rather painful myth seems to have emerged, one that conveniently requires neither money nor action.  It’s the ‘get out of the way’ myth.  The assumption being that Big Society, could and would become a ‘movement’, requiring nothing but an initial round of fire setting and a benign and general blessing. You get out of the way of an out of control train - and I don't see one.

3. Too much focus on professionals?

 I imagine it  is easy to hear professionals louder than regular people … but a year ago people I met around the country were talking about Big Society, now they aren’t. (To be honest, no one is talking about Big Society – including professionals) Big Society, if it happens at all, will be done by spreading the ideas widely, systematically and strategically to the millions of people who currently have had little or no exposure to some of the amazing ideas emerging of citizen-led change.

4. “We are quietly working behind the scenes to build BS infrastructure”?

Fair enough.  We have seen the launch of the Big Society Capital this month - £600m of unused cash in bank accounts. Inspired.  But what else … what are we waiting for? Some rather expensive initiatives appear to be failing - perhaps we should collaborate somehow to support them ...?

 5. The ‘inevitable’ assumption?

Although we have noticed a surge in  citizen-led activity world-wide I  think this type of activity is vulnerable, vulnerable to a hard recession, extreme politics, competition, unemployment, loss of optimism, hyperactivism ... things that increase the need for Big Society Thinking… but may destroy the fragile conditions under which communities will come together positively to collaborate and create. 

The optimistic view of the future that Big Society has tried to promote, one where we are more connected to our neighbours, where we are more productive and socially aware, where this emergent and cultivated connection and trust might start to work on serious social problems such as crime, unemployment, truancy, depression, isolation … This view is important and worthy of protection and whether we like the politicians of the moment or not, I think we need all our politicians to strive for this type of collaborative vision of the future and to help its citizens achieve it, not because the politicians insist on it, but because we do.

Rarely has an idea sparked so much discussion and debate... love it or hate it.

 I like Big Society and I would like it back.

 

UPDATE:

 Responding post: Big Society killed by its contradictions by David Floyd

Trade School London - barter for knowledge

Today Miriam taught us about analogue photography and how to make cyanotype prints with sunlight. Last week Ansel brought his wormery in from home to teach us how to make compost. The week before (among other things) we were turning whales pink with photoshop thanks to Tanya, designing usable websites with Rae, and growing food in the city with Kristen.

Trade School London has been up and running for a few weeks now - and there is still a chance to come along to the last few classes in our first season. Breadbaking, poetry and cycle maintenance are still open to attend - just book online and bring your exchange item to give to the teacher.

Trade School runs on a barter and exchange system. Not in the sense of haggling someone down to the cheapest price possible - but offering things of value other than money, in exchange for the opportunity to learn something new.

It has been a fascinating experience seeing how people react to the idea, and how we can revalue what we find important. We are still mid season, and I'm sure more realisations will trickle through in the coming weeks, but some initial thoughts...

Normally, on the way out of the door, I grab bag, phone, keys, wallet and off. I know if there is something I want during the day, I can exchange money for it without consciously thinking beyond the numerical price attached to it. (Actually, my ethics are stronger than that, but for the sake of argument..!) For Trade School I was thinking several days in advance of the class what I would bring the teacher, wondering if it was suitable, weighing up if it was a fair deal, and remembering to get it sorted out. It's a fundamentally different way of thinking from the start.

At the classes, sometimes before, and sometimes after, each person would explain their item and pass it on to the teacher. It felt much more personal and intimate than paying with money. People had baked cakes, brought plants they'd grown from seed, passed on books they had enjoyed, gathered various belongings. As a teacher of one class myself I had a longer attachment to the experience and the people that came as I ate some of the swapped bananas for breakfast the next morning, started reading the book and looked up some music suggestions I was given. Not only does each item have a story attached to it. more importantly it has a person attached to it. It's something that links two or more people together in an experience, over time. Now tell me the last time you felt like that about a banana!

It does take a while to get your head round - although the Trade School concept is simple, the underlying ideas around alternative economics and exchange are complex. The current financial economic model is so embedded in our thinking and behaviour it takes a while to unpick and feel comfortable with something else. But based on the positive feedback from people so far - there is a lot of value in this way of treating one another and the resources we have, that we are often currently over looking.

***

Trade School is a great way to learn, share resources, and make new connections. The first season runs until end April, then we are taking a quick break. If you would like to find out more, or start a Trade School in your area - get in touch!
london [@] tradeschool.coop

www.tradeschool.coop/london

Mobile & Mint - free workshops around East London

Mobile & Mint is hitting the streets...

Offering free community workshops around East London - to spread new ideas, and inspire collaborative action. Click to book!

Available for community groups, networks of interest, residents associations, voluntary organisations, groups of friends, anyone interested in positive change... Around Hackney and Tower Hamlets - cycle lanes permitting!

Based on the Travelling Pantry project, Mobile & Mint shares new ideas from community practise around the world (collected through collaborative books Hand Made and The Community Lover's Guide to the Universe); plus a series of tried and tested methods to encourage the co-design of new types of community projects.

+ learn about new types of community activities from around the world
+ design new collaborative projects
+ apply strategic planning and positively re-assess available resources

Click to book!

Launching 19 April with a class at Trade School London, with special guest Maurice. 
Thu 19 Apr, 8pm. FARM:shop, 20 Dalston Lane. More on the Trade School London site.

And fitting in as many workshops as possible from then.

Thank you to...
Lindsay Noble for her inspired design
Christian from East London Furniture for the custom built fruit crate
The Hackney Bike Workshop, Bikeworks, and Paul Gleeson for joint effort helping me to get the wheels on straight.
More pics here 

Community Lover's Guide: One down, many more to come!

Almost a year after suggesting we make a local edition of Hand Made, 9 March saw the official launch of the Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam! A collection of 14 initiatives highlighting inspiring and creative ways in which people have been forging bonds and creating communities. Using empty spaces, shops, kids, food, greenery, sand, books, stories, art, and symbols in new and old ways has resulted in some amazing projects.

Making the book has been a thrilling experience. In showed me again how many people are actively trying to make their city into a better place to live. I decided to start the book with an introductory chapter explaining this feeling. So the first draft of this chapter was called 'For the love of public space'  because what I think all the projects collected in this book show is the care, pride and ambition people show for their environment and each other. But it didn't quite get to the significance I started these initiatives had.

So I ended up writting a different chapter called 'Desire Lines', arguing that we should see the projects brought together as social equivalents of the desire lines you see in public space. And just as city planners don't really know how to deal with these desire lines (ignore them, take them into account and make them into official roads, or pave them over from time to time to keep the appearance of the official world as the only way up) policymakers, scientists, media and fellow citizens also find it difficult to relate to these projects. They like them, but what is their particular value? I don't have an answer to this question, but have put it out there as an invitation to explore this with me.

We launched the book in a ‘Community Lover's Lab’ over the course of 3 days, in an empty shop on one of the main shopping streets in Rotterdam. People were welcomed in with a Pie Lab (offering free pie on a china plate), and invited to share what they wanted to see more of in their neighbourhood, and to add assets to a big map of the area. Some were just curious and left after a small exchange, others stayed for an hour talking about the neighbourhood, but also the economy, the value of money, education and coffee shops. It was a really fun and energizing experience.

more pictures of the lab can be found at: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/communityloverslab

Other activities included a conversation with a mixed group of project initiators, urban professionals and researchers gathering to try and find the right language to grasp the value and meaning of the projects brought together in the book. In turned out to be a very difficult thing to do; to have a conversation publicly allowing for doubt in understanding what is happening around us. It has led to a new experiment called 'Doubt-lab' in which we will be trying to find safe conversation formats to publicly express and work with doubts. More will be up on the Social Lab before too long – and it would be great to share others experiences.

You can find all the Dutch chapters here, or buy the book here. The English edition of the Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam will be available online for free, and in hard copy print from mid-April. So keep a close I on Twitter (@mauricespecht) for the announcements 

We have also developed a 3 day ' Immerse Learning'  experience around the Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam in which we invite people from abroad to explore and learn from these inspiring projects first hand. We call this trip 'Into the Field'. More details can be found here 

All in all what started a year ago as a quaint remark has now gone into its second phase. With the first book coming out, and other editions from different cities as London (Hackney), West-Alabama, Birmingham, Utrecht and Minneapolis around the corner, the potential of this project is becoming more and more clear to me. It's an inspiring way of building a local and an international network of people changing the world bit by bit.For an overview of all the future edition visit Community Lover's Guide to the Universe.

 

More consumption than collaboration?

 

This week I went to a one day summit on Collaborative Consumption hosted by NESTA. And I found myself getting a little hot under the collar during some of the talks. But also optimistic about the changes in consumption patterns. I've been trying to work out why, and this is where I am at with it so far.

In the accompanying pamphlet, collaborative consumption is described as the 'socialising of markets', which is largely enabled by technology. A shift towards 'organising, sharing, bartering, lending, trading, renting, gifting and swapping'.

The 'collaborative' part I take no issue in. In fact from all the examples of projects and activities I've been involved in, seen and met from Travelling Pantry workshops, the Community Lover's Guide to the Universe network and more - it's when people begin to collaborate and pool ideas, resources, skills, energy and knowledge that great things start to happen.

The 'consumption' part is the bit that is causing me a headache! In a consumer or traditional business model there are particular types of behaviour that we are all used to. It's a mature paradigm. You pay your money, you get your item or service. You go on your way. Sometimes that's fine, sometimes I think things would be better if there was something more...

In some of the examples we heard on Friday - for example a new car hire scheme from EasyJet, or a luxury Mayfair flat holiday let - the mode of consumption may have moved from buying and ownership, to renting and bringing back. But it is still a classic consumer relationship for the people involved. And I don't think the audience was left under any illusion that the aim of these businesses was primarily to use a market opportunity and make money. Lots of it. It wasn't designed to foster 'collaboration', it just happens to need a bit more of it to work well.

In the same talk, another great organisation was given a name check. The Good Gym - set up by Ivo Gormley - where runners are paired with someone less mobile, and drop in to have a chat, take a pint of milk or a paper. This is not like a normal gym membership. There is more human interaction, relationship building, a positive purpose alongside the exercise, more social connections and benefits. It feels collaborative. It doesn't feel like 'consumption'. There is a business model behind it, and it is scalable. But it is not just a service, and it is designed to make enough money to run, not to make vast sums of profit for someone.

Another example is Trade School (and we are just about to open the doors to Trade School London ) where people offer to teach a new skill to others, and pupils barter to come along. Exchange items range from design advice, new recipe suggestions, mix cds, books, art materials, maps.. Teacher and pupils form a relationship before class begins, everyone is valued equally, what we learn and teach is re-assessed. The classes aren't 'free' because there is a value in the barter items, and the social nature of exchange. Again - this feels like collaboration, and less like consumption. Again, the model is scalable with Trade Schools opening in London, Singapore, Paris and more this year. Again the aim is to spread the idea, not make bundles of profit.

What made me uneasy is the lumping together of all these ideas under one 'collaborative consumption' umbrella. It feels like traditional business models, ideas around scaling and efficiency and what we term a 'successful' business are in danger of confusing or polluting a fragile new creative, collaborative way of working that needs some nurturing.

Some questions I scribbled down during the talks that I am still pondering the answers to include...

One quote that was stated was 'there is more value in usage than in ownership'. Why was the value being talked about largely monetary? During all the presentations the numbers presented were mainly profits and growth in users. There was a nod to environmental savings around carbon or landfill tons from car sharing and swapping possessions, but no one seemed to value or measure the social impact.

It was said that in order to make a collaborative consumption business work you needed to get people to trust 1) the idea 2) the company and 3) the peer network. So trust in each other as peers comes last on that list? One of the examples of such a company was an online toy renting service for parents. Surely if we foster trusting relationships with our neighbours as a first, then trust in an idea we could just share toys with each other rather than pay unnecessarily for a service? Does the 'collaborative consumption' model serve to keep us from trusting each other and still in need of a service so it can make money?

There was talk of 'curated communities' i.e. that the marketing and branding was specifically designed to attract like-minded members who would join a peer network and pay for a service. Again this speaks to the fact that profit is the motive, rather than collaboration. Where are the benefits from bridging social connections across ages, cultures, genders in a monoculture network?
When is enough enough? Why does money and profit still seem to be king? Can there be enough to grease the wheels in a business, and allow for all the other values and ways of interacting besides 'consumption' take their place more equally? Where is the balance?

Hmm. 
Having said all of that, I would rather end on a positive note. If this wave of 'collaborative consumption' really does go to scale, and there is a shift away from the classic ownership consumption models currently it should be positive as a way of us all being much more resourceful, and perhaps as a bridge towards a truly collaborative future.

 

Social Spaces: Business in Beta

I tell this story about how Social Spaces started at nearly every workshop - people seem to like the unexpected sense of joie de vivre it introduces.  David Gauntlett and I had been working on this idea for several months - it went something like this "people are doing things differently, they are showing us that the traditional ways of doing things in communities needs to change".  We spoke to funders, considered a research bid... etc.  Then one day, inspired, infected almost, by the stories of the projects I was getting in for Hand Made, I had an idea while doing laps in the pool.  I wasn't going to wait around any longer, I was going to take these ideas on to the road, in a mini, and see how people responded to these new ideas ... see what happened...what could be learned ... and that's what I did for 6 months, travelling 20,000 miles, in 40 workshops with about 1000 people. I had no funding at all.  The communities that requested free workshops helped to cover petrol ... and they kindly put me up over night.  I found myself in student digs, sofas, *terrible* hotels ... and beautiful guests rooms. It was an incredible experience ... and didn't feel very much like prototyping new concepts ... which is what it was all about.

Time goes on and we are always looking forward.  But yesterday I was emailing this very nice lady at IDEO Patterns about Community Lover's Guide to Rotterdam  launch and I had reason to look over the list of patterns they have been highighting.  The very first edition was in 2009 called Business in Beta - Don't wait for perfect, launch and learn - by Colin Raney- and I had forgotten all about it.  Looking back I think that this issue was one of the single biggest influences on taking the ideas on the road in the Travelling Pantry in 2010... and reading it over yesterday made me think how much of this attitude is now in everthing we do ... and everything we encourage for community projects to do as well ... sort of in our DNA now...And it is really adictive working in this unbounded way.

Here were their suggestions on taking action:

1. Go early, go often

Building experimentation into your business is harder than you think. Start small and stay focused. Try everything, but don’t try it all in one prototype.

2. Learning by doing

Build value for the business as you prototype. If you fail, what will you have learned? What will you salvage?

3. Inspiration through constraint

Don’t exhaust yourself searching for money and resources. The tighter your constraints, the more creative your prototypes will be.

4. Open to opportunity

Look for unanticipated ways customers are using your offering. Their improvisations may be the future of your business.

So, just wanted to say a big thank you to IDEO for Patterns... and giving this project the inspiration it needed at exactly the right moment it needed it!  And it has turned this project into a open, collaborative adventure... 

And if you are intested in news ways of developing business and ideas the Design the new Business film released this week (and embedded below) is really fascinating.