Introduction
The openvillage is modelled on the coral reef. Reefs are a connective layer that consists of physical structures in different places built by small entities embedded in water. These “rainforests of the sea” are some of the most diverse ecosystems on earth. They flourish in ocean waters that provide few nutrients. What makes coral reefs especially interesting as a model are two attributes:
- They are held together by a simple physical structure that can be produced by colonies of tiny animals.
- Even though they only occupy 0.1 % of the world’s ocean surface they provide a home for at least 25% of all marine species
Using these beautiful and fragile structures as a model, The OpenVillage is a working and living space embedded in a massive online conversation equipped with collective sensemaking tools. Members are part of a global 4000+ strong community of brilliant individuals working in different fields. OpenVillage is where we pool resources to finance a number of services which help each individual and initiative to live up to their full potential:
- Foster maximal diversity to attack systemic problems. We now know diversity trumps ability.
- Improve ability to analyse and interpret information. Produce and use data. Have a data strategy.
- Increase knowledge about existing initiatives, organisations, people, places and networks. Acknowledge their good work and build on it. Do not duplicate them or compete with them.
Membership Perks
Personal and professional development: Knowledge, adopting skills and behaviours needed for living and working well with others. This include things like understanding and managing group dynamics, Intercultural communication, mitigating and resolving conflicts, dealing with common psychosocial problems e.g. depression, changing counterproductive behaviours, nutrition and physical wellbeing, developing practical skills like permaculture, carpentry and plumbing, developing survival skills etc
- Invitation to annual members' retreat
- Peer coaching and mentorship sessions
- Community dinners, parties, courses and adventures
- Invitation to participate in Courses, Masterclasses and Immersive learning experiences
Space to work and business development: Specialised support services fo independent/freelance/small businesses e.g. hired sales people to help them grow their revenue (SmartBE)
- PR, Sales & Lobbying support
- Unlimited use of coworking space
- Invitation to annual members' retreat
- Peer coaching & mentorship sessions
- Use of meeting rooms and workshop spaces
- Project development & partnership-building support
- Invitation to participate in Skill Development Masterclasses
Affordable housing in beautiful space with others in a well-functioning community: Rental of short term accommodations (hotel rooms/beds e.g. ROAM) and long-term housing (regular apartments e.g Techfarm in Stockholm).
- Bed(room) + amenities
- Comfortable, clean and calm
- High quality, healthy meals daily
- Mix of spaces for sociality & solitude
- Access to our co-working and event spaces
- Community dinners, parties, courses and adventures
- Use of the guest rooms for hosting visiting friends/family
CoOwnership of property: Group Purchase and Development of real estate for permanently affordable living and working(Simone’s Coliving in Milan)
- Access to the Edgeryders co-working & event spaces
- Use of the Edgeryders guest rooms for short term visitors
- Invitation to Edgeryders events for deep learning and business networking
- First refusal on new business ventures & early-stage investment opportunities
What OpenVillage offers its members:
- Personal development and bodywork courses (e.g. Theory U/Spiral Dynamics workshops or Yoga Teacher Training )
- Also, I read this article today which I recommend: Like Startups Most Intentional Communities Fail, why?
Membership Packages and Pricing
Our membership model ensures that the OpenVillage is economically self-sustaining and rests on a fair social contract. The revenue from membership fees are used to ensure that OpenVillage creates enough value, financial and non-financial, to compensate people contributing to it:
| Membership category | Business, project development and sales support | Administrative, Financial and legal services | Online platform and tools | Community building & management | Annual gathering | Coaching & Mentoring | Master classes | Coworking & event space | Guest Room | Personal (Bed)room | |
| Core | x | x | x | x | x | 0 | 0 | 0 | X | 0 | |
| Workspace | x | x | x | x | x | x | X | X | X | 0 | |
| Resident | x | x | x | x | x | 0 | X | X | X | X | |
| CoInvestor | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | 0 | 0 |
+ Eur/month for additional access to activities, resources and perks.
FAQS
How is \#openvillage different from existing co-housing and co-working spaces?
Most coliving spaces fall into are either rented from private landlords or cooperatively purchased and owned by their residents. Most co-working environments are tied to specific locations and are dependent on revenue generated from rental of space which they in turn rent from commercial landlords. Lack of diversity, lack of needed interpersonal and practical skills needed for harmonious co-existence, lack of pragmatic business and financial models, lack of legal model that allows for flexibility while safeguarding individuals’ investment etc.
The OpenVillage is a hybrid online-onsite space. The combination of online and on-site resources, services and community management supports diversity and experimentation. It allows for a mix of different kinds of participation, commitment and investment:
- Insurance against myopia ( breaking out of filter-bubbles)
- Access to observations from the global network in your field
- Collective intelligence-powered insights
- Deep understanding of unconventional solutions to known and unknown problems
- Access to protagonists of new solutions to known and unknown problems at an early stage
- Unlocking flow of information, resources and trust across structural gaps in social networks
- Discovery of new critical skills through hands-on learning guided by peers with practical and theoretical expertise
- Discovery of important weak signals from the edges embedded in contextual knowledge (rich data)
Pooling resources to purchase real estate is interesting, does it work in practice?
Cases of crowdfunded purchase of real estate: Bolivia/Chile highrise, example 2, example 3 . There are also several property crowdfunding ‘platforms’ (though they solely focus on financial gain)
https://www.crowdwithus.london/
https://www.propertypartner.co/
Also this is a rather interesting article on the topic: https://www.ft.com/content/bff453da-be7d-11e4-a341-00144feab7de
like1
Which risks are involved and how will you mitigate them?
- Capital constraints: Obvious to all. Money. Groups can economize to almost unimaginable amounts (like at Findhorn and The Farm), but it also means there are all sorts of things you can't do.
- Burn-out: just like with any office refrigerator and dishes, some people are neater than others and some people care more than others about certain daily realities of the physical space and on to completely mental/psychological/relationship issues. It is inevitable in any group that you will have a kind of bell curve of participation at the most basic levels of responsibility where some people take on anything and everything, most people do some, and some people don't do that much. This is one of the most important reasons why certain things have to be worked out and talked through. Putting a bunch of signs around and just being rule-enforcers might work when the large majority of people there are transient, but for a smaller more committed group, it can take on a life of its own that can get to be a drag. Plus, it wasn't said in that article, many of the intentional communities or collectives, are started by people in their younger adult years. Sometimes the real story is people grow and change and their life goals shift.
- Conflict over private property and resource management: related to burnout and capital restraints. This is a situaltion where I think it ought to get written down as to what the basic agreements are about who owns what and who is responsible for what. Not getting this right is dangerous. But that is what the crucible and planning is all about. Many ways to go on this, with pros and cons at every turn.
- Poor systems of conflict mediation: One of the best quotes in that article was, "‘It’s not utopia. It’s microcosm. Everything that’s in the outer world is there – marginalisation, addiction, poverty, sexual issues, power. Communities are just fractals of society.’ The difference for Sutherland was that in Findhorn there was good will and a clear commitment to waking up: ‘People are willing to look at their stuff.’ "People are willing to look at their stuff." No matter how you say it, get this working and you can go on and on. Avoid it, and, well, vaya con dios..bad vibes await you.
- Factionalism: Inevitable perhaps to some degree, but can and should be diffused with regular open and honest talk about it. Requires total fidelity to truth, even if the truth is somene admitting that they are conveying an impression and not facts per se. The thing is, frank talk should not get put off too long or too often so that bringing up anything turns into some huge blowout deal.
- Founder problems: leaders and founders don't easily relinquish. Every situation is different. In a "does the work/calls the shots" environment this won't present itself as a huge problem as long as everyone understands and agrees on the meaning of the word "work" and what work has what relative value.
- Reputation management: can be a problem as an attractor of new people. One of the agreements of the operation should be "don't be an asshole" plus make sure the plumbing works and the reputation ought to take care of itself.
- 8. Skills shortage: this has been discussed already in terms of having a variety of people clustered who know how to synergize what they know. But if you go out to the country, this will become a big deal right away. Unless you want to spend your time learning country skills. But in the city the skill sets are going to be more focused on the ER mission as it plays out now, right? Grant writing, business management, event planning, workshop managing, etc.
- Failure to attract new talent or entice subsequent generations: not a near term issue at all. But one problem with groups is they can get pretty smug and insular. That’s not attractive.
What are the most important differences between Memberships?
Depending on which package they choose, Members have access to 1) different kinds of services and 2) physical spaces.
1) Access to services
Core Membership Package: Personal and professional development
You get:
- Sales and PR support
- Use of coworking spaces
- Invitation to all social events
- Invitation to annual members' retreat
- Peer coaching & mentorship sessions
- Community dinners, parties, courses and adventures
- Project-development and partnership-building support
- Invitation to participate in Skill Development Masterclasses
Why do it:
- Insurance against myopia ( breaking out of filterbubbles)
- Access to observations from the global network in your field
- Collective intelligence-powered insights
- Deep understanding of unconventional solutions to known and unknown problems
- Direct access to the protagonists and solutions at an early stage
- Discover important weak signals from the edges embedded in contextual knowledge (rich data)
- Contribute towards achieving positive change at scale
Workplace Membership Package: Space to work and business development
You get:
- PR, Sales & Lobbying support
- Unlimited use of coworking space
- Invitation to annual members' retreat
- Peer coaching & mentorship sessions
- Use of meeting rooms and workshop spaces
- Project development & partnership-building support
- Invitation to participate in Skill Development Masterclasses
Why do it:
| Coworking Space | Office | Meeting Room | Event Space |
| 5 sqm/person | 15 sqm | 30 sqm | 100 sqm |
| A days/month | B days/month | C hours/ month | D days/year |
+ x Eur/month for an extra person , + y Eur/month for business services
Resident Membership Package: Affordable housing in beautiful and respectful community
- Bed(room) + amenities
- Comfortable, clean and calm
- High quality, healthy meals daily
- Mix of spaces for sociality & solitude
- Access to our co-working and event spaces
- Community dinners, parties, courses and adventures
- Use of the guest rooms for hosting visiting friends/family
| Bed in Bunk Room | Single Room | Double Room | Residence |
| 10 sqm/person | 20 sqm/person | 30 sqm/person | 40 sqm/person |
| Eur/Person | ? Eur/Person | ? Eur/Person | ? Eur/Person |
+ x Eur/month for an extra person, or couple.
CoInvestor Membership Package:
- Invitation to participate in 1x Masterclass
- Access to the Edgeryders co-working & event spaces
- Use of the Edgeryders guest rooms for short term visitors
- Invitation to Edgeryders events for deep learning and business networking
- First refusal on new business ventures & early-stage investment opportunities
2) Access to physical spaces
| Membership category | Annual gathering | Coaching & Mentoring | Master classes | Coworking & event space | Guest Room | Co-living Space |
| Core | x | x | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Workspace | x | x | x | X | X | |
| Resident | x | x | 0 | X | X | |
| CoInvestor | x | x | x | x | x |
+ Eur/month for additional access to activities, resources and perks.
What do the different types of membership cost?
Where does my money go?
- Core Membership: Generates baseline revenue without depending on square meters . Number of available memberships is unlimited. Required membership contribution depends on costs of organising events and community management.
- Resident Membership: Generates rent for running costs. Number of memberships is highly limited. Required membership contribution depends on number of square meters per personand duration of stay. The Workspace option gives non-residents access to our co-working, meeting and event spaces.
- CoInvestor Membership: Generates capital in exchange for co-ownership. Number of available memberships is limited. Required membership contribution depends on cost of acquisition and renovation of real estate, size/number of rooms and number of days per year.
A complete breakdown of costs and budget logic is available here: [ Add Url to wiki here].
- Core Membership Fees: x% goes to Basic running costs for providing location-independent services to community members are covered by money coming in from x% of Core Membership fees.
- Workspace Membership Fees: Y% goes to Running costs for providing space and location-dependent services to community members.
- Acquisition costs for securing permanently affordable space for housing and working are covered by money coming in from z% of subscriber-investor Membership fees.
How did you calculate the Membership Subscription fee?
- We make an interactive spreadsheet/chart for figuring out it would cost if acquire the space with bank loans: We aggregate a list of prices, interest rates for bank loans, commission to the real estate agent, legal fees and other third party services as well as cost of renovations within a specific timeframe for paying everything off. Say 5 years and 10 years. We then estimate the predicted value of the building in same amount of time as would be bank loan. This divided by the meter square is the "commercial" cost of investment into the building for an individual or organisation and can be split into monthly installments that then come the subscriber-investor membership pricing.
- We then do the same for figuring out the same as \#1 if we acquire the space without bank loans. Finally we compare with the costs of renting different spaces
- We then do the same for figuring out the same as \#1 if we acquire the space without bank loans.
- Finally we compare with the costs of renting different spaces
- We make an interactive spreadsheet/chart for figuring out it would cost if acquire the space with bank loans: We aggregate a list of prices, interest rates for bank loans, commission to the real estate agent, legal fees and other third party services as well as cost of renovations within a specific timeframe for paying everything off. Say 5 years and 10 years.
- Weestimate the predicted value of the building in same amount of time as would be bank loan. This divided by the meter square is the "commercial" cost of investment into the building for an individual or organisation and can be split into monthly installments that then come the subscriber-investor membership pricing. 2.
- We then do the same for figuring out the same as \#1 if we acquire the space without bank loans. 3. Finally we compare with the costs of renting different spaces
Rather than wait till everything is perfect we are launching a basic membership scheme in April 2017. This will give everyone who is interested in exploring creative new ways of living and working in the future a low-risk opportunity to do so. While learning and having fun with inspiring people from around the globe :)
