This is an editable wiki, so feel free to add your own notes! If you don’t have a lot of time, just skip the first 3 paragraphs 
With @Dorotea, @Hazem, @emkosz, @Cataspanglish, @marcop who are interested in the Catalyst opportunity we delved into what it would entail and particularly get a feel of how collaboration in Edgeryders (ER) works.
We started with clarifying questions people had, like Marco’s. Having come across the unMonastery project in a workshop in Matera about the sharing economy, he wanted to know the connection between ER and unMonastery, and I walked him through it. In general we here are a bunch interested in the wild things that shape ambitious futures – from figuring out new ways to work, to building tech tools for more quality democratic participation, and to learning to grow our own food. It is very diverse, and makes for quite a smart group. By coming together our individual work becomes even more relevant, and we can find more easily resources to support it.
Now about Catalyst collaboration: it’s a small grant that the ER organisation got because there are these tools built in a EU funded project that need real people/communities to work with them. Both Edgesense and Assembl are applications that can be accessed online after some installation is done, and suited to visualize and respectively aggregate large scale discussions. Example: Edgesense is already installed, and it would be great if during this project the tester would examine in more detail the community evolution between July 2014 - Dec 2014, around “stewardship” conversations ahead and after our annual event Lote4: http://edgeryders.edgesense.spazidigitali.com/
While Edgesense serves to decribe massive conversations (both visually and via network metrics), Assembl supposedly makes it easier to summarize content in various stages of the discussions, helping communities co-produce new ideas. We will find someone in the dev team to walk us through it (perhaps @Alberto can suggest a name), yet it will require a little more time testing than Edgesense. Even so, both are estimated as part time work.
How do we recruit for this project and in general? ER is constantly building community to create our own pool of talent, learn from each other, and know where to find key skills in the community when paid opportunities arrive. It’s not about educational credentials, rather about peer support and thinking well into the future– we work distributedly, coordinate online using the platform for documenting the work and keep others in the loop, while leaving it open for anyone to get involved… Some would argue we’re on our way to become expert collaborators, the best in the world.
For me, and some like Dorotea, it’s important that if there is room for collaboration (which tends to always be), we’d take that in a second rather than have people compete against each other. Think job sharing, or alternatively make a small investment of time to follow a project/conversation and offer your input. This is what can spiral afterwards into new projects. On the other hand, a gig might work out better if someone takes clear responsibility to deliver… so it’s a judgement call.
We decided to give it a couple more days for all of us to re-evaluate our preference, eg Marco applying was more like looking for a way to get involved with Edgeryders (I thought that was smart and sweet :)) Hazem mentioned a newfound preference for Assembl, even though he initially wanted Edgesense. Dorotea is willing to act as support to both. Ema, would be great to hear more from you!
Any thoughts after our conversation? Perhaps some things are unclear? The others who couldn’t make it to the call are most welcome too! Anyway, expect to hear back 