Getting to know the ‘Commons community’
Liesbeth participated in the Peer Value conference, on 2 and 3 Sept 2016 in Amsterdam, and learned a lot about the collaborative economy, both from the hands-on experts and the academic researchers there. Learning about new ways of working, organizing and ways of funding collaborative initiatives. Comparing corporate models such as Air B&B and Uber with the ‘commons model’ that is based on small companies and individuals working together with free technology and open source. Also, explorations of citizen initiatives as well as ‘Hackathons’ to solve urban or humanitarian challenges, views on (post-)capitalism, money systems, social security, democracy, holacracy, and more. All supported by a view of “more people working on stuff that matters” – to themselves and to society. (Quote from Genevieve Parkes, Enspiral New Zealand). It was a stimulating and inspirational as well as a funny experience to meet a whole new crowd of innovative people and professionals in the very traditional setting of the City town hall, the council boardroom.