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Here's a page for listing civilization networks, which is to say, groups of people who are pursuing a mission so profound that it would remake our entire civilization.
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See MichelBauwens mindmap  Everything Open and Free
Social Actions sources
Jill Finlayson's list at http://www.ned.com/group/i4c/news/3/
See also the links at: http://www.think-tank.nl/?q=taxonomy/term/19
Newly Noted 
- WorkNets
- Dreamfish
- Cooperation Commons A program of cooperation studies. Jim Benson, Paul Hartzog, and Mike Love. Related to HowardRheingold.
- Open Kollab, SureshFernando
- The Forward Foundation RichardAdler, MattBerlin, PaulHartzog, SamRose
- Good magazine, videos, social network for pushing the world forward
- Ned
- Nabuur
- Blue Oxen Associates collaborative tools and methods
- Earthlings United people of the world coming together to solve common problems
- The Transitioner collective intelligence, community currency
- Mind Colonies and related discussion groups by Bala Pillai
- Bootstrap Institute
- Open Idea Project
- Global Swadeshi
- New Civilization Network
- Gaia, was Zaadz, Social networking for changing the world.
- Positive Deviance Initiative strengths-based approach based on positive-deviant individuals and groups, based on the book by nutritionist Marian Zeitlin.
- Taking IT Global Connecting youth around the world for inspiration, improvement, involvement.
- http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org Started in 2002 to make visible the field of collective consciousness which is often communicated through metaphor. Twelve doorways are: Aesthetics, Concepts, Cultivation Tools, Inquiry, Lived Experience, Maps & Mapping, Practices, Research: Group Mind, Skills & Capacities, Social Application, Vibration. See a list of 700 http://www.collectivewisdominitiative.org/files_people/_people_list.htmPeopleInTheField.
- United Diversity
- Gratefulness.org
- Global Justice Movement
- Taking IT Global
- Digital Divide Network
Open Laboratories
Minciu Sodas (along with Global Villages) independent thinkers, tools for organizing thoughts, peer-to-peer social networking systems, online organizing, open economy, community currency, global villages, leadership development, AIDS challenge in Africa, conceptual structures, integrating the homeless, sharing content, sharing art, engaging God
Innovators
Society for Research and Initiatives for Sustainable Technologies and Institutions and Honey Bee Network and discussion board for grassroots innovators, especially in India
Social Entrepreneurs
Economics
change the world
Developing world
Faith and Humanity
Social
- Ars Electronica festival, competition, museum, and media art lab, all relating art, technology and society. In Linz, Austria.
- Zu Casa for artists, producers and fans of experimental and improvised musics
- nettime seems like it has a role somewhere - lots of interrelated lists - start at http://www.nettime.org/ and explore. Been online since 1995, active, evolving, but still a good source of links and activities around the globe - many related to art, but also with a strong independent/net activist streak.
Ideas and Salons
open content
(noteworthy!)
A lot of the activity around podcasting might also be relevant. I would suggest looking at the educational sections of podcast directories and taking a look at many of those podcasts - lots of great, freely available, rich resources being created. (One leading educational podcast is about how to teach music - just one example of a podcast making very good use of the medium as well as the ability to reach a very focused, niche audience)
Institutions:
Wikis and Encyclopedic communities
There are some communities organized around independent thinking bloggers
And finally, is there a role for USENET in these discussions? Not anywhere near as critical as it once was, but I wonder if there are still select active lists which are relevant and worth paying attention to?
News
The University of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology: Open Laboratory
(Note: In general, it seems that in Japanese the word open laboratory means interdisciplinary laboratory)
Always On - Insider's Network 50 USD per year, related conference
No longer active or Hardly active
Proprietary Transformative movements
Non-examples
Open Courseware Laboratory
Social Computing Group Online Laboratory Microsoft end user testing
Cognitive Psychology Online Laboratory
University of Cambridge Sustainability Learning Networks</b> Programme
Distance Learning Network
Lessons learned
A thriving network is rare because it requires several different types of spaces: venues for interaction, portals,
Conclusions about wiring the Global Brain
Thank you to ShannonClark for helping!
FlemmingFunch: Today is the 10 year birthday of the New Civilization Network.
I suppose it is an impressive longevity for an online community. But I don't think I would have been surprised back then to know it would last more than 10 years. I would maybe be surprised to learn that it didn't really turn out as I imagined it. Then again, few things do. Groups of people tend to take on a life of their own.
Anyway, I hadn't really thought it through very much. I had identified some principles which I thought were key to growing a new kind of civilization from the bottom up. Oh, and they're still good. But I was probably greatly underestimating the amount of organization and effort that would be needed to do such a crazy and ambitious thing. And I failed to release a magical viral catalyst that would make it all just sort of organize itself.
Since sometime in 1994 I was running a mailing list called "Whole Systems", which was about systems thinking from a big picture perspective. It was a very active and stimulating place. But mostly people were talking and sharing ideas. So, I wanted to build something out of it that was more action oriented. So, all I really did was that a posted a message stating that intent. Which apparently hit a nerve, and it spread around quickly. So, within the week 100 people had joined. What exactly it was they had joined wasn't clear, but they were ready and inspired.
My vision was along the lines of a network of teams working on different important problems that needed to be solved to build a better civilization. A teamnet of self-selected teams who shared information and results. I imagined it as something that would self-organize and transform itself along the way. Nothing terribly wrong with that, other than that it isn't easy to start off like that. One can't just decree that that's how it is, even though I tried.
A sizable number of smart and inspiring people were attracted to that very loose vision, though. A veritable who's who of activists, explorers, visionaries, futurists, artists, inventors, leaders of organizations, etc. Just like I hoped for. That didn't mean that they knew how to work together, though. I had from an early point on asked people to fill in a myers-briggs type profile when they joined. Which showed that about half of these folks were visionary idealists. As compared with something like 3 percent in the general population. Which made it all very inspiring, but not particularly coherent or practical. Particularly when it turned out that many idealists really don't get along with each other, as they might have very strong, but conflicting, ideas about what needs to be done.
A vision of a new civilization is maybe inspiring, but vague. One can put all sorts of things under that heading. And I thought that was a feature rather than a flaw. I still do, in many ways. But it also means that people show up, and then find that they don't at all agree on the details. In principle that shouldn't matter, as the idea was that those folks who shared a specific aim or a specific approach would simply get together and do it that way, and if some other group wanted to do it differently, they'd just go do that. No need for everybody to agree on everything. A civilization isn't built out of uniform agreement on what it is. It is a collage of a diversity of currents that somehow get woven together.
But we're so used to living inside of organizations that share a coherent set of norms. So it turned out that some sorts of people simply wouldn't coexist with others. Like, the scientists just had no patience for having their project mentioned in the same listing as somebody working on astrology or healing or something. So, people would leave, or get into fights.
And, now, the idea was that these various teams would just pick their own mission and go to work. But most people didn't quite know how to do that, or they were sort of waiting for the master plan to be formed. And since I was the guy who started the thing, they were increasingly looking to me to come up with the plan. I was quite caught by surprise by that, as it hadn't at all been my intention to be some kind of leader who was calling the shots. On the contrary, I preferred being relatively invisible, and giving focus to the good things others were doing. That's of course all half impossible. How does one lead a new activity while being invisible. How does one organize a self-organizing network that will change the world. How does one best service a leaderless group that doesn't yet know what exactly to do.
The most vibrant period of time was probably while I regularly sent out various regular newsletters to the whole membership, with content aggregated from what people sent to me. Various news items, project updates, visions, and more. And each month I sent out the list of new members and what they said about themselves in their profiles. Which was always inspiring and illuminating, to see the diversity of activities and perspectives people were engaged in. All of it sort of created a shared atmosphere of constructive progress and sharing and networking. It also tied into various face-to-face activities, as people would meet, arrange events, etc. Like, the series of New Civilization Salons I organized in L.A. for years were consistently a great success. Typically around 100 folks at a time, and a combination of a networking event where everybody introduces themselves, and a party, with show and tell, performances, poetry, drumming, etc.
Oh, and a number of great projects almost happened along the way. Various ventures, plans, projects, activities. For a while it looked like some major funding would be available, and a group started constructing a framework for a New Civilization Foundation that would implement many projects.
Anyway, gradually, from a mixture of lack of tangible results, and bickering about details, most of the more prominent members that really were the target group, the ones passionately engaged in groundbreaking projects, drifted away along the way, as they didn't really have time for arguing about anything, as they had things to do.
Again, lots of stories to tell along the way, and various transformations, but still a continous flow of thousands of new members. Until, today, well, NCN is a website, with an assortment of community features. Weblogs, workgroups, chat rooms, etc. And it is a nice group of people who can be found there on a daily basis. Mostly to communicate and pursue their various interests, and to explore some of the dynamics that happen between people. It isn't to any great extent any network of teams building a new civilization. It is maybe a microcosm of some of the issues involved in building one. Which is all probably good, and I can't really complain about what it is. I sort of have to respect the path it takes. Which of course has a good deal to do with what I put on the website, and how I laid out the interactive features in the member area.
I have sort of shifted around between different views of it. Whether I should be happy or disappointed. Whether I should do it differently, whether I should just leave it alone. Whether I should take a lead again in trying to make it what it originally was meant to be. Or whether I should better support what it is today.
I don't really know. But, regardless, happy birthday, NCN! The future is still ahead of us.
Yeah, it kind of only makes sense with a non-profit when there are more people involved, so it is more of a group thing. So that takes a bit of thought. Like, it has to be more clear what its aims are and what it is doing. Last time I was just about to get the non-profit thing going, several years ago, my thought was that the non-profit would be active in gathering and cultivating new civilization principles, writing, projects, etc. I.e. there would be a board that would keep a certain focus. And NCN, as the online network, would be simply one of the projects, which is more free-flowing and unstructured. But there would be a number of sticky things to sort out, and it would change things in a somewhat different direction. And, well, the energy sort of needs to be right for it. So I'm not sure now is particularly a good time.
There are divided opinions about it, but a possibility is that NCN could be more productive and vibrant of there's a core group that sort of guards and promotes what it is about. Now, that also collides a bit with the idea that it is a wide-open leaderless thing. So that's what makes it controversial. But if I had to do it over again, I think I would have chosen to start off with a core group, non-profit, board of advisors, as a somewhat separate entity from the general online network.
Older material from when I was writing my paper
Finding civilization networks:
'What kind of learning network do we have in mind?'
all growing - we grow personally and inclusively
environment for our own growth
action oriented - shaping our environment
so that it shapes us back
and it keeps up with our growth
and can accomodate us at all the points in our growth
growing a new kind of <b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99 |civilization</b> from the bottom up
the gradual creation of a better world for all of us.
We are building a world that works for everyone.
Now, what I am interested in is what, for me at least, goes under the heading of a "New <b style="color:black;background-color:#99ff99 |Civilization</b>". That is, a society where the needs or everybody are met, where resources are shared for the common good, where people are free to choose how to live and how to express themselves, where the means of living are in the control of those who need and use them, where people live in harmony with each other and with the planet, and where we together can expand our knowledge, capabilities and enjoyment of life.
'How should this network work?'
discussing relevant ideas
people getting together to work on actual products in this area.
an additional level of commitment, taking action, and actually bringing some products, some artifacts, or some practically useful information, into existence.
nobody will tell you what you must do.
http://pattern.com/funch-netgen.html
'What did we learn from experience?'
'How does that compare with a survey of networks</b>?'
'Suggestions for setting up networks</b> and linking them together'
<div class='Rule'></div>
What are noteworthy learning networks</b>?
Successful search terms: self-learners networks</b>, online laboratory,
Unsuccessful search terms: open laboratory
Analyze learning networks:
What have they achieved?
What is their current status?
What are their rules for the content they generate?
How do they include people?
How do they fund themselves?
How does learning take place?
Sat, 03 Oct 09 11:29:20 +0000 Sasha: Who wrote this? Andrius, someone else? That would be useful info for me. If I dont know who write what its confusing to me.
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