##2 Update: Foundaing the OSCEdays Association
I had a phone call with the lady from the Finanzamt and we made together two more small changes to our statutes. Now we are good to go. I will prepare all necessary things in the coming days in if everything works well we will have a Verein in 3 weeks (founding meeting on Feb 16 probably).
##4 Updates: Spread The Call For Cities How is it going? Any new ideas, strategies . . .
btw. Please do not embedd Google Docs into forum threads but include them as covered links. A embedded google doc makes my (Lars) machine immediately freeze and it takes 5+ minutes to get it going again. This is probably the case with other machines to and most likely an issue of discourse at the moment.
##5 Ouishare
We are accepted to present at Ouishare Fest 2016. Who will go?
##6 Quick Info - press article collection topic
I think we should collect press articles immediately - when they appear. Here is a topic to do it on the go (in the Communications Category, pinned) - do you agree with this?
##7 Time Tracking
So, did everybody do their homework…?
How did you manage tracking your time spent on OSCEdays over the last 2 weeks?
What tools did you use and what do you think about them?
##8 “New Category for Challenges we want to see solve?” Was Jaime asking here. And it is good to discuss. It could be a great way to inspire makers to do a first step into an OSCE project. Could it? And what would be the best way/place for it?
##9 Explore Use of Earth Dollars on OSCEdays Platform for Digital Value Exchange
suggested by @Gien. Scroll down to the comments to find a longer explanation.
##10 Gien: Can we have some kind of Mentors programme?
during the event?
###btw. Technical Hind
There is a group for the BoST - So if you want to ping us all you don’t have to write down all the names just write down @BoST and it should work.
I would like to propose discussing the possibility of using ethereum-based Earth Dollars at OSCE Days for value exchange on whatever digital collaboration platform we happen to be using. This will allow designers and anyone else to make valuable contributions to a circular project and have their time and contribution tracked and compensated, either in realtime or stored for future.
I have been involved with the group of programmers who have applied ethereum to the Earth Dollar.
BACKGROUND
I interviewed David Kam, one of the principal founders of Mother Earth Trust at last year’s OSCE Days:
Nick and David’s programming team were using bitcoin to develop Earth Dollar but I suggested they use Ethereum instead and they switched over. That was late last year. They are now testing ED running on Ethereum. I will get feedback before the next meeting about its status but they hope to launch in midyear, just around the time of OSCE Days.
Natural capital economist Mark Anielski has been working on the project:
and advised the Nepalese govt on the Gross National Happiness concept.
The ED will initially be backed by the natural capital assets of 14 million HA of land owned by the Algonquin people of Canada, spanning Ontario and Quebec. Mark has valuated the conservative value of the natural resources to be $3 trillion USD. The Algonquin people have been working with Motherearth Trust and the 1.5 million Algonquin indigenous people will be using the ED for their local economy. It will be available to any other group to use as well.
Backing up ED with natural capital means there is incentive to keep the land wild. If it is exploited and the net balance changes…ie…lose forests, lose rivers, etc due to excessive natural resource use, then the ED value goes down. Hence, everyone who uses it has incentive to keep the nature protected by ED conserved and wild.
We can use ED for digital value exchange. This value exchange has been part of the SRG digital collaboration platform that we have envisioned for building a global commons.
As the ED rolls out, SRG’s idea is to take the next step and engage the indigenous people of South Africa, then Africa and explain the concept to them and see if they would like to also add their land to be protected by the ED. In this way, the tribal peoples who contribute land will have value returns for providing their land to the natural asset pool, have ED to use within their own community and have ED protect their land from natural resource plunder by resource extraction capitalists. This is a very powerful economic incentive for circular economy as it will strongly encourage reuse, redesign, remanufacture of all technical nutrients.
We will engage the indigenous people’s of South America and Asia in the same manner.
As a side note, I will be looking at developing an Open Source digital collab platform using:
Neo4j
R
ED
and other critical software
independently at SRG to see how far we can go. The hackathon Tim and I are organizing later on can only help accelerate the development. This is all open source so we want to share everything.
OSCE DAY USE
ED can provide a secure, encrypted value exchange medium that will incentify participation in projects. People working on any project can be rewarded with ED. If we can bring more people into accepting ED, it builds a bigger and bigger parallel, alternative economy. In particular, ED is meant to be used by environmentally aware users as it is backed by real natural capital. Hence, in principle, it cannot support any business that is knowingly ecologically destructive. This also applies to people as well. It can only support socially and ecologically responsible businesses.
For the OSCE Days community, it can help to create local economies that use OS Circular designs. It is also suportive of OSCE because by its very nature of being backed by $3 Trillion USD of wild nature, it encourages keeping whatever protected land to remain protected or to rewild even more of nature. Hence, the direct consequence is that it means we have to find ways to build just societies that don’t use more raw virgin natural resources AND eliminates pollution…this is exactly circular economies. So if we are going to choose a digital cryptocurrency to use for value exchange, the ED is a perfect match to use for OSCE Days
SUGGESTED AGENDA ITEM FOR NEXT MEETING: IMPLEMENT A CIRCULAR DESIGN EDUCATION SEGMENT AT OSCE DAYS FOR DESIGNERS
Circular design is not easy to wrap your head around. Most designers, in fact are trained NOT to be circular. There are currently three inherent aspects of successful (noncircular) design:
Functionality
Aesthetics
Marketability
A successful design can use any combination of mechanical, chemical, electrical, physical and biological properties. With circular design, it is becoming apparent that ecological/biological/environmental knowledge is critical to be successful. Without it, technical nutrients will be wasted, and worse, become pollutants harmful to the environment and to people.
Designers today are not trained with a circular design mindset because they simply do not have the ecological/enviromental impact knowledge of the materials and processes they are working with. This knowledge is scarce to nonexistent and is a real obstacle to the widespread adoption of circular design methodology. It also does not help to protect such knowledge under IP, as is done with Cradle-to-Cradle. Only an open source approach can ultimately create knowledge that every designer needs to become a competent circular designer.
As one example, I have worked in electronic engineering and hardware R+D and manufacturing most of my life and I can testify from first hand experience that there is no real awareness of circular design knowledge in this field. The typical design cycle looks like this:
Define high level device functionality
Market analysis
Initial detailed electronic/electrical design to meet functionality, market and safety standards
Sourcing of components
Build and test prototype
If it meets functionality and environmental conditions (temp, humidity, vibration, etc) then go into alpha/beta
If not reiterate recursively until design is finalized
Manufacture final packaging and final testing
Alpha / Beta field testing
Improve on Alpha / Beta field tests and go into final manufacturing
Source production quantities and run production runs
Nowhere in this design cycle is there any due diligence for environmental impact. A designer can source hundreds of electronic components for a design - not one of them has any circular design criteria. The design is also not done to reduce impact or recover materials as those don’t impact the bottom line yet.
How are we going to redesign products so that it is inherently circular? How do we make sure all the chips are recoverable? A very high percentage of the integrate circuits and surface mount components are simply thrown away and all the resources they represent is wasted.
OK, regarding Earth Dollar, you may have to give us an “Explain it Like I’m 5” version during the call because I have read through a lot of the material but I don’t really get it.
It would also be useful if you can provide some tangible examples for how ED would first be used and implemented in OSCEdays - what are the use cases, first steps, benefits, what work is involved and who sets it up?
If you just have a rough answer to these questions ready for the call it will be very helpful for making the topic more understandable and relevant for those of us who aren’t so familiar with cryptocurrencies.
I won’t be able to make it this Monday, sorry everyone, I have to go the UK on short notice and I will be travelling at that time.
But I’ll be in London next Friday and Saturday if you fancy meeting up, @TechnicalNature?
Hey @BoST , afraid I won’t be able to make it tonight as will be in a workshop till late then travelling. Sorry. @cameralibre - Cool . My parents are here on the friday but could meet saturday either London way or if you fancy a trip out to the country in Reading
@Gien - alongside the design education there is the large aspect of the design brief (that often designers don’t get to decide, particularly if in larger companies or even as freelancers, contract)… would be interesting to link these aspects together. Often designers might have knowledge or the aspiration to design more circular but in reality are in a system that doesn’t enable this (similar to the open source aspect V traditional patenting mindset etc). - How can we support this to be built into the brief (or business case exploration / consideration).
Final approval for the organization will be done by end of Feb
Need to vote on the org name: with or without days. Lars is the only one who wants to keep days and he is concerned about the risk of having OSCE trademarked. Issues discussed:
a. make it clearer what OSCE is about
b. the association is more than just the events during OSCEdays, it is about the CE an building the model through OS
c. need to de-emphasize the economy part?
d. we have two weeks to vote on the name, use the discussion started by Lars to give your arguments and choose a name.
e. There will be two categories of membership: individuals and organizations. Fees will be decided at the first meeting. Paying individuals have voting rights, paying organizations don’t. What to do about individuals who cannot pay? Not a good idea to ask for proof of income. Better offer a sliding scale and include discounts for students/others.
Tim talking to 4 - 5 cities. Lars is onboarding Rotterdam with its BlueCity CE space, Rome and Sao Paolo. San Francisco will follow soon. Sharon is working on the Dutch cities and communications. Giwn is covering Africa, he has a good prospect in Liberia. All, please update the cities Gdoc as you get new info.
Need to be careful about conflicts between the Zero Waste network and organization that oppose the use of the term waste in CE, they prefer to use resources for everything. Lars will change the website and brochure to remove zero waste.
5 Ouishare: Jaime will attend to represent OSCE. Attendance is free, but other expenses are not paid.
6 All: add all the articles about OSCE as soon as you find them. See link in the agenda above
7 Not everybody did their homework on time tracking, Silvia for instance. Jaime recommends toggl.com. Lars is using his own. We’ll decide on a tool at the next BoST, but everybody should track their time.
8 Agreed to have a list of global challenges, let’s try to have 5 big things. We’ll make it clear that local challenges are the choice of the local organizers. But we should emphasize the goal of sharing knowledge and be more persuasive about cities documenting their events.
Need to manage better the link between local challenges and nodes, we think that having the channels this year will solve help.
Due Wednesday, Feb 10, a list of 10 challenges under the topic started by Jaime. We will create OSCE Utopia, that reflects our ideal OSCE if the global challenges chosen by us are solved by a certain deadline. This will be curated by a team: Lars, Jaime, Gien, Sharon, Silvia.
9 Gien will let us know more about how Earths Dollars work, but we agree with his idea of having funding options available to the OSCE community for the projects that are implemented after OSCEdays. This topic needs further discussion.
10 Gien suggested that we make available a list of mentors who can answer questions on the forum and during the live events. We all embraced the idea. Need to come up with the logistics of it all and to make sure we keep the workload low, for us and for the mentors. Need to discuss further. Lars and Gien are on the task.
11 Sharon is in charge with TU Delft and in general with the communications in the Tim ask us to decide on what to do about our collaboration with Make Sense.
Let’s also not forget about the issue that came up last year about the name, which is a real and genuine problem and personally I think we should take seriously. I know Erica ran into some tricky conversations and we also had one of our cities using the other OSCE logo by accident. http://www.osce.org/
Jepp, that was the other concern! Keeping the days would help to avoid the problem with OSCE.org …
Also when we put e.V. – OSCEev - we will always have that problem. Days helps at least a bit.
But I had the feeling that in the meeting we somehow decided that “OSCE” is the way to go. Or do you think, we should vote again - for example using Loomio? @BoST
That is a serious concern, the confusion with OSCE. Not to muddle the waters too much, could we use the name: OSCE community/collective/network? We can also use a different domain name than org. for the organization website that links to oscedays.org.
I think we agreed that we need to vote, so everybody is in agreement with the new name. @Lars2i just let us know where.
If you guys are ok with it, @Lars2i can set up a Loomio with the suggestions you may come up with. Then we vote and get a new name for the foundation, and OSCEdays remains the name of our Hackathon event.
Over to you! Should we develop on it, or settle with what we have?
Hi @Jaime I would like to explore this and thanks for taking the time to write it out. We have some suggestions from before that Judith pulled together here:
Ok, I suggest than, we collect 3 more days ideas and than set up a vote. (will do it wednesday evening).
Just wanna say:
###"OSCEdays"
is for me is the best thing we can get.
(1) It relates to one of our core activities and origin. People have to learn only one thing.
(2) It explains right away what we are about! So we avoid the problem of “it is called “x”” and it is about “y” … explain explain explain … And people will forget the second explanation, because it is a tricky … The name will always remind them.
(3) We already discussed the problems of the word “open” - it is fuzzy and can be misused while “open source” has a clear definition! And we will always move within the barriers of that definition anyway: It will also prevent us or others from suggesting activities or projects out of the span of Open Source Circular Economy …
(4) We always said, that the “days” start with a 5 “day” event. But people can also use the brand to organize events throughout the year. And in the onboarding calls we already discussed this with some people. So the “days” spread out, … hopefully infect the whole year … and all time … This is a funny effect of the name.
(5) Everything (probably) we will develop, will somehow happen also during or be combined with the days, or come out as a result of it. It will be born with and in the days and for the days. People will do supported local projects, develop them also or start them in days. Local chapters will be created with the days. … Everything we do will somehow prepare the next days. And everything has the “days” as a core asset and energy.
(6) We prevent branding issues and confusion. Look above in the URL bar of the forum. It says “days” there too. All of our organisational stuff will happen here. Strange when we called “OpenCirular” or something and than all the stuff happens under the domain of an “event”-project. If we rename the forum it will be strange for local organizers in the event to be pulled into a differently named platform… It feels way more natural if things stay like they are…
###I see “days” in the name as an opportunity:
Let’s try to do everything out in the open in a participatory way. As an open event for everyone to join. Even the process of drafting a policy proposal or something like that could & should have public elements. Meetings will be necessary. And “Days” are some kind of open, inclusive and participatory meetings!
“Ok, now they drafted this proposal. And now they will have a public & distributed hangouts session to discuss details in a global community. – It is another of this practical OSCEdays.”
“Days” is not an annually event. It is a technique…
for collaboration, activism, community building, awareness raising, creation of new things …
Hi @BoST I’m back in Berlin and have just spent the last few hours digging through Email Mountain, so I can get stuck into OSCEdays work again. it was great to see Erica while I was in London (and to gatecrash Jaime’s call with Wevolver).
Thanks for the notes - regarding time tracking tools: just to let you know my feelings on this, as our resident Stallman-on-your-shoulder…
in this case, I just want something that works.
My attempts to track my time manually weren’t very successful, and I looked into F/LOSS options for more automated tracking, there were none that really worked wonderfully.
So, even if there’s a slick-but-evil proprietary Spying-As-A-Service app that requires an iTunes account and an amazon echo on my desk, sure, let’s go for it for now, if it works well and if it’s convenient.
A large part of my difficulties in time-tracking are related to general productivity problems I’ve been having which stem from being involved in all sorts of different online communities (POC21, Enspiral, Edgeryders, Kdenlive…) and trying to get my personal creative projects and paid video work done at the same time. The multi-tasking doesn’t work. In order to organize this better, I am trialling a new system:
I will be working on OSCEdays every Monday and Tuesday. You can expect relatively quick responses, forum posts, onboarding calls and any other task I should be doing to happen on these days.
On Wednesdays and Thursdays I’ll be doing mostly Camera Libre work, and I won’t be replying to OSCEdays mails, pings etc. When I’m contacted by external people regarding OSCE on these days, I will quickly send a template email explaining the situation, that I will reply on Friday, and whom they can contact in the meantime.
On Fridays I will be dealing with the OSCEdays backlog etc, maybe joining a call, but not doing a lot of intense work, eg writing, planning, designing, etc.
On the weekend I may do a little OSCE stuff here and there, but I promise nothing, and I may not check emails or reply unless it’s urgent. (which is apparently what normal people do…?)
I’ll see if this improves the situation, if things change or it doesn’t work, I’ll let you know.
@Lars2i I think you made some good points here, I have a few other thoughts to add.
I don’t think anybody who just sees the name Open Source Circular Economy Days knows what it is about! We always need to explain everything anyway.
Currently our name is long and difficult to remember, people call it Open Circular Days, OSCDays, Open Source Economy, OSCED, they pronounce it oskadays, oshkadays, etc…
I completely agree - using terms like ‘maker’ or ‘open’ without the ‘source’ provides too much wiggle room, which can lead to problems. See ‘sharing economy’.
Having said that, I think it is okay to have a name which doesn’t include ‘open source’ (for example a more abstract name) but always accompany it with a slogan. eg. Wikimedia Deutschland’s full title is: Wikimedia Deutschland – Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
(Wikimedia Germany - Society for the Advancement of Free/Open Knowledge)
so for us, our logo/letterhead could always include the two elements: NAME somethingsomething Open Source Circular Economy
and the official name of the Verein could include both name and explanation, just like Wikimedia: Name - Society for the Advancement of an Open Source Circular Economy e.V
I agree that a lot will be related to events. However, when I think about our community members being involved in political processes, academic studies, books or educational materials, I don’t think this is a technique or an event, I think it is the work of a movement focused on a particular topic.
This work may happen in a collaborative hackathon, or it may not. It may just be a slow, multi-step bureaucratic process.
I agree that changing things may be complicated or confusing for a brief period, but building this movement is a long-term project, and we are still at a very, very early stage. In the mainstream, we’ve had hardly any press and have no name recognition.
I don’t think we are so well-known and established that it would be a major problem for us to change our branding.
I’m not suggesting that we should, or that we must, but I want to point out that if we feel it would be valuable for the long-term movement, I don’t see this temporary difficulty as a huge roadblock, it’s a small issue, and we shouldn’t let it hold us back.
I like the idea of having the inclusive, participatory aspect in the name (or the slogan) but I am not quite as convinced as you are that the word ‘days’ is so evocative of this aspect. I don’t completely disagree, but I don’t feel it very strongly, perhaps there is a better word which could communicate this.
I have one more for OSCEdays. A pseudo historic perspective:
Think about someone tells you about the “BLURB foundation” - “Yeah, and they advocate for a free internet since 1980”.
“wow, aha, cool, i guess.”
ALTERNATIVE:
“It is the “Free Internet Foundation”. And they were founded in 1980.”
“Amazing!”
Don’t know, if you see the difference. This is for keeping “Open Source Circular Economy” in the name.
And since we need an extra word to avoid OSCE… I think “days” is the best option. It (1) avoids the need for double communication, (2) avoids the extra effort of recreating stuff and (3) has even the opportunity I was talking about above - to be developed and unfold into a technique with focus of hands on.
ANYWAY: Please collect other ideas. And nominate them for the vote. We need actual alternatives to have a vote since “Alternative to …” is not an option – And it still looks like we can found next tuesday. So we should act quickly.
I don’t think Open Source Circular Economy Days communicates either the concept or the initiative very well.
That said, personally I would go for a name, followed by the Open Source Circular Economy tag line — I think the pseudo-historic perspective is an important one. Also, with a tag-line, @Lars2i points 1-4 are no longer an issue.
I think there are levels of communication. For instance, on a (very simplistic) level our work constitutes open innovation workshops on a specific subject. By having a simple not-completely-abstract one-word name, followed by the tagline, we could perhaps engage an even wider audience — OSCE is so loaded with jargon I think it alienates people.
Say ‘Tom’ has recently been to a great open innovation workshop focused on waste (Tom’s version of events) run by somethingsomething…he tells his friend Anne…‘Oh, I was at this great workshop about waste run by somethingsomething’. If Anne doesn’t know anything about OS, but is really interested in waste, then perhaps Anne will look up somethingsomething because she’s:
a) not immediately alienated by the title,
b) able to spell somethingsomething and
c) remember it.
I realise there are caveats to this anecdote, but it’s just another perspective.
I agree with @cameralibre in that I don’t see the Days as our main technique. I would like to keep the opportunity open to frame and develop our future communications, around potential new work streams, such as policy or research or education, as they arise. I also think that these other work streams would require a different style of communication. Certainly the Days can be adapted to disseminate research or conduct policy workshops.
Finally, while OS is a robust and widely accepted methodology CE isn’t. I also believe our work stretches beyond CE (eg social innovation, local economies, urban manufacturing, urban innovation, smart cities). I realise that this is a tricky point regardless and I’m not suggesting that we move away from CE, but rather that a more abstract single-word name might alleviate this situation in the future.
Hey,
We have to many options for the name to go on Loomio. There is no real short list yet. Also, I guess noone asked to have a “secret election”. So I suggest, we can do it here.
I suggest that you write down the name you like the most in the chat. And (in brakkets) an alternative you could also live with. If two or three names are really close we can have a run-off.
I suggest we will have this first phase of the election running till Friday 13:00 CET. Ok?
##The Candidates
Taken from the Pad and the exchange above. In the pad you can find explanations to some of the names I did not include here, because the name needs to work without this.
If you haven’t followed the discussion please make sure to get familiar with some of the arguments exchanged here and than above.
And remember here and here you can read a little bit about the goals and future activities that have been discussed so far.
LET’S GO:
Open Source Circular Economy e.V.
Open Source Circular Economy Days e.V.
Open And Circular e.V.
Circular Makers e.V.
Circular Blacksmiths e.V.
Regenerative Makers e.V.
Cercle e.V.
circul e.V.
opna e.V.
opne e.V.
OpNe e.V.
opnr e.V.
openly e.V.
ovrir e.V.
aperire e.V.
Encirclos e.V.
Ospiral e.V.
AroundoS e.V.
O-Sphere e.V.
Hal-OS e.V.
Open-CE e.V.
OScule e.V.
Circl-OS e.V.
TransparanCE e.V.
Virtuosos e.V.
Camp-OS e.V.
CHAOS e.V.
CIRCOS e.V.
Ospace e.V.
O-space e.V.
OS-pace e.V.
Circular-OS e.V.
Loopos e.V.
###Updates (from Gien)
OSCE Foundation e.V.
Foundation for OSCE e.V.
The Institute for an Open Source Circular Economy e.V.
