[VBbuilders] Why and how work together?

Mon Apr 19 21:33:25 CEST 2010

I'm glad for Franz Nahrada's and other letters at Global Villages
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/ in response to the closing
down of the free-of-charge Ning services and what we might do next.

I wish that:
* We organize around people who have demonstrated successful leadership as
networkers working openly, whether its Suresh Fernando (Open Kollab),
Tiffany Von Emmel (Dreamfish), myself (Minciu Sodas), Michel Bauwens (P2P
Foundation), etc.   And actually double check what has been successful. 
So, for example, our Pyramid of Peace http://www.pyramidofpeace.net was
undeniably successful.  Franz Nahrada is a key person at Minciu Sodas, but
not a "hub" for "working openly", rather a person who destructively
"compartmentalizes" activity, which is to say, works in a closed,
untransparent manner.  Sam Rose is less of a "hub" and Alex Rollins even
less so.  How can we make progress if we don't acknowledge merit?
* We organize around social goals - for example, I'm interested in an
"economy of dreams".  Suresh (and Janet Feldman!) is interested in how to
organize millions of people to tackle big problems like world poverty. 
Tiffany Von Emmel is interested in a new kind of work cooperative. 
Whereas Franz was interested in Ning and Sam is interested in Elgg and
Alex in Drupal.  I think that's backwards and unhelpful.
* Let's organize around existing groups.  Tiffany already has an Elgg site
running at http://dreamfish.com  Why do we need more Elgg sites?  Or why
can't we build around existing ones in a more general way?  Why can't we
build on existing software teams like Dreamfish's?  Why couldn't we build
a team for Minciu Sodas, there was such need? I was very disturbed when
Franz walked away from years of free service I provided - without any
consultation - just set up a new server with Ralf - and what has he
gained?  Or pays 3,000 EUR per year to closed version of ProWiki, why? 
Why aren't we trying to share resources? (And thank you to Franz for
sharing in many other ways, I recently stayed 6 weeks with him in Vienna.)
* Let's look at technologies and see if there's any examples that actually
encourage us.  I can't think of a single Drupal website that impresses me
as a community.  Nor a Ning or Elgg site for that matter.  Certainly none
as strong as the Minciu Sodas community, which isn't all that strong.
* What are our personal goals, values, questions, concerns,
accountability, etc.?  Why are we wasting time with people who offer
"help" when we have no idea of their own dreams, values, endeavors, quests
nor they of ours?  That's why I believe it's important to start with a
cultural commitment as I'm trying to with "12 Questions"
http://www.12questions.org
* Let's make a technology strategy that can support a culture.  In a
Facebook/Twitter world it's no longer possible to develop a culture
through venues, there's no reason for people to be loyal to an online
space.  So the cultural commitment has to be I imagine a cultural code but
not a set of venues.

I'm very troubled that leadership is offered without credibility, and that
people like myself who have demonstrated credibility are not supported. 
How can we have a meaningful network then?

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms at ms.lt
+370 699 30003

> I agree with Michel and Alex on what Michel talks about below. We can
> discuss and plan first, then choose tools and build together. Makes
> sense to me.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 11:31 AM, Michel Bauwens
> <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm personally a least effort guy, but that mostly because I'm
>> overextended
>> myself,
>>
>> the first thing is asking ourselves, but what it is for?
>>
>> as i said, the social features and threading were the added value, but
>> otherwise, the Ning site underperformed, and I was the only one taking
>> care
>> of admin tasks (but thanks to sepp especially for his forum articles
>> which
>> attracteda lot of discussion)
>>
>> personally, I won't necessarily miss Ning that much, but of course,
>> would be
>> happy for others to really build the p2p foundation as a movement,
>>
>> this is what is appealing in alex' proposals, to devise a 3-year
>> strategy
>> for movement building and funding,
>>
>> I'm of course really for it, but it is beyond my individual effort,
>>
>> what I'm doing with Sam, through civicCRM is devising a mailing list of
>> our
>> sympathizers, for some more specialized outreach purposes
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 2:17 AM, Michel Bauwens
>>> <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > Hi Franz,
>>> >
>>> > if you want to know what the p2p network is trying to find as
>>> solutions,
>>> > you
>>> > can talk to Sam, who had some proposals for us, and we're working on
>>> > them,
>>> >
>>> > Michel
>>> >
>>> My suggestion was that we can use ELGG http://elgg.org/ as a
>>> replacement for Ning
>>>
>>> There's currently lots of discussion, offers and ideas at
>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org as well, mostly centered around Drupal.
>>> Drupal's great, but I still stick by my suggestion and offer of ELGG
>>> as the best 1 to 1 replacement for Ning, requiring the least amount of
>>> effort.
>>> --
>>> --
>>> Sam Rose
>>> Forward Foundation
>>> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
>>> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
>>> skype: samuelrose
>>> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
>>> http://forwardfound.org
>>> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
>>> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
>>> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>>> http://localfoodsystems.org
>>> http://notanemployee.net
>>> http://communitywiki.org
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net
>>>
>>> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
>>> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University - Think
>> thank:
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  -
>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>>
>> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss:
>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>
>> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Forward Foundation
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://forwardfound.org
> http://socialsynergyweb.org/culturing
> http://flowsbook.panarchy.com/
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> http://localfoodsystems.org
> http://notanemployee.net
> http://communitywiki.org
> http://p2pfoundation.net
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
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>