Looking around the Liftshare office I could be forgiven for basing assumptions about wider society on my colleagues. We are from diverse social backgrounds and are as different as the people in a supermarket checkout queue.

Some are straight out of school while others are grandparents. A few are young free and single, some are in relationships, some divorced and some married. We come from all over the world but some were born and bred just down the road. Some love our office slide and use it every day, whilst others have never been on it. One even sits on a gym ball instead of an office chair! But of course we have one conspicuous thing in common – we are all peer-to-peer sharers (although admittedly with varying degrees of dedication). Naturally we share cars, but we also share our desks, homes, clothes, time, gardens, storage units (the list goes on). We work within the sharing economy so we should be good at sharing, right? Well we weren’t all such enthusiastic sharers until we learnt of the benefits. So do we represent society as a whole? Do we live in a world of natural born sharers who need minimum persuasion to join the movement or selfish individualists devoted to owning whatever we need or want? And does the generation we were born into make a difference when it comes to our propensity to share?

Human after all

Founder of Liftshare, Ali Clabburn who was inspired to start the social enterprise because of the fun he had when car-sharing abroad, is certain that any apparent resistance to sharing is a short-term issue: “We need to cooperate to survive but the UK’s sharing economy is fighting against a tide of 50 years of marketing for individualism and the need to own things,” observes Ali. “Fundamentally we are sociable beings and as the European country whose workers put in the longest hours tens of thousands of commuters are already satisfying their inherent need for social interaction through car sharing.”

But perhaps our embedded behaviours and more broadly, social norms, mean that sharing is a difficult thing to persuade the current generation of home-owners and commuters to do as a matter of course. Dr Emma Seppala, Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, points out that whilst we believe the ‘norm’ is that we are all self-interested, in fact the opposite is true: “Data shows that compassion is innate – it’s our first instinct.” Dr Seppala gives an example: “In an economics study participants were given a certain amount of money and they were offered the choice to act fairly, so share the money with other participants, or keep it for themselves. Given just a few seconds to decide their first response was to share, but given a few more minutes to think about it most change their mind.” So by gravitating towards individualism, we are in fact fighting instinctive behaviour. But will this always be the case or will Gen Y (today’s teenagers and young adults) have more of a propensity to share given that they are more acutely aware of the negative impact of all-out consumerism?

Generations matter

Nadia Chernyak and Tamar Kushnir (Psychological Science, October 2013) suggest that if children are given the choice to share with someone else, then that can create a more lasting state of mind that leads them to continue sharing. In contrast to Gen X (most of whom were latchkey kids with both parents working) Gen Y was raised by the Baby Boomers. They’ve been taught to get along with their brothers and sisters, be team players and to compromise. Co-author of Generations, Inc.: From Boomers to Linksters, Meagan Johnson points out: “If Generation X is independent, Generation Y is interdependent. For them, hanging out in groups has taken the place of traditional dating. They go everywhere together and even apply for jobs together. It’s almost a throwback to their parents’ experiments in communal living back in the ’60s. And they seem to have embraced the idea that sharing material goods is better than owning them.”

This sharing culture is exploding in the work place, with companies such as Google allowing employees to share and comment on what each other is doing in an open environment. They say: “We strive to maintain the open culture often associated with start-ups, in which everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. [In weekly meetings] Googlers ask questions directly to Larry, Sergey and other execs about any number of company issues.” Gone are traditional corporate silos in this global business where the average age of employees is just 29.

Ali believes that the pendulum is swinging away from traditional measures of success, such as owning an impressive house or a garage full of fast cars: “The way we live now is unsustainable and we are already seeing the next generation doing things differently.  Making close friendships with people they share with is normal in so many parts of the world and the UK is playing catch up at an unprecedented pace.”

Photo credit: greekadman via photopin cc

Cet article The Psychology of Sharing est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

Themed “The Age of Communities”, the second edition of our collaborative economy festival OuiShare Fest awaits you this May with even more collaboration, connecting and fun. We invite you to co-create this 3-day festival with us to build a common vision of the collaborative economy.

You’ve probably noticed by now: sharing economy companies rarely talk about their customers, they talk about their communities. As do coworking spaces, makerspaces and fablabs – even if most fablabs don’t really have “customers” anyway. The free software, maker and open knowledge movements have thrived thanks to the communities that co-created and supported groundbreaking projects such as Linux, Wikipedia or Arduino. What is crowdfunding, if not a tool for empowering people to achieve great projects backed by a community of true fans? And how could grassroots movements such as Foodsharing, MakeSense or OuiShare have taken ground without their community?

But why do we call all of these different phenomena “communities”? And how do these relate to communities we have always been familiar with, such as relatives, tribes, nations and cultural groups? Is there any link between collaborative consumers and people that are members of a community garden? How do these pieces fit together and what is the bigger picture?

For three days, we will live together, think together, dance together. We want these days to mean something, to be the starting point of new projects and collaborations to build a common and sustainable future. - Mattias Jagerskög, OuiShare Sweden Connector and founder of the Skjutsgruppen ridesharing movement

Communities are fueling the collaborative economy

The word “community” originally comes from the Latin “cum munus”: a group of people who share something: a common culture, common interests, shared knowledge and resources, a common place where they live and work, a common vision or a shared mission. Such communities have in the past often emerged in physical spaces, but are increasingly forming in the digital sphere: people scattered all around the globe now have the ability to connect and take action collectively. These networks have turned the global village into a playground.

What we have seen over the past few years is that communities are most powerful when they emerge where the physical and digital sphere come together. When people connect online to share resources and experiences offline, make things together in a fablab in Barcelona to share the results with members of another space in Helsinki, or start global conversations with an impact for citizens at a local level, unexpected synergies and opportunities are created.

After having watched the collaborative economy grow, projects and startups succeed and fail, as well as building our own organization with countless people across the globe, one thing struck us again and again: communities are at the core of the collaborative economy and play a key role in enabling this new economy thrive.

That is why we have chosen “The Age of Communities” as the theme for the second edition of OuiShare Fest, a three-day event that will bring together 1000 collaborative economy visionaries from across the globe from May 5-7 at the Cabaret Sauvage in Paris. Beyond conference, connecting and co-creating, this year we want to investigate with you how different communities are changing society and business, how they are impacting the way our cities, companies and institutions work, and how they are empowering civic action.

Images by Stephano Borghi

Cet article Welcome to the Age of Communities: here comes OuiShare Fest 2014 est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

For the first in our new series of portraits of OuiSharers, we are glad to welcome Global and Germany Connector Francesca Pick, who has been the co-editor of OuiShare.net since it started. In this first interview, Francesca speaks to us about her involvement in the collaborative economy and how she sees the future of OuiShare.

Francesca always has a smile on her face and you will notice this on your first encounter, this is what makes her striking. But Francesca is far from being a synthetic person or insincere. Rather, she thinks it is important and motivating to build things together with a smile; one might say it defines her attitude.

Family touch

Francesca discovered OuiShare quite by coincidence in January 2012 when she was doing research for her bachelor thesis on trust in peer-to-peer marketplaces. Meanwhile her mother, a journalist from New York, had met Antonin Léonard (the co-founder of OuiShare) at a sharing conference, and advised her to get in touch with him. The two connected online, after which she ended up interviewing him and three other people from OuiShare for her research. This gave her great insights into the community and made her curious to get more involved.

After the first OuiShare Summit in May, Antonin proposed her to be co-editor of the magazine, for the English part. “I wasn’t sure about what I was going to do after my studies at that point,” she explains. “I was looking for a job, but I already felt really enthusiastic about OuiShare.” She started doing more OuiShare work and met Antonin and the Ouishare team in August on a trip in Barcelona with her father and her boyfriend. “Antonin made a video of me and added it to one of our community Facebook groups saying I was going to help spread the OuiShare message in English, “that’s how it all started”.

A turning point

As a student, Francesca was working for TrustCloud, a US start-up that enables you “to leverage the good reputation you have earned online and gauge the trustworthiness of others in your sharing community”. Her role at TrustCloud centered on community management and business development and was compatible with the OuiShare schedule until the preparation of the 2013 Fest started. “It was clear that organizing OuiShare Fest would be a large and challenging project and I was so excited to be part of it I decided to make it a full-time job,” Francesca explains with a great smile. For OuiShare Fest, she was mainly responsible for communication and press, but also enjoyed many other jobs she found herself doing! “ I never regretted it, since then my volunteer activities in OuiShare have been extremely interesting and rewarding. Now I am working on making them financially sustainable!”

But several questions still remained: “What do I do?” “After the Fest, do I get another job?” ‘Creative procrastination’ helped her answer these questions: she went on a seven-week trip to Asia with her boyfriend travelling through Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, where they always had to be creative to find the next place to visit, eat and sleep. When she came back her batteries were fully charged.

Finding her way

In addition to writing for Ouishare.net and the German Blog KoKonsum, Francesca helped growing the German community, particularly in Munich, where she organized two OuiShare Drinks. After that the next big new project arrived: the OuiShare Europe Tour that took place from September to November 2013. This project started as small local initiatives but grew into a Europe-wide tour, attracting bigger sponsorship partners, like Ulule, BlaBlaCar and Carpooling. Francesca really enjoyed the challenge of coordinating this huge tour!

As well as sharing the values of the community, Francesca identifies herself with the “do-tank” mentality. “I find it fascinating to turn ideas into something tangible and meaningful. I like putting words into action. “That is why she has started taking on a bigger role in the coordination and management of OuiShare as keeps developing. “How to design the organization is a very important question for OuiShare’s future”, she says. And one of the biggest challenges is to ensure the financial sustainability of OuiShare while finding the balance between motivating and compensating those contributing to projects. “Having a vision is one thing, implementing it is another.”

Francesca is convinced that OuiShare will maintain its leading position in the collaborative economy and continue to instigate disruptive ideas as a non-traditional organization. She expects the global OuiShare community to continue to grow, fueled by local ecosystems of pioneers that understand the economic and societal change that is happening.

Right now her picture is pinned in a good place on the wall with members of Mutinerie coworking in Paris. Her biggest project continues to be OuiShare: in 2014, there will be a new magazine, regular newsletters, the launch of a new community website, and of course a second edition of the Ouishare Fest in May.”

Francesca knows that building this project might not look like the most traditional career path in the world. However, she is comforted knowing she has the full support of her friends and family to make this work. This is what connects it all together.

Cet article Francesca Pick: “I like putting words into action” est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

Let’s face it. We all use our friends sometimes: their experience, their labour, their resources… and they tend to do the same with us.

This is okay though; as a matter of fact, this is what makes us friends. Now, one might think that we are taking advantage of their goodwill, but the truth is the helper often feel as good as the helped… if not better! Think about it: if you help a friend out – say, find them a job – you feel great about it. You also feel more comfortable asking for his/her help when you need it, thus starting the magical cycle of mutual support… this is the ultimate win-win situation, right?

So here is a list of 5 ways to properly use your friends:

1. Designated Driver

2. Personal Assistant

3. Recycling Pal

4. Banking Buddy

5. Bed-surfing Mate

1. Designated Driver

Synonyms: Personal Chauffeur, Driving Escort, Friend with a car, Friend who can drive. Reasons why you need a friend to be your Designated Driver these days: you don´t have a driving licence, you can´t drive, you don´t have a car, you are drunk, you plan to be drunk, you lost your glasses, you are lazy, noone wants to get in your car anyways. Tips: if you are temporarily out of friends, you can share a ride thanks to some great apps and websites like blablacar, lyft, carpooling, sidecar… oryoyola (if you´re in Turkey).

2. Personal Assistant

Synonyms: Baby-sitter, Cleaner, Mover, Cook, Bodyguard, Buyer, Teacher, Confidant. Reasons you need a friend: all of the above and much, much more… Tips: if you mistakenly used the same friends for these various tasks, it is probable that they will find a good excuse not to cooperate this time around. Luckily for you, we have some back-up plans: airtasker and taskrabbit (for all kinds of tasks), homejoy and proprly (for cleaning), chegg, codeacademy, creativemornings, skillshare andzookal (for classes), beyondcroissant, cookening, cookisto, eatfeastly, eatwith, socialeaters,mealmeets and meetmeals (if you feel like cooking for/eating with future friends).

3. Recycling Pal

Synonyms: Re-using, Regifting, Dumping, Borrowing, Lending. Reasons: you want to save the planet… or you want to save some money. Tips: Friends are usually great for recycling both goods and services. However, if your famous “work for pizza and beer” mojo is not as successful as it used to be, we came up with some pretty good online platforms to help you out. If you want to exchange your specialist skills for others, you can visit diy, kollabora, swapsee or timerepublik. If you simply need a tool, try 1000tools, brightneighbor, locloc (if you´re in Italy), neighborgoods,openshed (if you´re in Australia), snapgoods or yerdle.

4. Banking Buddy

Synonyms: Financial Advisor, Personal Loaner, Private Banker, Wealthy Friend. Reasons you need one: gifts are expensive, so are your tastes… whether you need some financial advice or a few extra bucks to make ends meet, friends are usually a good source of available resources. After all, friends and family are the first ones entrepreneurs turn to. Tips: use the current crowdfunding mania to your best advantage, from the wellknown kickstarter (US only), Indiegogo (US mostly) and FundedByMe (Nordic countries) to the outsiders crowdtilt, pozible or the innovative upstart (investing in a person, not a project).

5. Bed-surfing Mate

Synonyms: Accomodation Facilitator, Temporary Landlord, Place To Crash. Reasons: hotels are expensive, check-outs are early Tips: Now is the time you will use this resource most, especially if you plan on getting really tired or drunk (or both) during the Holidays. If you couldn´t get a ride home (#1), someone to carry you there (#2), a tricycle to borrow (#3) or some change for a taxi (#4)… fear not: you still have #5: find a place to crash! If this doesn´t work either, you should consider these options (and find new friends): AirBnB, Knok, lovehomeswap, homeexchange or vayable(local tours). I hope this list will prove as helpful to you as it was fun to redact for me. Oh!… and if you feel lost with all these proposals and just want one tool to ask your friends for help, I would definitely recommend Fajoya!

Happy new year!

Cet article 5 ways to “use” your friends wisely est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

I am going to question a common belief today. Inspired, as so often, by my baby daughter Miru, I started questioning the idea that babies don’t share. When looking up the exact title of this article on Google (a lazy man’s approach to tapping into humanity’s body of shared knowledge), I found only one blog article from 2006 – confirming that this is what our experts think.

We read lines like this:

“So basically what I’m saying is that there’s no chance on earth than an 8-month-old should be able to share. A child that age isn’t even remotely close to being able to understand the concept.”

So why don’t babies share? Because they don’t have the concept. Apparently sharing, unlike for example appropriating random things in one’s environment by putting the in the mouth, requires a concept.

Fair enough, but what about tribal people, like the Awá, who seem to share the fruit of their land as a matter of course, naturally, people who haven’t developed the conceptual tokenry of Western grammar to express the concept of “I” am sharing “this” with “you”. And what about animals? Bonobo’s have been observed to share food with strangers.  (the finding of the Duke University experiment is extremely interesting, so I decided to share it here, although the sight of the metal cage makes me sad)

But you don’t need to be a great ape to share. The famous primatologist Frans de Waal wrote about “Attitudinal reciprocity in food sharing among brown capuchin monkeys“. The study suggests a mediating role of memory and establishes that sharing is not mere automatic reciprocity between affiliates but determined by memory and social attitudes. I think it’s safe to assume these little fellers don’t have a “concept” of sharing, yet they clearly share. This tells me that in order to understand our own species, we might need to adapt a broader perspective.

So, what if sharing doesn’t really depend on the ability to “understand the concept”? What if it lies deeper within us, and the assumption that the need to master a highly sophisticated conceptual framework in order to share, is so blatantly wrong, that we fail to notice? Of course sharing is the most natural thing to do. From an evolutionary perspective, sharing has many advantages, from simple short-term group survival to complex social bonding.

I think we need to take sharing at face value, without making the assumption that the infant primate is for example programmed in any way (for example to be “selfish”). To oversimplify and assume that all its endeavors should be reduced to a pressing one physical one (the literal incorporation of food into its body) is bad and biased science. Perhaps there are other instincts that can’t be reduced to the so-called “selfish” one of taking from one’s surroundings the energy to survive. Who knows?

What if we take the idea by the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty of a “body schema” and ask if the bodies of others (siblings, parents) could be a part of that? Why not? We are still talking about the pre-conceptual infant who allegedly isn’t able to share. The internal landscape of her “body schema” could as well include extremities and organs that are not connected to her brain by direct neuronal links, but rather by the empathic perception of her relatives. There’s nothing esoteric about that. Sure, this “empathic perception” could be explained away as “mere” instinct, but that doesn’t disqualify it. It is what it is: emotional attachment and connectedness.

Sometimes I give my baby daughter Miru a piece of fruit (usually a plum or a peach), which she chews on, but then puts it into my mouth, when I smile at her and indicate I’m hungry by opening that mouth. I believe that my mouth is part of her extended body schema. At ten months, she puts the fruit into my mouth, with the greatest precision you can expect given her still developing hand-eye coordination. Perhaps she doesn’t have the concept of her “own mouth” either and just puts the fruit in the nearest mouth available, because she has just mastered the link food-mouth.

“But that’s not sharing”, certain scientists, who seem to be on a mission to disenchant our world, would say. “That’s mere instinct.”

Does it matter? Come on, what if we just start sharing, and develop those concepts post hoc, when some journalist with some sense of style wishes to write about it? We, as humanity, had a rough childhood full of violence. We were killing each other even before we had a “concept” of self and other. When we grew up, we developed all the concepts we liked, and with them, we could “prove” human nature to be whatever we liked. Hurrah! Which concepts have survived the longest, which notions had the strongest impact, or: which grammar does best support the dominant economic system? There you go. Baby’s don’t share. Because you need a concept for that. And we need the concept of concepts to tell ourselves that human nature is whatever fits the  dominant story most conveniently.

Or do we? What if we adopt an open-minded attitude about the complexity of the social skills of all animals, from fish to capuchin monkeys to bonobos and our own offspring? Wouldn’t this set us up for some amazing re-discoveries, of our own “language older than words“, in which sharing with others is more natural than depriving others?

Cet article Do babies share? est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

For a peer-to-peer approach to collective intelligence

It’s eight a.m. on a Monday morning in 2007. In the Arcueil examination centre, a thousand heads crane with difficulty over wooden desks that are damaged by pens scratching across thin sheets of paper. Railway lines surround the enclave; trains make the building shudder rhythmically; the heads lookup for a minute, distracted, then return to concentrate on the studious, urgent writing of their paper. Invigilators wander the rows, imperturbable, watching every head that turns, every hand hiding in jean pockets. Only the noise of crumpled paper can be heard and, when this fades away, the room is deathly silent. A thousand pupils have been gathered here for six hours to answer a difficult question. All interaction with their peers is forbidden and, if an unexpected memory lapse should halt their train of thought, they cannot consult their notes. The essays produced by the pupils will sink into oblivion, stored in a dedicated hanger that has housed examination papers for many generations.

A few years later, I’m facilitating an all-day workshop in a large white room with some twenty computers. Around me, groups of pupils talk, laugh and see-saw between a sheet of drawing paper and the computer screen. Some isolate themselves to code, others are hunched over a 3D printer producing an open source design that they’ve just downloaded. The pupils consult their teachers, ask advice from the experts present in the room and share their progress with the others. Some momentarily leave their own group to help their friends in a competing group. The workshop involves “remixing” artistic works that have come into the public domain or are open source. No assessment is planned; the reaction of those present is the only measure of the quality of their production. Watching them, I think that they are extremely lucky to be able to draw freely from all these wells of existing knowledge: their own intelligence, that of their peers and teachers, virtually everything that humanity has produced and, above all, the global knowledge which is within easy reach. At the end of the workshop, we find their work surprising and original and the quality exceeds all our expectations. Our doubts about the pupils’ capacity to open up the raw materials and extract a structured form from them were unfounded. Now they make us smile.

We are connected to an infinite number of individuals, organisations and machines. In my view, the cooperation of all of these entities, regardless of the nature of their intelligence, is what defines collective intelligence

I observe the magic of collective creation every day at OuiShare, a collective project working to develop the collaborative economy. The project brings together people from all four corners of the world and I’m very lucky to be involved. Every day, with every project that we conduct, with every decision that we take and each disagreement that arises, we are experiencing intelligent cooperation. Within these laboratories for ideas and practices, we are committed to supporting the collaborative projects that spring up in the kitchen, in co-working spaces, during meetings. We are also endeavouring to learn, within our community, how we can create better together than each of us alone.

This is the alchemy of collective intelligence. Through cooperating together, we create and think better than alone, secluded monk-like in the monastery of our brain. We now have immediate access to the huge amount of existing knowledge but it is with others, today and tomorrow, that we create well. We are connected to an infinite number of individuals, organisations and machines. In my view, the cooperation of all of these entities, regardless of the nature of their intelligence, is what defines collective intelligence.

Will our interactions lead us to improve as individuals, as a species, or will they seal a new era of digital war?

For tomorrow’s world, the stakes are high with regard to the evolution of our thinking-together and deciding-together. We also have new companions which constantly assist – machines, programmes, robots – and which modify our ways of acting and thinking as much as we fashion them. These upheavals in our existence and our organisational models are today gathering such pace that the questioning of processes and of the effects of these interactions is acquiring a previously unseen consistency. We can no longer ignore the fact that we humans will no longer ever be alone.

In this critical context, how are we to define collective intelligence and to integrate machines into the production of future knowledge? Will our interactions lead us to improve as individuals, as a species, or will they seal a new era of digital war? If we want to consciously use our capacity to cooperate to make the world a better place, which economic, social, ethical and technological models should we build?

From the noosphere to collective intelligence

The telos of collective intelligence is part of the concept of the noosphere, created by Vladimir Vernadsky and analysed at length by Teilhard de Chardin. Understood to be the entirety of human thought, the noosphere corresponds to two phenomena in reciprocal interaction. On the one hand, the growing complexity of human societies from a cultural, social, economic and demographic point of view is moving toward the constitution of a sphere of ever-developing knowledge. On the other hand, this sphere, born from the multiplication of the ever-increasing number of interactions, is bringing about a gradual structuring of global thought and awareness by humanity of itself. The idea of a march towards some sort of human brain that transcends us, as old as it is[1], is particularly strong at a time when 40% of the planet is connected to the web. So, collective intelligence can be understood as a knowledge-creation process that is informed by the awareness of a noosphere.

The noosphere underpins the possibility of collective knowledge production, but it does not respond to the questions being asked if we examine the process of co-creation. A practical approach to collective intelligence enables us to explore the conditions favourable to the collective exercise of the intelligence of individuals, entities or machines.

Of networks and men

For this purpose, I would like to discuss the work carried out by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence[2]. The research and analysis conducted by this Center are unique in their field. By combining mathematical, physical, biological, social and economic sciences and a resolutely forward-looking approach, the Center’s work aims to answer the following question: how can people and computers be connected so that — collectively — they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before? The magnitude of the task does not intimidate Thomas Malone, founder and Director of the Center. In his opinion, the stakes are high for this research, because “Our future as a species may depend on our ability to use our global collective intelligence to make choices that are not just smart, but also wise.”[3] The practical significance of collective intelligence is beginning to take shape: on the one hand, it’s a matter of finding such a configuration that allows co-creation to result in ordered, efficient and useful choices that address certain ethics. On the other hand, is it reasonable to assume that a configuration that favours intelligent co-creation between individuals can also integrate machines?

As Thomas Malone aptly points out, collective decisions can absolutely be rational and stupid[4]! Consequently, the notion of intelligence must be expanded to integrate factors other than mere rationality. Thomas Malone defines it in this way: “to be intelligent, the collective behaviour of a group must exhibit characteristics such as perception, a capacity for learning, judgement and problem-solving ability.” In other words, the aptitudes of a group and those of individuals must function as communicating vessels: in a configuration conducive to co-production, the group thus acquires a range of behaviours that would normally be associated with a sole individual.

Collective intelligence thrives in organisational models that are structured in networks, distributed, decentralised and focused more on perception and listening than on rigid rules

The MIT Research Center then sought to determine the factors that correlate to more intelligent collective production. It seems that the average intelligence of each individual is not one of these. However, two factors significantly stand out: the degree of empathy among the group members and equal speech distribution within the group. Empathy, distribution and equality, these are factors that suggest that collective intelligence is at odds with hierarchical, compartmentalised and centralised organisational models. Conversely, collective intelligence thrives in organisational models that are structured in networks, distributed, decentralised and focused more on perception and listening than on rigid rules. It is not surprising that collaborative networks such as Wikipedia prosper: they present the exact characteristics that stimulate collective intelligence!

In my view, an extra ingredient is necessary to ensure that the multiplicity of the individuals making up the network does not result in stowaways. In this regard, we should remember that only 10% of Wikipedia readers are active contributors. The anonymity of contribution plays a role: the value produced by each contributor is neither measured nor recognised. Conversely, within Sensorica[5], an open network in which a group of individuals and organisations produce hardware solutions in a contributory manner, the added value of each contributor is regularly measured by the other contributors and acknowledged by the network. Peer evaluation and recognition of the value of everyone’s contribution are thus as important as the evaluation of the global value of the network. As Pierre Lévy wrote: “the foundation and purpose of collective intelligence are mutual recognition and individual enrichment rather than the culture of a fetishized and hypostasised community.”[6]

An intelligent network brings as much to the world as to its contributors: all for one and one for all. As a genuine place of learning, the network favours free circulation of knowledge and the exchange of decisions while respecting everyone’s contribution. Unlike organisational models in which the collective crushes the individual, an intelligent network is both the extension and the catalyst of everyone’s intelligence. An intent to collaborate and an awareness of the value thus created are essential to ensure that collective intelligence may operate.

Of machines and men: towards cooperation between complementary intelligences

Empathy, perception, judgement, awareness, intentionality: are these not actual human attributes? How can machines, in principle deprived of these attributes, be integrated into an intelligent network? Yet, above, when I evoked the implementation of a network of entities and individuals in order to determine the optimal organisation for the collective production of value, I wasn’t excluding machines. These are today widely accepted as the extension of human means and the idea of the forthcoming advent of singularity has a growing number of enthusiasts[7]. Today, the complexity and intelligence of computer programmes are such that we have reached a point of no return which, according to Kevin Kelly[8], arises when “technology alters us as much as we alter technology”.

In my opinion, the concept of machines as an assistant that is perfectly dominated by man is just as questionable as the faith in the superiority of machines’ intelligence over our own. On the one hand, computer programmes have calculative and data-analysis capacities that clearly exceed the capacities of human intelligence. On the other hand, the robots designed today are not only capable of duplicating themselves but also of learning and evolving[9]. The research undertaken by INRIA (French Public Institute for Research into Digital Sciences) focuses on cognitive development which is stimulated by curiosity, perception and representations.

When compared to the scale of human evolution, this progress has shown unprecedented speed. If the rate of progress of the past few years is maintained in the coming years, it is not fanciful to imagine that the robots of the future could understand and reproduce emotions, and self-generate programmes based on internal and external information in order to autonomously demonstrate thought, emotion and action. This autonomy, if it occurs, bestows machines with attributes which have until now been human characteristics: awareness, perception, autonomous production. Objectively, there are not sufficient scientific data to completely rule out autonomous technology today; it is therefore more sensible to assume that it is possible, whatever the timeframe may be. Conversely, technological evolution foreshadows a future in which man, not content with improving computer programmes, would be equipped with the technological means to enable an intervention on himself, a physical improvement or, why not, a behavioural (moral) improvement.

This vision very quickly starts to resemble a science-fiction scenario in which the machines, endowed with autonomy and awareness, end up rising against the human yoke in order to dominate us or to simply demand the same rights as our species. We are never far from the dialectics of master and slave: we cannot stop ourselves from transposing historical scenarios to tomorrow’s world. Behind this thought by analogy lies the visceral fear of being deprived of our means of control, since the machines that we design will be infinitely quicker and more efficient than us. The anxiety with regard to the coming ethical upheavals is often adorned in the finery of precautionary principle: since we are not absolutely certain that technology will present no danger for humanity, let’s slow down and, better still, let’s sound the death knell of its ambitions[10].

We stand at a historic moment where humans and technology are no longer two spheres capable of evolving without altering each other

Does this mean that we can hypothesize that technological progress is absolutely autonomous in relation to all ethical questions and, therefore, that the acknowledgement of the consequences of the humanisation of machines and of the sudden entrance of the mechanical world into that of the living has no place in a researcher’s laboratory? I don’t believe so, for the technologies that we produce are not artefacts and we cannot avoid the repercussions that they will have on the coming world.

In the face of these two stances – anti-technological and a-ethical – the hypothesis of cooperation between human intelligence and mechanical intelligence is, in the current stage of our knowledge, reasonable and desirable. We must however acknowledge that machines can deploy intelligence that is not only calculating and that, if it is to be different, will not necessarily be inferior to ours. There seems little doubt that this trend is causing upheavals that the human species has never experienced. However, to slow science down because we are struggling to realise the acceleration of technological progress would be an impasse. On the contrary, it’s up to us to imagine and implement the means of cooperation that fertilise the shared production of knowledge, learning and, above all, awareness. We stand at a historic moment where humans and technology are no longer two spheres capable of evolving without altering each other. Technology is as much our extension as we are its extension, for the future of our species henceforth depends as much on ecology as on technology.

I will conclude by saying that the new distributed organisations favour co-creation between men as much as they do between men and machines. The diversity of the entities making up the network, combined with the recognition of everyone at their fair value and depending on their means, represents a fertile land on which collective intelligence may flower.

[1] The noosphere, in one respect, is no other than the cosmos of Platonists, whereas the awareness of humanity has undeniable Socratic overtones.

[2] http://cci.mit.edu/

[3] Interview with Thomas Malone, http://edge.org/conversation/collective-intelligence

[4] Ibid.

[5] http://www.sensorica.co/

[6] Pierre Lévy, Collective intelligence: mankind’s emerging world in cyberspace

[7] The notion of technological singularity was popularised by Vernor Vinge, a mathematician and science-fiction writer. In his essay The Coming Technological Singularity (1993), he attempted to demonstrate, using Moore’s Law, that humanity would have the technological means to produce superhuman intelligence within 30 years.

[8] Kevin Kelly, What Technology Wants (2010), Kindle version

[9] As shown by the Poppy project, an open-source robot designed by INRIA and capable of learning and adapting.

[10] For example, the Neo-Luddite movement. The most famous example of anti-technological activism is Ted Kaczynski, an American mathematician convinced that technological progress will lead humanity to apocalypse and that only the total eradication of modern society will prevent disaster. Known as the Unabomber, he sent sixteen bombs to famous figures in the technology world, killing three people and injuring twenty three.

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Often colliding in the sharing economy are the ideas of collaboration and competition. Sometimes you even see both at the same time. Sometimes they appear to be a contrast. But they may actually be complementary. 

The winner takes it all…

Competition, and particularly athletic competition, is an ancient Greek value. Lots of people, from then until now, have loved wrestling and playing various sports in order to “win.” It may not always be clear to us why we want to win. But the rewards of winning are often clear. More prestige, higher income, fame, and everything that comes with it.

Even for those who don’t care particularly about the prize, competition is often a way to hone an edge, to make you better at something. For a long time I played chess in my high school chess team because I liked the way it made me think. The competition helped me think a little bit faster, a little bit better. I didn’t get prestige or money as a result, but maybe I did get a tiny bit smarter.

…or better together ?

Collaboration gives us lots of obvious benefits as well. We have the benefit of “team spirit,” the integration of different talents, and the possibility of undertaking large projects that are in the common good, etc.  If competition makes us focus on the moment and makes us feel good when we win, collaboration has the potential to make us feel good all the time. Sometimes the two combine in interesting ways.

When I taught English in rural Japan, the school children always divided into teams for various types of competition, each team dressed in a different color. There was always competition, but the winners were always teams and not individuals. The idea you couldn’t have an individual winner was fascinating and certainly had a psychological impact.

Obviously competition can be a lot more ruthless than in a game. Sometimes people lose everything: their livelihood, their means to live, even their lives. But one of the ideas that drive competition is that if there is no risk involved, you won’t be sufficiently motivated to move forward. You’ll only be half in, instead of all in. And then you will be half-hearted.

I think sometimes projects based on collaboration lose to those based on competition on this basis alone. Those drawn to the competition are used to risking something for something else. So they work hard to minimize the risk and to win. Those working on the basis of collaboration alone are probably happier in general, but not as worried about succeeding. So they don’t.

Taking the best from both worlds

One strange fact of life is that wars are often the times when people collaborate the best. The sense of risk draws people together to do amazing things. The internet was created by people fighting a “cold war.” Then the war ended. Most of the next few decades were spent populating it with porn and social networks.

It’s quite likely that we need both collaboration and competition in different contexts. One of my favorite examples is the jousting tournaments of the middle ages. Despite many efforts of the church to outlaw them, men ran around trying to knock each other off horses with long pointy sticks. Some people even died. But lots of people had great fun at the same time. It was a bonding experience even between those who fought each other. Even more for those who loved each other.

Maybe there’s something to learn here.

We give our best when there is some risk involved to us, and if the risk includes something significant (e.g. our lives), the more likely we are to give our absolute best.

And when we give our absolute best, great things can happen.

That’s no reason to start new wars, especially those that threaten to kill millions of people, but it might be a good reason to have jousts. Competition with a collaborative base may be the best type. You can do your absolute best, whacking your opponent into submission, then hugging him. Although watch out if you try to steal his woman. Competition can be very serious, but we shouldn’t take it too seriously. Games which people take too seriously end up not being very fun. And, whatever the moralists of our age say, we should try to have as much fun as possible, whenever possible.

So pick up your sword and come at me, I dare you.
Photo credit: Senicus Tiber via photopin cc

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The software industry to date has thrived by reproducing the manufacturing model it was created in. But now with the power of distributed peer-to-peer networks it could benefit from new, more efficient and fairer alternatives.

Note: this article is a compilation of a series posted on the blog of Open Initiative.

Open Initiative arose from the need to make software differently. To make software that works. To stick to the real needs. To share to go faster. Because that’s not how the industry works currently. The software industry was built in an industrial culture. Large investments, strong intellectual property protection, long development cycles, and standardized products with mass sales. And in fact, that made sense for heavy industry, but it still made some sense, for distribution issues, in the early IT world.

But the Internet came and disrupted all of this. Software is specific because it has no replication cost. With virtually no distribution costs, there is no need for a long cycle anymore. You can make your prototype, test it, distribute it, upgrade it and fix it again. All of this with no heavy cost. No production line to build, no shipment to organize, no stocks to manage. And yet, we still think of IT companies the same way we think of industrial companies.

Free software, shared price

There is another way. If you invest a lot in a product to get it done, it is crucial to protect it strongly so that you can get good return on your investment. But if your investment is small, it can be better to let others use it, so that you can profit from their work as well as they profit from yours. That’s what open-source software is about.

Free software is not only more transparent and fair, it is also more efficient, because it creates an ecosystem on which you can base your work to create quickly very powerful software.

But that’s not all. Since software can be updated easily, it’s better to test it as often as possible. Free software makes it even easier because you get a community that can test your software quick and often. So, less risk, less investment, more efficiency, more fairness. That sounds like a good deal right? That’s what we mean by “make software differently”. That’s why Open Initiative came to life.

And you say: if it’s free software, how do you make a living? Well, as Stallman said, it is free as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”. Free software developers need to earn money, as everybody else. And that’s why we created Open Funding. Free software brings value to everybody. So the price should be shared between everybody. And crowdfunding is about sharing the effort of funding, when free software is about sharing the effort of development. It just makes sense. So, fund it by the crowd, make it in small steps, let users test and validate, and make it open source.

The Funding Dilemma

This is a different way. That’s why we created a crowdfunding platform tailored for free software. But as any other platform of that kind, it needs to reach a certain size to be sustainable.

All platforms of the so-called collaborative economy gather people so that they can do business together. But because of the network effect, the more people gather, the more value the platform has. And until the platform reaches a certain size, it needs extra effort to live. And after that size the bigger the network, the greater the value. That’s why so many platforms raise millions. So that they can communicate about it and make it grow.

But then you need to pay back the investors, which means that the platform needs to take some of the value made by the users. You end up with users working together, paying for the platform to grow, in order to pay the investors. From that moment on, the platform finds itself in a conflict between the interests of its users and those of its investors, which can lead to tensions. This issue has been raised a lot recently under different aspects, for instance in the analysis by Janelle Orsi of the recent lawsuit against Lyft, as well as discussions on who owns the sharing economy platforms and on the impact of the sharing economy on social conditions.

So how can we solve this conflict between the interests of the users and the shareholders? Just make the users your shareholders! And offering users a chance to invest in a platform they rely on for their own revenue is not only a way to prevent conflicts, it is also a good way to improve users commitment. Plus if you get a large number of users to join, it can bring the platform a good quantity of cash! For the users, it is a way to secure the platform that brings them their income, to make sure it doesn’t turn against them, and provide cash if a dividend is paid.

After all, we make the platforms for our users. It’s reasonable they should get involved in building them, and become part of them. It’s more sustainable and fair, and more collaborative.

Decentralize to form a strong, global network

But maybe we should actually ask why we need that money in the first place. This is even more relevant when you think that all other functions in an Internet start-up are very scalable. Making a web platform requires very little work. Testing and fixing it is so easy. Hosting costs are negligible. And most functions can be automated. So the web can connect distant people who have no relation to the company to do business in a distributed way. Then why should communication and sales be done in a highly centralized, hierarchical way?

There may be an alternative. Internet start-ups have been externalizing so many functions, even their core services, which is executed by their users. There is no reason why their sales, communication or community management services can’t be externalized too, creating a distributed network of local connectors managing their own community of users. You end up with a “glocal” community, a network of networks. Each single community is a small start-up of its own, managed by a connector. It is linked to the global network on which it relies for the platform development, and coordination. But it can live its own life, grow to any size one likes and have its own animation and culture.

This model has the relevance of a small local group, but the strength of a global network.

If the Internet is to make all business models distributed, there is no reason why there should still be hierarchical armies of sales persons to sell those distributed services. It means giving up some revenue, and also some power. There are probably many obstacles on that path, difficulties that we don’t foresee. But it looks like it might be worth giving a try. And we will.

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32 events in 16 European countries, concluding with our 4th OuiShare Summit in Brussels, that was the OuiShare Europe Tour. In the last 3 months we met over 2 000 entrepreneurs, researchers and Collaborative Economy enthusiasts and learned a lot – about you, us, and where we want to go.

As one of our OuiShare connectors concluded after the tour “We come from different backgrounds and parts of the world, we have different opinions on many things – but we always dance!” Yes, we always dance. And here are some things we learned:

1. Every place is unique: no matter whether you compare different countries or cities within one country, the differences between them are impressive! Even in going from Munich to Cologne there was a big change from a business to a grassroots audience, so one might only imagine what the differences would have between events in Cluj-Napoca, Cordoba, Lille and Wuppertal. In the Scandinavian tour we met both dreadlocks and suits, both sitting on pillows on the floor and with straight backs on chairs. When meeting up in Brussels for our final summit, after three months on the road, we concluded that Europe is a whole and we’re very, very close to each other.

2. Have more webinars! They are a great tool to reach many people around the globe interested in a topic. Thank to Pawel’s experience in doing webinars for his community Cohabitat in Poland, we were able to host our first OuiShare Webinar about the Collaborative Economy with Alastair Parvin, Elf Pavlik, Antonin Léonard and Francesca, with over 80 listeners!. Much like an online panel discussion where people can comment in a chat thread (which is very entertaining to watch), we held this webinar before our Warsaw event to teach people in Poland about the Collaborative Economy, where the concept is still very unknown. Watch the webinar.

3. Do more things collaboratively. The whole idea of a Europetour emerged out of an online discussion between Rio de Janeiro and Paris, when we realized that we were all planning events in Europe at a similar time. Combining many individual events into one tour made it much easier for us to find supporters, have an impact and “take Europe by storm”, as Shareable puts it. But not only should you collaborate more with people within our own community, but also with other organizations – as we did at events in Nord-Rhein-Westfalen (CSCP),and Warsaw (Cohabitat).

Another great example of collaboration gone (really) well: when Shareable announced their Shareable cities #MapJam, a several week long global event calling for people to host local events to map initiatives in their city, we decided to join forces and host MapJams at many of our Europe Tour events, with great results.

As peers and people caring for each other, our OuiShare Connector Mattias from Sweden took it even further and many of us crowdfunded his trip to Brussels as an parable of the Sharing Economy, and what collaboration means for us as a movement. This way of looking at collaboration on many levels, on the personal as well as the organizational and community level, has encouraged us a lot.

4. Challenging but rewarding: unlocking your city! The first event in Hamburg not only brought together more than 50 people and 11 startups and collaborative initiatives that pitched, but immediately sparked the founding of a OuiShare Hamburg group the same evening by several dedicated newbies. Having already reached 30+ members within a few weeks, several members of the group joined us in Brussels and have already planned their own OuiShare Hamburg meetup on November 27th. Similarly the community in Poland and Romania exploded after the events there and is very active on Facebook thanks to the great effort of our connectors there Mircea, Justyna and Dalma. Not to mention OuiShare London has also become very active and is cooking up some events for next year such as International Collaboration Day.

This has opened our eyes even more for what collaboration really means; one can initiate, another can fill in and yet others do. We’re looking forward to more of these ripple effects.

The Europe Tour let us share moments with friends we had not met yet - Spanish member of the Ulule team 

5. The new up and coming region? Eastern and Central Europe! Our Connector for the region Dalma Berkovics has some impressive stories to tell about the events she coordinated with local organizers from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. Read more about the state of the Collaborative Economy in Eastern and Central Europe in this recap.

One thing that struck me was that building a community is sometimes more important than building a tool – participant in Stockholm

The closing highlight: OuiShare Summit Barcamps & Unconference

Our 4th(!) OuiShare Summit in Brussels finally brought this adventure to a close, and we were thrilled to see the growth and internationalization of our attendees: even though Brussels is a lot colder than Barcelona in the summer (where we held our last summit), 100 people from 15 countries embarked on a journey to join us. Hear for yourself whether they thought it was worth it:

What were the results?

In our Barcamp on Friday with sessions about developing the OuiShare organization, as well as our Unconference on Saturday with sessions related to the Collaborative Economy, lots of topics were discussed and new ideas for projects were born, such as

• OuiShare Summer School for Entrepreneurs and Students (Eugenio Battiglia)
• further development of OuiShare Job board for jobs in the Collaborative Economy (Flore Berlingen)
• Research projects on the Collaborative Economy (Benjamin Tinq)
• OuiShare Fest 2014 (Francesca Pick)
• OuiShare Resources project (a project for the sharing of resources among local NGO’s) (Julie Braka)
• Public policy advocacy (Albert Carnigueral)
• Relationships with established organizations
• A toolkit for Connectors on how to build local communities: all this information will be available on the OuiShare wiki very soon!
• OuiShare Magazine Project (Arthur de Grave)
• OuiShare Incubator for projects from the community and the Empowered by OuiShare Framework. More information about this will be explained in an article and our wiki soon as well.
• As well as lots of discussions about the collaborative economy as such, which you can watch in this playlist.

Click on each link to see a video summary of what it was about. If you’d like to get involved in any of them, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the contact person mentioned with each project. >> See all pictures from the summit

OuiShare Stockholm drinks….in a former church!

Stay tuned for an upcoming article about how the OuiShare governance and organizational structure are evolving!

A big thank you to all our partners, who made this tour possible:

MangoPay, Carpooling, BlaBlaCar,  Ulule, KissKissBankBank, Lendstar , Autobleue

And now, what’s next? OuiShare Fest round 2 !

Cowritten by

Francesca Pick & Mattias Jägerskog, with experiences from all OuiShare Connectors across Europe.

Cet article 32 Events. 16 Countries. 5 conclusions from the OuiShare Europe Tour est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.

Taking part of the OuiShare Europe Tour, the OuiShare team got on the road to discover Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) and what the region has to offer in the field of Collaborative Economy. It was a great start and I cannot wait to see the next steps!

One week, five events moving from one city to another starting in Sofia, Bulgaria, continuing in Bucharest and Cluj Napoca in Romania and wrapping up in Budapest, Hungary and Warsaw, Poland. It was the first time for OuiShare to organize events in the region and also the first time for these cities to learn about the global trend of Collaborative Economy.

What the Collaborative Economy means in CEE?

It would not surprise me if for a large number of “Western people” the first question popping up in one’s head mentioning Eastern Europe and Sharing in the same sentence would go back to socialist history and its heritage. Of course this is an interesting parallel and might influence how the Collaborative Economy is perceived today in the region (on this topic you can read my article on Shareable soon), but when it comes to define what the Collaborative Economy means to the generation leading the movement in CEE, it seems that they have a pretty similar perception to the definition applied in Western Europe. Just like in other countries, the trend is fed by:

Despite all possible doubts, CEE has a pretty similar perception of the Collaborative Economy to Western countries

• Rational decisions ”It means sharing of any personal belongings and knowledge with others around me and online in order to lower overconsumption on the developed world and getting things done faster and smarter together.” (János Török, PiqNiq),

• A new way doing business “New business thinking” (Attila Nemes, OS Kantine)

• A new way to connect with each other “Sharing Economy for me means change through belief, imagination and action. It’s a belief, because it has the potential to reshape consumption behavior and make the world a better place. It’s imagination – I like to picture a world covered with millions of small lights. These stand for each moment of pure joy of human connection, of giving and making another human being happy in an endless list of possible ways. Sharing Economy is also very practical and actionable, it is a way of living and thinking that is worth developing.” (Zornitsa Tomova, UseTogether)

• Online technologies and an optimized way of living “The Sharing Economy trend will shape the world’s mindset with the help of technology and online connection. It will make it possible for us to optimize our lives, to create more sustainable communities and to connect with like-mided people more easily.” (Mircea Vadan, Usetogether)

Local organizers leading the way towards a collaborative future in CEE all got familiar with the concept through their studies or working experiences abroad. This generation is empowered to bring fresh ideas to the region.

What have been done so far?

The wave of the Collaborative Economy is just reaching CEE and is still in a very early stage in the region. “Well, its just starting up, but I believe it has a bright future. Budapest and people living here could greatly benefit from the sharing economy.” (Tamás Kiss, PiqNiq)

These were the first OuiShare Drinks we organized in CEE and I have to say they were a great help to people already involved in the field making it possible for them to see outside their tiny world and understand that they take part of a bigger picture. Showing global examples that already have great success with viable and scalable business models made the newcomers positive about the future of the project they are working on. “I haven’t heard about Sharing Economy before the Budapest OuiShare event. The community definitely will grow and involve more and more people. Without being conscious about it, I think many of us have been part of the movement already.” (Le Marietta, Járókelő)

The wave of the Collaborative Economy is just reaching CEE…

All events were totally different: some with a lot of participants and more in a conference format and some happened more in a debate style.  But one thing is true for sure, all four countries have their very promising initiatives and they seem to have a bright future ahead of them.

To give you a short overview of the five events and the projects being developed, let’s see what happened city by city:

• Sofia – The great surprise of the Tour

When I got to betahaus|sofia directly from the airport I felt that something very cool is going to happen that night. Vibrant atmosphere, positive people and very promising projects… as it turned out later. I really could feel that participants were enthusiastic about the Collaborative Economy, asking relevant questions. There were about 60 people there to hear about it for the first time and 8 pitchers presenting their vision about embracing the Sharing Economy on the local level. Some with extended active community around them and some others still looking for solutions to scale. Projects ranged from sharing journeys (ComboRides), city carpooling (Umno.BG), local experience sharing (4tripsters), item and service sharing (UseTogether) and donating (Za Bez Pari), education timebanking (Nauchi Me), NGO donating initiatives (Idea in Action) to food cooperatives (Hrankoop). As Zornitsa (from Start It Smart and UseTogether), the local event organizer, said: these people really needed an opportunity to work on new ways to collaborate with each other: “The good news is that in Sofia, Sharing Economy is definitely blooming. There’s an unimaginable amount of sharing projects, not only in Sofia, but everywhere in Bulgaria – NGOs, cultural and social, offline and online initiatives, as well as startups and businesses. You can find hundreds of these through a quick facebook search. The challenge is that everyone is doing something more or less on their own, solving a problem they’ve seen, most of us are unaware we are part of something bigger. I think there’s a large unexploited space for collaboration between us.” (Zornitsa Tomova, UseTogether)

• Bucharest and Cluj Napoca – Romania leading the debate

The two events we had in Romania were the two most intense ones in terms of discussions. The bar’s owner literally had to kick us out after a while in Bucharest because we could not stop debating about cultural differences with Western countries, trust issues and innovative business models. These cities led by Ruxandra from Babele and Mircea from UseTogether seem to have a very mature perspective about the Collaborative Economy.

In the coworking field the HUB in Bucharest and Cluj seem to be serving their function perfectly: connecting the dots in the startup and Collaborative Economy space. These cities also have some very cool initiatives encouraging sharing stuffs, time and knowledge. Shareequipment and Usetogether are leading the sharing market for physical objects and Babele provides a platform for open collaboration between entrepreneurs.

• Budapest – Between innovation and social benefit

The OuiShare Budapest Drink was a great success but not only for the big number of participants and the good quality of speakers but also because signs appeared for future collaboration  between the attendees.  Loffice, the initiator of the concept of coworking in the city hosted the event that gave opportunity to ten pitchers to present themselves. They realized that they had a lot in common and it would be way easier to move forward together. The transportation sector seems to be the most developed led by Zivi and Oszkár, two ridesharing platforms and to this will be added in a couple of months the Budapest bikesharing system (BUBI). All in all it was interesting to see how the global concept of collaborative economy was adapted to local needs and opportunities through projects like Pet it!, Járókelő and Heartsmap putting a focus on social and environmental benefit. The Makers movement has also some inspiring representants in the city including Hackerspace Budapest and Kultúrgorilla, an open design platform to build your own unique furnitures. And with the example of the PiqNiq team, we can see that there is a lot of potential in Hungarian creativity building new services for global markets with a startupper approach.

• Warsaw – Last, but not least

OuiShare Drink Warsaw was the concluding event of the OuiShare Europe Tour. Before the OuiShare Drink, Cohabitat – a co-host of the OuiShare Drink in Warsaw, together with OuiShare hosted the webinar promoting the ideas of Sharing Economy in the region and inviting the local community to the event. We had about 150 participants, many of them already quite involved in the sharing economy initiatives.

The event started with some practical sharing practices with amazing food sharing by the participants and a clothing swap hosted by Vinted . It turned out that Warsaw is very rich in Sharing Economy initiatives and we had great pitches, by Cohabitat , Siec Sensownego Biznesu, Wymiennik, Mintu.me, Mieszadlo,  Kombinat,  FabLab Lodz,  Sie-je w miescie, Centrum Nauki Kopernik – ” Uzdrowisko Warszawa”, Vinted, crowdfunding.pl, ekonomiaspoleczna.pl, and BlaBlaCar.pl . The event was hosted at  Klub Powiekszenie , with their generous support to make everything  work perfectly.

What are the next steps ahead of us in CEE?

According to numerous feedback, the best way to move forward is to start small showing people that it is possible, fun and efficient to collaborate. “Start, vibrant sharing communities/groups could be started in neighborhoods and larger housing complexes in order to first start small, give people a feeling for it and grow the sharing economy from there.” (János Török, PiqNiq)

We also discovered that since the movement is still in a very early stage, it is crucial to organize events and give people the opportunity to start working together.“More small communities that actually do something useful, and events where they can show what they’ve done, so others can be inspired and join.” (Hackerspace Budapest)

Starting small, starting local is key. But the message I got from all the conversation I had during this very intense week is that these countries are close to each other not only geographically but also in the way we think, we see the world. These small and fragmented countries will definitely have to move together along the way organizing events on the regional level and exchanging best practices. Watch out, Central and Eastern Europe is on the track and is joining the Collaborative Economy Revolution!

A big thank you to all our partners, who made this tour possible:

MangoPay, Carpooling, BlaBlaCar,  Ulule, KissKissBankBank.

Cet article Central and Eastern Europe is joining the Collaborative Revolution est apparu en premier sur OuiShare.