Republished from Philippa Warr: “Former Valve employee Jeri Ellsworth has spoken of the company’s famous flat management structure, calling out several shortcomings as part of an interview for the Grey Area podcast. Because of Valve’s success and profitability, the unconventional management structure — or, more accurately, the lack of one — has achieved a kind… Continue reading
Support Expedition Freedom, the second voyage
More on this crowdfunding campaign via http://goteo.org/project/expedition-freedom?lang=en Petros writes: “there are groups which last for years, getting more and more integrated, achieving their goals, performing, holding together. How do they do it? What are their secrets? This is just what we want to uncover, and share the knowledge with everyone. The work has started already:… Continue reading
Book of the Day: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Away from Democracy
* Book: Bob McChesney. Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Away from Democracy. From the Author: “The book is a political economic examination of the digital revolution based upon 15 years of research. The book provides considerable detail but also an overarching analysis and argument, so it is intended for anyone concerned with… Continue reading
Protest Analysis (6): John Robb’s take on recent open source protests
Republished from John Robb: “We’re seeing protests everywhere. From Brazil to Turkey to Egypt. What’s going on? Here’s some thinking. Once ignited, open source protest is hard to stamp out. Open source protest is usually focused on a single overarching goal. In most recent cases, it’s a call for a government that isn’t corrupt. “No… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Complementary Currencies for Sustainability
Gill Seyfang, Principal Investigator, explains the research project: “New research to study the growth and diffusion of complementary currencies (new forms of money) around the world, and produce policy and practice lessons to harness these grassroots innovations for sustainability. This two year research project is led by Gill Seyfang at UEA and funded by the… Continue reading
How Does Justice Come to the Economy?
[This (republished) address from 11/30/2010 at the GLS bank Christmas meeting of the “Fair and Regional Charter” is translated abridged from the German on the Internet, www.fair-regional.de,] By Johannes Mosmann: “I was invited to speak about the question what justice in economic life can mean, what the word “fair” implies when we speak of “fair… Continue reading
Reporting from the second international complementary currency conference
Excerpted from RUBY VAN DER WEKKEN of the Helsinki Timebank: (the second part of this article deals with the issue of time bank taxation, we’ll return to it separately) “Between 19-23.6.2013 the second international complementary currency conference took place in The Hague, Holland. These five days (two academic days, one policy makers day, 2 practitioner… Continue reading
Book of the Day: Pocket Neighborhoods
* Book: Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating a Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World. By Ross Chapin. Excerpted from an interview with the author, conducted by Jessica Conrad: How does the commons influence your work as an architect? My goal as an architect is to help people see how to connect and contribute to their surroundings—to the… Continue reading
Protest Analysis (5): Towards a new style of political organization for commons-oriented mobilizations ?
Image by Olmo Calvo Madrilonia/@PinkNoiseRev Translated by Stacco Troncoso, edited by Jane Loes Lipton –Guerrilla Translation! Original text in Spanish The 15-M movement seems to be at an impasse, unsure of how to make use of its multiple victories and enormous public support. To break out of this situation, numerous organizations, assemblies and collectives are… Continue reading
Examples of the Peer Production of Public Functions
Excerpted from Yochai Benkler: “A major path of intervention of decentralized, voluntaristic systems is a set of efforts to use peer-based approaches to work around nonfunctioning or imperfect state institutions. These models are the mutualist equivalent of the “privatization” movement that sought, and continues to seek, to remove public actions from the responsibility of governments… Continue reading