12 October 2009

The Future Of Money: Joe Edelman and Groundcrew

After a month off the project, because of the press of other work, I am back to The Future Of Money. In this episode, I speak with Joe Edelman about his Groundcrew project, intended to help the coordination of community activities, including ‘an economy of gifts, sharing and neighborly aid.’

From the website:

Short Project Description

Groundcrew is web/mobile software that gathers people instantaneously in real life to work on projects, and allows for complex mobile-coordination of real-life communities and tasks. Community members can see who’s available to pitch in at any moment and can rapidly communicate assignments—either mass assignments or systems of individual assignments—to help people work together for a greater good.

Detailed Project Overview

OUR APPROACH

Until now, only large organizations with multi-million dollar budgets — from airports and taxi companies to delivery services and construction fleets — have had access to real-time planning, coordination, and mobilization software.

The consequences of making this software available to ordinary people and to local communities will be profound:

IN THE SHORT TERM

* Our software will be used to facilitate beautiful, desired events in our communities: playground builds

green retrofits, art projects, you name it.

* Communities of neighbors available in real-time can provide families and whole municipalities with extra help during this economic crisis.

* We can promote civic engagement by giving citizens an easier way to get involved—they mark themselves available just by sending a text message or pressing a button on their phone—wherever they happen to be.

* By providing such a low barrier to be physically and personally involved in a community, we will get many people out of their homes and entertainment centers, onto the streets and public spaces, and under the sun.

IN THE MID TERM

* Use of our software will increase levels of gratitude and trust in our communities by providing an economy of gifts, sharing, and neighborly aid where in the past money transactions or isolation were dominant.

* As pools of available volunteers and physical resources— tools, cars, land, and people—increase in size, these assets will be available to good causes en masse.

IN THE LONG TERM

* Our software will be a key part of building a sustainable economy by coordinating reuse and enabling urban lifestyle redesign. While most talk of green cities focuses on architecture, scheduling and lifestyle changes will be just as important to realize visions of rooftop gardens, local food distribution, etc. Groundcrew community organizers will be in the best position to help people redesign their lifestyles, on the ground, and direct people towards new paths of getting what they need.

* Through “ambient organizing”, socially beneficial ideas will be instantly realizable. Social entrepreneurship will be something everyone can do.

* Simultaneous events and projects in different cities around the globe will promote global solidarity and peace between nations.

FEATURES

Groundcrew leverages the power of GPS in ordinary cell phones to enable today’s 3.2 million mobile users to:

* Rally individuals or a community around a particular issue or task

* Gather individuals or a community in real life

* Mobilize and address individuals or a community in real-time

* Coordinate geographically in real-time

* Manage and share resources efficiently

The third phase that Joe talks about is the most speculative, and is as yet unimplemented, having to do with a new economy. In this stage, reputation as an organizer increases as a result of their effectiveness, and then those that are volunteering can stipulate that they will participate in new activities based on the likelihood that the project will gain many other participants, and therefore will have a real impact.

I am particularly impressed by the self-organizing qualities of Groundcrew, around ‘participation design’, where the volunteers are handed more control about how their involvement should be applied in some project or activity, instead of just being told what to do.

Groundcrew can also keep track of people’s contributions and then award reputation (what I call “swarmth” and they call “PosX”) without cash, without currency, simply by keeping track of results. Very interesting.

The Future Of Money series is sponsored in part by Neo.org