Bio
My aim is to be the designer of the software that runs the mutual credit economy. My work therefore finds me not only designing software, but coding it, helping people use it, consulting about software and CC in general, strategising, building up a public persona, networking, explaining the economy, and promoting CC and good practice within it.
I have been involved with CC for six years and programming for 12. Having also worked in a humanitarian NGO in Geneva I have some experience of organisations and bringing about change the 'official' way. My understanding of world events is that a major collapse is underway, and it is up to those who can see to prepare the lifeboats. I do not reside anywhere, I visit places. With my programming skills I am able to live by doing very little paid work, and I give almost all my energy to what I value. However I am permanently insecure, and lost about 3 months this year when a client let me down, and I had to fly back to UK and find a job. Most of the money I earn is spent on transport, but this does mean I have many excellent relationships. I do not reside anywhere I only visit!
About my project
So my work has these three prongs - coding the Drupal module, supporting Community Forge, which provides community web sites with mutual credit, and building bespoke accounting applications for communities that can afford to feed me for a few weeks. In this way I mostly eke out a living. I also give free, neutral ad hoc consultancy to those who ask, and i do small amount of PR work as well, operating for example in The Finance Lab, Transition Towns, or writing - most recently for IJCCR or CCMag, as well as keeping a light blog.
When communities need to choose a software accounting package for their CC project,
- Cyclos and
- CES
As a result of my work, communities now have three more choices.
- Anyone can pick up and deploy Drupal, for free, with my Complementary Currencies module (although having some skills and experience helps of course). The module is based on the mutual credit model, but can be used for fiat & paper systems too. using the inherent flexibility of Drupal, it can be customised almost beyond recognition.
- However few communities have the resources even to maintain any kind of software, let alone set it up. The level of technology deployed by most LETS groups reflects either a poverty of resources or a phobia of technology. I quickly realised that few associations would be able to deploy a Drupal module. That's why the co-chair of SEL du Lac in Geneva, and I formed Community Forge. We have put together a web service, similar to CES and are making inroads into the French-speaking networks.
- The rare projects that do have resources can pay for a fuller web/currency design service. With my Drupal module, the cost of this has come down by an order of magnitude. This summer we built a bespoke site for Route des SEL, the french 'couchsurfing-within-LETS' network, which demonstrates the power of the software we use. Building the site was the easiest part. importing the data, laying out the site, and changing the culture of the organisation have taken up much more time.
Community Forge, in an attempt to be as inclusive and correct as possible, is providing hosted web sites for free, and living from donations only. We find as soon as we attempt to charge for anything, we lose about 50% of leads even from groups who have no alternative. But we know that technologies succeed only by their adoption rates. We are always looking to associate with people who are prepared to coordinate their efforts. We have strong relationships with John Rogers, CES, and other players in France. As a real service provider, connected to the grass roots, there is much scope for raising money, lobbying, working with volunteers, but our personal instincts lead us towards developing better software and helping people to use it.
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