The nature of human attention: giving attention makes things grow, taking away attention away makes things shrink. Individually and in a group (John Coate)
By all the considerations laid out by John in his opening keynote at Living on the Edge 5, Edgeryders is a community. We are also a loose network, with people coming in and out chaotically. We have been teaching ourselves online collaboration for 5 years now, and a large part of it is learning to stay connected and share our work with each other. If you enjoyed a conversation over a volunteers cooked dinner; if you had epiphanies during a session; if you missed sessions because you were busy bonding with someone you’d met 10 minutes before; if you really enjoyed spending time with usernames turned humans the other week in Brussels, do honor it. Share your presentations, notes and reflections on edgeryders no matter their stage, just start with a post on: edgeryders.eu/en/lote5-doc
Documented highlights so far:
- John Coate’s keynote on Coping with meltdown in communities: Decide that YOU won't meltdown ahead of time. "Have a big fuse", don't lose it, even when everybody else does. People would write to me and say "I can't stand this, I can't take it." And I would reply "It's all right, hang in there. Stay with it. It's worth it, you'll see."
- Jimmy Tidey’s takeaways on Edgeryders as willing to Eat McKinsey's Breakfast: ..we missed the point that Edgeryders brings a certain kind of sexiness. We contrasted Edgeryders with McKinsey (a very established consultancy), trying to work out what made Edgeryders unique. Which is funny, because if Edgeryders is anything, it’s unique. What do I think McKinsey do to win a bid? Probably take everyone out for dinner at a posh restaurant. Well, for a certain audience, Edgeryders can trump that: Disco Soupe.
- How to make sense of Care together? Both at the personal and collective level, care is such a sensitive topic that touches our lives where we are most vulnerable. The immediate challenge for OpenCare is finding appropriate and ethically sound frames of enquiry. Ezio Manzini's reflections on the shared vision are a good starting point.
- Loads of pictures in this facebook album, courtesy of @communalspoon & @KiraVde!!
(find all documentation here)
What does the future hold?
Some of us are trying to “get some of that poetry back after the prose of the discussion at the weekend”. Essentially this means thinking about how we wish to think, act, be seen and belong in the network, and stepping up to achieve that vision.
- [new project] OpenCare: rigging together DIY solutions to care problems into a solid research, test cases, prototypes and economic studies backup. The project kicked off at LOTE5 in the Care track, and there can never be a better time to join it. Start by joining the Op3nCare list for project updates, collaboration opportunities, event announcements etc.
- [new project] Galway 2020: Following up on setting up an Edgeryders Culture Team - we’re going to Galway, Ireland! to connect grassroots projects into a global network. Know of cities wanting to become European Capitals of Culture? Want to access a pool of cultural projects to become your partners? Join the team by introducing yourself in a post here.
- [idea] Did you enjoy being part of the food team? Think how we could bringing the food preparation part and the conference part together in the future, in a FoodOnTheEdge initiative. Your thoughts? here.
- [idea] EU Funding call on distributed architectures has launched. Discussions around writing a proposal here.
- [in-the-making] A short Book of LOTE5 event (un)Fails where you are invited to speak up: what didn't you like and where we can all improve when running collaborative events? Share.
- [happens] If you're in and around Belgium you're invited to the next FuckUpNights on March 17: funbxlmar2016.eventbrite.com
- Add your idea here
How do we find each other? To keep it simple, see list of people who came to LOTE5. If you can’t find someone, give them a shout.
Photo credit: @communalspoon (big thanks!)