I recently found a TED talk that outlines the essential principles of a Giver Culture, titled ‘The Web as Random Acts of Kindness” by Jonathan Zittrain.

The talk shows how the web was founded on sharing and trust, and how, through this framework an entire global network that transformed the world, was born.

The talk also highlights CouchSurfing.org, which I’ve talked about as being an excellent example of working Giver Culture principles in action.

I stumbled upon a great article talking about Giver Culture principles on the blog, Funamilst

http://www.funimalist.com/how-to-create-a-culture-of-giving/

The article brings to light very apt revelations, such as “It may be pointed out here that one of the demands of generosity is “no demands,” which seems contradictory. However, the guideline in this case is that no individual make any condition for generosity, and that rule is consistent.”

But more importantly, the author, Aaron Baldassare,  brings to light what he calls ‘The 3 Commandments”.

“No expectations. No entitlements. No demands.”

Without these guidelines, the simple act of giving could easily breakdown into a power game.

Click here for the full article.

Rare & Precious Treasures from Earth

Life on Earth is like living in an elaborate & fantastic treasure room. If life is as rare as our solar system suggests then a flower petal, a puppy, a strawberry, or a bird represents some of the most rare & unique treasures that have ever existed.

In addition, in today’s world many of us have a standard of life that kings & emperors, only centuries ago, would have envied. A king of old may have easily given up half his kingdom for a ride on a 50cc motorcycle, let alone a car or airplane. Something as ubiquitous as a flat screen TV brought back in time would have been a wonder of the ancient world that people would make pilgrimages to experience.

We are truly living not only in a unique place in the universe, but also in a special time… but having lived our whole lives in the treasure room it is easy to take it for granted.

Appreciation & wonder is only a widened perspective point away. All we need to realize is how rare and special life truly is when all things are considered.

Thanks to the article, In Search of Equilibrium, for inspiring this blog post.

This is an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran’s book, The Prophet:

Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving.

And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give…

…There are those who give little of the much which they have—and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and give it all.

Its easy for the Federation of Star Trek to be a Giver Culture.  Energy and resources are plentiful and can be used to make nearly anything anyone wants.   There are a wealth of options for people to live their lives, and most live it doing what they love and sharing with others.

The Federation is a post scarcity society.  And its is easy to be a Giver in such a society.  Just turn on your replicator and make something to give.   Obviously we don’t live in such a society yet, but there are those who are currently acting to bring about its inception.

Gift economies have been practiced by pockets of groups around the world before in some of the indigenous societies of North America, Polynesia and Oceania.  With the digital abundance of our information society, it seems that attempts are being made to bring about a Federation-like, post-scarcity Giver Culture into existence

One notable pioneer is Nipun Mehta, a former Sun Microsystems programmer who has dedicated his life to bringing about what are effectively giver culture principles.

According to Mr. Mehta, “A gift economy is an economic system in which goods and services are given freely, rather than traded. In a market economy, one’s wealth is increased by “saving”; in contrast, in a gift economy, wealth is decreased by hoarding, for it is the circulation of the gifts within the community that leads to increase – increase in connections, increase in relationship strength.”

And its not purely philosophy that N. Mehta is touting.  Founder of Charity Focus, a non-profit dedicated to help grow the world’s gift economy, Mr. Mehta is hard at work giving.  Although it seems that he doesn’t see it much as ‘hard work’ but as truly rewarding work.  And his efforts are succeeding; with 300 thousand members, CharityFocus sends out 50 million newsletters per year and has attracted millions of users worldwide.

Then we have the great-grandfather of the Star Trek-era replicator, the Rep-Rap (replicating rapid prototyper).   The project was founded by Dr Adrian Bowyer who envisioned an open-source rapid prototyping tool that could possibly create the parts to build a child unit – a machine that can be made, adapted and improved by its users, a machine that no individual, company or country could profit from in the classical economic sense.

Currently the machine can only print 60% of the parts it needs to reproduce, but it is a significant accomplishment, especially for an early machine.   The goal is to create a machine that will be able to generate 100% of the parts it needs to build a copy.   As it stands the items it can create are somewhat crude plastic objects but steel and silicone chips seriously being considered for future models.

The Guardian wrote, about the Rep-Rap, they stated:

It has been called the invention that will bring down global capitalism, start a second industrial revolution and save the environment – and it might just put Santa out of a job too.

It is the potential that is exciting, for knowing how far the personal computer has come since the early days when it was offered in kit form with very simple input, output and memory capabilities, it is not inconceivable that high-fidelity versions will one-day appear and be taken for granted just as the members of Starfleet take their own replicators for granted.

And the best part of the Rep-Rap (besides every day being like Christmas) is that the design is free for anyone to use and build themselves.   Not only is the key item that brought about the Star Trek gift economy happening, it is already adhering to the economic principles such a device would herald – well in advance.

In Richard Stallman’s  GNU Manifesto, in which Stallman created one of the first open-source alternatives to UNIX, he wrote:

In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting.

The world he depicts sounds indeed much like the world that Gene Roddenberry envisioned.   Today’s pioneers of the gift economy and the accompanying technology might be exactly be the catalyst that brings about the Giver Culture.

Seems like a company in New York is accomplishing what I’ve long been advocating.  A revolution in education fuelled by engaging interactive experiences.

New York Times’ writer, Sara Corbett wrote an interesting piece (that kept me up much later than I was intending) about how a school has been testing their theories of gaming with education.  It makes some very good points.

I’m a game designer and a writer, but years ago I was a teacher.  My own experiences teaching led me to create a wide variety of very successful games that taught.  And not only did they teach painlessly, they were fun.

This also happens to be my long-term goal, to help revolutionize education through gameplay.  I applaud the efforts of Quest to Learn, and thanks to Sara Corbett for bringing this to my attention.

READ ARTICLE IN NY TIMES

Once, in an online discussion, I was told that the idea of a Giver Culture sounds wonderful, but how would we survive if we gave everything away for free?  For some people give and give until they are in debt, which isn’t a very sustainable way to be, and definitely could not support a whole culture.

But the core idea of the Giver Culture  is not to simply give more than you have the means to give (which would surely put you into debt), but to change our behaviors from a material consuming culture to an open information-skill consuming culture, and to share what we have learned with others.

If you even spent an hour a week teaching a subject at a community college to a class of 15, you would be a Giver. This is more valuable than a material gift in many ways. Passing on knowledge/skills is the type of gift that keeps on giving. Maybe teaching 15 people is no big deal, but what if we had a culture where this was considered normal? Where the majority of people did this from time to time? Surely teaching a single class a week would not put you into debt, but you would be a Giver. In such a culture having knowledge and skills to pass on might be more of a mark of prestige than having money. And, besides deliberating illness, how could anyone take away such wealth? There is also the famous maxim ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you teach him for a lifetime.’

Gifts that keep on giving are like seeds. A seed might grow a fruit tree, which is valuable in of itself, but it also grows viable seeds within the fruits that can grow other fruit trees. Once we start thinking along these terms, we start truly giving.

Also, I tend to think that this type of behavior might slowly ease us off money. Why? Because first, such behavior once adopted by more and more of the human race will lower the population. Many countries that are developed now have a negative population rate. It has also been shown that in places, such as Bangladesh, where micro-loans have been given out with the condition that the borrowers attend weekly educational seminars, population rates have dropped drastically. Advanced education seems to have the effect of reducing the population. Especially when and if education is freely available to women.

With a lowering population, but an existing infrastructure and knowledge base, there will be more for everyone.

Also, with a culture that highly values creation and discovery, we would be creating solutions that would reduce our material needs. Cheaper energy, cheaper goods, cheaper communication etc. This would slowly ease us off money. In some ways this is already happening. Facebook provides a lot of value for its users, but I barely pay anything but my internet connection for it (which is becoming faster and/or cheaper every year). There are plenty of free things available, digitally.

Of course material costs are expensive, but with many advances into nanotechnology and quantum computing, there will be a time (and there are plenty of recent advances in this field) that atomic structures will be as easy to manipulate as computer data. Then we will be able to replicate and copy at will, using any source of matter as our base. In a Giver Culture, this knowledge/technology would be made available freely (or at least cheaply). It would be like Linux, or Firefox. It would be Open Source.

The problem is, in a consumer culture, is that we have come to value having many material possessions. We don’t currently value creating, discovering, sharing or cooperation. So our current lifestyle costs us a lot. It costs us a lot in that it demands much of the world around us and it doesn’t share. It doesn’t give back.

Of course there are individuals who give and share, create and cooperate, discover and create value that wasn’t there before. But those are usually individuals or small groups stuck in a consumer based culture. If those individuals and small groups connected with other like minded givers around the world, they would soon form a culture. This culture would help each other out, grow and become stronger in their giver-oriented values. Then this would have an effect of swaying the entire world.

Such a culture would advance rapidly. It would be obvious that they would have wealth and riches beyond the average of the ordinary population. Being in a culture is vital, since it is an ecosystem in which benefits all. Silicon Valley is such an example for the technology world. There is a whole ecosystem in place for start-ups and existing tech companies to not only survive but thrive.

Money (aka survival) is important. But we should never take our eye off the prize. What we wish to contribute to the world, our own personal vision statement is far more important. Many people want to contribute and make a difference, but are afraid of doing so because of fear of not surviving the current, difficult demands of a consumer based, highly conditional culture.

I feel the solution is very simple, actually. Find something that you feel you wish to contribute. Find a way to do so and partner with others who wish to make a difference. Keep learning and honing your skills and share what you know with others. The beauty of a Giver Culture is the promise of a  large community aligned in the hope to do just that. To make a difference, simply and practically.

A few months ago (May ’10) I picked up a gem of a book titled ‘The Power of Giving’.   Obviously, it was an immediate draw.   Its a beautiful, simple book full of insights and words of wisdom related to the practical side of giving, and what purpose it has in our lives.

It seems that the Giver Culture truly starting to take root, as evidenced by this inspiring book.  In fact, it helped me, after a long period of being busy, stressed out and struggling to stay afloat, to take a look at what is important to me: resuming this blog, which is one of the gifts I wish to give.

This brings me to a good point, that is repeated in Mr. Jamal & Mr. McKinnon’s book, that giving doesn’t need to require tremendous resources.  In Chapter 2, titled ‘What Can You Give’, the authors list a number of things that can be given, many of which do not require tremendous amounts of resources that might drain us in difficult times.  These are:

• love
• laughter
• knowledge
• leadership
• hope
• life
• time
• money
• skills
• health
• touch
• attention
• advice

To this wonderful book, the only addition I would put forward is a section or chapter on ‘Gifts That Keep On Giving’.  There are certain types of gifts that have a long-standing value and can keep providing, effortlessly (or nearly so) for most of a human lifetime.   A house, for instance can provide a shelter that can be given for a long period of time.  Couchsurfing.org is a prime example of this.   The house doesn’t even have to be yours.

An investment fund can also provide a great source of giving.   Instead of giving to charity, why not save for charity?  Save an amount of money and invest it in a way that generates interest and give the profits to charity.   All that is lost is the potential to use the money directly, but even so such investments can help provide collateral for loans (perhaps a mortgage for a larger home with an extra room to share?).

Fruit and vegetables planted in a garden or a balcony, can also be a source of giving.  Each year, you can give the proceeds away.   My father-in-law does this and my grandparents did it for most of their lives.  Sometimes it doesn’t take a lot of effort to share a bounty of life & love that people will truly enjoy and appreciate.

It is true that there is, indeed, a Power in Giving.   Thank you Mr. Jamal & Mr. McKinnon for bringing this to light.

The open source movement is starting to take baby steps out of the digital primordial soup onto the more deadly, and arid land of physical materiality.  First of the primordial contenders is Open Cola.  What had started as a simple demonstration of open-source principles has turned into a number or commercially sold beverages.  Although the recipe is shared freely, the cola can still be sold for a profit, and to date, two companies have done so.  The First was the originator, a software company in Toronto, Canada who pioneered the Open Cola as a marketing strategy to help promote their brand and to educate their clients that open source, although free to copy and distribute, can still generate profits.  In fact, during this marketing campaign 150,000 cans of Open Cola were sold. In Central Bristol, UK, a small cinema, Cube Microplex Cinema, has used the freely available Open Cola recipe to create a cola to be sold to patrons and guests.  No sales data has been released, however in the venue of a more traditional business structure it may be that this use of open source cola may not fizzle out so prematurely.

A riskier, bolder venture has also started to emerge from the open source model.  The Open Source Car.  A number of ventures have been prominent, but none so much as OScar, which envisions to ‘reinvent mobility’ in a similar fashion to how Open Source Software is created and managed.    The originator and maintainer of the project, Markus Merz, originated the concept but has yet to take it from the conceptual stage.  Also on the radar is a hot, new design that the company is touting as a Open Source vehicle.  EDAG Light Car, is a high-tech, radical automotive design concept that was presented at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show.  Although it claims to be ‘Open Source’ it seems under further investigation of the company’s site that it uses this term very loosely.  Instead it seems that the company is ‘open’ to partnering with other companies to help with the technologies involved under a secure section of their website.  This is far from the true definition of Open Source.

 It seems that the third project is the charm.  A partnership between three universities in Holland, the bizarrely named and designed car, c,mm,n (pronounced ‘common’), has become the world’s first truly materialized open source car.  Although the aesthetics and phonemics may not be pleasing to all, the car incorporates some serious technology that can be used to help alleviate some of our common, dire environmental concerns, since it uses hydrogen, not fossil fuels, to power its engines.  And true to the actual spirit and meaning of Open Source, this project’s specs, blueprints and diagrams are all free for others to use, and even make money off, as long as the users release all improvements and further designs back to the community for free.  

Providing creative solutions and innovative discoveries for all to freely benefit is true to what this new Giver Culture is about.  These endeavors truly represent the beginning transition of moving from a culture of Takers (consumers) to a culture of Givers who freely give back to the world.  And best of all, design and scientific/technological breakthroughs are gifts that keep on giving, thus solidifying Giver Culture values even more. 

The question remains, when will material based open source endeavors will truly take off, creating a viable ecosystem for others to emulate?

 My guess is that they will.  The genie is out of the bottle and people will continue to experiment with and fund material-based open source projects until, like in the software economy, one will finally take off.

Loans are generally made to make a profit. But what if the benefit were mainly for the person who takes the loan, rather than the person who gives it? Microloans have become more popular since the growth of the internet made loan-giving easier and less expensive.

A microloan is a loan for a small amount, generally given to households or businesses in third world countries to lift them out of poverty or enable them to establish themselves more securely.  Many microloan groups are non-profit, so the principle will be returned to the lender sans profit. A more complete definition explains the development of microfinance as follows:

Historical context can help explain how specialized MFIs developed over the last few decades. Between the 1950s and 1970s, governments and donors focused on providing subsidized agricultural credit to small and marginal farmers, in hopes of raising productivity and incomes. During the 1980s, microenterprise credit concentrated on providing loans to poor women to invest in tiny businesses, enabling them to accumulate assets and raise household income and welfare. These experiments resulted in the emergence of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that provided financial services for the poor. In the 1990s, many of these institutions transformed themselves into formal financial institutions in order to access and on-lend client savings, thus enhancing their outreach.

An MFI can be broadly defined as any organization—credit union, down-scaled commercial bank, financial NGO, or credit cooperative—that provides financial services for the poor.” (see: www.kiva.org/about/microfinance/ for more information)

The difference the money makes to the borrowers is amazing. Many are women or groups of entrepreneurs who with a thousand dollars could make an extreme difference to their standard of living. Websites like www.kiva.org (with the catch-phrase “Loans that Change Lives”) provide a venue for lenders to view profiles and contribute to the borrowers.  Poor people have a harder time gaining access to financing due to the difficulty and lower returns on micro-lending.  However, the difference this makes in these people’s lives is astronomical.