I always get the feeling that USA is where things happen, and that Europe is dull in comparison. I came for the ContactCon in New York, followed by the Metacurrency collabathon, but much more happened besides, not least the Occupation of Wall Street, where the money system is on the agenda and where the world's media is focused.
ContactCon was a one day event intended to bring innovators and thinkers into contact around the subject of the next internet, and of money/exchange systems. Henri from Community Tools and I presented as one, and spent most of the day in frantic conversation, mostly with people we had only known online previously. Prizes were awarded for the best projects, but perhaps coincidentally these all went to open source hardware projects - Freedom Box, Freedom Tower and New York hackerspace - all very worthy!
The Occupation is addressing the issue of money through an 'alternative currency working group'. I quickly hooked up with them and they loved the winning competition entry, and the harmless notion of it being a thank-you note. Yesterday was the 'reimagining money' day, and we spent the morning with clipboards doing a money IQ test on the unsuspecting members of the public, then a series of discussions followed in the afternoon, including a talk from Charles Eisenstein. I presented the thank-notes there, however owing to the many other ideas in circulation, it will take them a little time yet to work out exactly how they want to deploy it. We remain in contact!
Venessa Meimis ran a panel session in her home town of Beacon, with Guillaume Lebleu, Amy Kirschner and myself, who expounded on various paths towards a progressive local economy.
Collabathon was a feast of like minds, some of them even interested in mutual credit! Eric HB has spent the last year writing really deep code, which will support a new breed of metacurrency application. Art and Eric are getting better at explaining about Current-see, and flows and a new grammar to describe the performance of living systems.
Unfortunately I've not written a line of code for well over a week.
Comments1
Hi Matthew, Learned about
Hi Matthew,
Learned about your thanknotes from Michael C. at OWS -- great idea. I've been developing another idea related to community currencies, which you can find on my most recent post o the blog above. Would love to hear your thoughts.