Towards a Peer-to-Peer Technium

 
Last night Tony Smith gave a talk on how the convergence of Michel Bauwen's peer-to-peer theories and Kevin Kelly's Technium might impact our future.

After the thought-provoking presentation (slideshare here), we had a conversation about the consequences and implications for coworking spaces in general and Hub Melbourne in particular. Hub Australia CEO Brad Krauskopf shared his views on the future of Hub.

Some of the themes that were discussed around the table last night:

* What has Hub in common with jazz, movie making and the building industry?

* What is the main asset in a coworking space?

* How disintermediation, i.e. the removal of intermediaries, creates a new business paradigm.

* Coworking: From global connectedness and local impact to global connectedness and global impact through distributed networks?

 

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM3420/RM3420-chapter1.html

* Talent  and asset mapping

* How can coworking spaces be used for community building in rural and suburban areas?

* From coworking to co-learning?

* Does the Hub play a role in leader development of its members?

* The importance of hosting in social spaces

* The emergence of a coworking economy

The audio file with the recording of the discussion is found here.

Designing a Futures Wall

Today we started to design the #hubfutures wall. This space, based on a comment by Neil in a previous session, is a physical space where thoughts about the future of Hub will be posted.

Yesterday, we ran in to Ella from tincan who recommended us to check out artist Candy Chang's website for inspiration. Cindy's work combines installation art with social activism, and aims to encourage people to engage with public spaces to let their voices be heard.

That sounds a bit like what we want to do.

So far, the #hubfutures wall includes functions for:
 - Clustering scan hits according to a modified PESTEL framework with colour coded themes (culture/values, technology, business/economy, art, sociopolitics, environment and others).
- Reactions, insights, comments and feedback
- Action
- Peer-to-peer learning facilitation (through stickers where people can post according to an "Ask me more about this" template)
- Plot of scan hits on a time line

We'll continue the work on the wall next week.