Personal Democracy Forum 2008
Note by David GalielDavid_Galiel:
Robin starts with review of problems and how we are still trying to solve them in the old fashioned way, working from a worldview of scarcity rather than abundance.
Scarcity:
Assets closed & proprietary
Costs born alone
Innovation & content internally generated
1. find excess capacity
2. create platform for others to share & invest in it
Abundance
pay for only what you need/use
share costs
share innovation and ideas
Example of zipcar
Look at expensive asset, create platform so many people can share use of it
Have 200,000 people sharing 5,000 cars using 5,000 parking spaces.
GoLoco.org - using social networks to get at ridesharing and online payment systems. Share excess capacity - empty seats as you drive around.
(my note: exemplifies old/new approach to business - benefit from providing meaningful benefits to others, finding the way to make the greatest difference for the most people in the most efficient, sustainable way. "If it doesn't make a difference, what's the point?" So much of what we call "added-value" is actually empty calories; repackaging mundane products with aspirational packaging and selling people things that don't actually make a difference. When you use, as a starting point, "how can I use my unique talents/skills/experience to make a meaningful difference in the world", new (even profitable) opportunities emerge. )
Project to piggyback national information infrastructure on the back of transportation infrastructure, mesh network w. nodes on the roofs of cars, distributed network bypassing most traditional infrastructure dev costs.
Find excess capacity
Create platform so others can share it and benefit from it
Gilberto Gil
Looking at digital technologies as cultural phenomenon.
Radical changes in the system are only possible at isolated historical moments.
Digital technology offers the opportunity to achieve radical change, step by step, using new industrial and social technologies, without the violent earthquake of traditional revolutionary action.
Conversion of digital technology converging on the Internet has created a totally peaceful civic revolution.
"Peeracy" - culture of peer-to-peer information transmission and sharing.
These revolutionary effects are occurring largely outside traditional means of representative democracy. Governments will have to accommodate this widespread unrest and energy for change.
Resistance will be strong from old power structures and worldviews.
Need to come up with a new way to think and talk about these new technologies to support their adoption.
In Brazil, working with many hundreds of local communities to bring digital social technologies to the entire community, to transform business models, social models, civic and cultural models and empower individual citizens to use these technologies to participate in new ways. (my note: would have liked to hear more about the experience and challenges of bringing these technologies to the people, moving power "out to the periphery".)
Invitation to join in Brazil next year to engage in discussion to spread the grass-roots digital technology project all over the globe.
Van Jones
Appeals to audience - saw the hope and possibilities at this conference. Bringing 2 bits of bad news that we can't easily get out of- the environment and the economy. And looking to solutions - appealing to the audience to use our talents to help solve these problems. Hansen today said we are at the brink, one of the last opportunities to make a difference with global warming.
Casualties in Cali wildfires were mostly latino farmworkers, who did not have cell phones (gov't notified citizens by cell phones, assumed to be ubiquitous, reminds us that the gaps matter).
Economic problems much deeper than anything the next president can cure by themselves, no matter which one you are rooting for. How do we deal with it? If we burn fuel to stimulate the economy we "bake the planet". If we don't stimulate the economy, we exacerbate the misery and unrest. Answer is green economy - applying our entrepreneurial energy and technological talents to create wealth by saving the planet - working on both big problems at once. Beat poverty and environmental degradation at the same time.
So, what is standing in the way? All the people who know how to solve these problems and have the means to do so, don't know each other, aren't aware of each other, don't talk to each other. All the parts are there to save the world and resurrect the economy - but there is no platform available to link them all together.
We need the help of the people in this room to put the systems in place to help bring this all together. Next challenge is how do we aggregate the wisdom - not just the data - to create the means for the people to work collaboratively to link all the potential problem solvers, solutions and needs together.
This can be a means not only to save the planet and save the economy but bring about the social revolution we want, people working together across all disciplines, communities, divisions. At the one moment we need more than anything to be one country, we are evermore divided. Help by using what we know to create the means for us to solve these problems together.
(my note: for next PDF, have half a day dedicated to solutions jamming sharing ideas, insights and technology, even building stuff on the spot, all focused on building a platform for green economy)
Scarcity:
Assets closed & proprietary
Costs born alone
Innovation & content internally generated
1. find excess capacity
2. create platform for others to share & invest in it
Abundance
pay for only what you need/use
share costs
share innovation and ideas
Example of zipcar
Look at expensive asset, create platform so many people can share use of it
Have 200,000 people sharing 5,000 cars using 5,000 parking spaces.
GoLoco.org - using social networks to get at ridesharing and online payment systems. Share excess capacity - empty seats as you drive around.
(my note: exemplifies old/new approach to business - benefit from providing meaningful benefits to others, finding the way to make the greatest difference for the most people in the most efficient, sustainable way. "If it doesn't make a difference, what's the point?" So much of what we call "added-value" is actually empty calories; repackaging mundane products with aspirational packaging and selling people things that don't actually make a difference. When you use, as a starting point, "how can I use my unique talents/skills/experience to make a meaningful difference in the world", new (even profitable) opportunities emerge. )
Project to piggyback national information infrastructure on the back of transportation infrastructure, mesh network w. nodes on the roofs of cars, distributed network bypassing most traditional infrastructure dev costs.
Find excess capacity
Create platform so others can share it and benefit from it
Gilberto Gil
Looking at digital technologies as cultural phenomenon.
Radical changes in the system are only possible at isolated historical moments.
Digital technology offers the opportunity to achieve radical change, step by step, using new industrial and social technologies, without the violent earthquake of traditional revolutionary action.
Conversion of digital technology converging on the Internet has created a totally peaceful civic revolution.
"Peeracy" - culture of peer-to-peer information transmission and sharing.
These revolutionary effects are occurring largely outside traditional means of representative democracy. Governments will have to accommodate this widespread unrest and energy for change.
Resistance will be strong from old power structures and worldviews.
Need to come up with a new way to think and talk about these new technologies to support their adoption.
In Brazil, working with many hundreds of local communities to bring digital social technologies to the entire community, to transform business models, social models, civic and cultural models and empower individual citizens to use these technologies to participate in new ways. (my note: would have liked to hear more about the experience and challenges of bringing these technologies to the people, moving power "out to the periphery".)
Invitation to join in Brazil next year to engage in discussion to spread the grass-roots digital technology project all over the globe.
Van Jones
Appeals to audience - saw the hope and possibilities at this conference. Bringing 2 bits of bad news that we can't easily get out of- the environment and the economy. And looking to solutions - appealing to the audience to use our talents to help solve these problems. Hansen today said we are at the brink, one of the last opportunities to make a difference with global warming.
Casualties in Cali wildfires were mostly latino farmworkers, who did not have cell phones (gov't notified citizens by cell phones, assumed to be ubiquitous, reminds us that the gaps matter).
Economic problems much deeper than anything the next president can cure by themselves, no matter which one you are rooting for. How do we deal with it? If we burn fuel to stimulate the economy we "bake the planet". If we don't stimulate the economy, we exacerbate the misery and unrest. Answer is green economy - applying our entrepreneurial energy and technological talents to create wealth by saving the planet - working on both big problems at once. Beat poverty and environmental degradation at the same time.
So, what is standing in the way? All the people who know how to solve these problems and have the means to do so, don't know each other, aren't aware of each other, don't talk to each other. All the parts are there to save the world and resurrect the economy - but there is no platform available to link them all together.
We need the help of the people in this room to put the systems in place to help bring this all together. Next challenge is how do we aggregate the wisdom - not just the data - to create the means for the people to work collaboratively to link all the potential problem solvers, solutions and needs together.
This can be a means not only to save the planet and save the economy but bring about the social revolution we want, people working together across all disciplines, communities, divisions. At the one moment we need more than anything to be one country, we are evermore divided. Help by using what we know to create the means for us to solve these problems together.
(my note: for next PDF, have half a day dedicated to solutions jamming sharing ideas, insights and technology, even building stuff on the spot, all focused on building a platform for green economy)
