Tag: community

Uru people and saving the human race.

Posted on by philipdodson
"Uro boy" by Christopher Crouzet - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.
“Uro boy” by Christopher Crouzet – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

While having dinner on the beach with the everyone from the Copass Camp, in Corralejo, Fuerteventura, at the strangely named Waikiki restaurant.

Although sounding very touristy, it is not at all and the food was awesome. Half the group had amazing Chateaubriand steak, which they cooked to their liking on the hot stones at the table and other half of the group, we had super tuna fillets.

Not sure how relevant any of this is yet to the title, but in any story it is important to set the scene.

So at one point Stefano, co-founder of Copass, was talking about a trip he made to Peru, and especially he talked about these native people, who still lived on islands in the middle of lake Titicaca, and how they lived.

I found out from Wikipedia this morning that they are called the Uru people, they live on floating islands, which were originally for defensive purposes.

The interesting thing about these people, that even in the 21st century, they live a simple existence, relatively free of technology and the things we all take for granted in the ‘first’ world (not a term I like, but a label we can all understand).

We also talked a little about the nomadic people of Mongolia, and having watched Ewan McGregor’s bike ride round the world, where they passed through Mongolia, the thing that struck me about these people, is that to many they would seem to have nothing, but in fact they had everything they needed. They are happy.

Stefano also talked about the amazing community that Uru have and there is no money, people do everything for the community. So the little money they do have is raised from the ferry, enabling to buy some essentials they need from the outside world. Again they were happy people, not feeling unworthy because they didn’t have an iPhone 6s or troubled by poor broadband speed.

I blogged a while ago about the idea of not having money, of resetting everything and everyone to zero, and then perhaps using the Echo model, where everyone’s time is worth the same, 1 Echo for 1 hour of time, you could stop a tiny few on the planet accumulating much needed resources.

We would not need to work in the same way, as we wouldn’t need to earn so much money, as an element of what we all did would be for the community.

This may seem to many as fluffy and utopian, but you know what, with $61 trillion owed in debt, who to, I have no idea, isn’t it time we ditched money and found a better system. In fact in the time it took me to look up that fact $2m of interest had accrued.

One that will enable us to ensure as a human race that no one is hungry, homeless or poor, to ensure that the wealth of the community, is enjoyed by everyone in the community, not just a tiny elite.

Yet another interesting chat during our camp here and more evidence of when people get together to work, and live together, no matter where that physical connecting point might be, that you can discuss ideas and perhaps collaborations can form to help construct an alternative.

The way to save the human race is to connect, form communities of people from all over the world and to bypass the system, that most are forced to serve and comply with.

Coworking is not a physical space

Posted on by philipdodson

coworking

I rarely blog about my actual main daily activity, which is not colouring in or watching Netflix, despite the rumours, although I do enjoy some daily art.

For those who do not follow me on social media, won’t have noticed that the normal stream of dog, cat and food pictures, have been replaced with pictures of sunny volcanic islands in the Atlantic. I am at the Copass Camp in Fuerteventura, in the Canary Islands, for a 10 day working/living together event.

I was talking about this idea of coworking not being the space recently with Bernie Mitchell and a student studying at LSE, who is doing a dissertation on coworking, that coworking is not about the physical space, it is about the people and the community that you build.

I am coworking currently, thousands of miles from home at Hub Fuerteventura, with people who share a common connection, it is not about where you do the coworking, it is about the people and whether or not there are shared common values, goals, causes, that will keep that connection going either physically or virtually.

Some coworking has already turned into a commodity, just another desk space at a price, a real estate product/service, that can be marketed and sold in the same way that any product or service can be.

The real coworking in my opinion can be perfectly epitomised by Indy Hall run by Alex Hillman, this is a story of community and not the space. It has taken a long time, but then the best things are worth taking time to create.

What I have realised in my current business, is that the ‘why’ of what I do, which is all about creating a alternative world based on people and values, not just for a tiny few, but for all, had separated from the ‘what’ I do, run a coworking space.

So I have founded the New World Project, with a small and growing group of people, to do exactly what my ‘why’ is and that will be by coworking with many of them often not in the same physical space.

The community is the coworking, the physical space is where the people of that community physically connect.

For those who need a real estate solution to satisfy a need for desk space, then there are and will be plenty of solutions available, but I question whether that is really coworking and not just a remodelled serviced office.