I just talked with the Ouishare Fest organizers regarding our talk.
At first I was planning to talk about something around the lines of “Why the Circular Economy can’t work without Open Source and businesses can be successful because of Open Source, not despite of it” (We brainstormed this idea with @Lars2i)
But things never go as planned
They have planned different topics depending on the days:
First Day: Systemic Level
Second Day: Organizational level
Third Day: Individual Level
Our initial idea was more geared towards systemic dynamics, but they have planned to put my talk the third day.
So I was wondering if you had ideas of how we could related OSCE to the individual level.
To give you an overview of what they expect, in this link, May 20th you can find some talks that will be given.
The question would be: If you were going to listen a talk about how OSCE affects people at the individual level, what would you like to hear?
Individual action has to be coordinated to be meaningful. If only Jaime the individual was fully circular, and the rest of the community isn’t, then it won’t have much impact. So amplifying an individual’s action is really important. For instance, I am building an eco-home but I am making it part of OSCE Days and I am linking it to Global Ecoshop so that all the designs that the eco-home pilot proves to work can be professional manufacturing and sold into Cape Town. That can then raise money to fund further propagation of open source circular concepts into marginalized communities of South Africa (where 25 million people live) to start local economies based on Open Source Circular technologies that can be manufactured locally.
So one person can do a lot, if it is done with awareness of how to leverage one person’s actions. I will also use the eco-home to have workshops and invite different people to come and learn these open source techniques and also will market into the community where I live to use the eco-home as an entry point to discuss things like community energy, community waste, community symbiosis.
Also, a platform like OSCE Days can encourage individuals around the world to network and share for greater efficiency and also so that the impacts are amplified.
Depending on what they mean with “the individual” level there are a few different stories to be told. If you are up for it, i’d love to brainstorm with you about this over Skype. Works a lot faster IMO
A few more things you could include in your talk, Jaime:
The system, human society, the biosphere, etc. is the (dynamic, chaotic, non-linear) sum of individual actions and principles. What we are asking through OSCE is that every time we make a choice as an individual we should evaluate its consequences on other individuals, human and non-human, their communities and the ultimate system, our planet. One such choice is to share: ideas, stuff, time, etc for the benefit of the system.
Individual actual, not theoretical, choices must be consistent with the choices asked of others. E.g. if I ask others to share, to not waste (good ideas, like OSCE, are essential to not waste), to drive an electric car, to reject fossil fuels in all their forms, to care about others, to transform the way we work and live, to stop accumulating stuff and more stuff and learn how to maintain what we already have, I have to show that I am credible by doing all that.
Individuals decide, if they are free to do that, to what type of organizations to belong to or support. The individuals who have decided to join our network and other similar organizations or communities are making the statement of wanting to share their time, ideas and work for the sake of a good system for all, which we believe can be built only on open source, on sharing.
First: I would simply ignore the request to say something about the “individual level”. Sounds harsh. But I always thought that these categories in events aren’t smart - and don’t work. They may feel like a safety net for the organizers, but they don’t serve the audience (I never found them helpful - but distracting) and they don’t serve the presenters (in most cases - it forces you to deliver a new message, you have now to come up with… which can be good, if there is time for it.) – conferences are about something “new”. And new things tend to step outside of existing categories and are to uncertain to be categorizable…
Second: I think OSCEdays are a question for many people. People in “Circular Economy” had to wonder “What is Open Source?” - I think that worked well so far. And “Open Source” people had to wonder “What is Circular Economy” - not sure if that has really worked to the same level. So people have to ask themselve new questions … maybe gain new perspectives.
(btw. - not important, don’t read if no time - my main insight I had at my last Ouishare Fest visit (2014) was: “Conferences are places where a lot of people share a lot of wrong ideas!”
And it is true! If I think back 6 or 7 years ago and remember the first talks I have seen at tech conferences - almost none of the ideas shared there are still relevant or have become true. That is the nature with new exiting tech/start up conferency thingies. More than 90 % of the stuff shared will be “bullshit” in 5 years. So this would be a suitable category for conferences like that “bullshit” (including OSCEdays - this would mean we have made progress).
But if it is most likely “bullshit” anyway, let the bullshit people tell their bullshit stories as pure as they can. Because if they are right (not very likely), let them be right! And if they are right, and it is new, it might be good for a new category!
