this post originally appeared in Stir Magazine illustration by Daksheeta Pattni In 2002 I described United Diversity as “a member owned and stakeholder governed network of mutual advantage.” In truth, it was aspirational. At the time, the flexible off-the-shelf legal structures and open source tools needed to make such a network a reality simply didn’t exist. Now they do. Co-ops that combine best practices from the international co-operative movement with best practices from the open source … [Read more...]
United Diversity at the London Permaculture Festival
I'm off to Cloud Cuckoo Land Festival now, but thought I'd better whack this presentation I did at the London Permaculture Festival up first. I gives a brief history of United Diversity plus details of our exciting plans going forward. The sound isn't too good so when I get the time I'll do a full transcript with links any everything, but for now, enjoy! … [Read more...]
Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes
I love Pam Warhust. She is such a inspirational, grounded and powerful woman. This is one of my favourite TED talks, by far. Please, watch and share it now. It is about the inspirational story of Incredible Edible Todmorden which has now spawned the Incredible Edible Network. But, as she hints at so powerfully towards the end of the talk, this is about so much more than food. It is about community empowerment. This is about sharing and investing in kindness It is about Community, … [Read more...]
The Mondragon Co-operative Corporation
The Mondragón Corporation is an inspiration. The largest cooperative in the world, they are a federated network of over 250 co-operative businesses who together are the seventh biggest group in Spain. They employ over 80,000 people, have their own banks, universities, research laboratories and social security systems. They have proven to be incredibly resilient to the on going economic crisis. Unemployment in the Basque region where they are based is less than half than the rest of Spain … [Read more...]
How Cooperatives and Community Enterprise Will Get Us Out of this Gigantic Mess
I've posted this excellent talk by Janelle Orsi from the brilliant Sustainable Economies Law Center a few times over on our facebook page. The whole presentation is well worth watching, but I particularly like it when she says: What is the entity structure that is most going to ensure that our communities are protected? and what is going to most ensure that the wealth in society becomes distributed more equitably? I keep coming back to the answer of: Co-operatives. Co-operatives, Co-operatives, … [Read more...]
Liquid Democracy is NOT Delegative Democracy
Liquid Democracy is a fast, decentralized, collaborative question-answering system, which works by enabling chained answer recommendation. It occupies the middle ground somewhere between direct and representative democracy, and is designed to ensure that the things we all hold in common stay properly maintained (by small, stealthy, distributed teams of anarchist kung-fu badasses, if need be), even in the face of radical technological change. I love liquid democracy! Have done so ever since … [Read more...]
Top 40 Platforms for Crowdfunding Social Change
I published this on the P2P Foundation blog last week, but posting here too for good measure :) Crowdfunding is a new word for an old idea. The Oxford English dictionary defines it as: "the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet" Crowdfunding's poster child, Kickstarter, launched in April 2009. It wasn't the first online crowdfunding platform (ArtistShare launched in 2003), but it was the first … [Read more...]
The Genius of #KONY2012 and why all NGOs should take note
Let me start with a disclaimer: I have not watched the KONY2012 video. Just listening to it made me feel a bit uneasy (my fiancée watched on her laptop whilst we both worked at home sitting opposite each other at our dining table). I have, however, been familiar with the work of Invisible Children since March 2006 (doesn't the Internet age fast? all links on that post but theirs' have since expired). Not long after that, I organised a screening of their first self-entitled film and to be … [Read more...]
We can accomplish more by sharing
This is the first in a series exploring the things I have learned from the open source way during my time at Red Hat. About 9 years ago I joined Red Hat and my life changed forever. As for my background, currently I'm the Senior Vice President of People & Brand at Red Hat, responsible for shepherding the human resources, learning, and brand and creative services functions within the company. I am a mother, a lawyer, a business school grad, a female executive in a male-dominated … [Read more...]
The Diagonal Economy 2: The Impact of Energy Descent
I’ve wondered how to best explain the advantages of the Diagonal Economy in confronting energy descent. I think that reference to an old post addressing “anti-economies ” is perhaps the best framework. There, I discussed the classical sources of economic efficiency: economy of scale and economy of place. Both economies of place and scale will be impacted by the phenomenon of energy descent—the idea that there will be increasingly less surplus energy available to society going forward. While … [Read more...]