Themed “The Age of Communities”, the second edition of our collaborative economy festival OuiShare Fest awaits you this May with even more collaboration, connecting and fun. We invite you to co-create this 3-day festival with us to build a common vision of the collaborative economy.
You’ve probably noticed by now: sharing economy companies rarely talk about their customers, they talk about their communities. As do coworking spaces, makerspaces and fablabs - even if most fablabs don’t really have “customers” anyway. The free software, maker and open knowledge movements have thrived thanks to the communities that co-created and supported groundbreaking projects such as Linux, Wikipedia or Arduino. What is crowdfunding, if not a tool for empowering people to achieve great projects backed by a community of true fans? And how could grassroots movements such as Foodsharing, MakeSense or OuiShare have taken ground without their community?
But why do we call all of these different phenomena “communities”? And how do these relate to communities we have always been familiar with, such as relatives, tribes, nations and cultural groups? Is there any link between collaborative consumers and people that are members of a community garden? How do these pieces fit together and what is the bigger picture?
For three days, we will live together, think together, dance together. We want these days to mean something, to be the starting point of new projects and collaborations to build a common and sustainable future. - Mattias Jägerskog, OuiShare Sweden Connector and founder of the Skjutsgruppen ridesharing movement
Communities are fueling the collaborative economy
The word “community” originally comes from the Latin “cum munus”: a group of people who share something: a common culture, common interests, shared knowledge and resources, a common place where they live and work, a common vision or a shared mission. Such communities have in the past often emerged in physical spaces, but are increasingly forming in the digital sphere: people scattered all around the globe now have the ability to connect and take action collectively. These networks have turned the global village into a playground.
What we have seen over the past few years is that communities are most powerful when they emerge where the physical and digital sphere come together. When people connect online to share resources and experiences offline, make things together in a fablab in Barcelona to share the results with members of another space in Helsinki, or start global conversations with an impact for citizens at a local level, unexpected synergies and opportunities are created.
After having watched the collaborative economy grow, projects and startups succeed and fail, as well as building our own organization with countless people across the globe, one thing struck us again and again: communities are at the core of the collaborative economy and play a key role in enabling this new economy thrive.
That is why we have chosen “The Age of Communities” as the theme for the second edition of OuiShare Fest, a three-day event that will bring together 1000 collaborative economy visionaries from across the globe from May 5-7 at the Cabaret Sauvage in Paris. Beyond conference, connecting and co-creating, this year we want to investigate with you how different communities are changing society and business, how they are impacting the way our cities, companies and institutions work, and how they are empowering civic action.
The experiment in 2013: OuiShare Fest, take 1!
Last year at this time, none of us on the OuiShare team knew what was in store for us that May. We were motivated and ambitious, but we were organizing such a collaborative event for the first time. And as with all experiments, you never know beforehand whether they will succeed!
The good news is that in the end, OuiShare Fest 2013 gathered over 700 collaborative economy enthusiasts from 25 countries who attended the two first “professional” days, while the third day, which was open to the public, attracted more than 3,000 people. And beyond these numbers what we all remember is the immeasurable energy and shared enthusiasm of all the speakers, attendees, partners and team members.
If you want more insights into last year’s edition, don’t miss Ariane Conrad’s great piece about the spirit of the event, our 5 takeaways and our wrap-up video. And for lots more interviews, articles and video documentation, check out the 2013 live site.
Co-creating the event, from A to Z
With this OuiShare Fest, we set ourselves the aim to gather as many communities as possible in one place: entrepreneurs and social innovators, non-profit and company leaders, grassroots activists and public officials will gather in one place to build a common vision of a collaborative society, produce knowledge, accelerate projects and foster new collaborations that will endure long after the event.
In this process, every additional voice, opinion and perspective is an enrichment. Approaches will differ, disagreements and passionate debates will be sparked, but that’s all right: we believe that diversity is at the core feature of fruitful conversations.
You can’t wait till May and want to get involved now?
Then we invite you to co-create the OuiShare Fest program with us by submitting a session or workshop to our call for proposals! If you would just like to share an idea with us, write on our idea wall. And for those of you looking to be part of the experience hands-on, please submit an application to become a volunteer during the event.
See you in May?
We believe in saying things out loud. To act. To get practical and down to earth. In a time when many have thoughts and few act, and many have things, space and ideas that they want to keep to themselves or their group - we want to spin the world the other way around. We want to spin our heads, open our arms and share. Openly and freely. And we invite you to join in everything we do, from the smallest dance move to holding a speech of your own. Give as much as you want and make this Fest together with us. As a community. - Mattias Jägerskog
Images by Stephano Borghi