Franz Nahrada's Posts - Global Villages Network2024-03-29T07:26:58ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahradahttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2192350163?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=1xhq7csgy66w7&xn_auth=noA new years message to Globalvillagerstag:globalvillages.ning.com,2011-01-11:2029071:BlogPost:40092011-01-11T15:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<br></br><strong>A new years message to Globalvillagers</strong><br></br> <br></br> "We are the ones who still seem to be figuring out...<br></br> ....how to be the ones we've been waiting for."<br></br> Tom Atlee, http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/are-we-the-ones<br></br><br></br><br></br>A happy new year 2011 to everybody, be it via the mailinglist or other channels !<br></br><br></br>I have not written to the communit(ies) for quite a long time and want to give an update on many points…
<br/><strong>A new years message to Globalvillagers</strong><br/> <br/> "We are the ones who still seem to be figuring out...<br/> ....how to be the ones we've been waiting for."<br/> Tom Atlee, http://tom-atlee.posterous.com/are-we-the-ones<br/><br/><br/>A happy new year 2011 to everybody, be it via the mailinglist or other channels !<br/><br/>I have not written to the communit(ies) for quite a long time and want to give an update on many points concerning GlobalVillages. I try to be short so you can read it - but also authentic and clear so it is worth the read. I try to talk to the experienced "members" and the casual "lurkers" alike. <br/><br/>This goes to the globalvillages@yahoogroups.com Yahoogroup, to the members of our NING community <a href="http://globalvillages.ning.com/">http://globalvillages.ning.com/</a> and to other friends.<br/><br/>Bear with me if I start with the basics and then go to some actual details. If you are not interested please consider cancelling your membership or drop me a mail and I will do it for you. I promise that will be the only long letter for a few months.<br/><br/>1. Why Global Villages? - Definition number 349 or so<br/>2. A movement in the making<br/>3. A year of standstill ?<br/>4. Finetuning the goals<br/>5. What is needed next ?<br/>5.1. Building Global Villages Network as an online community<br/>5.2. Defining projects and products that will have us leap forward.<br/>5.3. Try to come to Berlin anyway!<br/><br/><br/><strong>1. Why Global Villages? - Definition number 349 or so:</strong><br/><br/>Global Villages is a network of people that think something called Global Villages is desireable and possible and they want to work for it.<br/><br/>Global Villages stems from the idea of a positive exchange of energy between the city and the village, the idea of a dyadic world where each side profits enormously from the counterpart. The core idea is promoting a new economic logic of extending or creating kinds of "household economies" to whole villages - and have those empowered villages cooperate globally.<br/><br/>The purpose of this global cooperation is primarily the improvement of a local cooperative lifebase. <br/><br/>The cities (=business worlds) role is to become support centers by providing tools and technologies of many kinds. Thus they thrive, although people have now the real option to emigrate from the cities.<br/><br/>Other than the current unilateral race for economic success on the world market that increasingly destroys the beauty and success of the human endavour as a whole, its a bilateral system of checks and balances. Its a choice, a real choice: between speed and slowness. between big and small. between aggressive and symbiotic. Slowly it will also mitigate the cities role.<br/><br/>But overall, its one logical system of synergy that could work and transform the existing one. No revolution needed, just an effort of a foreseeing minority plus a clever deal with the powers to be to create extensions and adaptions to what we have now.<br/><br/>And we can start building these extensions today. We have tools and technology to make village life equivalent to cities, despite their big conceptual differences. Very little effort goes to the conceptualisation of this new cooperative village. We want to change that.<br/><br/><br/>Thew change starts with the perception of possibilities, with education. Connecting villages to each other means establishing a new educational backbone. Everything starts by the perception of the potential which comes out of knowledge and its implantation in design. This is of course targeted knowledge, the knowledge to combine and weave our abilities into a beautiful local cycle of support, fueled by the worlds best answers to all the questions we have.<br/><br/>We have all the *tools* to make this happen, in particular deep ecological insight, flexible automation, new materials and incredible communication technology that allows for the sharing of any new discovery out of research and experimentation, thus making the villages a living global university of life. <br/><br/>We have all the *need* to make it happen, a global crisis of resources and procedures, a common feeling of an imminent collapse of the capital/power system that is simply deepened by procrastination and denial, by illusions, allegations and agressions, by spectacle and sensation, maybe also by intentional strategies of power elites, we simply dont know.<br/><br/>And we have the *scale* to make it happen: the village scale, the neighborhood scale, the community scale. We feel that a massive convergence of knowledge can allow us to transform microcosms of life into unprecedented completeness, wholeness, richness.<br/><br/>My intention is to build a movement.<br/><br/><br/><strong>2. A movement in the making</strong><br/><br/>Yet I cant help but starting this report with mixed feelings; not only my personal situation, but also the situation of many friends - who are ready and willing to work towards a real solution along the principles outlined above - is far away from a state where we can reallize our dreams and show the potential of our ideas - even in a situation where path-dependence of mainstream economy, technology and habitat leads to more and more painful experiences. Neither do we see much success on the village scale compared to the possibilities we sense, anywhere in the world.<br/><br/>On the positive side, although still far from the mainstream, there has been a lot of convergence and coming together in this year: a new sense of belonging together resulted in the formation of broader movements, like the Commons movement and the Transition movement. They all share the same basic rationale that is also the lifeblood of the GlobalVillages idea: that we need to foster economic localisation and the better use of resources, reflecting on the multilateral, participative way of using and circulating and replenishing resources in the local arena - and building on cooperation rather than competition.<br/><br/>And then there are other movements that focus on the overcoming of the old economic structures: the New Work movement, the Zeitgeist movement, the ecovillage movement and so on.<br/><br/>But what about "Global Villages" in particular - as that very necessary "movement within the movements"? What about the fervent zeal to make the local environment aka villages more self-reliant, bright, intelligent, liveable by special emphasis on themes, networks, communication centres, experimentation, innovation, design? Going beyond all that existed and create really self-feeding, organic habitat? Showing that we can have the full life in an incredibly small place, making the planet a million times bigger just by that perspective? What about the potential to become a global brotherhood/sisterhood of true citizens of the world, simply seing a potential ultra - productive localisation as the ultimate global agenda - with new codes of global cooperation that do away with obsolete forms of "intellectual property" and therefore unfold an unforeseen productivity for all? <br/><br/>"We" - and that we *does* exist somehow - are convinced very much that this - and mostly this - is the true, peaceful and successful way to "outcooperate" the currently dominating mode of production. <br/><br/>But: can "we" find an "entry door to reality" that gives us the leverage to create strong centers and start a real movement? Will we finally find ourselves together via practical goals and a shared agenda, and when will that finally be?<br/><br/>There are some tiny sign of success, like the fact that Marcin Jakubowskis "Gobal Village Construction Set" has just made it to the top of MAKE magazines green products contest (<a href="http://makezine.com/tagyourgreen/?o=popular">http://makezine.com/tagyourgreen/?o=popular</a>) and there is some feeling in the air about the exciting interplay between global communication and increasing local abilities. <br/><br/>I was surprised how at the recent commons conference in Berlin, a spontaneous session about Global Villages attracted many visitors. Academic works are written about the idea. The term 'Global Village' has begun to shift its meaning (maybe also due to this continous work). and so on.<br/><br/>But nowhere, neither in media nor in politics, is this option yet visible nor taken really serious. People like Steward Brand can still call for the abolition of the village in the name of progress and be celebrated by TED; the mainstream still assumes a progressive 75%+ urbanisation in the next decades, while industrial land grabbing aggravates the situation in a deadly speed and leads to an ultimate enclosure of planetary dimension. A self fulfilling prophecy of enormous destructive dynamics is the challenge to be met; and the civil societies of the world have not even grasped what their cooperative power could create, if there was really a grassroots globalisation of the right kind going on, one that creates a cycle of empowerment around centers of self-reliance.<br/><br/><strong>3. A year of standstill ?</strong><br/><br/>My main concern has been bringing the alternative option to public recognition and support, considering Global Villages the "salt of the earth" in the perspective of a progressive "villegiatura" (village building era) of planetary dimensions that would allow us to unfold a myriad of cultures, lifestyles, human possibilities in truly autonomous circumstances and spaces - a big program for peace by directing energies towards constructive goals including really everybody willing to reflect on their true desires. <br/><br/>Getting practical again, one idea that started the year 2010 for me was that the intentional establishment of "Global Villages" as service centers to many communities in a given region, thus the scheme would become part of regional politics and its initiation fundeable. <br/><br/>At the end of 2009, I had a dinner in Vienna with the governor of the Polish region of Opole who is also a leader in the European village renewal alliance, and it was very interesting that we shared for a short moment a very clear image that helped facilitate the meetings of our minds: A particular village, outstanding in its nature, that would serve not only its inhabitants, but a whole region as connecting point to the world, a learning and meeting center. Thus, a global village might be easier to implement even in present circumstances, funded even by conventional regional development. <br/><br/>It all seems so easy and logical, but we did not make very much headway in particular. I have not heard back a long time from them. The promising vision of a European network of learning centers, discovering and developing together - that might have been an outcome of the Grundtvig Workshop (<a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop</a>), - the vision of diverse localities experimenting with form and content in a holistic way that includes real local needs, is still a remote dream. The Grundtvig Workshop was nice, but not as sustainable and effective as I hoped for. The idea of combining a new content of education with telepresence did not really catch up.<br/><br/>(a tiny footnote on "telepresence": We are made much aware of the great obstacles present in this domain, for example in this important report we received recently about the ElectroSmog festival: <a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/Forum/TelepresenceControversy">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/Forum/TelepresenceControversy</a>. The idea that this challenge could spark an inventive community working on improvement of working patterns that transcend the undeniable obstacles is still far away and we could not even set up a project proposal together.)<br/><br/>In the opposite, on a personal level, it seems the buerocratic necessities to finalize the existing workshop procedures have exhausted me and had a negative impact on many other works in this year. We did have some other promising activities, like one on the village of St. Martin and environments in Austrias Waldviertel. This community is implementing a communal Open Access Network based on fiberoptics with 100MB bandwidth to each house - a rare dream setting even here in Austria. We did a workshop on possible content there, also giving videobridging a prominent place (with people from many other places taking part). Yet it seems the possibilities of follow-up projects have not materialized yet. A quick fix for profitability is hard to achieve, thats not the path we can provide.<br/><br/>Or the - definitely *very* interesting - May 2010 meeting at RealCorp Vienna, where I did a common workshop with Clear Village people Karsten Stampa and Chris Garvin and others who were interested in the issue of the impact of communication on human settlement and/or the renaissance of the village scale in our time. In the aftermath we went down to the exhibition floor of Real Vienna, a trade show which brought many investment - hungry regions from Eastern Europe together in Vienna to show their real estate opportunities to investors. The floor was pretty empty, the investors for all these dreamy mega - projects simply lacked, so we had an easy time getting in talks with regional representatives, mostly from countries neighboring to Austria. Some of them really embraced our innovative ideas and wanted to learn more. Later on, some of us spend a lot of time in developing a concept for a Village Forum with the Austrian real estate magazine, an event that would bring all stakeholders of the village building process including the real estate industry together. The proposal was applauded and lauded as a truly breakthrough scheme of giving a saturated industry a new direction - but eventually our prospective partners said no because of work overload.<br/><br/>so it goes.<br/><br/><strong>4. Finetuning the goals</strong><br/><br/>So this year did not really provide a base from which we can easily continue work in the next year. In November at the First International Commons Conference I tried to conceptualise a Global Villages Meeting in Berlin for next may in conjunction with the upcoming First European Conference of Village Movements in May 2011, which would be the perfect occassion to meet and work on our agenda. The setting seems almost perfect, and I repeat the call for everybody to join this conference: <br/><br/><a href="http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Themen/GK_L"></a><a target="_blank" href="http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Themen/GK_L%C3%A4ndlicher_Raum/Announcement_int.village-conf.pdf">http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/Themen/GK_Ländlicher_Raum/Announcement_int.village-conf.pdf</a><br/><br/>But then, for me the recognition came, that for the months and maybe years to come I will largely be absorbed in local business here in Vienna which means the hotel. Its really clear now it will fall on my shoulders.<br/><br/>Besides preparing a good speech for Berlin about Global Villages which is a challenge in itself, there is not very much I can do on the side reflecting the agenda here in the next months. It seems nobody among my many, many friends in Berlin believes they can organize something bigger, even though we got a great response from Franz Reinhard Habbel of the German association of towns and villages. So it might simply not happen in an organized fashion.<br/><br/>So .... I became aware of the challenges but also the opportunities that result in having more responsibility for the hotel after the imminent retirement of my sister in March 2011. It started with the sudden realization of many unfinished local issues here, starting with basic technical and safety issues but also with the necessity to develop a business plan when the "business hotels" will spring up in masses in our district (a Ramada just started preopening sales). I need to reinvent the Karolinenhof if it shall survive. <br/><br/>One very exciting option is this: To do everything possible to create a good physical meetingspace here in Vienna for the meeting of communities and the business world, for the years to come this might be our hotels company mission. If I get consensus, I will even try to extend, to create a true small "community hotel", that makes it fun to convene in Vienna. A coworking-cohousing hotel. Very ambitious plan, but not allowing me to spend too much time researching and communicating in the networks. <br/><br/>Maybe some of you have specific circumstances that would allow us to explore deeper what this kind of hospitality needs, or if some of you would consider even taking part in that endavour here. This is ther first invitation, athough I have not very much to offer.<br/><br/>And here comes the second invitation: there is a real danger that I will not be able any at least for the next years to pursue the ambitious dream of a Global Villages Network ..... unless some of you step forward and really share the task with me. This is the purpose of this message and of shorter messages to come, creating a very clear agenda which could be shared by many. Our Russian friend Gleb Tyurin is just one of the examples of how important it would be to many people to have a strong support structure at hand to support the most visionary "localizers" all around the world.<br/><br/>So again and -maybe more precise than ever - I present you my personal vision or fantasy of the network, in the hope that it truly resonates with your fantasy or vision, and we could do something about it.<br/><br/>Global Villages Network should be:<br/><br/>* a distinct community of maximum 500 people that know each other to some degree and collaborate on a network of locations all around the world which want to be at the forefront of community design and liveability, <br/>* so not only thinking how beautiful a village can be, but really believing in the possibility and working for it<br/>* having or seeking positions in local community education, foreign relations, planning, administration<br/>* staying in close touch and establish working groups and project groups for all aspects of local community building (with the goal of freely distributed "products" that can be useful and applied)<br/>* but also develop a theoretical common understanding, like conceptualising a flexible general model or pattern language of a "minimum critical mass" local community (500? 5000?) that thrives on empowerment of each of its members by global networks <br/>* collecting successful examples (observatory) and essential patterns (repository)<br/>* intervene not only in support of each other (as a "phyle"), but also vis a vis partners in the business and political world to facilitate growth and development of Global Villages.<br/><br/>I like the idea that the virtual community is also in itself not much bigger than a village, and the amount of its workload can be dealt with by those relatively few individuals, which allows for a certain non - buerocratic structure. Maybe eventually the network will dissolve into a political entity of much bigger size, but thats beyond the foreseable and purely speculative. What we currently need is a catalyzer for effective localisation, an interface between local development and global communication that has a clear focus which is not too narrow and not too wide. <br/><br/>If you want to be part of it please stay. If not, please unsubscribe.<br/><br/><strong>5. What is needed next ?</strong><br/><br/><strong>5.1. Building Global Villages Network as an online community</strong><br/><br/>The coming together of this whole network has been started by events in the nineties mostly in Vienna ("Global Village", "Cultural Heritage in the Global Village"), but only recently re-actualized with the assumed potential of social networking and community building. <br/><br/>I met hundreds of people in the course of the last 20 years with whom I felt deep resonance about the idea, but had no way of keeping in touch phyiscally or physically bringing them together after the Global Village conferences were over. <br/><br/>This period of dispersed past seemed to end with the advent of social networking tools ... but:<br/><br/>In mid 2010 NING terminated its free networks, and I began to think about a new networking strategy. Global Villages Online Groups were established in various locations, in the hope that to all these venues there would be a vibrant center to connect to; from LinkedIn via XING via Wiser Earth and Facebook - there is a plethora of venues where you can find different kinds and attitudes of people that are all needed - to one convergence point.<br/><br/>Like Global Villages as a movement should draw their strength and idea base from the wealth of cultural diversity around their globe, so the Global Villagers should be a rich blend of many backgrounds: business, science, humanities, engineering, vision, emotion, art, practical experience and actually living it - everything should play a role in the "grand small" design. But that diversity would have to be held together by a strong center of exchange and inspiration, which was envisioned as a set of online venues like globalvillages.org, globalvillages.info and globalvillages.tv. <br/><br/>It became increasingly clear that the formation of such a center and also the maintainance of all the precious peripheries required external energies to be brought into the game. Much more than I can master or manage. Without some help, everything is gone.<br/><br/>One option was and is to especially cooperate with Clear Village on an economically successful endavour of village building events and activities, which would then call for a "observatory" and a network of people who would also have a chance to take part in such events and activities.<br/><br/>This has not happened yet; and my best idea so far for the time being was to provisionally embed the Global Villages movements core structures as a subset of the very successful online communities around the Transition network. <br/><br/>Transition is a wonderful umbrella structure with a wider appeal, practical and ambitious at the same time, which serves as a meeting ground for many strands of economic localisation and ecological inventiveness. The two groups in the Austrian and in the international system seem to be the venues of the moment:<br/><br/><a href="http://transitionaustria.ning.com/group/netzwerkglobaledoerfer">http://transitionaustria.ning.com/group/netzwerkglobaledoerfer</a><br/><a href="http://transitioninaction.com/group/globalvillagesintransition">http://transitioninaction.com/group/globalvillagesintransition</a><br/><br/>And I spent most of my available time to help build and grow the Transition movement here in Austria as a mothersoil from which a Global Villages movement will naturally emerge. The importance of localisation is fuly recognized in this movement, as R.K. Moore describes: <br/><br/>"The localization movement focuses on economics and resources, but in a broader sense it is aimed at enabling a community to solve its own problems, to take charge of its own destiny. Besides an economic premise – localization makes economic sense – there are certain political premises that are implicit in the movement:<br/>* We can’t count on government to solve all our problems.<br/>* We have the capacity to improve our own circumstances by working together.<br/>And there are cultural premises as well:<br/>* Community is a valuable social entity.<br/>* Stronger community can be a source of local empowerment.<br/><br/>So thats Transition. A good base to establish contacts.<br/><br/>But also the other venues are alive: even without my "gardening", Global Villages group (LinkedIn, XING, Wiser Earth, Facebook etc..) constantly find new members. Even our old NING gets new members every day, but its limited to 150 and a NING mini, therefore its more a temporary storehouse than a good center. <br/><br/>We (Ralf Schlatterbeck and I ) established <a href="http://www.globalvillages.org">www.globalvillages.org</a> as the future central domain, but no decision has been made yet what system to use. The server that we rented is fast and powerful enough to even run voice communication, webinars etc.<br/><br/>I received several offers of support, from Raffael Reinehr from Brasil who is ELGG - literate to Urs Riggenbach from the US who runs Drupal Systems for a Human Ecology College. Also the Estonian "Community Tools" group has offered help. But I feel before we build a system we should have a board of editors who really are commited to maintain the communication flow, keep it simple and effective.<br/><br/>There are a few people like Jeff Buderer or Markus Petz who are very active networkers, but what is needed here is a steady focus around the vision. I do not really know if the vision of Global Villages is really so important, but I feel its a beautiful node in the fabric of the new world that is woven now, the marriage between the physical place, the appreciation of the natural, the appreciation of culture and technology all flowing into one convergence point. I feel in contrary to Andrius Kulikauskas that this network should not be woven around people, but "people resonating through an idea".<br/><br/>Otherwise, I felt Andrius had a lot of sensational ideas, using the virtual network almost like a life support system and a creative tool for constant rekindling our inner fire and recallibrating our inner direction that is often lost in our crushing environments. A spirit of appreciation, respect and support, a feeling of being alive and close to the breakthrough is what this network should deliver. Thank you Andrius for all that, although we might be too different to work closely together in future.<br/><br/><strong>5.2. Defining projects and products that will have us leap forward.</strong><br/><br/>So Global Villages should not only be a community, but maybe also a phyle. A community that develops its business backbone.<br/><br/><a href="http://p2pfoundation.net/Phyles">http://p2pfoundation.net/Phyles</a><br/><br/>A few days ago I received a message from our dear Indian friend Anil Chawla, who together with his wife Suman runs a leather factory in India, and who has the revolutionary idea to place this factory near a village instead having people travel thousands of miles. Everybody calls him crazy but I encouraged him to strike a deal with vilagers that could mean that he helps them videobridging in the nearby school for better subsistence and lower living costs.<br/><br/>This is just one example of the many exciting possibilities that everyone of us has in his or her hands and the might fit together like the pieces of a mosaic. If Anils villagers implement Marcins Global Village construction set or something similar, that is a possible realisation of our networks strength and internal cooperation logic.<br/><br/>Our friend Gleb Tyurin produces a video that shows to the general public in Russia the potential of localisation. Maybe there is footage for him to implement, I encouraged him to think of a collaborative video production like the beautiful "Coalition of the Willing" animation that was done by a coalition of professional media producers, showing the potential of collaborative production. <a href="http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/">http://coalitionofthewilling.org.uk/</a><br/><br/>So it is very important to see the Global Villages Network as a network of people who have some living connection to the ground, DOING SOMETHING TOGETHER. The connections might be of different nature, our diversity and our different backgrounds will help us realize better our common visions. Its good that Anil is a businessman and uses his abilities as a businessperson to bring the realisation of global villages forward.<br/><br/>It is very important that each of us discovers the general aspect of what they are doing and we group around practical outcomes. <br/><br/>At the same time I feel its important to still be connected by the strong tie of a common vision.<br/><br/>lets have these two things combined better, so we will survive and thrive. Again, please consider your membership in our venues if you dont think thats interesting.<br/><br/><strong><span class="font-size-4">5.3. Try to come to Berlin anyway!</span></strong><br/><br/>So as I said I will not be able to fulfill my own expectations to orderly organize a gathering in Berlin around May 14th.<br/>Too much is on the plate right now here in Vienna. <br/>My hope is that something spontaneous will emerge nevertheless.<br/><br/>We might be able to travel to very interesting examples of successful localisation after the conference in Brandenburg. I will issue a call for who might invite us. Everybody will be on their own financially for the time being. But I hope we do something important to meet the challenge of changing our situation as individuals, too.<br/><br/>if we meet and before that, we can discuss:<br/>a) whats the meaning of all these social networking activities <br/>b) how we make them fruitful for each other and keep coherence<br/>c) what are the momentary priorities in terms of attention and projects<br/>d) how this fits in a strategic picture <br/><br/>please use the globalvillages mailing list for your contributions!<br/><br/><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/globalvillages/</a> -> "Join this group" if you are not subscribed yet.<br/><br/>All the best<br/><br/>Franz<br/>Options, options, options .....tag:globalvillages.ning.com,2010-07-29:2029071:BlogPost:38542010-07-29T10:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
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<p style="text-align: left;">Today I had a skype chat with Katri Sander from <a href="http://communitytools.info">Communitytools</a> - a project in development in Tallin, Estonia. She is project manager in this exciting and extraordinary endavour that means a lot to me. <a href="http://communitytools.info">Communitytools</a> is a very serious attempt to provide local communities all around the world with…</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">Today I had a skype chat with Katri Sander from <a href="http://communitytools.info">Communitytools</a> - a project in development in Tallin, Estonia. She is project manager in this exciting and extraordinary endavour that means a lot to me. <a href="http://communitytools.info">Communitytools</a> is a very serious attempt to provide local communities all around the world with electronic tools for better communication and integration at a local level.</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;">They write:</p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><i>Community Tools creation was driven by the need to effectively manage communication and information flow in a local community. Even if people are willing to contribute and get involved, some really important communication issues occured. Organizing large groups of people involves fast and accurate information change. There was a lack of matching solutions for our specific needs. (</i><a href="http://communitytools.info/about-us/">http://communitytools.info/about-us/</a>)</p>
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Beside the itch to scratch, there is also a strong resource base, because the same group is working with the Estonian contribution to the Shanghai 2010 Expo, <a href="http://www.savecity.org/en/savecity">Savecity</a> is a really interesting contribution to the Overall Expo theme of cities and their future. The theme is "starting a community" and by that way the Estonian Contribution breaks the urban - rural barrier that we deplore so many times.<div><br/></div>
<div>Thats why they are starting with <a href="%20http://savecity.org/community/eng/starting-a-community/">community tips</a> - but seek to expand it into a fully fledged piece of open source software that can run on many servers around the world. If they can raise funds, they will also most likely provide a basic service for free.</div>
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<div>here is what they will offer to LOCAL communities:</div>
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<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 40px; border: medium none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><i>* Website</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>community website for free.</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>* Maps</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>To find what's important near you.</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>* Groups</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>There can be little communities inside a bigger community.</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>* Gallery</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>Well organized and geotagged photos or other media.</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>* Post Office</i></div>
</div>
<div><div><i>A local messaging solution</i></div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<div><br/></div>
<div>Later on they plan for:</div>
<div><br/></div>
<blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 40px; border: medium none; padding: 0px;"><div><div>* Stuffarium</div>
<div>For borrowing and sharing stuff inside your community.</div>
<div>* Market and Virtual Money</div>
<div>Buy, trade and sell locally maybe even with a with a community currency</div>
<div>* Event Manager</div>
<div>* Accounting System</div>
<div>* Forum</div>
<div>* Radio</div>
<div>* Urban Planning Tool</div>
</div>
<div><br/></div>
</blockquote>
Great stuff alltogether - but they also seek to offer "world" to the neigborhoods, villages towns and regions: virtual communities of people that share their experience and knowhow in making our communities function to their best capacities. This is where Global Villages comes in.<br/><div><br/></div>
<div>So I started to engage in discussions with them if it would not make sense to combine their approach with ours and establish a presence or maybe even a central hub of our emerging network there. Lets see what answer they will come up with.....</div>June 2010 letter to the Globalvillages Communitytag:globalvillages.ning.com,2010-06-02:2029071:BlogPost:37572010-06-02T16:06:56.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
This post goes -identically - to the members of the NING Group 'Global Villages Network' and to the members of the yahoogroup 'globalvillages'.<br></br><br></br>This is going to be a rather lengthy letter with many messages overdue - and therefore it makes sense to start right away with a table of contents:<br></br><br></br>thank you for the effort to read this!<br></br><br></br>Franz<br></br><br></br>===========================================================<br></br><br></br>Top News<br></br>1. State of Global Villages Network, NING…
This post goes -identically - to the members of the NING Group 'Global Villages Network' and to the members of the yahoogroup 'globalvillages'.<br/><br/>This is going to be a rather lengthy letter with many messages overdue - and therefore it makes sense to start right away with a table of contents:<br/><br/>thank you for the effort to read this!<br/><br/>Franz<br/><br/>===========================================================<br/><br/>Top News<br/>1. State of Global Villages Network, NING and Yahoogroup<br/>2. A look back @ Joint Workshop with Clear Village Foundation in May 2010<br/>3. A new attempt to spell out the vision and mission of a Global Villages Network<br/><br/>Other News<br/>4. Videobridge Workshops in January and June<br/>5. Letter from Russian Administration regretting problems with Videobridging<br/>6. interesting network building processes<br/>6.1 Locals forum on edemocracy<br/>6.2 Intelligent Communities association<br/><br/><br/>=============================================================<br/><br/><br/>1. State of Global Villages Network, NING and Yahoogroup<br/><br/>I just subscribed the 125th member of the NING social network (globalvillages.ning.com), and I probably rejected at least the triple numbers of spammers in these recent months. From what I can see from the profiles we do have a fantastic group assembled here, it is really a good self-selection/selection of likeminded people. People like these are "thin on the ground". And there are many that I know in person as groundbreaking visionaries. It was not even easy to get them into a social network.<br/><br/>In the last months I could really not do much more for this forum than passively collect, but interest has not ceased in creating this worldwide network of advocates of new village development. <br/><br/>Now all this is in jeopardy, from various sides. Not only from my personal lack of capacity.<br/><br/>Even before we have begun to intensify our communication and to draw the benefits from this "collecting activity", the announcement that NING that hosts our social network will become a purely commercial paysite appeared. This in fact forces me and all of us to rethink the significance, purpose and resilience of the GlobalVillages endavour.<br/><br/>The whole NING-based thing seemed to be an easy job, allowing the evolutionary and gradual collection of likeminded friends - sort of "on-the-side" - community building. Now it will become much bit harder, either more energy and dedication has to go into this network building effort --- or this valuable collection and potential will again collapse and be extinguished.<br/><br/>One may argue and rant about the brusque style of NING turning arould 180%. <br/>(In fact NING is most likely destroying at least tens of thousands networking activities that it helped to build in the forst place. They would have had much better choices to keep their reputation alive. At least we still have some time to move or to decide to stay if we can raise 240 dollars a year.) <br/>But all this requires from us to be creative and dedicated if we want this networking to continue. Its a wake up call.<br/><br/>If that was not enough, Andrius Kulikauskas, who spent tons of energy in collecting independent minds and who helped building the globalvillages mailing list, also is significanly reducing his efforts on online community building. He relocated from Vilnius to Chicago a few days ago and will work there one year as a tutor. So he will also stop to maintain the globalvillages list and leave it up to me how this list will proceed. It seems to me there is less and less sense for him investing in an infrastructure for independent thinkers when the evolving social networking world allows people to connect in so many ways (maybe not the ways he had in mind) and many of his ideas were taken up by others. The online collaboration protocols are growing endless, as is the also energy you have to put in them to be competitive. <br/><br/>So here we are. The globalvillages yahoogroup has 310 members, by its open subscription process there might be some spammers and lurkers, but I also know much effort has been spent mostly by Andrius in bringing these people together and basically its a great list, too. Add this to the 125 NING people who went through a little more effort of self - selection: and you will get a lot of social capital and potential.<br/><br/>In times of information overflow this social capital only survives if people are actively engaging in relations and have a really good reason to participate in and maintain this flow of information. It only survives if it turns out to be "intelligent design", really fulfilling a purpose for participants. So many things are competing for our attention that you cant even afford to read this mail. <br/><br/>I dont know the complete answer how we are going to maintain this online community but I would regret it if we failed. Its a time to ask for good ideas, and definitely a time to pool resources and to cluster. If any of you could help in making this whole thing sustainable in offering qualified online facilitation or technical help it will be greatly appreciated. I am working with Ralf Schlatterbeck to build up a server infrastructure where we can host applications facilitating communication between globalvillagers in many ways - from spontaneous chats to forums and discussion groups to serious coauthoring or project management. We want this community to build on Open Source tools and really own its own content at the end of the day. But this is costly.<br/><br/>You want to help help? Great! Here is a five point list of how you could do it:<br/><br/>* Find research projects that can nourish and vitalize our community relations.<br/>* Find commercial projects that help in a fair way to nourish and vitalize our community and are in tune with our values<br/>* Help us to get resourceful supporters in politics, business, education, science.<br/>* Dedicate some free time of yourself and coworkers to take part in our editorial board or in our technical support group.<br/>* Organize regional or national chapters or simply local groups of Global Villages Network and start to explore and observe the change towards "revillagiatura" with us. (See further below for a new short purpose statement).<br/><br/>If you wish to respond, send me an email to f.nahrada@reflex.at and I publish all responses grouped by theme in a neutral wiki space that will survive and will be accessible to all. You all will get notified about the result.<br/><br/><br/>2. Joint Workshop with Clear Village Foundation in May<br/><br/>I reported having been invited to Barcelona last November to the first lab of the Clear Village foundation. (See short film if you scroll down at <a href="http://www.clear-village.org/">http://www.clear-village.org/</a>). It was a fabulous time, because for the first time I saw the full range of my - and hopefully our - joint aspirations manifested in a gathering of dedicated people with extraordinary capacities. This was not about preserving remnants of the past, this was about designing and building a powerful future of villages ! Thomas Ugo Ermacora and his people were really targeting at a creative process that works. The idea is integrating major technological and social changes together with old wisdom into a human framework that makes it possible for us to work for a better future together. They speak out daringly what supposedly everybody of us knows and stands for: the village is the optimum form of human development, and if the village currently is in crisis then we have to reinvent it!<br/><br/>I stayed in touch with Thomas and offered to work for an integration of our works.<br/><br/>So recently Thomas sent two of his collaborators, Chris Garvin and Karsten Stampa to Vienna where I had spotted an opportunity to have our message heard in a spatial planners conference named CORP (an acronym that points to computers and spatial planning). Not to our worst luck this conference was also connected to a major real estate developers trade show, the REAL Vienna. We did a workshop together and also visited many of the exhibitors and confronted them with the new ideas of participatory village development. So in many respects, this was like a test run for possible cooperations, in theory and in practise. <br/><br/>I must say the echo was not bad at all. At the workshop, we had quite a lively discussion with planners about the antithesis to sprawl and suburbia that we are suggesting. At the show floor, we found some tendencies towards village development, but also quite a lot of interest among other exhibitors. The bunch of Eastern European regions exhibiting there seemed a bit frustrated by the trade show, there was definitely no short supply of great ideas and projects, but a shortage of investors and money. So they were - at least sometimes - very open and eager to dicuss with us - and there was some acceptance of our provoquative points that there must be an alternative to traditional industrial developments, both in form of the process as well as in content, shape and size.<br/><br/>We might see this as an opportunity to build fruitful collaboration in future, offering support to planning departments, real estate developers, local communities, politicians and others who seek a way out of the current unsustainable ways of living.<br/><br/>Also, the complementing nature and slight difference of the "Global Villages" and "Clear Village" approaches has shown in practical intervention as a beacon: While GIVE (as the Vienna research center and initiator of the Global Villages network) puts a lot of emphasis on the structural - technical, spatial, institutional, psychological, social - requirements of the village building process including the geopolitical, geographical and cultural "birds eye view", Clear Village is open and sensitive to the best opportunities to launch participatory design processes around a given real estate project - to create and implement local community power already in the phase of design. <br/><br/>Its almost like attacking from two sides, and its more than just doubling the energy, its a mutial multiplication that can work even better because each side has its own tactical stands of arguments and points.<br/><br/>So we are discussing a deepening of collaboration. Maybe we can establish a worldwide working research structure as the operational rationale of the Global Villages Network. I do not know how much of you really support that, but it is clear that we have to strengthen our base in research institutions and think about joining in working groups with thematic areas. And we have to team up with those who seek to practically implement.<br/><br/>3. A new attempt to spell out the vision and mission of a Global Villages Network<br/><br/>After and through the workshop with Clear Village, it has become even more obvious to me that the Global Villages Network makes a lot of sense. If you want to boil its meaning down to one sentence, and you have to explain it to somebody in less than 20 words, you could use the phrase: <br/><br/>"These are the people that seriously are going to debunk the 2050 myth". <br/><br/>You all know that in the official predictions 2050 is the year where not only half, but 75 % of the worlds population are predicted to live in cities. <br/><br/>This prediction sounds to me like if some observers would say in 2050 a comet will hit earth. It seems like inevitable fate that we simply have to adapt to. Whilst in terms of our manifold social crisis/es at least there is pretension of action, here there is a widespread acceptance of this strange fact that 75% of the global population would cluster together in 2% of the planets surface! Official UN position, scientific consensus, dot!<br/><br/>Why does almost no one dare to say that this is in itself another horrible prediction and forecast ruining the most essentials achievements of humanity? That this is a deep crisis and loss of landscape and humane environment? Why does no one point out that we have to introduce a set of measures of very complex dimensions to prevent this destruction of grown cultured landscape including existing and future man - nature relations, but this is by all means possible, considering our achievements in science, technology, culture and creativity?<br/><br/>This is basically what the Global Villages Network should stand for. At least it is created to network NOW all these brilliant people that know we cannot change the future by mere politics, but we have to combine politics with design. This design is complex, it has many dimensions. It is physical design of spaces, it is design of communication possibilities, of applications, of technologies, even and by far not least, it is social design. And the most important thing is: all these partial designs play into each other, they build on each other. Design is not possible without experiment, without local action. So we are not a networks of mere academics, we are scientist-artists.<br/><br/>Thats why we are here, thats why we seek to cluster. We have an important cause together, and its far beyond simply "preserving villages and rural areas". In fact you cannot preserve them without deeply change them, make them "competitive" (not what *they* think that means!) in terms of attraction and liveability with urban areas and their amenities. We want villages for everyone, not just for the diehards!<br/><br/>So the idea of this community is to create subdivisions for design and policy and arts and whatsoever - but be united in this important goal, being able to speak with one voice and no less than contribute the best it can to the ongoing efforts to change the path of civilisation. It is like a game with an almost impossible challenge - but with many many potential co-players.<br/> <br/>We have to learn to play together and see that we have a lot of strength on our side if we have the right point at the right time made, by people that focus on them - but need to be in touch and recognize each other. I want this to be a network of excellence where people challenge each other on their fields of excellence - and I hope we will get there despite all the technical troubles (and personal time scarcity) that we are facing right now.<br/><br/>Again - we will not survive without strongholds and strong centers. So far, many people have expressed their enthusiasm, but no single chapter or organisation besides GIVE / Globally Integrated Village Environment Vienna exists. That is definitely too little. Please come up with nice surprises.<br/><br/>Other News<br/><br/>4. Videobridge Workshops in January and June<br/><br/>One of the main reason I could not devote much time to the globalvillages list and network in the last months was the fact that we focussed on a workshop in January around the issue of VideoBridging. I think this is a theme custom - tailored for the "point of view" of globalvillagers. In a nutshell: Videobridging means the connection of learning groups that are focussed LOCALLY, involved in LOCAL face2face-interaction, by a hybrid of videoconferencing and TV transmission, using the capturing of local atmosphere to spark and catalyze the local learning circles everywhere. We did it for 5 years, it worked.<br/><br/>See the Grundtvig Workshop pages here, including subpages for outcomes and country pages for activities:<br/><br/><a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop</a><br/><a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop/Outcomes">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/GrundtvigWorkshop/Outcomes</a><br/><a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/CountryPages">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/CountryPages</a><br/><br/>In fact Videobridging is what I would call an example of essential subgrouping of a Global Villages Network. At the core of any successful village there will be a place that allows people to create global connections as a learning and working group. We see the emergence of these places and the fact that they develop entirely new methods of communication.<br/><br/>If you want to have a taste of it, browse to <a href="http://www.dialoguecafe.org/">http://www.dialoguecafe.org/</a> and see what they just now started in Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro!!! This is the place that we want to see in villages.<br/><br/>VideoBridge is most likely one of the preferred formats to enable knowledge sharing and cooperation of villages. It is custom - tailored because it puts the local agenda in front and in focus. That is why I spent (and still spend) a lot of effort to build this community - but I stretched my potential for some time too far. I hoped for some local support here in Vienna to maintain this community, but it did not quite work out. Also, in the January workshop we decided to leave the future of this network up to the completion of some homework. Unfortunately what hapened until now was not enough to justify our coming together in August in Greece as we envisioned. Problem.<br/><br/>But there is a new hope arising.<br/><br/>The exciting news that I want to share with all of you is that we are at least well on track with our Austrian homework (We are not the only ones, see <a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/CountryPages">http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?VideoBridge/CountryPages</a>). We will hold a new workshop this month with participants from about 8 Austrian regions ("Broadband Content in Rural regions"). The venue will be the village of St. Martin in northwestern Waldviertel, where they have created a dream infrastructure in terms of existing and operating fiberoptic networks to about 1500 houses of the remote rural microregion. This was a strategic plan that worked on the base of combination with sewage system building. They are already offering Internet, High Definition TV and telephone. They can provide each house with bandwidth up to 1 GB/sec!!!<br/><br/>Now this infrastructure is there and as ambitious the microregion (actually 3 communities with about 20 small villages took part in that buildup) acted on infrastructure, it also wants to act on content. We have been commissioned to bring our experience and guidance into this content-seeking process. This will hopefully help us to create a "Virtual Academy of the Regions" with p2p lectures shared between places of excellence. We also seek to establish a training program for "Community Media Operators" in the participating regions. All these efforts may well be duplicated to the Europea level, but it is my strong conviction that a European program makes sense only when there is a certain reality and experience and strength on the national ground.<br/><br/>It seems that we are well on track in Austria to create that. A very nice postscript to this workshop is that we will do a second workshop on building a new settlement in the village of St, Martin - living within nature and living well-connected within cyberspace at the same time. I will keep you posted.<br/><br/>5. Letter from Russian Administration regretting problems with Videobridging<br/><br/>Recently our friend Gleb Tyurin organized a high level meeting on innovative ways in rural development in the Region of Vologda (between Moscow and Archangelsk). A group of experts and local and federal policy makers awaited dialogue with external participants via videobridge. To my bad surprise, Gleb seemed to be very nervous in the morning when the conference started. We could only connect shortly and he said there were going to be troubles and cut the line. I witnessed fervid arguments in the room. Then I heard nothing any more. I went and collected Professor Gerlind Weber, one of Austrias leading experts on spatial planning, from her lecture in a nearby multipurpose cinema and lecture theatre. We sat before the black screen and there was no way to connect. Equally a number of members of our network in various parts of the world that we had alerted to this occasion also found no way to connect.<br/><br/>It turned out that the local administration was afraid not to violate a law that forbids public foreign connections that are not reported to the foreign ministery in Russia - especially if an event has official governmental status. No comment on that.<br/><br/>Later there was a sign of hope. The local government apologized for the whole situation. The attached letter at the NING page below is in English and has official character.<br/><br/><a href="http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blogs/message-from-russia">http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blogs/message-from-russia</a><br/><br/>I found it necessary and appropriate in this situation to also add some clarifications - please also read this one:<br/><br/><a href="http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-clarification-especially">http://globalvillages.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-clarification-especially</a><br/><br/>Well, I hope very much that somewhere in this world a strong dedicated nation understands that the way to finally win is to share and to transform according to the principles of sharing. It might be Russia, you never know. They have already surprised the world several times.<br/><br/><br/>6. interesting network building processes<br/><br/>I think this current time is utterly important because of the almost evolutionary struggles of networking memes to define the future we are heading to. Whilst the political class and the economic system is in a crisis globally, the struggle for the most convinving alternative has just begun. In my personal view, the alternative that will arise from this struggle is the one that encompasses the most solutions to the needs of people and manages to present them in a workeable, compelling way. I think of GlobalVillages not only as a limited scheme of village development, but as a integrative metaphor that gives sense to social changes and delivers a unifying metaphor and goal for the whole world. Lets outgrow the urban monetary economy and reduce it to 20% again, turn the centers of commerce and economy and science to vast "mothercities" of a web of lively and largely self-supporting regions around the world where people would dwell in local cycles of material and energy optimized by global knowledge!<br/><br/>In this process, we are part of an enormous stream of parallel visions and developments (as Andrius expressed it, the seeds of a new culture) and is hard not to get overwhelmed by the new and serious networking processes that arise almost daily from some corners of this world. We will see the fusion and resonance of hudreds of networks before we know the final outcome. Beside the Dialogue Cafés above (<a href="http://www.dialoguecafe.org/">http://www.dialoguecafe.org/</a>) let me point your attention to two remarkeable networking developments of the last weeks:<br/><br/>6.1. "Locals" forum on e-democracy.org<br/><br/>The first is an iniative by Steven Clift of e-democracy fame (<a href="http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift1/">http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/stevenclift1/</a>) who introduced new fora for community builders and the managers of local community networks:<br/><br/><a href="http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/locals">http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/locals</a><br/><br/>"We do local. We connect our neighbors. We are fundamentally two-way because we are building real community where we live."<br/><br/>Locals will lead to another community called "community builders" which will then talk about global cooperation of local-foicused community builders. I think this is very close to what Global Villages network wants to achieve: and in fact only this connectedness in general will enable us to also rediscover and reclaim the beauty of rural areas which is the "bonus" that we contribute.<br/><br/>6.2. Intelligent Communities association<br/><br/>I learned about another exciting association from a post from the community informatics list:<br/><br/><a href="http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=D029E56C-1A64-67EA-E42DACEE2A7A9219">http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=D029E56C-1A64-67EA-E42DACEE2A7A9219</a><br/><br/>NEW YORK -- The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has named Suwon, South<br/>Korea, as the 2010 Intelligent Community of the Year. Suwon has built the<br/>world's fastest, large municipal network, improving connection speeds from<br/>an already impressive 32M to 1Gbps. The infrastructure is being used to<br/>enhance education, library development, and e-government.<br/><br/>The theme of this year's annual conference, held at NYU Poly in Brooklyn,<br/>was "The Education Last-Mile: Closing the Gap from School to Work." <br/>The conference also announced the formation of the "Intelligent <br/>Communities Association," a league of 86 cities and regions worldwide<br/>to foster communities moving forward in the broadband economy. <br/>Its first chair will be Waterloo, Canada Mayor Brenda Halloran. <br/>Waterloo won "Intelligent Community of the Year" in 2007.<br/><br/>I think that we need to learn about the potential of broadband infrastructures even though many villages of the world are still far away from it. We should aspire nothing less than to really be able to convey all the tacit and resonant information that comes with good audiovisual conections to each other.<br/><br/>So I hope I will be able to report about good progress in Austria this month and I will gladly enjoy to hear from you. Please write your response to: f.nahrada@reflex.at<br/><br/>in the meanwhile: happy summer to you all!<br/><br/>Franz Nahrada<br/>GIVE <br/>Jedleseer Strasse 75<br/>1210 Wien<br/>skype: globalvillagesinfoA clarification (especially concerning our friends in Russia)tag:globalvillages.ning.com,2010-06-02:2029071:BlogPost:37552010-06-02T09:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<br></br>I have gained some attention in Russia after writing to the governor of Archangelsk about an opportunity to support sound rural development with the help of a Global Villages Network. This network is supposed to be a network of experts and innovators all around the world that cares about the future of Villages.<br></br><br></br>I need to make some clarification before going on with this matter. It is very interesting that there was a generally receptive attitude to the existence of such a network,…
<br/>I have gained some attention in Russia after writing to the governor of Archangelsk about an opportunity to support sound rural development with the help of a Global Villages Network. This network is supposed to be a network of experts and innovators all around the world that cares about the future of Villages.<br/><br/>I need to make some clarification before going on with this matter. It is very interesting that there was a generally receptive attitude to the existence of such a network, the message that it would be very welcome to engage in rural rejuvenation in Russia – at least to some bright people of influence and expertise. The normative idea of a civil society initiative around the globe that is not a Trojan horse of hidden political agenda, but on the contrary really spurs a cooperative effort, is imaginable and welcome. Yet I have to say, my networking effort, as well as many others, is still more in the phase of infancy than maturity. And the effort was more or less on my personal side. Other people welcomed it, but it seems to carry the same degree of commitment and engagement like your friends list of facebook. I had to learn it the hard way that this effort is still not really taken serious enough.<br/><br/>We wish this network to exist, we wish resources to be pooled, but we are far away from the ability to intervene anywhere and out of our own, independent strength.<br/><br/>There is absolutely no doubt that we have a strong idea to offer: Villages, Market Towns, rural micro-regions around the world use modern tools of communication to inform each other about the good and successful practises, about the achievements, inventions and proven traditional ways to reclaim rural areas as natural habitat for the still growing mankind of the post-industrial era. This possibility alone will lead to an entirely new form of human settlement, because it will enable people to do much more locally.<br/><br/>What we want is not romanticism of Anastasia – inspired farm-style homesteading, although the tremendous success of these books should tell the leadership - not only in Russia - at least about the direction of what people really want and desire for their future. We call our vision <span style="font-weight: bold;">Global Villages</span> to make a difference: what we see as solutions in the long run is the miniaturized version of lean, green cities with a high level of local division of labour, embedded in global information exchange, using sophisticated technology – to create a better connection and cooperation with local nature, bringing it to blossom and bloom, creating abundance. <br/><br/>We think all the building blocks are there for a new, sustainable lifestyle that increasingly complements and mitigates the unbearable conditions of urban life – increasingly threatened by ecological and economic crisis. But yet politics is going into the opposite direction, fostering concentration, centralisation and large scale operation. Its an ongoing obsession inflicted on actors that pays back less and less. Astronomical costs that only can be sustained by systemic fraud and debt accumulation. Not the necessary successes to pay back the debts. Eventually a situation that endagers world peace.<br/><br/>There are almost heroic initiatives on the way to make a difference; that also show that the aggregated effect of small local efforts by far outweighs the potential of concentrated operations. Even military science is relearning. We learn from nature and evolution that there is optimum size and proportion for things, but they can aggregate to enormous dimensions – swarms, forests, meadows. Distributed intelligence makes each single plant autonomous, yet they can influence climate and weather in a planetary scale. <br/><br/>Global Villages follow that plant paradigm and combine it with the infinite wealth of human ingenuity and inventiveness. The historical necessity for centralisation is over, but we are slow to comprehend that this clustering of mankind on less than 2 percent of the planet’s surface and the continuous withdrawal of more and more people from the remaining 98 percent , something we downplay by calling it "urbanisation", which produces double scarcity: <br/><ul>
<li>Scarcity in the cities where people literally compete for the air to breathe and the space to live, and <br/></li>
<li>Scarcity in the countryside where the ongoing exodus of people creates a cascade and vicious circle of underdevelopment.</li>
</ul>
We desperately need to find a credible solution to bring them back and we stick our minds together to find it.<br/><br/>This is the intellectual background for the network and I think it is very powerful. Still, only in the last few years have I found people that truly recognize this is the way to walk together.<br/><br/>These people are spreading all over the globe, on five continents and remote islands, their number increasing day by day. They recognize the ultimate purpose of our existence is human health and stewardship of the planet, support for the web of life that supports us. These are people that went far beyond ecological thinking; they know that human design efforts and technology are a part of evolution; that we need to be daring and creative in our role as keepers of the wealth of this earth. <br/><br/><ul>
<li>These are architects that create new city designs to dwell and float within an abundant biosphere, nourish it, harvest it. <br/></li>
<li>These are biologists that understood how valuable highly developed cultures in history have been for landscape and biological diversity – following the path of the great Russian biologist Nikolai Ivanovic Vavilov. <br/></li>
<li>These are politicians that really acknowledge the increasing ability and competence of informed people to run their local common affairs, developing governance and self determination and being desperately in need of a partner state.</li>
<li>These are journalists collecting stories and spreading them, <br/></li>
<li>these are filmmakers, teachers and other educators, that recognize the amazing potential of synchronous interchange between remote locations,<br/></li>
<li>these are researchers, engineers, both in the social and technical field, that are challenged by the potential power of small communities,<br/></li>
<li>these are ordinary people from villages that have shown examples of what they can do with the help of new technologies, and finally these are historians and philosophers who see the big picture.</li>
</ul>
But this network today is still maily than a network of information exchange, of beginning perception and recognition. We need to be called for common action and we need to find partners that are aware and supportive of our potential in order to unfold it.<br/><br/><br/>Message from Russia.tag:globalvillages.ning.com,2010-06-02:2029071:BlogPost:37532010-06-02T08:00:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2220385549?profile=original"></a>Recently our friend Gleb Tyurin organized a high level meeting on innovative ways in rural development in the Region of Vologda (between Moscow and Archangelsk). A group of experts and local and federal policy makers awaited dialogue with external participants via videobridge. To my bad surprise, Gleb seemed to be very nervous in the morning when the conference started. We could only connect shortly and…
<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2220385549?profile=original"></a>Recently our friend Gleb Tyurin organized a high level meeting on innovative ways in rural development in the Region of Vologda (between Moscow and Archangelsk). A group of experts and local and federal policy makers awaited dialogue with external participants via videobridge. To my bad surprise, Gleb seemed to be very nervous in the morning when the conference started. We could only connect shortly and he said there were going to be troubles and cut the line. I witnessed hefty arguments in the room. Then I heard nothing any more. I went and collected Professor Gerlind Weber, one of Austrias leading experts on spatial planning, from her lecture in a nearby multipurpose cinema and lecture theatre. We sat before the black screen and there was no way to connect. Equally a number of members of our network in various parts of the world that we had alerted to this occasion also found no way to connect.<br/><br/>It turned out that the local administration was affraid not to violate a law that forbids public foreign connections that are not reported to the foreign ministery in Russia - especially if an event has official governmental status.<br/><br/>Later there was a sign of hope. The following letter is in English and has official character.<br/><br/><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2220385549?profile=original">араде на бланке Департаме.pdf</a>Pamela McLean and Post Industrial Development in Africatag:globalvillages.ning.com,2009-10-20:2029071:BlogPost:29252009-10-20T06:59:27.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
The following will be pubished in Michel Bauwens P2P blog and I also post it here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"That is the opportunity that the development of Africa presents. Rural Africa missed out on the industrial revolution that raised the living standards of the industrial nations. It is a fresh canvas where we can paint a new picture of development. We can work together, learning from the mistakes of the past, using the sustainable technologies of the present, developing the technolgies of the future.…</blockquote>
The following will be pubished in Michel Bauwens P2P blog and I also post it here:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>"That is the opportunity that the development of Africa presents. Rural Africa missed out on the industrial revolution that raised the living standards of the industrial nations. It is a fresh canvas where we can paint a new picture of development. We can work together, learning from the mistakes of the past, using the sustainable technologies of the present, developing the technolgies of the future. ... There is no reason for top-down solutions any more. We have ICT, we can connect with each other, many people already have good working information channels between "developed" and "developing" worlds - let's make better use of them. Let's "rub minds" to create sustainable, resiliant communites in rural Africa, using the best technological solutions we can come up with, combining local and international expertise."</blockquote>
<br />
An <a href="http://www.dadamac.net/blog/20091015/pam-we-want-street-lights">interesting meditation</a> from <strong>Pamela McLean</strong>, based on her experience in rural development in Africa through her <a href="http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecodome">Dadamac initiative</a>:<br />
<br />
<em>"I am reminded of a conversation I had with a security man one dark night on a compound in rural Nigeria.</em><br />
<br />
<em>I was admiring the stars. He was surprised. I explained that here in the UK I live on a main road; I need thick curtains in the bedroom to keep out the street lighting; light pollution hides all but the brightest of stars. He said he had previously met an American woman, also admiring the stars. She had said something similar but he had not believed her. Now I was saying the same thing so he was starting go belive it was true.</em><br />
<br />
<em>Another time, stumbling along a dark village path one evening someone said to me "Pam, we want street lights like you have". I replied no "You want street lights - but not like I have! I believe there are better ones now than the ones I have - ones which do not prevent you from seeing the stars"</em><br />
<br />
<em>What does this have to do with climate change and sustainable futures? Well I have the privilege of close connections with rural Africa, and many friends who are struggling to improve the situations of their impoverished communities. They want "What I have got" - but "What I have got" is not sustainable. Much of it is not even sensible - such as the way our water system works. We have to filter water to make it fit for drinking - but then much of it goes straight down the toilet. Crazy!</em><br />
<br />
<em>If we started now surely we'd do things differently. But it's hard to put things right when you have already got things working okay in the wrong way. If you haven't even started yet then it is different. You can get it right - from the very beginning.</em><br />
<br />
<em>That is the opportunity that the development of Africa presents. Rural Africa missed out on the industrial revolution that raised the living starndards of the industrial nations. It is a fresh canvas where we can paint a new picture of development. We can work together, learning from the mistakes of the past, using the sustainable technologies of the present, developing the technolgies of the future, and finding solutions that can also be copied by the nations that developed first.</em><br />
<br />
<em>The innovators made great strides in industry and technology but "We did it first, and so, not surprisingly, we made some serious mistakes along the way". We have sytems that are pplluting and are not sustainable, We have gained visible consumer assets, but many people feel we have lost some invisible community assets. This time let's all do devlopment together and do it right - let's have community development that is sustainable and can be used to tackle the related issues of poverty alleviation, peak oil and climate change.</em><br />
<br />
<em>There is no reason for top-down solutions any more. We have ICT, we can connect with each other, many people already have good working information channels between "developed" and "developing" worlds - let's make better use of them. Let's "rub minds" to create sustainable, resiliant communites in rural Africa, using the best technological solutions we can come up with, combining local and international expertise. Then, as we get some local solutions that really work - let's adapt them and adopt them elsewhere as climate change and peak oil issues drive us all into new ways of living."</em><br />
<br />
<strong>More information from/on Pamela McLean's projects:</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>"For anyone who genuinely wants to collaborate and “rub minds” the story of the Ecodome at Attachab may be of interest <a href="http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecodome">http://www.dadamac.net/projects/ecodome</a>.</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>If anyone wants to get involved in this kind of collaboration please contact me to see how Dadamac can help (Dadamac is like a dating agency - but for knowledge. We help people to “meet” each other, communicate effectively, and move forward with their projects)</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>If you respond to this comment please do not rely on RSS feed from here but also send me a direct email to <strong>pamela.mclean@dadamac.net</strong>"</strong>Russia and the next long wave, and why its agricultural villages are importanttag:globalvillages.ning.com,2009-07-12:2029071:BlogPost:21072009-07-12T15:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
By Michel Bauwens, <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a><br />
<br />
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: This was the first in a series of external, global comments that will increasingly complement our interview in Regnum Magazine. I tag this with "ArchangelskChallenge". These comments are meant as a preparation and initial communication with Russian experts for figuring out the possible cooperation with Global Villages Network. I would like to invite all members of our…</i>
By Michel Bauwens, <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a><br />
<br />
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: This was the first in a series of external, global comments that will increasingly complement our interview in Regnum Magazine. I tag this with "ArchangelskChallenge". These comments are meant as a preparation and initial communication with Russian experts for figuring out the possible cooperation with Global Villages Network. I would like to invite all members of our network to consider if they have a piece and perspective to add to this mosaic.</i><br />
<br />
With the assistance of Franz Nahrada and Gleb Tyurin, a later version of this text has been translated into Russian where it is part of a debate about the renewal of policies after the meltdown, see the Regnum version <a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/1181953.html" target="_blank">here</a>. <a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/1181953.html" target="_blank">Россия и следующая долгая волна, или почему так важны сельские территории</a><br />
<br />
This essay consists of two parts. The first part is a general presentation of the nature of the present crisis, and how we can realistically expect a renewed period of growth. Second, what this could mean in the context of Russia, with special attention to the role of rural regions in general and villages in particular in this process of renewal.<br />
<br />
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2117096389?profile=original" alt="" width="319" height="467"/></p>
<br />
<b><u>Part One: Understanding the Present Crisis</u></b><br />
<br />
<b>The Nature of the Present Crisis</b><br />
<br />
My understanding of the present crisis is inspired by the works on long waves by Kondratieff, and how it has been updated in particular by Carlota Perez, in her work: Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. This work has recently been updated and re-interpreted by Badalian and Krovorotov.<br />
<br />
The essential understanding of these approaches that economic history can be understood as a series of long waves of technological development, embedded in a particular supportive institutional framework. These long waves inevitably end up in crisis, in a Sudden System Shock, a sign that the old framework is no longer operative.<br />
<br />
Why is that so?<br />
<br />
These waves have a certain internal logic. They start with a period of gestation, in which the new technology is established, creates enthusiasm and bubbles, but cannot really emerge because the institutional framework still reflects older realities. This is followed by a period of maturation, marked by institutional adaptation, massive investment by the state, and productive investment by business, leading to a growth cycle. Finally, a period of decline and saturation, in which the state retreats, business investments become parasitic, leading to a contraction cycle with speculative financial bubbles, which ends in a Sudden Systemic Shock (1797, 1847, 1893, 1929 or 2008).<br />
<br />
To understand the current period, some dates are important: <br/>
*1929 as the Sudden Systemic Shock ending the previous long wave<br/>
*1929-1945: gestation period of the new system<br/>
*1945-1973: maturation period, the high days of the Fordist system based on cheap domestic oil in the US <br/>
*1973: inflationary oil shock, leading to outward globalization but also speculative investment and the downward phase ending in the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_globalization" target="_blank">Economic globalization</a> attempts to filter politics from the word, neoliberlism. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_consensus" target="_blank">Washington Consensus</a> is another filter for the same phenomena. <br/>
<br />
<b>Sudden Systemic Shock of 1929 << 2008?</b><br />
<br />
The important thing is this, every long wave of appr. 50-60 years has been based on a combination of different structural developments in production and distribution. Whilst modern economics is totally focusing on the monetary side of things, the crisis is only explainable if we also look on the physical side.<br />
<br />
So each long wave cycle was an interplay of<br />
<br />
1) <i>a new form of energy</i> (f.e. the UK domination was based on coal, the US domination was based on oil); in the beginning of a new wave, the newly dominant power has particular privileged access to a cheap domestic supply, which funds its dominance; when that cheap supply dries up, a (inflationary) crisis ensues, which forces that power outwards, to look for new supplies in the rest of the world. This results in both dynamic globalization, but also in the awakening of a new periphery. Because the last phase is linked to globalization and the control of external energy supplies, it is also strongly correlated to military overstretch, which is a crucial factor in weakening the dominance of the main player.<br />
<br />
2) <i>some radical technological innovations</i> (no more than 3 according to the authors); The 3 last ones: 1830: Steam and railways • 1870: Heavy engineering • 1920: Automotive and mass production<br />
<br />
3) <i>a new ‘hyper-productive’ way to ‘exploit the territory’</i>; This is where land use comes in. In the last period: industrial agriculture and the ‘Green Revolution’ where responsible for a hyper-productive agriculture. This latter phase of a long wave cycle is also marked by hyper-exploitation of existing land base. The example of the dust bowl in the American mid-West is an example. This leads to new methods of land-use that can be used to develop new types of land for the next up cycle.<br />
<br />
4) an <i>appropriate financial system</i>: the new public companies, New Deal type investments (such as the Marshall Plan) in the growth cycle phase, morphing into the parasitic investments of casino capitalism in the second phase. Importantly, Badalian and Krovorotov note that each new financial system was more socialized than the previous one, for example the joint stock company allowing a multitude of shareholders to invest.<br />
<br />
In the growth phase, the newly expanded financial means fund the large infrastructural investments needed to create the new integrated accumulation engine; in the declining phase, the financial system overshoots the capabilities of the productive economy, becomes separated from it, and starts investing in parasitic investments. At that point financial capital tends to be disruptive to production to maintain capitalization.<br />
<br />
5) <i>a particular social contrac</i>t. Here also, we can see waves of more intensive ‘socialization’. For example, the Fordist social contract created the mass consumer in the first phase, based on social peace with labour, while in the second parasitic phase, the part going to worker’s was drastically reduced, but replaced by a systemic indebtedness, leading to the current Sudden System Shock.<br />
<br />
6) As we mentioned above, each wave has been dominated by a particular great political power as well, and in the second phase of expansion, a new periphery is awakened, creating the seeds for a future wave of dominance by new players.<br />
<br />
<b>Roots of the current crisis</b><br />
<br />
It is important not to forget the essential characteristics of the contraction cycle: what enables growth in a first phase, becomes an unproductive burden in the second, declining phase of the wave.<br />
<br />
If we review the 6 factors, it’s easy to see where the problems are:<br />
<br />
1) <i>The era of abundant fossil fuels is coming to an end</i>; after Peak Oil, oil is bound to become more and more expensive, making oil-based production uneconomical. Nuclear Power is no real replacement for this, as its own raw material is equally subject to depletion.<br />
<br />
2) The era of mass production, based on the car, requires a too heavy environmental burden to be sustainable.<br />
<br />
3) Industrial agriculture destroys the very soils that it uses and is mainly based on depletable petroleum-derivates, while being unsustainably energy-intensive.<br />
<br />
4) The financial system is broken and the $10 trillion bailout drains productive investments towards unproductive parasitic investments. Similarly to a losing gambler in a casino, existing players will tend to play for higher and higher stakes hoping to undo their inevitable defeat, thereby destroying valuable means that could be used for the productive economy.<br />
<br />
5) The Fordist social contract, broken in the 80s, has led to the increased weakening of the Western middle class and a generalized precarity, which no longer functions after Sudden System Shock.<br />
<br />
6) The old dominant power, the U.S. can no longer afford its dominance, and has awakened the periphery. The powers that see the opportunity to compete are looking for new societal structures that help them emerge. They cannot rely on the strategies of the dying long wave to achieve these goals, but must invent new ones.<br />
<br />
Seeds of the new<br />
<br />
1) The technology for renewable energy has been developed, but needs at least $150b annual investments in the U.S. alone, in order to become economical. A Green New Deal would jumpstart the new energy era. The wasteful heavy energy usage of the fossil fuel era will need to be replaced by smart precision-based energy usage. Solar energy will be the backbone of renewables but can be supplemented by other forms.<br />
<br />
2) The era of mass production is ready to be replaced by more local production in small series, based on developments such as flexible and rapid prototyping based manufacturing, mass customization, personal fabrication and additive fabrication, multi-purpose machinery. This flexible system of manufacturing is faster, cheaper, more adaptive, more compatible with the solar and renewable energy, can only thrive by deepening participative engagement, thus requiring the re-awakening of production intelligence and personal initiative that were discouraged by the various forms of the industrial system, including the systems based on central planning.<br />
<br />
3) Post-industrial organic agriculture has already proven more productive than destructive industrial agriculture, but needs to be generalized; land use needs to be re-expanded within cities where vertical agriculture can be developed more intensively. This form of agriculture uses diversity as its backbone and works with the most sophisticated feedback cycles of nature. It saves also human labour time.<br />
<br />
4) The seeds of the new financial system, based on increased socialization towards civil society, have been developed in the last few decades:<br/>
a) sovereign wealth funds re-insert the public good in investment decisions;<br/>
b) Islamic banking and similar mechanisms avoids the hyper-leveraging that destroyed the Wall Street system;<br/>
c) microfinance broadens entrepreneurship and financing to the ‘base of the pyramid’;<br/>
d) crowdfunding mechanisms, social lending and various credit commons approaches expand the availability of credit;<br/>
e) flow money approaches through a circulation charge to discourage parasitic investments<br />
<br />
5) The periphery of newly emergent countries has been awakened and will in all likelihood lead to a dominance of the East-Asian region. However, opportunities for other emergent players are still open, providing they find the appropriate local integration of the productive resources of the new long wave. In this context, we can see the emerging success of Brazil, while Russia has its enormous landmass as immense and under-exploited productive resource.<br />
<br />
<b>Peer to peer and the new social contract</b><br />
<br />
A new long phase has been historically associated with an upsurge of the role of the state and the public sector, which alone can undertake the necessary investments which private investment cannot take up in the early phases.<br />
<br />
However, we need to be aware of one of the fundamental characteristics of the new period, <i>which is a revival of the role of civil society.</i> The internet is enabling the self-aggregation of civil society forces in the creation of common value, i.e. through peer production. Global communities have shown themselves capable to be hyper-productive in the creation of complex knowledge products, free and open source software, and increasingly, open design associated with distributed manufacturing.<br />
<br />
This means that a <i>hybrid form of production</i> has emerged that combines the existence of global self-managed open design communities, for-benefit associations in the form of Foundations which manage the infrastructure of cooperation, and an ecology of associated businesses which benefit and contribute from this commons-based peer production.<br />
<br />
<b>(In Russia, the earlier dominance of centralized planning with the destructive effects of neoliberal shock therapy, have led to a relatively under-developed civil society. This however, opens the opportunity for the Russian state to play the role of the enabler of such processes. The lead that the Russian authorities have already undertaken in the development of free and open source software shows that it is entirely possible to envisage a pro-active role in this respect. What needs to be understood is that the pattern to promote software development can be generalized to the promotion of open design development, including applications in the field of farming and land use.)</b><br />
<br />
These companies, which enable and empower the social production of value, have become the seeds for the dominant companies of the future (Google, eBay, etc… ). Companies will need to open up to co-design and co-creation, while the distribution (miniaturization) of the means of physical production, liberates the possibilities for smaller more localized production units to play more essential roles.<br />
<br />
We believe that the role of solely profit driven multinational companies, without any roots in local communities, is reaching its historical end, and will be replaced increasingly by new models of entities combining profit with the realization of social and public goods. Socially-conscious investment, sovereign wealth funds, micro-finance, social entrepreneurship, fair trade and the emergence of for-benefit entities point to this new institutional future of entrepreneurship. For the state form, this means morphing from the welfare or neoliberal state models, to that of the <b>Partner State</b>, which enables and empowers social production.<br />
<br />
++++<br />
<br />
The new social contract therefore will mean:<br />
<br />
1) Expanding entrepreneurship to civil society and the base of the pyramid<br />
<br />
2) New institutions that do well by doing good<br />
<br />
3) Social financing mechanisms based on peer to peer aggregation<br />
<br />
4) Mechanisms that sustain social innovation (co-design, co-creation) and peer production by civil society<br />
<br />
5) Focus on more localized precision-based physical production in small series, but linked to global open design communities<br />
<br />
Less discussed but also important is the <b>spiritual dimension</b>. Because post-industrial development is akin to pre-industrial development in its attention to the ‘immaterial’ aspects of development, (as well as localization and the stress on land-use) it connects back to the traditional pre-modern value systems, which are still very much alive in large parts of the world. Examples of this are the success of Islamic banking, the revival of Buddhist economics in the Himalayan belt (including the royally-inspired self-sufficiency economics in Thailand), all of which point to this connection with what we could call ‘neo-traditional economics’. Such neo-traditional economics, a critical reworking of a country’s traditions, in the light of all the achievements and failures of (post)modernity, can create the conditions for culturally acceptable local adaptations of the new growth regime.<br />
<br />
<u><b>Part Two: The potential for Russia and the role of the rural heartland</b></u><br />
<br />
Russia has particular strengths which could be used in the coming period.<br />
<br />
1) Though the fossil energy period is coming to an end, its own access to these increasingly rare materials will be very valuable in the transitional period, provided this period is used to actively develop its replacements<br />
<br />
2) Russia has an enormous intake on solar energy, increased by global warming, abounds with equally enormous amounts of biomass and has the worlds largest land reserve for decentralized development.<br />
<br />
3) It’s disastrous experience with neoliberal shock therapy has led to a revival and reprofessionalization of an active state apparatus which can be used for the necessary investments, fueled by the financing from the remaining fossil fuels, provided it can be combined with the energy and passion of the active elements of civil society.<br />
<br />
4) Russia is strategically located between developed Europe and the dynamic East-Asian region – can draw strength from cooperation on both sides.<br />
<br />
5) Russia can draw on its tradition of mass quality education to create the massive numbers of knowledge workers that the new period requires<br />
<br />
According to Badalian and Krivorotov, new ways of intensive land use are critical to usher in a new productive long wave. Industrial agriculture based on petroleum derivatives which destroy the very soil on which they are used, are no long term solution for post-industrial agricultural development.<br />
<br />
The solution would point in the following direction.<br />
<br />
With the easy availability of carbon-based fossil fuels, it made sense to bombard the productive process with massive but wasteful energy usage, which has been the hallmark of the ‘western industrial method’. However, there is an alternative which will be particularly appropriate in the coming period. This alternative is based on the use of ‘smart renewable energy’, i.e. precision agriculture. Such agriculture would require intensive knowledge of the natural habitat, something which agricultural workers naturally possess, but interconnected with global open farming communities, so that knowledge can be exchanged on a permanent basis. In this way, the global knowledge of farming, can be applied to any locality.<br />
<br />
This option would require the setting up of <b>Global Villages</b>, which combine local production, with deep interconnection through universal broadband. One of the problems of rural villages in the industrial era, is that such villages were isolated, and that dynamic young people wanted to leave for the cities, creating a permanent brain drain. But this no longer has to be the case. With contemporary internetworked technologies, farmers can be connected not just to world culture in general, but can closely work together with farmers facing similar situations and productive solutions can quickly move from one place to another, after being shared and experimented. The state could set up centers of expertise which would facilitate such processes. In this way, the productivity of agriculture would be significantly enhanced, and a non-isolated rural life would become a much more interesting proposition than in the previous period. If the Russian heartland can be successfully connected with global communities of machine engineers, a new wave of precision-based agricultural machinery could be developed, using renewable energies as fuel base.<br />
<br />
Since land use has been so instrumental in past long waves, we should expect it to be very important for creating the conditions of the growth cycles of the new long wave, and such agricultural policy would be an essential and important part of the necessary reforms which would bring Russia to the path of a new dynamic period of growth and well-being. If an integrated policy of financing, education, universal broadband would be set up to support such rural ‘global villages’, a vibrant revitalization of the Russian heartland would occur. This productive renaissance would be greatly enhanced in combination with a renaissance of the traditional spiritual values embodied by the Orthodox Church, whose dynamic elements would be part and parcel of a rethinking towards optimal local practices that are in harmony with the local environments.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
Bibliography<br />
<br />
• TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS AND FINANCIAL CAPITAL. The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages. Carlota Perez. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, 2002 • Badalian L., Krivorotov V., “Technological shift and the rise of a new finance system: the market-pendulum model”, European Journal of Economic and Social Systems, Vol. 21, No. 2, 2008, p. 231-264.<br />
<br />
• P2P Bibliography of Michel Bauwens: http://p2pfoundation.net/Bibliography_of_Michel_Bauwens. Retrieved May 25, 2009 • P2P-based agricultural developments: updates via http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Agriculture . Retrieved May 25, 2009Aiden Lloyd: The Irish model has much in common with Archangelsk experiencetag:globalvillages.ning.com,2009-07-11:2029071:BlogPost:20812009-07-11T18:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: This is the second external comment in our "Archangelsk Challenge" series, and it is written from a sound base of experience with community development in Ireland</i><br />
<br />
<b>Interview with Aiden Lloyd who works with POBAL (Irish agency that manages local development programmes on behalf of the Irish Government and the EU).To be published in REGNUM magazine, Russia</b><br />
<br />
<p style="text-align: left;"><img alt="" height="396" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2117096734?profile=original" width="295"></img></p>
<p style="text-align:left">AidenLloyd,POBAL <i>
Franz…</i></p>
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: This is the second external comment in our "Archangelsk Challenge" series, and it is written from a sound base of experience with community development in Ireland</i><br />
<br />
<b>Interview with Aiden Lloyd who works with POBAL (Irish agency that manages local development programmes on behalf of the Irish Government and the EU).To be published in REGNUM magazine, Russia</b><br />
<br />
<p style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2117096734?profile=original" alt="" width="295" height="396"/></p>
<p style="text-align:left">AidenLloyd,POBAL
<i><br />
Franz Nahrada and Gleb Tyurin in their interview to the Russian information Agency REGNUM came up with their vision of a postindustrial future of rural areas and offered new approach to international cooperation in the sphere of community development. They offered to combine international efforts and information exchange to promote new pilot places of advanced development (starting with Archangelsk region in the North of Russia). It is an important incentive, as it necessary to promote new forms of cross-border exchanges in the sphere of community development.</i><br />
<br />
<b>In terms of the focus of our work in Russia is there important learning that can be applied from your experience?</b><br />
<br />
Naturally, there are different national contexts and particular peculiarities but we have much in common, and operating as we do in modern industrial societies with all the issues that we face, it is right to say that we are in one boat. Looking at the situation in different countries, I am struck by the similarity between the conditions that appear to contribute to success and by the common obstacles and problems that act as a barrier to development. We really can and should learn from each other in order not to waste time and money and to get more understanding from shared experiences.<br />
<br />
Rural development first of all is about changes. Demographic trends and changes in food production policy at global and European level have in turn brought about changes in rural societies and rural economies. The drift of population from rural to urban centres continues as people seek better earning opportunities and a better lifestyle for their families. As a result the level of services and opportunity for social interface also declines in rural areas. Food production has also become more centralized and has gradually been integrated into the flows of the market economy.<br />
<br />
Implementing rural development initiatives that can engage with these forces and build socially and economically sustainable rural communities is a challenge. Introducing a momentum for social change to communities whose viability is threatened, and whose expectations are rooted in a different era is a very core issue, but one that is crucial in order to stop decline and destruction of rural areas and to overcome impoverishment and alienation. It is not an easy task and all I can do is share some of my ideas from the Irish perspective. I hope it can be useful.<br />
<br />
<b>The Irish perspective</b><br />
<br />
Ireland has a long history of community development. There is a tradition of cooperative and collective working from earliest times. But we can say that modern community development started in Ireland at the beginning of the 1970s and it was stimulated through the introduction of European Anti-poverty Programmes. Ireland had a number of these programmes and they focused on trying to cope with rural and urban decline, unemployment, poverty arising from lack of income, discrimination and social injustices. In rural areas there was a focus on rural migration and other striking problems within rural areas, such as poor services – school, healthcare, transport etc. Although these projects made some impact and were helpful in developing models of work it was difficult to see meaningful outcomes that were bringing about fundamental changes in people’s lives.<br />
<br />
Attempts to analyze why was it so, led to a deeper understanding, <b><i>especially to the realization that when people were given everything from above, while it helped, it didn’t change things</i></b>. It was necessary to involve people and to make them active players in the process. And it meant focusing on bringing about deep structural changes: changing the institutional arrangements that governed the way things got done and changing the roles and perceptions of key actors. It was necessary to build a new model – a partnership of stakeholders, agencies, business people, trade unions and, most importantly, local community activists . Only when this happened did we manage to take a step forward.<br />
<br />
As a result of this, the third Anti-Poverty Programme at the beginning of 1990s introduced the concept of a regional partnership approach. This partnership approach was then embedded as a national model for local development and anti-poverty work in Ireland as part of the Community Support Framework funded under the Structural Funds. And it was fairly successful in Ireland. It became a real Irish model. The Organisation for Economic Cooperative Development (OECD) regarded it as a very successful model and promoted it in their member states. It could be shaped for Russia and would appear to fit very well towards the conditions and issues which you describe in rural regions of Russia. In any case it should be studied and taken into consideration.<br />
<br />
<b>What is the Irish model, and what can we say about partnerships?</b><br />
<br />
Partnership is a consortium in which state institutions, business, trade unions, farming organizations and local communities combine their efforts in order to promote real changes in disadvantaged urban and rural areas. They have to work together, <i>as there is no single actor or agency that can on its own address all the problems of rural areas.</i> Each partner is really important as each brings their own specific abilities, resources and insights. Partnership unifies all these resources and applies sufficient critical mass to impact on problems, to force real change. We believe that in these partnership consortia communities should play the first violin, be the lead agent. They have to take the main role because sustainable ongoing development of rural areas requires a fostering of this ownership. The tools that make this happen are involvement and empowerment which enables people to be initiators and leaders.<br />
<br />
<b>The new role of Government</b><br />
<br />
Sometimes it is not easy for representatives of authorities to understand partnership concepts; they are used to perceiving themselves as the main mandated players, and they are accustomed to supervising everything. But it is very important to accept that rural development can’t be provided by government agencies and authorities alone. By their very nature developmental processes are holistic and require enabling rather than directives. Decades of practice have proved it. Authorities can arrange a lot of activities, make decisions, start programmes, but without the fostering of a wider ownership many of them became self justifying items of expenditure and, when measured impartially, show no real impact. <i>A top down approach doesn’t work</i>. This lesson has been learned everywhere and applies to all countries. It is an important lesson to be borne in mind when planning.<br />
<br />
<i>Changes came about when governments became a partner.</i> They provided the basic framework of objectives, main focus, target groups etc. They also provided the monies means, but didn’t assume a right or authority. When authorities make all the decisions they have a need to justify their decisions. Outcomes get blurred and communities remain just the passive objects of the exercise. But when communities are involved and have a say in what gets done, where it gets done and how it gets done they become a force capable of implementing it all.<br />
<br />
In addition, it is a huge benefit for authorities because things work, the actions fulfill the objectives and communities benefit. So that’s what has to change. Sometimes authorities can not believe - or can not even imagine - that the population of marginal and excluded rural areas can be effectively involved into the development process. If we are agents of change <b><i>then we need to assist authorities into this new role</i></b>. Condemning them for there intransigence will change nothing, so they have to be encouraged to take risks, sometime small steps need to be taken until trust and confidence is built.<br />
<br />
<b>The need for a Development Agency</b><br />
<br />
Development agencies are an absolute necessity. This is another important lesson: rural development requires development agencies - teams of people who can work professionally and apply themselves in a coherent and thought-out way to issues of local development. That’s what Gleb Tyurin did in Archangelsk region in creating a new reality for Russia. Someone has to involve and inspire people in the countryside to get them united and enabled to make shifts, to move things. This development infrastructure has to be able to bring inspiration, drive, belief and knowledge. It means special work with the population, making a catalytic intervention. This enables a special shift to take place inside communities. We can compare these agency interventions with hubs in digital networks. Each hub creates actions that contribute to significant positive change and becomes attached to another hub, thus building a network of developers capable of creating widespread innovative actions. As a result we have a set of interconnected agencies that work.<br />
<br />
POBAL, where I work, is one of the key development agencies in Ireland. It was set up by the Irish Government and the European Commission in 1991 to promote community development and local development. It manages some €400M per year of state and EU funding implemented through a range of programmes and initiatives. There are other organizations where stakeholder interests are united through networks like the Community Workers Co-Operative, the rural link network, housing association networks etc. These hubs play absolutely crucial roles as they provide knowledge, skills and know-how to actors on the ground. This is what enables people to initiate and sustain changes. Knowledge and skills development is what moves everything along and these networks and agencies provide a vehicle for that to happen. As Nelson Mandela contends: <b><i>education is the driver of change.</i></b> If you look at really successful models of local and regional development it all starts with education. That’s where it gets started and that what allows it to grow.<br />
<br />
<b>Good Practises: The Case of <a href="http://www.connemara.ie/" target="_blank">Conemara</a></b><br />
<br />
We can find very good examples of positive rural development actions in Ireland. Sometimes these projects bring new activities because they operate out of a widened sense of imagination. For example, in the Western part of Ireland in County Galway there is a village called Letterfrack where Conemara West operates. Hugely significant progress was achieved in a very small village and hinterland. It used to be a small settlement with almost nothing in terms of development activity in the area and outward population movement.<br />
<br />
Conemara West provided the context to bring people together to develop the area. They built holiday homes for renting to create jobs and stimulate local economic activity. This gave them the confidence to move on to a more ambitious project, the creation of a furniture design centre. They started a furniture design school and eventually got university status. They have established a centre of excellence that is sought out by students across Europe and created many stable and permanent jobs. It is something nobody could even imagine at the start of the initiative.<br />
<br />
<b>From Farming to Adding Value</b><br />
<br />
In the Archangelsk experience most projects are concentrated on farming, or let’s say part time farming.<br />
In Ireland we try to sustain part-time farming as well as small production of selected food items - cheese, jams etc. Another important area of activity is promotion of small enterprises such as fashion industries producing tweed or linen. Tweed is a particular cloth made from sheep’s wool. It is a traditional tailoring cloth in Ireland and in some places people work on producing fashion items. There are also associated jobs created through the processing of wool and so on. There is a long tradition of promoting the development of tourism. While there are limitations to tourism – it creates seasonal and low paid jobs and profits tend to accumulate among a few local business owners – it does also creates jobs and does stimulate certain economic activity.<br />
<br />
Most of these enterprises are very small, employing three or four people, but they constitute a variety of activity in these areas and many do very well. They contribute to the creation of local markets and regenerate the production of food locally, in a context where people are more discerning in their choice of food – reflecting concerns about healthy eating and the use of chemicals in mass food production.<br />
<br />
Certainly they are based on technologies, often advanced modern technologies (digital or linked to computers). But it is small technology that people are comfortable to use such as the micro technologies for small scale production of special select beers, smoked fish, micro bakeries etc.<br />
<br />
And there are growing local opportunities. For example, there is a growing demand for quality food. People are fed up with mass produced tasteless food and the organic market concept is becoming popular and is growing.<br />
<br />
We need to think in terms of tangible things that are meaningful to the forces of supply (producers) and demand (consumers). We also need to create jobs so people can stay in the area and generate some kind of local economy, that’s what makes people stakeholders in their local area. But this to a very big extent depends on local democracy, and the participation and the stage of development of a local community. People think about creating viable and sustainable villages but this is only possible when there are equal opportunities within communities. This is what partnerships can help to promote.<br />
<br />
I really wish success to all those promoting and assisting community development in Russia. I wish success to the initiatives taken by the Institute in which Gleb Tyurin works and to the Global Village network. I hope that greater links are established between Irish and Russian communities in the pursuit of knowledge and mutual learning. Links is very important in promoting new thinking.<br />
<br />
With new technology it is possible to arrange video bridges between communities in Ireland and Archangelsk region (or any other region in Russia). In this way we can establish exchange of knowledge and experience.<br />
<br />
I wish you success in your work, bearing in mind that the biggest challenge is the mind set of people. If they see no hope, can’t see the horizon, as often happens, there is not the slightest hope for the village or community. But if we manage to create hope and vision, things will change.</p>Interview in Regnum Magazine (Russia) together with Gleb Tyurintag:globalvillages.ning.com,2009-05-08:2029071:BlogPost:14832009-05-08T08:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: A very comprehensive Interview that appeared in REGNUM magazine on the16th of February 2009 and opened a discussion space that all members of this<br />
network are called to contribute to. The title is overtly opimistic, the decision<br />
has not really been made yet, and it is also not clear how much this network is able to really evolve into a supportive entity. Therefore I call it the "Archangelsk Challenge".</i><br />
<br />
<b>Archangelsk region will help Russia introduce new social…</b>
<i>Comment Franz Nahrada: A very comprehensive Interview that appeared in REGNUM magazine on the16th of February 2009 and opened a discussion space that all members of this<br />
network are called to contribute to. The title is overtly opimistic, the decision<br />
has not really been made yet, and it is also not clear how much this network is able to really evolve into a supportive entity. Therefore I call it the "Archangelsk Challenge".</i><br />
<br />
<b>Archangelsk region will help Russia introduce new social technologies</b><br />
<a href="http://www.regnum.ru/news/1125332.html" target="_blank">Архангельская область может помочь России внедрять информационные технологии в соцсферу: Интервью</a><br />
<br />
On February 12th, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spoke in the Kremlin<br />
for broader application of information technologies in Russian life. He<br />
said that progress is not possible without new information technologies,<br />
neither in science nor in management. The primary tasks include<br />
establishing e-government and fostering digital society. An IA REGNUM<br />
correspondent discusses how to do this effectively with Franz Nahrada,<br />
the leader of GLOBAL VILLAGES NETWORK, an international network of<br />
experts and innovators. Franz Nahrada is joined by Gleb Tyurin, Director<br />
of the Institute for Social and Humanistic Initiatives.<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
>REGNUM: Mr. Nahrada, we are glad to meet you again. Continuation of<br />
our interview was postponed for more than two months. Why was that?<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Before our conversation, I wanted to get a reply from the<br />
leadership of Archangelsk region in order to understand how Governor<br />
Michalchuk is treating our proposals and what we can talk about.<br />
<br />
<br />
>REGNUM: Did you hear from the governor of Archangelsk region?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Yes, the answer has come. It was signed by Vice Governor<br />
Mr. Sergey Molchansky. The letter informed about current work on<br />
sustainable development of rural areas in Archangelsk region. It said<br />
that the Administration of Archangelsk region is interested in<br />
cooperation and is ready to support the undertakings which I wrote<br />
about. In particular it was mentioned: "Let me assure you that we are<br />
interested to develop rural territories and are ready to render support<br />
in arranging this work in Archangelsk region".<br />
<br />
<br />
>REGNUM: So we can conclude that Archangelsk region is ready to become<br />
an international pilot project of rural development?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: As far as I understand that was exactly the meaning. So,<br />
it seems that indeed there is a movement or interest to make Archangelsk<br />
region an international focal point for innovative rural development.<br />
While at the same time I would say that we have got only very<br />
preliminary consent on what it means. We need to go on discussing and<br />
formulating what can be done. I hope the Administration of Archangelsk<br />
region will come forward with its own vision. I think that for the<br />
beginning we need to create a joint understanding what is rural<br />
development, what is it about, what kind of process is that.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: Let's talk about that.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Ok. I invited Gleb Tyurin, Director of the Institute for<br />
Social and Humanistic Initiatives in Archangelsk to take part in our<br />
conversation. He created that notable experience of rural development in<br />
Archangelsk region. His books inspired many people in many countries. He<br />
knows what is going on with rural development in Russia and he will<br />
carry out practical work in Russian villages. Together it will be easier<br />
for us to formulate practical approaches towards rural development.<br />
<br />
<br />
We are talking about rural development, about development of a place.<br />
There is a certain place, a certain territory, a village, settlement or<br />
district. There is a village as a locality and it has to live, it has to<br />
go on developing.<br />
<br />
<br />
Importance of locality<br />
<br />
REGNUM: Is it truly important? Do we need locality to go on living and<br />
developing?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: It is extremely important. Locality is turning into the<br />
omen or pivot of our time. Localities have to thrive (and local markets<br />
have to develop) in order that regions might thrive. Modern crisis shows<br />
it again with its inexorable logic. If most of the goods which are<br />
consumed in your region are imported, and most of the goods you produce<br />
are taken out, then recession in external markets will doubtless crash<br />
production and consumption in your region. And this decline can be<br />
catastrophic. At the same time, local markets which consume local goods<br />
will become one of the main safety nets and universal economic chaos<br />
will not affect you as it will others.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: That's why a new movement around relocalization has been<br />
growing in America for last years. It is a strategy focused on the local<br />
production of food, energy and goods. Relocalization has the aim to<br />
strengthen local markets, local self-governance and local culture. And<br />
it works. They not only write about it in newspapers or websites.<br />
Hundreds and thousands of small communities, counties put it into<br />
practice. Millions of people are involved in this work. In a number of<br />
countries they advocate that food should be brought from a distance of<br />
not more than one hundred miles.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada : The same approach can be seen in many countries: Canada,<br />
Great Britain, Chile, Serbia, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, Kenya. A<br />
movement for local development has appeared in many countries. People<br />
have taken into consideration that they need to make their life more<br />
local. I they want it to be safer and more successful. This does not<br />
mean destruction of global (distant) links. It means that global links<br />
have to acquire absolutely new meaning, a new sense. It means that we<br />
need to build a new big world which is a union and coexistence of a big<br />
number of small communities.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: We can see it also in Russian reality. Today every<br />
responsible politician (governor or mayor) is for enlarging the role of<br />
local production, enlarging consumption of local products. For example,<br />
Archangelsk Governor Michalchuk is standing strongly for that. The<br />
significance of these efforts is growing.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: So, locality and local issues have again become political<br />
agenda. One cannot not think about them, it is not possible not to work<br />
with them. But we have to realize that development of local areas (and<br />
rural areas in particular) is not an easy task. It needs a lot of<br />
comprehensive changes, basic changes.<br />
<br />
<br />
We can't achieve anything if we shall go on supporting the state of<br />
things which existed before. We need to be realists. We can't rejuvenate<br />
the local markets in the way they existed before. We can't maintain the<br />
village in the way it existed before. If everything will remain just the<br />
same as it used to be before, locality will not be able to resist the<br />
huge flood of mass production since there is no systemic balance. Most<br />
of the local production schemes are still archaic, not efficient, not<br />
able to compete even locally. They need to be redesigned, built anew and<br />
on new basis.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: In previous decades, we lived in an industrial society<br />
which was constantly enlarging production, destroying all these small<br />
places, villages, small towns, and moving people to urban areas. Mass<br />
production has become absolutely dominant. It has created mighty and<br />
super-efficient infrastructures of promotion and distribution of goods:<br />
malls and supermarkets in cities, rapid logistics, appealing<br />
presentation. It therefore conquered all local markets, even the<br />
smallest ones. Look at the shelves in any countryside shop in any<br />
country. You will see that they are piled up with imported mass<br />
products. They are usually not local.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Rural areas have become areas of non-compatibility,<br />
poverty. They have lost their own production facilities and markets and<br />
can't even maintain their human resources, as the young generation<br />
normally is leaving. So there seem to be no productive forces.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: That's why the main questions are: How can we enlarge the<br />
ability of rural areas to compete? How can we overcome rural poverty?<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: Maybe it is better instead to ask, How to make rural areas<br />
rich? How to create a specific modern way of becoming rich? In order to<br />
stop being poor, people in villages need to make new ways of creating<br />
wealth and abundance the rationale of village life.<br />
<br />
<br />
But what is wealth now? One of those famous modern thinkers, Roberta<br />
Verzola from the Philippines, recently wrote that wealth is based on two<br />
things: the ability of nature to reproduce itself (fertility) and the<br />
infinite ingenuity of human knowledge, which is in fact based on the<br />
sharing of information. We do have Nature. But knowledge (information)<br />
is playing now the absolutely leading, revolutionary role.<br />
<br />
<br />
Today, in every element of economic wealth, in successful commodities,<br />
knowledge is occupying a very essential part, sometimes the main part.<br />
For example, software is almost pure knowledge, pure information. It is<br />
just digits which are arranged in a certain way and linked by the<br />
capabilities of a computer.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Knowledge has changed the world. Although many say we<br />
live in a knowledge society, we don't estimate it properly in its sheer<br />
dimension. It is snowballing with huge speed. It brings new changes<br />
constantly. Change is the main feature of modernity. Modern development<br />
is constant change based on knowledge growth. Not all information is<br />
bringing development, but that which changes the way of using resources<br />
and brings new possibilities. The most valuable information is<br />
manifested in technological improvements. Modern abundance is based on<br />
technologies and knowledge which allows us to use technologies.<br />
<br />
<br />
That's why one more important question is: How to bring modern<br />
technologies and possibilities to rural areas? How to open up a rural<br />
economy of knowledge. Let's pay attention to the fact that the Russian<br />
"Program 2020" puts knowledge economy promotion as the main priority and<br />
asks what it means precisely for the village.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: Up until now, the widespread usage of modern technologies<br />
in rural localities was looked at as something totally impossible and<br />
unreal, as there was almost a monopoly of urbanity. But let's not forget<br />
one thing. Industrialization almost destroyed the charming ancient<br />
traditional system of knowledge which allowed rural areas to live up<br />
until the twentieth century. Peasants were part of nature and they knew<br />
a lot about how to handle nature. This tacit knowledge has almost all<br />
disappeared. No new knowledge system for rural localities appeared.<br />
Moreover, the village was excluded from any system of accumulating and<br />
leveraging information and knowledge. It was deprived of intellectual<br />
resources.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: The world split into cities that were technocratic,<br />
industrial and adaptive, and rural regions that were "lost in the past"<br />
where people could "only twist cow's nails". The city was the only<br />
environment where technologies could be leveraged and could thrive.<br />
Cities dominated and like a vacuum cleaner swallowed, sucked out human<br />
resources, destroying rural places. For decades and decades,<br />
technological developments led only to village destruction.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: But this all started to change. Further technological<br />
development pulled apart the limits of reality, stepped outside of<br />
cities, gave local places new possibilities. It started with the<br />
promotion of new agricultural technologies of mass production<br />
(agroindustrial production as it is called in Russian), which spread in<br />
the south of Russia and in other parts of the country. But mass<br />
production is not possible everywhere. What are we to do in other places?<br />
<br />
<br />
We are talking about brand new possibilities which can be brought almost<br />
to every one of these distant small settlements spread out far away..<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: Could you say more about these possibilities?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: They are in fact remarkable. There are plenty of them.<br />
They can give new breath to localities. But not many people know about<br />
them. And very few people can imagine how to use these possibilities.<br />
Let's talk about some of them.<br />
<br />
<br />
First. There are a number of new technologies which allow for local,<br />
human-sized, and at the same time compatible production. The rapid<br />
growth of digital technologies, and their application and combination<br />
with other techniques have caused a brand new situation. They became at<br />
the same time smaller in size, more productive and more accessible. They<br />
don't require huge factories any more. A few people (or one person) can<br />
produce them. The equipment can be moved and installed almost anywhere,<br />
even in a remote village or in the middle of a forest. It makes for<br />
small but efficient production. This equipment allows one to build a new<br />
local economy.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: For example, there are new types of compact transportable<br />
sawmills, which one can move to the forest and produce good quality<br />
desks right there. Using modern sewing machines, one can make dozens of<br />
complicated operations, including embroideries for t-shirts. We can<br />
provide many such examples in various spheres of life (and we'll return<br />
to that later).<br />
<br />
<br />
Alas, these opportunities are mostly not taken advantage of at all, and<br />
not because of lack of finances. The matter is lack of understanding,<br />
lack of knowledge, lack of information. Often people don't know about<br />
the opportunity. And even if somebody tells them about it, they do not<br />
know how to take a step forward.<br />
<br />
<br />
Many people can't even imagine it all. One can hear: "What kind of<br />
technologies can be used in our reality? What you are talking about?"<br />
Often local leaders think the same way.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Besides that, there are new technological and marketing<br />
opportunities for local food production. Certainly, it will not be able<br />
to replace mass production, but local producers can find new niches, can<br />
compete and develop. Local products do not contain all of these<br />
colorings, chemical fertilizers and other artificial ingredients, which<br />
in fact makes food dangerous and makes people in cities mad about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: There is growing demand for ecological clean natural<br />
(organic) food. In cities, people are ready to pay for natural organic<br />
local products. This can be turned into an essential asset for locality.<br />
And producers of different sizes can find niches here: from individuals<br />
who produce something just for neighbors, farmers, cooperatives, up to<br />
bigger producers. It can be kind of a movement in the line of ascent,<br />
starting with small homestead private production and then moving to<br />
different forms of cooperation. But it is important to create joint<br />
interest in the place, to build a combination of private interests. It<br />
is necessary to unite efforts in a way that enlarge forces and abilities.<br />
<br />
<br />
The main task today is not to sell food to cities, but to revive local<br />
markets. Food is often imported to many Russian rural areas. Aside from<br />
food, we can also think about other small scale production. And here we<br />
again need new technologies, including managerial and marketing<br />
technologies. The majority of villagers do not understand how to promote<br />
or advertise goods, how to set prices, how to diminish cost, etc.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: But we need to admit that in many of our villages you can find<br />
only elderly people. Who can bring changes and technologies to villages?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: Our time brings new possibilities of attracting people to<br />
rural areas. Some of them sound very unusual. We could not even imagine<br />
them until recently. Let's say there is a strata of people in cities who<br />
might become rural inhabitants. For example, there is a "generation<br />
which works at home". These people do not go to work (to an office),<br />
they work at home, and send the results of their work to the customer by<br />
way of the Internet. Among them we can find designers, engineers,<br />
accountants, consultants, staff for call centers, and people working<br />
with computer technologies. This list can be continued. These people<br />
communicate with their customers and get their orders in other cities,<br />
regions, countries, even continents. It is not necessary for them to<br />
live in cities as they "do not work where they live". They can live<br />
anywhere. Rural areas which want to develop can offer these people the<br />
possibility of a comfortable life in a village, without noise, stress,<br />
jams, in an ecological setting. These people can live as rural<br />
inhabitants, yet earn as if they were city dwellers.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: So rural areas could receive a slice of skilled people who<br />
before lived only in cities. They can create economic symbioses with<br />
farmers, buying services and food. These people can broaden local<br />
capabilities and create new rural intellectual human resources. Even a<br />
few new inhabitants who move from the city can open up brand new<br />
possibilities.<br />
<br />
<br />
But we also need to think how to bring back the young generation from<br />
the villages which moved to the cities. It is possible. But to make it<br />
happen one also needs to bring brand new technologies and build a new<br />
economy.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: But is it really possible that people will move to live in the<br />
countryside? Is it a story from a fantasy novel?<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: It is not a fantasy, it is coming true in many countries.<br />
In some places, it is an usual story, and in some others it is just<br />
starting. But it seems to be a growing tendency. Indeed, big cities are<br />
very problematic places to live. Many more people could move to rural<br />
areas, if they became microurban.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: We can find such examples in Russia also. There is the<br />
beginning of new colonization of the countryside and not only around<br />
Petersburg and Moscow. I know a dozen of persons from Moscow who say<br />
that they would like to move to any nice old village, as they are tired<br />
of the city and its crazy ecology. And here is one more modern<br />
development opportunity: development based on cultural heritage and<br />
recreational potential.<br />
<br />
<br />
Our times have developed a desire for authentic local traditions, local<br />
culture. Mass production homogenizes the planet. You can find the same<br />
trading centers, fast food, advertising everywhere. That's why real<br />
local flavor is bringing joy. It means a desire for keeping our<br />
locality, for preserving local peculiarity. Those local areas which keep<br />
the traditional local features have an essential asset for growth.<br />
<br />
<br />
Traditional landscapes add additional value to an area. They can become<br />
a background for specific landscape development and creating specific<br />
surroundings where people from cities would move. They can form the<br />
basis of one more important branch: rural tourism. This is a huge market<br />
and can also bring development possibilities. Archangelsk region has<br />
good perspectives in this direction. We have a large number of unique<br />
old villages.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: So, there are many different possibilities. They do<br />
exist. But we need to mention that these possibilities will not appear<br />
and will not take place by themselves. Special efforts, special programs<br />
are needed in order to make it all happen. Special people are needed,<br />
which will let it all be brought to reality. Everything starts with people.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: I suppose that many our readers will say that it is all is very<br />
doubtful. Many local inhabitants will hardly understand and accept these<br />
kind of ideas.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: That's true. And that is the main limitation. One of the<br />
main reasons why villages don't develop is that an absolute majority of<br />
the population doesn't see any possibility. They exist in a mental space<br />
which deprives them of any possibilities. Rural areas will not start to<br />
develop suddenly by themselves. We need people who will initiate changes.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: That's how it is. One of the main features of any rural<br />
society is its lack of ability to change. It is not ready for changes.<br />
It doesn't know how to create changes. As distinct from cities, where<br />
people are used to life changing all the time, rural inhabitants are<br />
used to live the same way year after year, decade after decade,<br />
generation after generation. But today the ability to change is<br />
absolutely crucial for survival.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: We need to develop this ability to change and create<br />
positive changes, this ability to be modern. Moreover, only innovative<br />
development will let rural areas stay alive. And we need special skills<br />
which bring innovative development to locality. First of all, we need to<br />
bring what in the Russian program 2020 (Putin's plan) is called the<br />
innovative development of population .<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: But it's terribly hard. There are doubts if it is possible in<br />
general.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: I think that the experience of the Institute of Social<br />
and Humanistic Initiatives created in Archangelsk region provides us<br />
with the absolute evidence that even in the most remote and unfortunate<br />
(almost destroyed) villages innovative behavior can be produced, and can<br />
show very high efficiency and highest return. That's why this experience<br />
is so attractive.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: Development is not delivery of money, as some officials<br />
think. Development is transmission of knowledge, know-how, skills, and<br />
delivery of knowledge which fosters the innovative behavior of citizens<br />
and community. That's what Putin and Medvedev designated as the<br />
strategic priorities of the country. And it is evident that this<br />
requires people who can work with that professionally, which is to say,<br />
professional "developers" or development agents. This requires people<br />
who can help to build development. Innovation, as I already mentioned,<br />
should be brought, adopted, showed, explained. It should be supervised<br />
and supported up to the moment when it becomes sustainable, unless<br />
somebody can innovate directly in daily practice. It should then be<br />
showed and promoted to others. And after that followers will appear.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada: And today we have to speak about a new profession: local<br />
development agents, who have special skills to come to any locality and<br />
help people unleash innovative projects and build bridges into the<br />
future. This profession is appearing at the same time in different<br />
countries. It still doesn't have a settled name. In Hungary, it is<br />
called mentors of the information society. In Austria, we call these<br />
people regional information coaches. In some places, they are called<br />
guides or trainers, facilitators, animators. But we know that their main<br />
task is to help local inhabitants see new possibilities and make changes<br />
step by step. We speak about Archangelsk region as a pilot area in rural<br />
development as it has real assets for developing this new profession and<br />
providing changes. It is a real asset of your region.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gleb Tyurin: I think that our region could make its own essential<br />
contribution into this program of innovative development.<br />
<br />
<br />
REGNUM: Let me thank you for this conversation. It happens to be large<br />
and not predictable. There are many more questions to ask. We did not<br />
touch on them. So let's return to them later.<br />
<br />
<br />
Franz Nahrada : With pleasure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
------------------------------------The Ultimate Purpose of GlobalVillages is Healthtag:globalvillages.ning.com,2009-01-19:2029071:BlogPost:6432009-01-19T07:30:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
I like that mantra, reiterated many times after Tony Gwilliam gave it to me in a garden in Ojai somewhen in the early 90ies. Tony is now enjoying a quite healthy circumstance in his <a href="http://www.bloolagoon.com/">Bloo Lagoon Village</a> in Bali. Still for many health issues we have to refuge to cities<br></br>
So it made me particularly happy that the linkages of the health community to Global Village issues is becoming stronger. I reccomend reading the recently published Interview of Claude…
I like that mantra, reiterated many times after Tony Gwilliam gave it to me in a garden in Ojai somewhen in the early 90ies. Tony is now enjoying a quite healthy circumstance in his <a href="http://www.bloolagoon.com/">Bloo Lagoon Village</a> in Bali. Still for many health issues we have to refuge to cities<br/>
So it made me particularly happy that the linkages of the health community to Global Village issues is becoming stronger. I reccomend reading the recently published Interview of Claude Lewenz in <a href="http://www.oxadox.com/article/mentalhealth/2009-01-18/29044.html">Oxadox, a health support site</a>. Global Villages as totally nurturing environments, mentally and physically, are no utopian dream any more. They are laid out in finer details every day. Thanks Claude, for being so visionary about it. And thanks to Robert Moskowitz for relaying this information.What are Global Villages?tag:globalvillages.ning.com,2008-11-29:2029071:BlogPost:3812008-11-29T08:00:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
GlobalVillages is an expression that some people "borrowed" (with expressed consent from Eric and Corinne McLuhan in 1998) from a very popular concept by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_village_(Internet)">MarshallMcLuhan</a>.<br />
<br />
We changed the notion, though. The McLuhans said this was fine because it was part of Marshalls Intention to show and play with this dialectic from virtual to real.<br />
<br />
For us, "Global Villages" are real settlements, physical neighbourhoods, that meet the…
GlobalVillages is an expression that some people "borrowed" (with expressed consent from Eric and Corinne McLuhan in 1998) from a very popular concept by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_village_(Internet)">MarshallMcLuhan</a>.<br />
<br />
We changed the notion, though. The McLuhans said this was fine because it was part of Marshalls Intention to show and play with this dialectic from virtual to real.<br />
<br />
For us, "Global Villages" are real settlements, physical neighbourhoods, that meet the challenge and are based on the possibilities of todays global communication tools. Think of it as a village that suddenly, without growing physically, can meet the intellectual and cultural needs of urban people, because it has many functions which are "empowered" by networks. Be it education, work, healthcare,production, suddenly we do not have to leave the village to get a lot of things done. We can learn, work, play, socialise, communicate, improve, produce better in an interplay between decentralized living and global thinking and virtual meeting facilited by media.<br />
<br />
Thus we can focus on improving physical quaity of the village itself and "use cyberspace to create sustainable living space", as was the motto of the '''Global Village Symposium''' in Vienna 1993, 1995 and 1997. We think that IT can be a catalyzer of ecologically sustainable lifestyles - and that together with this, IT could provide elements of empowerment, autonomy, improvement of quality of life, enhancing community and cooperation (based on Open Source).<br />
<br />
The subject of GlobalVillages therefore is a specific form in which we will organize life and work tomorrow, empowered by global communication, new technologies and shared knowledge, centered around values as:<br />
<br />
* The natural rather than the artificial: the connection between humans and landscape, the cultivation and care of a ground that embodies human and cultural values as much as it preserves the integrity of vital biosystems through the stewardship of man. ("cultured landscape")<br />
<br />
* Informal rather than formal: Conviviality within a smaller community which we nowadays can choose and leave freely. Independent thinking might be a core value. "Big systems demand order, they have to rely on the thourough execution of a lot of intertwined rules. The inspired, the ones who have fantasy and creativity and talents tend to break these rules, that is simply part of their nature" (Frithjof Bergmann)<br />
<br />
* Cooperation rather than competition: a global cooperative economy and culture connecting those communities ("open source economy") We think that nowadays smaller communities benefit enormously from empowering and enabling global networks. ("empowered village"). We think that it is mainly this power of global associations of villages (aka association of regions) which can and will reverse the current trend towards the city and introduce this new synthesis between urban and rural.<br />
<br />
here we can draw conclusions:<br />
<br />
* Global Villages are small in size and add "urban effect" by maintaining a "piazza" or "center" with lots of infrastructure and services for remote cooperation with other places. The most important element of this center is educational.<br />
<br />
* Global Villages are not primarily directed towards farming and growing, although this might be an important part. The life in Global Villages and their culture is centered on exchange of knowledge and improvements within the local habitat. Yet their emphasis on embeddedness with nature is bigger than, lets say, in a small city.<br />
<br />
* Global Villages have a "theme" in particular. They know they are not complete, they must work together, either with neighbouring villages or other places, and they take pride in the particular strength they can give to others. Their culture is built on openness.<br />
<br />
In the long run, GlobalVillages are a pattern that claims to be a planetary solution. This network is a meeting place for those who want to pursue this solution together.Convincing a Russian region to become a globalvillages strongholdtag:globalvillages.ning.com,2008-11-27:2029071:BlogPost:3462008-11-27T19:00:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
The Global Villages Network was founded in 1997 at the third international Global Village Symposium in Viennas city hall. Allready then, we had a long history of making contacts and spreading the idea of an immense interplay between the virtual and the local. For 10 years, we focussed on the experimental work in Austria rather than on international endavours, and we developed compelling solutions for boosting the educational offerings in a rural area. The "Model Kirchbach" developed and we…
The Global Villages Network was founded in 1997 at the third international Global Village Symposium in Viennas city hall. Allready then, we had a long history of making contacts and spreading the idea of an immense interplay between the virtual and the local. For 10 years, we focussed on the experimental work in Austria rather than on international endavours, and we developed compelling solutions for boosting the educational offerings in a rural area. The "Model Kirchbach" developed and we showed that the interest of rural population in good and practical content is endless, if virtual presentation and personal mediation can be blended.<br />
<br />
But the goal of the network goes far beyond education. We want to find ALL necessary elements to stop rural decay and create flamboyant, exciting, healthy, sociable and open villages everywhere on this globe. We want to shift the global engine to a different gear, not sucking out population into overcrowded cities and agglomerations, destroying and depleting landscapes and cultures, but do exactly the opposite: show the potential for abundance that this planet offers for all if we use it in the right way.<br />
<br />
We have many allies worldwide; its time to call them together again to share information, form alliances, build competences and so on. This is a good time because we feel a worldwide urge for transition - fueled by the economic crisis that signals us that the way business was done so far is incredibly wrong.<br />
<br />
What we need are clear, convincing cases of change brought about by the globalvillages principle. I used the opportunity of renewing contact with Archangelsk based <a href="http://www.dorfwiki.org/wiki.cgi?GlebTyurin/Zaozerye">Gleb Tyurin</a> - a master of village rejuvenation in Russia - to challenge the local government and the actors in regional development to consciously adopt a globalvillages model. This could serve as a focal point for the regathering of our network, from potential strength to strength in action, from loose networking to effective organisation.<br />
<br />
I this series of entries I would like to report and follow the course of events.Very good article on the relations of technology and environmentalismtag:globalvillages.ning.com,2008-03-14:2029071:BlogPost:632008-03-14T09:00:00.000ZFranz Nahradahttp://globalvillages.ning.com/profile/FranzNahrada
<a href="http://www.wie.org/j38/bright-green.asp?page=1">http://www.wie.org/j38/bright-green.asp?page=1</a><br />
<br />
<br />
A Brighter Shade of Green <br/>
<br />
Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21st Century <br/>
by Ross Robertson
<a href="http://www.wie.org/j38/bright-green.asp?page=1">http://www.wie.org/j38/bright-green.asp?page=1</a><br />
<br />
<br />
A Brighter Shade of Green <br/>
<br />
Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21st Century <br/>
by Ross Robertson