[p2p-research] Would like to start a dialouge with you and seek some input

[Kevin Carson]

> I am very impressed by your ideas and how you take some crucial economic
> concepts to the next level, create confluences of ideas, and are readily
> finding avenues to apply them.  I found myself following similar channels
> and happened upon your stuff via OSE/Marcin a few years back.  Has helped me
> to find some wonderful direction in thought and action.

Nice to hear from you, Richard.  Thanks for the kind words.  I can't
write a line of code and my "shop skills" consist of occasionally
being able to drive a nail in straight, but the one thing I think I'm
good at is finding and correlating patterns in ideas/events.

> I live in Cleveland and enjoyed reading the recent article @p2p foundation
> blog (i also enjoy your posts on various list-serves, and would respond more
> often if I had the time).  I'm glad we are on your radar.  Evergreen is a
> complex thing that I would like to talk to you about, as they are not
> everything that they seem, and the Mondragon model is not the best approach
> to organizing cooperatives, i would argue.  I work with Evergreen
> cooperative solar via my dayjob and have somewhat of an inside "scoop" on
> the situation, if you will.  However, they are opening up peoples minds to
> some very exciting opportunities and possibilities.

> Here is a shortlist of the projects I am/have been involved with: Open
> Source Ecology, Columbia Exchange Circle, Cleveland Economic Democracy
> Network (includes IWW, FNB, coop organizing, among other things.  we have
> read homebrew rev in discussion groups!), Open Pario, Forward Foundation,
> Appropedia, etc.

It's excellent to know there's someone on the ground in Cleveland
involved in the local economic democracy and cooperative initiatives,
who's also been involved in so much open manufacturing stuff.

> I would really like to chat sometime soon, as i would like to have some of
> your input on some of our (CEDNET) efforts around organizing truly
> cooperative, distributed networks of micromanufacturing shops, and other
> types of worker cooperatives, exchange systems, group purchasing and ag-coop
> style syndicate organising.  We are serious, have skills, funding sources,
> experience, and are drawing up some concrete plans.  A decent amount of the
> folks in CEDNET have a variety of manufacturing experience, and we have
> worked with, in various capacities, and are beginning to approach workers
> and local leaders in the interest of organizing with displaced workers via
> USW, IUE, UAW,WU, etc.  Also, Forward Foundation has been doing local
> economic development projects all over, and has some great connections
> throughout the rust-belt.  They have clients who are looking to scale up
> some big micromanufacturing projects in Pittsburgh.
>
> So, would you be interested in getting a dialouge going? You can respond via
> email, or eventually drop me a line at 440.476.7984 and/or 216.482.7617. I
> also live in the ohio city neighborhood of cleveland, and you are free to
> come by anytime and meet up with us (not sure where you are situated).

I'm not sure how much help I can be, since (as I mentioned) my shop
and software skills are nil and I have no organizational talent at
all.  My main goal in writing the post at P2P Blog was to make the two
sides (the Cleveland cooperative folks and the P2P/Open Manufacturing
folks) aware of each other's existence and maybe foster some links
between them.  The fact that there's someone on Cleveland who's
invovled in both is very heartening.  It's also good that you've
worked with Sam Rose.  Just off the top of my head, I would suggest
subscribing to the P2P Foundation email list and the Open
Manufacturing list at Google Groups, if you're not already a member.
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing?pli=1

I'm not sure how much contact or input you have with the Democracy
Collaborative or Community-Wealth or any of the other official bodies,
but it would be interesting to see the results if some organization
like OSE, the Austin Fab Lab people, a nearby hackerspace, or
100kGarages approached them officially,  organization to organization.
 Also if you know anyone with a ShopBot or other tools currently being
accepted into the 100kGarages network, they might make some overtures.

FWIW, given that I'm completely out of touch with the situation on the
ground, it seems to me that anything that can spur
organization-to-organization contacts and increase the visibility of
the micromanufacturing movement to those in the upper  levels of the
Cleveland initiatives would be very imporant.

I'm cc'ing this  to both lists in hopes someone closer to the center
of things can help.

Best,
Kevin

-- 
Kevin Carson
Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
The Homebrew Industrial Revolution:  A Low-Overhead Manifesto
http://homebrewindustrialrevolution.wordpress.com
Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html