LOTE3 Volunteers

Edgeryders Guide to the Edge

Nadia just posted in the Facebook group the proposal to use the LOTE3 for creating content for our very own P2P Edgeryders Guide handbook. I completely agree that this is the most helpful cotent to produce and get out there for our fellows in Europe and beyond.

But, in what format to do this? The book we created for the policy makers was all nice, but also a TON of effort. And it would be even more effort to keep it updated. So why not use a Stackoverflow clone on edgeryders.eu, with some adaptations to make it work for questions with no one best answer.

Advantages: proven gamification concept; simple, short engagement; more social and fun than writing a book; it keeps itself updated with newest answers when circumstances and policies change; possibilities to engage way more people than we could host in collaboratively writing a book; plus, books are so nineties (naughties at best) – new formats for knowledge presentation are developing, and we can play around with them and see how we like them.

1 Like

Yes, with the theory and practice living and developing together

I don’t know if you’ve read Christopher’s great post about work and innovation. During a workshop we had in Stockholm recently, Christopher brought up the need for us to produce a work like Stephane Hessels Indignez Vous…a theoretical framework that does not reinforce the paradigm we are all working within. And I think a really useful guide is like the best cookbooks that while presenting a hands on instructible, also weave in contexutal information, inspiration, anecdotes and suggestions for those who would like to explore this further. The best example I have come across so far is “The Allotment Book” a practical guide to creating a plot (you know for growing your own food) by Kim Wilde. It starts with the history of allotments and the political dimensions, and then moves seamlessly between instructions, and political discourse. I had no idea something like plots of land could be so interesting and it made me want to get one started!

2 Likes

Value of reusable content

I gotta disagree respectfully. :slight_smile:

First, good theory is just a generalization of good practice. Without practice, no theorizing about it.

Then, I can see the aesthetic, artistic and practical value of the book you propose. Yes, it would gather its following, and there would be people who read a “narrative instruction manual” end to end. But how many? It’s not everybody’s style, esp. on the Net where content gets ever shorter and more focused. (And that’s not necessarily bad. It’s different: the web as an answer machine makes this kind of content meaningful. People would be embarrassed to know how little I know about Drupal and how much I look up just-in-time in stackoverlow.com’s 4 million pre-solved problems :D.) Although creating a book is an achievement to be proud of, if we can have more impact with another format, why would we go for a book format, that potentially only a few people really consume? (“Nobody tells us to produce long (policy) documents any more, so why should we?”).

Also, the theory in such a book is not everybody’s view of things. By adding a theory layer, you add potential for disagreement, while on the level of details there will be a lot of agreement. For example, I’d potenially agree with Christopher on practical questions of squatting. But not on the meta level, where he proposes to develop a framework for leveraging the state, and I propose one (EarthOS) for replacing the state with decentralized solutions.

Of course I see a place for political theory and a framework – it’ spart of becoming true citizen experts. Just that, as in economics, there will always be different schools of thought in politics and sociology, and I propose to acknowledge that Edgeryders will always contain experts of many such schools of thought.

Here’s where I see the value of reuse coming in: If the chunks of detail content we produce are open content and prepared to be reused, we can just do so. You might write a narrative-style cookbook for social change on big and small levels. I might be happy with hands-on topical collections of Q&A type instructions, or maybe summarize them into a hands-on booklet like Tech Tools for Activism.

I acknowledge however that nodbody can be sure to have the best theory and best approach for impact. We’re all trying. But trying multiple approaches in parallel is a strength even, as can be seen in the free software movement. So I propose we all (as potential content producers for this kinda project) should find a way to produce reusable chunks of content, and then reuse them as we see fit. A Stackoverflow type of site would be a suggestion. And I can well imagine institutional and governmental actors to be there as well, for example answering questions about social innovation as I propose here or about EU funding (thinking of our very valuable discussion session with Prabhat Agarwal in the EU parliament). Collaboratively authoring a complete book produces however hardly reusable content, as book content with interwoven theory is not modular enough for that.

(Side note: from all the 101 StackExchange sites, there is only sustainability.stackexchange.com with an at least somwhat similar focus to what I propose. But maybe somebody found something closer elsewhere?)

I agree, Im thinking about context here…

How viable an approach, solution or idea is will depend a lot on the context. Aggregating and making sense of that data gives us all an additional dimension, in that we can learn more about how to affect change and what demands need to be put forward when interacting with stakeholders. Whether it is local administrations, investors, media, whatever.

What  I mean by theory is thinking tools that enable us and others to develop values and norms that are also part of the work of developing alternatives. Certainly values and norms play a role in why we consider certain approaches realistic and viable, and not others… I was thinking of a session on Spirituality and Resilince during Edgecamp that Luke Devlin lead. I think what goes on in your mind, and how to work on that is a big deal of being ok. The same goes with the body. Another examle is some work Susa and I did a while back. We started with ideas about the physical well being and somehow though a long list of things we would need to learn more about to be able to do the kind of bodywork we were exploring we ended up at collaboration. With a much stronger initiative than the original one.

I think this matters because if you have a solid, and deep understanding of what you do and how it relates to what others do, it is easier to make a case and also find ways of working together.

Another aspect is “how does this map onto policy/politics”  or how is it affected by policy or politics.  And how to go about making sense of this together.

What is P2P, what is the goal of the guide and for who?

I definitely would like a guide to curate all the P2P initiatives and projects nowadays. Before discussing about the format of this guide I think it’s important to first decide or define what P2P is and what projects/initiatives/websites/platforms belongs to it?

Secondly I think it is important that we look at he potential audience for this guide. Is it for people already known in the business or for attracting new people to get engaged in the new movement with P2P technology, or maybe both? I prefer to have a low profile guide for people who haven’t heard about the new movement yet, to persuade more people to get involved in P2P projects.

My third point is that also other people would like to have a guide/dictionary about P2P. I have seen a proposal on the OuiShare Global Facebook group about making a Wikisprint about P2P initiatives. Already libraries exist at Mesh, Collaborative Consumption, Plopp.us, and probably more… . According to me they are all good especially Plopp.us (but what is this name about? :)), but certainly not perfect and i think most will not convince potential users. For example, the categories are totally different on each library and the libraries are very big too and mostly world orienteded. Personally note: Funny thing that the collaborative economy don’t collaborate much with each other to synchronize, maybe there should be an Edgeryders project about the collaboration within the collaborative economy :P?

For my the best P2P guide will be locally (per country, per city) based, just a short description, link and let you know the alternative platform which do about the same. Maybe we can add some recommendations or reviews. Curious what other people think about this…?

Regards, Marius

1 Like

Making a living?

Marius,

In my understanding the guide would be less a repository and dictionary of initiatives, rather practical information, insights and instructibles that are clear, easily legible, and can inspire others, support those who are re-negotiating their relationship with the value of work. Making a living has been a crucial point of conversation between Edgeryders for the past year.The context is the dated paradigm asserting jobs for life, ascending careers, enough jobs for everyone, smooth transition from university into a labour market, so we’d try to provide better answers to questions like how we go about:

  1. paying the rent

  2. influencing who you are in the eyes of others

  3. finding reasons to get out of bed  (reference in this post and comments)

I think the audience is as large as it gets: say, even proeficient users of p2p technology would still have something to learn from a re-ruralizing experience of a different kind of peer support; someone who is indeed trapped in a meaningless job might find the courage to adopt other solutions, as radical as they may appear.

Referring to your 3rd point, cross polinating ideas with others working on this is crucial, and I think it is not a coincidence that Edgeryders members are also Oui Share or Shareable enthusiasts, and viceversa… the idea is to build on initiatives out there, and of course not be redundant.

Response

Hi,

Sorry for my late reaction. I am not getting updates when a new comment is made.

Ok now i understand the project a bit more, sorry i misunderstand it :). Really trying to understand what EdgeRyders is about. And i am a slow starter.Just recently i discovered where #LOTE stands for…haha.

Still i don’t fully understand what kind of guide you want to make than. What has p2p to do with the questions you sum up? Can you specify? I am a bit confused.

Do you maybe have to link of the result of the last LOTE? Thanks in advance.

As user of p2p platforms, like airbnb, gidsy, konnektid, shareyourmeal, uniiverse, fray.it, toogethr, bedycase, wimdu, localguiding, shiroube, cookening, beyondcroissant and some more, i am quiet interested in making any guide or share my experiences about it.

marius

1 Like

I think the connection is in the framing of the narrative: a guide for us to help one another and learn how to make a living with meaning, hence the peer to peer.

Experience sharing maybe?

Marius, welcome and thanks for meaningful input :slight_smile:

“maybe there should be an Edgeryders project about the collaboration within the collaborative economy :P?

I like the idea! (Given the fact that I’m building yet another directory of P2P and open source alternatives, and judging from its unfinished state, I’m very aware of the problem of keeping it all up to date, and relevant per-location.) But it’s a major effort. It’s about defining data exchange standards, programming plugins for several CMS and document authoring systems, and of course getting all the collaborative economy directories on board first. Settling for one shared directory with open governance (in analogy to WIkipedia) would be far simpler in terms of effort, but is probably also more unrealistic … . Not sure what we could do …

The other thing is, given the fact that there are so many P2P project directories out there already, we probably should in our guide move beyond this and collect the experience of using P2P resources. In my experience, knowing which tools are out there is still a far cry from making them work out in my personal life …

YES.

this is exactly the point. It is shared experiences that is at the core of what we do. Because that is valuable contextual information as well as a contact point to someone who has valuable tacit knowledge that is difficult to communicate.

Interesting project you have

Hi Matthias,

Thanks for your welcome and response. Interesting project you have. I can understand that is a lot of effort. Are you doing this alone and where do you get the input from?

Can you give a short example of an experience in the use of P2P resources, to fully understand what you want to cover with this guide? thanks.

Although i am using a lot of p2p platforms, it is still hard to use them for personal life at the moment for me too, so get that point! :slight_smile:

Cheers

Example

(Oops, nearly missed your reply nearly.) About the EarthOS document, it’s just a personal project so far but I would welcome to host it on a collaborative platform instead, as it gets too much stuff to handle alone. It grew out of defining my own ideal personal equipment combined with being a big fan of free and open source solutions. It’s like an organized link collection that arises from random expeditions on the Internet … :smiley:

For an example, take the case of open source 3D printing. RepRap, Makerbot etc. are great technology, and it’s easy to find all the stuff I could print with them. But it’s very hard to find somebody with the experience to tell me if and how I can integrate 3D printing in my toolset so that it’s indeed a contribution to self-sufficiency and an alternative economy, and not just tinkering around. Ultimately everyboy has to find out on their own as everyone’s life is different, but it would help a lot to be informed by a collection of stories how people found the role for 3D printing in their lives …

how i can Help?

Hi,

since I am new , please tell me where i can help and what can i do.

For those who dont know me, My name is Christine, I am from Athens-Greece and  i am a member the Time Bank of Athens.

take a look in our website

www.time-exchange.gr

and our spot…both are in greek lol…but i am sure you will understand

Last October Time Bank of Athens was one of the organisers of the 1st Alternative Festival of Solidarity and Cooperative Economy that happened in Athens and generally I have an experience in organising festivals and events.

I also Know people from the majority of the Greek initiatives so I can help in communication and promotion.

I think Berlin it will be a great place for the next meeting.

It is a city fool of life and i think it will be easy there to find places for the event and for sleeping.

But what exactly are we going to discuss there?

and when the above teams are going to work?

sorry for asking but as i am new i need to take a look at the website and understand what the edgeryders have done so far and what is the purpose of the next meeting!

If anyone can help me and explain me a few things…it will be great!

If this is to happen in the end of August we have to start working!

I am ready for work!!! :slight_smile:

I am looking forward to meet you all guys!!!

Greetings from Athens

t=0 we’re building this as we go

Christine, hi! nice to meet you here as well and thanks David for making the introductions on fb  :)

So getting you up to speed: We’re a crowd with members all across Europe, interested in a wide range of things: from alternative ways of living and working, to sustainable agriculture and new tools for civic participation, especially facilitated by new ICT, and art. Edgeryders started out first as a project funded by the Council of Europe, and now we’re on our own. The info Nadia posted above is from the first event we had in Strasbourg last June. Then we met in Brussels last December, and now we want to keep on doing it… but build it together from scratch (you saw the poll with the date, and talks on location).

Agenda: In both Lote and Lote2 our main goal was to get policy makers, Europeans and from national and local govs to come and work together with us on the solutions we think are contributing to more inclusive and fairer societies, and how we can better support these innovations through policy…  Alternative currencies such as digital Bitcoins was actually the subject of one session.  Aside from these sessions, we had another 2 days of “unconference” with informal presentations and group work, in the barcamp format.

We might get in funding to support people’s travel and accommodation, but people working to organize this are volunteering.

First thing would be to build the initial lineup of excited and generous people like you who want to help make this happen and see who’s up for what. So for starters I’d ask you what do you want to help with, generally speaking? Promotion to get more Greek participants already sounds great, last year a bunch of us translated participation calls into more languages… Are you into write-ups& content, social media outreach, maybe help design the visuals (avatars, banners for bloggers supporting us ), or maybe you want to help prepare a session on time banking? Feel free to suggest…

PS to better see what Edgeryders are doing, you might want to check out Petros’s Expedition Freedom to Greece this end of May.

We need Greece

Welcome, Christine. This sounds great. The first thing you can do is, I guess, the same as we all are doing: trying to figure out how to balance between format, content, location and needed resources for lote.

Also, like Noemi I too do recommend you get in touch with Petros. He wants to do a documentary on the creative solutions the Greek people is devising to the crisis, and the Athens Time Bank seems perfect. I think he’ll be coming to Greece in about a month.

I am ready :-))

Thank you both Noemi and Alberto for the warm welcome!!!

I can definetely help in:

-translation  from english to greek

-promotion of the event

-social media (maybe create an event about our meeting in Greek and promote it to all the initatives here) but of course this will happen when we will be a sure about when and where it would be.

-i can also prepare a session on Time Banking…share my experiences from the creation of Time Bank of Athens in Sydagma square, explain why is it such a good idea and also give some tips to all those who would like to create a Time Bank

if you can send me Petro’s e-mail so that i will have a quicker communication with him…it will be great

my e-mail is christin_papadop@hotmail.com

Kisses from Athens

Christine!

Ping!

Christine,

I have just sent you email with all my contact data. Hope to hear from you soon!

It’s official!

Hi Christine, just to let you know we have a date (end of October) and location (Matera, Italy), so we can start hammer out details!

In a nutshell, if you go to your profile page here on Edgeryders you can signal you’re coming and what you’d like to explore in detail… After this round we’ll set up a board where people can collaborate on the program, I’m sure others are interested in time banking as well. Here’s the call for participation. hope you can come! https://edgeryders.eu/blog/lote3-save-the-date

Next Lote

Greetings, Edgeryders.

By invitation from Asta I joined this outstanding group of individuals in Brussel autumn 2012.

This one is for Nadia and Asta + you who know me slightly here/ want to get to know a new edgeryder: If I told you I was available to change location and work full time on a project on the condition that I have a place to sleep between approx 21.06 - 30.08 can it make any difference for your current efforts? (dates can be changed if there is urgency or things drag out longer than expected. I need to be in Dublin by approx 15.09.13 in current estimations, which means clearer date will be set later.

Nadia: How can I help with achieving this next successful #Lote for example?

Thank you, Nadia and Asta, for guiding me into this platform.

Jumping in

Hi Thomas,

I waited to answer your question until we have details set for the next lote. It happens in Matera, Italy from 29th of October until 3rd of November. Hopefully you can fit that into your schedule? Here’s more detailed information about it: https://edgeryders.eu/blog/lote3-save-the-date. To be able to coordinate who’s up for doing what we’ve inserted some fields you need to fill in by going to your profile page on Edgeryders and clicking “Edit Profile”. From there it’s intuitive…

From where would you need to relocate? where do you live now? I look forward to meeting you and probably like others here, i’m humbled by your offer to help out, i’m sure we will make this work. A big thank you and stay in close touch!!