In Europe for example, BitTorrent traffic still accounts for 20.32% of all Internet traffic during peak hours, while eDonkey adds another 9.39% to the P2P total. During the last 18 months the share of P2P traffic nearly quadrupled, and this increase is even larger in absolute traffic. "According to Julie Battilana and Matthew Lee of the Harvard Business School, more and more social entrepreneurs are turning to “hybrid business models,” which means that they are increasingly turning away from traditional charity and non-profit models for development, and instead are seeking to combine the traditional profit-making business models of capitalism with their social innovation efforts." "Essentially we are an observatory of open, participatory, and commons-oriented practices in every social field, or, as we also call it: peer production, peer governance, and peer property. We’ve collected 16,000 articles in our wiki, divided over two dozen subject domains, including spirituality and politics, which is being viewed by 26,000 people a day and reaching about 18 million viewers overall. I participate in about 30-40 events all over the world, and I believe that each time I speak, I have an impact, and so have other members of our network. What we do is being the librarians and ‘collective intellectual’ of this emerging movement, and I believe we do this rather well, though our influence is still marginal and certainly not mainstream." That’s the assertion being made by European Civil Society Leaders following the Global Impact Economy forum last month where Hillary Clinton offered a vision of a Social Impact Economy, smart power and “breaking down silos”. 
Accelerating the development and deployment of solutions which radically advance human well being and the health of our planet's ecosystems. Over the last couple of years, Cosma Shalizi and I have been working together on various things, including, inter alia, the relationship between complex systems, democracy and the Internet. These are big unwieldy topics, and trying to think about them systematically is hard. 
3D printing is tres cool, and promises to do to manufacturing what file-sharing did to the music industry. But is additive manufacturing a more sustainable approach to manufacturing? My Clean Break column this week explores that question… 
Essentially you want to cultivate your own personal network of trusted trading partners. Make a market in bitcoin among your social network. Put the word out that you are the “go to guy” to buy or sell bitcoin. Build your “little black book” of trading partners that you can contact whenever you need to increase or decrease your bitcoin holdings. University of Southern Maine Sociology Professor Ed Collom will be speaking at Local Sprouts Café on Thursday, May 31st at 2pm on “Empowering Economics: How Worker-Owned Cooperatives and TimeBanks Re-Value Labor and Community.” Other speakers include Jonah Fertig and Heather Blersch of Local Sprouts Cooperative, and Orion Breen of Hour Exchange Portland. The event is being presented by the University of Southern Maine Student Sociology Association. 
It’s time to put the taboo subject of public ownership back on the progressive agenda. It is the only way to solve some of the most serious problems facing the nation. We contend that it is possible not only to talk about this once forbidden subject but to begin to build a serious politics that can do what needs to be done in key sectors. Having recently started a series of interviews for the lovely lasses at Business Chicks on collaborative consumption, I have found most of the #collcon businesses out there face the same problems. Those problems are potential customers like the idea of sharing, but we worry about what might go wrong if we trust another person. And we want other people to lead the charge before we dip our toe in, and if that doesn’t happen, we walk away. 
In the first large-scale, quantitative study of nascent social entrepreneurs, researchers from Harvard Business School and Echoing Green examine the rise of hybrid organizations that combine aspects of nonprofits and for-profits and the challenges hybrids face as they attempt to integrate traditionally separate organizational models. 
As it turns out, the entertainment industry can definitely compete with free, up to a certain point. The crucial part is to remove all the artificial barriers. Release delays for TV and movies drive people towards BitTorrent piracy, just as DRM is an incentive to pirate rather than a deterrent. |
The Free State FabLab, which is situated in Bloemfontein on the premises of the Central University of Technology (CUT), is a precious gem designed to accelerate creativity and innovation. The lab, which has a simple but yet striking slogan – Think it, Make it – welcomes over 300 visitors on a busy week with young minds queuing to bring their ideas to life. 
The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) exists to identify and support innovative ideas, methods and people to accelerate positive social change. To turn bold ideas into better lives.
What's new at the crossroads of culture, technology and science... 
Take practical action to stimulate transformational change in the financial system so that it serves society and the environment. 
There are two diametrically opposed views of how the largest financial companies in our economy operate. On the one hand, there are those like Charles Ferguson, director of the Academy Award-winning documentary “Inside Job” and author of the new book, “Predator Nation.” Mr. Ferguson takes the view that greed and immorality now prevail to an excessive degree at the heart of Wall Street. 
“The idea of a local economy rests upon only two principles: neighborhood and subsistence. In a viable neighborhood, neighbors ask themselves what they can do or provide for one another, and they find answers that they and their place can afford. This, and nothing else, is the practice of neighborhood. This practice must be, in part, charitable, but it must also be economic, and the economic part must be equitable… But a viable neighborhood is a community; and a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common.”
Problem: The large, centralized bitcoin exchange services are not private (most are now requesting detailed personal information to satisfy Anti-Money Laundering regulations). It also can take time to open and fund an account and the transaction fees can add up. Not to mention, these centralized exchanges are vulnerable to targeted attack by cyber-criminals and governments. 
As our political system sputters, a wave of innovative thinking and bold experimentation is quietly sweeping away outmoded economic models. In 'New Economic Visions', a special five-part AlterNet series edited by Economics Editor Lynn Parramore in partnership with political economist Gar Alperovitz of the Democracy Collaborative, creative thinkers come together to explore the exciting ideas and projects that are shaping the philosophical and political vision of the movement that could take our economy back. 
Whether you call it “the sharing economy” or “collaborative consumption,” there’s a fascinating new economic and social phenomenon going on. While not identical, both terms refer to markets for the sharing of products and services between individuals. 
This piece reports on recent research around the relationship between trade unions and internationalisation in the context of globalisation. It argues for a more open, less pessimistic view than the dominant one. This view builds on the experiences of the 1970s and is cognisant of the depth of the current crisis. 
Hey Detroit, Anybody there want to build cars that get #100mpg? |
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