Commons Strategies Group

You are not likely to encounter a more welcoming set of texts and infographics to introduce the commons and peer production than the Commons Transition Primer website.

The new site features four types of materials suited different levels of interest: short Q&A-style articles with illustrations; longer, in-depth articles for the more serious reader; a library of downloaded PDF versions of research publications by the P2P Foundation; and a collection of videos, audio interviews and links to other content. 

The website does a great service in introducing topics that are sometimes elusive or abstract, giving them a solid explanation and lots of working examples. Go check it out!

Start with a series of Short Articles that addresses such questions as "What is a commons transition?" and "What is distributed manufacturing?" Then browse the Longer Articles section and read “10 ways to accelerate the Peer to Peer and Commons Economy,” a visionary piece on the movement to design global and manufacture locally. 

 

The three of us at the Commons Strategies Group were astonished recently to discover extensive, ongoing manipulations of email communications related to our commons work and our planning of the Economics and the Commons Conference (ECC) in May. Below is a letter that we have sent to participants of that conference: Dear ECC participants and other friends, We wish to share with you some shocking news that affects all of us. We recently learned that a person working closely with the Commons Strategies Group, especially in connection with the Economics and the Commons Conference (ECC) in May 2013, had been manipulating ECC planning and intercepting our email communications for at least 18 months. Through traces of IP addresses and partial confessions, both oral and written, we have confirmed that Franco Iacomella made it impossible for a colleague to attend the conference and had been blocking selected email communications to Michel Bauwens, CSG co-founder and head of the P2P Foundation. He was interfering with email sent to Michel from 55 email addresses, many of them used by ECC participants. (A full list is included at the end of this letter. We apologize for sharing the email addresses, but the issue deserves detailed attention.) Emails from these people were either deleted, leading many people to conclude that Michel had simply ignored them, or selectively filtered. Some were diverted by Iacomella and given phony responses. As one might expect, these revolting manipulations made it extremely difficult for people to cooperate in reliable ways. Iacomella's filtering also sowed seeds of confusion and distrust among people working with Michel, and among members of the Commons Strategies Group and the ECC team. We sincerely hope that throughout the conference you did not feel too much of the impact.