Tag Archives: community

Edgeryders: natively global

These latest weeks my team and I are very busy laying the foundations of a new project, Edgeryders, that aims to mobilize an online community’s collective intelligence (I wrote about it here). The idea is not new in itself: actually, I myself have managed similar projects in the past. What’s new, at least for me, is the natively global dimension of this project. The blog (just a placeholder for the real website, which should launch at the end of October) has been up all of two weeks, and we had visits from 59 countries; and in just one week 60 people from 19 countries volunteered to beta test our site – all of this at zero expenditure on communication, since the website is just a placeholder. Beta testers are not only geographically diverse, they are also an intergenerational bunch, with people of all ages.

Beta testers are pioneers, the early adopters of the future Edgeryders community, and it is likely they will play an important role in shaping its atmosphere and its social norms. I find it very encouraging that they are such a diverse bunch: normally, a lot of diversity means fresh air to breathe, and individual social status determined by merit and generosity rather than social class, skin color or sexual preferences. And this is critical to feel at home in a community.

The pioneering phase (invitation only) should start next week. If you would like to be a part of it request an invitation we still have a few places left.

Community diving nel Mezzogiorno

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Stage diving
Foto GothEric

Sono appena tornato da una settimana di viaggi nel Mezzogiorno per il reportage di Kublai. E’ stato divertente e molto istruttivo in quanto alle cose e alle persone che ho incontrato – i creativi e i loro progetti, le loro storie, le loro aspirazioni, i luoghi che abitano – e questo ce lo aspettavamo. Non ci aspettavamo, invece, di sentire così chiaramente il sostegno della nascente community di Kublai: i kublaiani ci hanno scovato ristoranti tipici, prenotato alberghi, offerto le loro case e i loro uffici per riposarci e lavorare, presentato persone interessanti, mostrato quello che c’era da vedere. In realtà (complici anche le ferie di buona parte del gruppo di lavoro) siamo partiti abbastanza disorganizzati, ma grazie ai kublaiani che visitavamo il viaggio si è come organizzato da solo.

Mi è capitato un paio di volte, con i Modena City Ramblers, di fare stage diving. Ti lasci cadere, e la gente ti prende e ti sostiene. Ti senti allo stesso tempo completamente indifeso e al sicuro, e grato di questa sicurezza alle persone che si frappongono fra te e il suolo. Viaggiando, in questi giorni, ho provato una sensazione molto simile, e ne ho ricavato l’impressione che stiamo costruendo, con Kublai, un social network “caldo”. Bene così.

Mondine 2.0: From Mother To Daughter at Barcamp Turin 2008

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As we FF were in Holland to perform at Fidder Folk Festival, Valeria and Freddy were having their first-ever Barcamp experience at Torino BarCamp 2008 The From mother to daughter project, as my readers know well, has its own blog, Mondine 2.0. We would like this blog to help a community that is not self-aware yet to perceive itself: the community we feel gathering around mondine and their values. The net is swarming with lore about communities (just now I am reading Howard Rheingold’s seminal book); the characteristic peculiar to this one community is that only one of its two wings, the “new” one, uses the net at all, whereas the “traditional” one, stemming from villages like Novi. The Mondine di Novi Choir itself communicates with the net mainly through us Fiamma Fumana and our people: Valeria and Freddy themselves come from this side.

V&F came back fron the BarCamp feeling satisfied and hyperstimulated (see their nice post). In the best Internet tradition – geared towards knowledge sharing and mutual support – the net people offered them encouragement and useful advice: their presentation was followed by a numerous and attentive audience. The most frequently quoted BarCampers were Elena “Brezzadilago”, Roberta Milano, Marco and Susan, but already before Torino BarCamp some friends and high-ranking bloggers like had offered Alberto D’Ottavi and Mondine 2.0’s guru, Vanz had helped us a lot. I am very happy about this, bringing our roots into the net and drawing some of the net’s attention to our roots seems to me a goal worth investing some energy in.

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