Would anyone on the Board of Directors like to add, delete or change anything that I said above. I know I am being presumptuous.

Sounds like a wonderful initiative, David!

I'm extremely happy to have Network Weavers serve as a temporary space for REDI discussions on Ned. And, over time, I'll also be extremely happy to find ways that Network Weavers can be of service to the REDI initiative.

I just want to suggest, up front, that at some point in the future -- once there is critical mass of interest -- that REDI be spun off into its own Ned group. It's a project that I believe deserves attention in and of itself!

I went ahead and ordered my "business cards" today. They will be ready Friday at which time I will begin attending events sponsored by local groups of one sort or another - looking for connections across interest and expertise.

Next steps:

1- describe the community portal software and a program to fund development through Source Tree Commons and neighborhood sponsors.

2- develop an "interested in REDI" e-mail list. (John sent me his suggestions - have to see which of those e-mails I have and ask him for the rest) See that the Board is registered at Ned so I can nudge them with a PM.

3- e-mail my class of the Colorado Institute for Leadership Training to see who is interested in participating.

4- think through a series of local "events" that REDI and partners can host to get more people involved.

5- working with Daniel Bassill and Habib on Social Network Analysis from a issue centric perspective.

6- working with Bryan Daugherty re: MESE and LOPM (if we are both doing the local organizing, maybe we can compare notes)

Well that ought to keep me busy for a while.

John called me today and asked if we should be applying for the MacArthur Grant. I am setting up a workspace for that. It is for innovations in digital education and I am wondering if the community portal as a way for "youth" to learn about community development might fit within their requirements.

John e-mailed me this thought that I have not had a chance to think through yet:

I'm now thinking that we might want to make this a pilot focused on UCD and surrounding neighborhoods. We would allow participation from other areas as well, but we would not use resources from this grant to try to attract them.

What do you think about that?

I really like the idea of using UCD as a pilot. I'm beginning my grad degree here in Jan after my 2 BAs are done, so I'm pretty much a permanent resource. Plus we have Harv, and that's where I was introduced to REDI.

John, if you remember, there was myself and another student, Jason (blonde guy), who were adament in getting involved with REDI, and I have another class with him this semester. Its only once a week, already passed, so its too late to get him in on the next meeting, plus we don't use online tools for that class, so I don't have his email, but its a good start. I also have a political thought class with other young idealists looking for an outlet to funnel their ambitions. Snatching them up might prove very useful for us.

I'll gather as much info on other student orgs John asked me about for the meeting. I wonder does Norman have wireless, because they are all available on www.cudenver.edu under current students?

I agree, David, that we don't need to use resources that cost money to attract this population. All levels at this school are looking to become involved, espically locally now with our growing regional economy. Plus, as students, we don't expect much, except to make an impact.

That was kind of a long way of saying, I agree. These are great ideas. As I was in the Career Center, looking to satisfy my internship requirements from volunteer activities for REDI, the only thing my counselor said was if the meetings are NOT held at private residences, but a coffeeshop or board room, then UCD is an open market for REDI. Hmmm, maybe for the get involved link on the REDI site there could be a small graphic that says, "UCD students: satisfy your internship requirements with REDI" I know half of my colleagues complain how incomplete and uninteresting their internships are.

Okay I'm on NED, works much better than SKYPE. Sorry about the poor spelling; I'm a product of spell check.

I have asked the Board members of REDI to join me here to see if this site will work for us for asynchronous participation and "transparency in decision making".

There are a couple of other communities actively using Ned for internal communications and planning that may illustrate what I am proposing we do for our organizing in Denver. Please see the Salt Springs group and the Uganda group.

John, if you remember, there was myself and another student, Jason (blonde guy),

Yes--Jason has contacted me separately. I have his email and have been inviting him to the meetings. He was busy over the summer, but does seem very interested. I'll send him an additional reminder for this Sunday's meeting. I'll also give Harv a call about it, as well.

As I was in the Career Center, looking to satisfy my internship requirements from volunteer activities for REDI, the only thing my counselor said was if the meetings are NOT held at private residences, but a coffeeshop or board room, then UCD is an open market for REDI. Hmmm, maybe for the get involved link on the REDI site there could be a small graphic that says, "UCD students: satisfy your internship requirements with REDI" I know half of my colleagues complain how incomplete and uninteresting their internships are.

Great Idea! I'll add the link. One thing I'm not clear about--are you saying that this doesn't count for your internship if the meetings are held at private residences? In any case, I think it might be wise for us to start meeting in public places where people who might be interested in working with us hang out--especially places where UCD students hang out. We used to have our meetings at Common Grounds at 32nd and Lowell, and several times people overheard what we were talking about and came up and asked how they could be involved. We stopped meeting there because they had live music on the nights we were meeting and it was difficult to talk. Lets have our next meeting at a coffeeshop on or near UCD--at a time when there is no live music.

Okay I'm on NED, works much better than SKYPE. Sorry about the poor spelling; I'm a product of spell check.

Okay I'm on NED, works much better than SKYPE.

NED works fine for me. I like that its similar to having our meetings in a coffee shop (where people can overhear our conversations).

I'm not having any problems using it. So far it looks exactly like Omidyar. One thing I'm wondering about though--is there a way to set up an RSS feed on NED so I get a notice in my email when there are changes or additions to this discussion and our workspace pages?

The only RSS feed I'm aware of is for the Private Messages (when you click on a persons name it takes you to there profile and their, in the brown nav bar is "send the user a message") That is why I asked each of you to join the group - if you go to the home tab in the brown nav bar, and then click on "about" there is a list of members and we can "nudge" each other with a private message when there is something new to consider.

I am hoping instead that there will be enough happening that all of us check in at least a couple times a week.

edit: spelling

John, Great to hear about Jason, and I mentioned the meeting to Harv, but I said I could not remember if we had decided to make the meeting Board only or the discussion board only.

Yes, I am saying that if the meetings are not held at public locations then they do not count towards an internship. When I was discussing this with the counselor, she said the internship credit can be satisfied by significant volunteer activities. She also said that REDI sounded like a great venue for this, however, she did say that meetings need to be held in public places because of University liability.

http://www.cudenver.edu/Student% 20Life/Career%20Center/Faculty%2 0and%20Staff/pages/Internship%20 and%20Cooperative%20Education.as px This site should give you many answers to pursuing REDI as a UCD internship oppurutnity. If the web address does not work, go to www.cudenver.edu then click on Student Life at the top, then the link for the Career Center should be available to you. This is sounding GREAT!

As for meeting places, there are several coffeeshops downtown that are frequented by the UCD/involvement crowd. One is Leela's which I meet to conduct meetings and business often. Sometimes the music (overhead) gets a little loud, but the baristas are usually nice enough to turn it down if you ask. But most times, its a good place to meet. Plus they have coffee AND BEER. UCD students also frequent the Starbucks on 15th and Larimer and the one on Colfax right before Kalamath. I'll see if I can think of other places to meet, but those seem pretty consistent.

David, I'm really liking using NED. Thanks for organizing us in such a great location.

Glad you like it. Our host will be pleased.

So, if we are going to revise community portals to be an educational effort for the MacArthur Grant, we need to think through how that works. Chris Macrae posted this video from the Ted conference from an educator who points out that:

the children starting school this year will be retiring in 2060 - we have no idea what the world will be like in 2060 - but we continue to insist on schools designed to produce industrial workers

I am thinking we could go with the Planetary Mind approach:

We are born into a world with existing political and economic structures with which we must learn to interact for our comfort and survival. We tend to think of those structures as “the powers that be” yet all economic and political power resides ultimately in the individual . . . No organization or structure has any power except that which we cede to it. Therefore, each of us has the power to change the political and economic structure in which we find ourselves. The question is how do we exercise that power to create the world we want?

Or the Whole System Design approach:

Whole System Design is about the power to change reality by changing the set of relationships that create objective reality. Humans do this all the time - mostly unconsciously - as when we cause the extinction of species through habitat destruction. For purposes of discussion we can call that - actions that decrease complexity (downward spirals). It is also possible for humans to create new relationships in ways that increase complexity creating upward spirals - and changing objective reality for the better.

John, are you the one who left the comment at community portals? I agree with you that the new things not available elsewhere are the value added - and are what will attract those who are already familiar with computers. What do you think about people who have no experience with computers? I am thinking a user interface with everything they might want to do is important.

P.S. I like the start you made in the work space.

If we can articulate this well, it will not matter whether or not we get the MacArthur Grant. Every community needs this tool - and this conversation - and we should be able to fund it as a project of Source Tree Commons.

Or how about A future conducive to human life?

Had a good board meeting Sunday at Norman's house and I will be drafting and posting the minutes this afternoon.

We agreed that we would use Ned for transparent board communications and work to have regular meetings in public that would be more "networking opportunities" from the point of view of the participants - engaging an ever broader cross section of the community for the purposes of the conversation "What can We do . . . ?"

Laura and John wanted to see my essay on Building the Hydrogen Economy and there is a list of other examples of whole system design.

Hi I was emailing Leela's (the coffeeshop) and began to wonder what we exactly mean by sponsoring our meeting. Do we just mean hosting for a large(r) audience? Allowing us to use their space? Or will be asking for any other services larger than the ones they alreaedy provide? Wireless, elevated stage, power, and place? Thanks, Laura

For the initial meeting I don't think we will need any special services other than to reserve a space adequate for the number of people we expect. If we are successful in attracting the participation we want, we can start start thinking about a variety of events and a variety of sponsorship opportunities.

I guess you guys got Norman's e-mail - sorry that he chose to contribute elsewhere. Be thinking of people we want to recruit for the Board and "partners" (other organizations) that can help sponsor these events.

John,

Are you familiar with the Barter Software from New Zealand? You might want to join this discussion over in the Open Capital group. I am also interested to know if my comment there is explanatory.

I am working on creating an Index of REDI Workspaces where I can keep track of what we are working on and linking that to the "home" tab in the brown group nav bar above. One of the workspaces I would like to see is a list of links to other useful sites like the one I did at O.net

John, when you have a minute, can you look at the bylaws and enter the registered office info? if you are comfortable with that, thanks

John and Laura,

I know that we do not need much formality yet - but I am trying to structure this for when we are a big deal in Denver. Will you each please look at Minutes of the 9/23/07 Meeting and add anything I forgot and add your name as approving the minutes when you approve. Thanks.

I will be leaving town and off line from Monday October 1 through October 5. Let me know if there is anything I can help with this weekend. Otherwise, I will be in touch again next Saturday.

HI I just wanted to say I emailed Leelas on Wednesday of last week. No response yet, but I will follow up before I leave town next weekend (Oct 5-9). Thanks guys.

David Braden said:

...

Are you familiar with the Barter Software from New Zealand?

Yes, that is XO--they are one of the 5 software packages we looked at when we were reviewing software for REDI. They were the runner up to GETS and Current Innovations. There were a couple of areas where they did not meet our requirements, though:

1. Their software does not handle automatic reporting of transactions to the IRS (GETS does)
2. XO does not have the capability to create afinity groups, unlike GETS
3. XO's search by location was not nearly as robust as GETS'. With XO the smallest geography we could search was by state, but GETS uses google maps, enabling you to specify members that are within a certain distance and to see them on a map.
4. CI is a nonprofit whose purpose is to help communities set up a trade exchange. Annette Riggs, CI's ED, has over 20 years of experience in the barter industry and at the same time is firmly committed to the community currency movement. XO is primarily oriented towards the traditional trade exchange as business, although they are making significant overtures with their grant program towards communities that want to start their own exchange.

You might want to join this discussion over in the Open Capital group. I am also interested to know if my comment there is explanatory.

I looked at the discussion and quickly got overwhelmed. The signal to noise issue again. It would take me hours to wade through that discussion.