the Commoning Game

[Technoshaman]

I envision the game as a path to create and empower a global
constituency to practice:

“Commons-ownership and governance of a new currency that can out-
compete any corporate model, and fund the development & implementation
of further capabilities, including a more resilient Commons.” (Tom
Crowl, in: http://groups.google.com/group/contactsummit/msg/c665ab83e0df7056
)

By suggesting a game I don’t want to trivialize the unresolved
challenges around the issues of ownership ad governance of any global
commons. The good news is that the to engage in the collaborative,
rigorous and systemic inquiry needed to meet the, we don’t have to
start that inquiry from scratch. There’s a relevant and remarkable
line of research that has been pioneered by Commons economist, James
B. Quilligan http://p2pfoundation.net/James_Quilligan and others.

What is needed is a productive dialogue between the game development
team and the Commons economists. In this post, I want to test the
game’s core idea as it has been emerging from the conversations on the
School of Commoning and with other interested commoners.

“The social and political space where things get done and where people
have a sense of belonging and have an element of control over their
lives, providing sustenance, security and independence... Commons are
organized around resources that are collectively owned or shared
between or among populations.” (Wikipedia)

The first question is: Can a game create such social and political
space? My answer is clearly affirmative, assuming that it is designed
with that criterion in my mind.

1. Purpose of the game play

The purpose is two-fold: to inspire players to discover/create commons
and experience commoning, defined as:

a. The ensemble of practices used by people in the course of managing
shared resources and reclaiming the commons

b. Moving from the I to the We, where individuals become capable to
think, feel, and act as Commons

2. Game challenges

Individual level
What kind of commons do you see around you or are a member of? Write a
blog, a tweet, or a wiki page, or create and post short vid clip about
what makes you think/feel so. Go for impact, as reflected by
crowdranking of your story.

Group level
Self-organize into teams to co-create a new and mutually valued
possibility, as commons. Co-create with them a story of your commons
told in multiple media. Go for impact, as reflected by crowdranking.

3. Principles

There will be a small set of core principles of commoning derived from
the successful practices of existing commons, P2P ventures, and social
process technologies (e.g. Art if Hosting, Holacracy, et.) which
players can use guidepost to successful gaming behavuors.

4. Game Objects

The initial game objects will be players-generated knowledge and
networking artifacts. Secondary game objects will be the links players
and spectators can create among those artifacts.

5. Game mechanics

I found lots of similarity of intention, and invite collaboration with
the Transition Game that BenB wrote about
http://groups.google.com/group/contactsummit/msg/44abce744933de64 :

Play--progress yourself (person, kin, collective, community, region,
sphere) 
towards regenerative culture, in verifiable action steps;
that is, produce a 
web media resource which presents the basic who/
what/when/where/why/how of 
your 'success story' (achievement) and
submit it (as metadata via 
bookmarklet) to the "game" database.

Points--all players are free to browse the database and review
content, 
which is then rated subjectively in dimensions like scope/
scale of impact, 
ingenuity/creativity, veracity/thoroughness, beauty/
craft, 'production 
value', technical clarity, humor/entertainment,
effort/investment, etc. 
These are given a dynamic weighted average
'total' which factors visibility 
to other players/browsers based on
the viewer's values/profile/record, or by 
collective intelligence...

There’s a good source of thinking about further game mechanics is
here: http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics . I have ideas at
various levels of elaboration about many of those game mechanics
elements but prefer not launching into the work on them before a
design team coalesce around a shared vision and principles of the
game.

If we succeed with developing this game it can serve as a prototype
for gamifying the transition to a sustainable, commons-based society.
More about the latter, here: http://www.commonslearningalliance.org/content/towards-commons-based-society
.

When we climb a mountain, wanting to reach the highest vista, first we
look up to see whether we are moving in the right direction, then we
look in front of us to seek the path taking us there.

If the direction this post point to calls you, then please join me in
the climb and help scouting out the paths leading there.

Here’s a special challenge to interested co-designers: Let’s develop a
clear, coherent, and convincing game plane, complete with the design
of a crowdfunding campaign, and present it not later then by October,
at Contact in NYC.

[CulturalEngineer]

Great Ideas! And an essential approach.

Various games (and I mean this in a clinical sense) lie behind both
successes and failures in our political/economic systems.

Games are very serious stuff and are biologically rooted.... (games
are not only 'practice for life' but also drive our actions in the
real world) . Many of the problems in politics and economics
especially arise because the 'games designs that we're faced with for
engaging in those activities... be it in the strategies used in
political campaigns or the design and marketing of corrupting
financial products.... are counter-productive for the society as a
whole. Players "winning" such games become increasingly damaging for
the society as a whole where poor game design incentivises ever more
damaging strategies in order to win the game being played.

(e.g. Lizard-brain political advertising and extractive and deceptive
Wall Street financial 'products'.

So you couldn't be more correct! The challenge is to create healthy
games... healthy not only for the player but for his neighbors and the
larger society.

For instance, the system I envision (like democracy itself) has its
perils. The empowered network I envision (via what I call the Pooled-
User-Determined Account Network) is an enormously potent tool. While
originally developed with political contribution especially in mind
( arising out of a realization of an enormous potential if a simple
microtransaction and its networking could be enabled)... it soon
became apparent that such a network could do much more than that...
(though that's pretty good just on that level,. I'm pleased that its
already been realized that such a network could be enormously
important in news and journalism.)

So the real key is catalyzing the network. I believe people will soon
realize that has enormous utility.

But you get to the essential! Just like democracy itself... the design
for its implementation, the context within which it operates, the
'games' through which it exercises its potentials become the
determinants of its success.

I look forward to meeting... and share with you concerns about how to
design better social 'games'!!!!

(I've given considerable thought to how this system could work in
debate situations and how to avoid some of the issues with that
potentially volatile game...)

P.S. RE Games as a reflection (and determinant) of social actions and
attititudes:

Virtual World Study Reveals the Origin of Good and Bad Behavior
Patterns
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26967/

Regards,
Tom Crowl

On Jul 9, 3:00 am, Technoshaman <george....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I envision the game as a path to create and empower a global
> constituency to practice:
>
> “Commons-ownership and governance of a new currency that can out-
> compete any corporate model, and fund the development & implementation
> of further capabilities, including  a more resilient Commons.” (Tom
> Crowl, in:http://groups.google.com/group/contactsummit/msg/c665ab83e0df7056
> )
>
> By suggesting a game I don’t want to trivialize the unresolved
> challenges around the issues of ownership ad governance of any global
> commons. The good news is that the to engage in the collaborative,
> rigorous and systemic inquiry needed to meet the, we don’t have to
> start that inquiry from scratch. There’s a relevant and remarkable
> line of research that has been pioneered by Commons economist, James

> B. Quilliganhttp://p2pfoundation.net/James_Quilliganand others.

> the Transition Game that BenB wrote abouthttp://groups.google.com/group/contactsummit/msg/44abce744933de64:

>
> Play--progress yourself (person, kin, collective, community, region,
> sphere) 
towards regenerative culture, in verifiable action steps;
> that is, produce a 
web media resource which presents the basic who/
> what/when/where/why/how of 
your 'success story' (achievement) and
> submit it (as metadata via 
bookmarklet) to the "game" database.
>
> Points--all players are free to browse the database and review
> content, 
which is then rated subjectively in dimensions like scope/
> scale of impact, 
ingenuity/creativity, veracity/thoroughness, beauty/
> craft, 'production 
value', technical clarity, humor/entertainment,
> effort/investment, etc. 
These are given a dynamic weighted average
> 'total' which factors visibility 
to other players/browsers based on
> the viewer's values/profile/record, or by 
collective intelligence...
>
> There’s a good source of thinking about further game mechanics is

> here:http://gamification.org/wiki/Game_Mechanics. I have ideas at

> various  levels of elaboration about many of those game mechanics
> elements but prefer not launching into the work on them before a
> design team coalesce around a shared vision and principles of the
> game.
>
> If we succeed with developing this game it can serve as a prototype
> for gamifying the transition to a sustainable, commons-based society.

> More about the latter, here:http://www.commonslearningalliance.org/content/towards-commons-based-...

[Technoshaman]

Tom, thanks for your supportive message!

> Many of the problems in politics and economics especially arise because the 'games designs that we're faced with for engaging in those activities... be it in the strategies used in political campaigns or the design and marketing of corrupting financial products.... are counter-productive for the society as a whole. Players "winning" such games become increasingly damaging for the society as a whole where poor game design incentivises ever more damaging strategies in order to win the game being played.

Yes, and now that we know that, nothing can stop us from creating new
games for a change. In fact, the “games for change” movement is
gaining momentum, as its 8th annual festival illustrated:
http://gamesforchange.org/festival2011/ . The questions then become:
just how big we dare the new games to be, and how much collective
intelligence and competence can we muster for building a truly game-
changing social game, healthy for its players and planet?

Without wanting to sound grandiose, I strongly believe that you’re up
to something of epic importance with your idea of “Commons-ownership
and governance of a new currency that can out-compete any corporate

model, and fund the development & implementation of further
capabilities, including  a more resilient Commons.”

I am a commons educator, co-founder of the School of Commoning and the
Commons Learning Alliance, so the “Commons-ownership and governance of
a currency” has instantaneously made lots of sense to me. I don’t
think that without such ownership and governance we have any chance
outcompete the predatory corporate model built on the enclosure of
what belongs to all of us.

> the design for its implementation, the context within which it operates, the 'games' through which it exercises its potentials become the determinants of its success.

Indeed! What do you think, what should be a couple of wise, decisive
questions that we should ask from ourselves if we wanted to further
game design so that it can also generate some practical steps towards
bringing your system to life, and attract a large enough number of
players wanting to test the game?

Of course, that question is also addressed to all those who feel any
affinity with what we’re talking about here.

george

[Technoshaman]

I wrote:

> Without wanting to sound grandiose, I strongly believe that you’re up
> to something of epic importance with your idea of “Commons-ownership
> and governance of a new currency that can out-compete any corporate
> model, and fund the development & implementation of further
> capabilities, including  a more resilient Commons.”

I thought to add some explanation of where did that "epic" adjective
come from. Jane McGonagil, an executive at the Institute for the
Future and an evangelist of serious social games gave this definition
of an "epic win:" An outcome that is so extraordinarily positive that
you had no idea it was even possible until you achieved it.

If you have not yet watched her famous TED talk on "Gaming can make a
better world," please do yourself a favor and click on the link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
.

[Devin Balkind]

I started a thread in April here called Gamifying the Gift Economy, which is aligned with this concept, and at that time also copied the game mechanics section of the gamification wiki, created the gamifying the transition page and started listing relevant activities that could be 'gamified', so I definitely feel affinity for this concept. :)

I'm cc'ing this thread to my friend Kris who is a collaborators on the FLOFarm project.  He has experience organizing and managing 100+ participant LARP (live action role playing) games and is designing a game around our development of FLOFarm land, construction of free/libre/opensource tools such as the GVCS, entertainment/ceremony, etc.  Kris will be able to articulate the game being design better than I and I hope he does so here.  My intention is to present our progress at Contact and we're certainly looking for collaborators!

As for the currency part of all this, inside the game there's a plethora of rewards (coins, badges, etc) but outside the game, where gameplay and regional economies meet, we need to turn the game's surpluses into a medium of exchange we can use to trade for things we need/want.  To achieve this we've put together a 'store-backed' currency using off the shelf technologies (Drupal, user points, uber cart, etc).  This tech allows us to generate points and give them to users who can either exchange the points among themselves or spend them in our store. The more people play the game, the more valuable products exist in the store, the more currency can be circulated.  I attempt to explain all this in a slightly outdated presentation here.  The secret sauce for this is a good deal of community organizing to get people interested in circulating the currency instead of simply redeeming for goods in the store.  Hopefully we can make that work.  The website will be released in the next week or so, but it'll take a while to stock it with valuable stuff.  I'll post updates here.

I want to make our work as transparent and open as possible so we can all collaborate so please share questions, comments, advice.

I'm very much looking forward to this thread.

[Technoshaman]

Devin, I read your Gamifying the Gift Economy thread and am delighted
that you and Kris work on the FLOFarm <http://flofarm.org/blog/>
project that is of similar inspiration.

At this point, the game centered on creating Commons-ownership and
governance of a new currency that can out-compete the corporate model
seems to be sufficiently different from FLOFarm to launch it as a
separate project, but my guess is that Tom Crowl would also agree to
saying ditto to:

[Devin Balkind]

The external currency we'll have begun using in the next month or two (albeit very sparingly) will be community owned and governed, and it's value will be backed by a 'commons' of sorts so I invite you to view FLOFarm as a space that's interested in testing these ideas.

[Gail Taylor]

George, I think your commons game is an essential next step. I hope
many groups experiment with the concepts you are putting in motion.
There are many new ways of working and being that are shaping the new
paradigm-in-making. Still, until we reframe the art of our commons and
design appropriate currencies, we will not be able to change our
collective habits.

I would like to participate in helping with the design. A very rich
exercise! Thank you.

On Jul 10, 2:30 pm, Technoshaman <george....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Tom, thanks for your supportive message!
>
> > Many of the problems in politics and economics especially arise because the 'games designs that we're faced with for engaging in those activities... be it in the strategies used in political campaigns or the design and marketing of corrupting financial products.... are counter-productive for the society as a whole. Players "winning" such games become increasingly damaging for the society as a whole where poor game design incentivises ever more damaging strategies in order to win the game being played.
>
> Yes, and now that we know that, nothing can stop us from creating new
> games for a change. In fact, the “games for change” movement is

> gaining momentum, as its 8th annual festival illustrated:http://gamesforchange.org/festival2011/. The questions then become:

[BenB]

Awesome work Devin, and concepting, George;

This does feel like a keen convergence. I'm trying to organize some thoughts to describe a possible archetype better (hoping on P2PF blog soon), but key points/prospects as they relate here:

Platform-- Drupal has a lot going, including a great newer distribution called (da-da-dah) Commons, but is still handicapped in terms of federation and interaction between instances. I'm sure this issue is on the radar, but may be too sticky for rapid resolution. I'm thinking some kind of adjunct meta-database that followed domain specificity a la Fluidinfo could be a breakthrough. Project DrUid anyone? (Actually, yeah, I'm not the only one: http://drupal.org/project/druid )

Alternatives-- A pretty slick and feature rich project covering similar but narrower/transient ground is in the works by some good Londoners here: http://togethr.at --worth watching the vid a couple times to fathom design qualities, esp. Corp.Soc.Respo. tie-in

Publicity-- I believe a real key to this is making the 'play' very publicly attractive, entertaining and informative/practical. This space is like unto a mother load of crowdsource media wealth in coming years, and a system to both promote and monetize some of that output can be done for wins all around. I'm kicking around a social media curation platform (BrowsEarth) tailored for such 'success stories' as come off the ground with commoning ventures, for just this purpose. There's potential (hell, desperate need) to greatly enrich the current cultural fabrics, and I strongly endorse such a coopting approach rather than reinvention--plus of course there's a lot of stale loot and ossified systems which still could be turned to the light a smidge and abet this accceleration...

[Douglas Rushkoff]

I have been reading this discussion, quite thrilled by its implications for a number of reasons.

First, it's precisely the subject of the concluding chapter of my dissertation, currently in progress. I'm looking at the market system (central currency and corporatism) in terms of it's "playability" and how interactive and networking technologies open up a game that has been closed for six centuries.

Second, I'm particularly intrigued by the potential for more incremental changes, and those that hijack current technologies and systems rather than those that want to just start everything over. The revolutionary in me is always tempted to wipe the slate clean, but I've been increasingly convinced that the "co-option approach" will do a lot more, while saving on unnecessary rebuilding from the ground up. Ethan Zuckerman of Geekcorps is particularly lucid on this subject. 

Finally, this is the discussion and the meeting of minds I was hoping for Contact to allow for in the first place. Yes, I care about the live event - but it's this gathering of people and projects that matters most. 

---

http://rushkoff.com
http://twitter.com/rushkoff
http://facebook.com/DouglasRushkoff
http://www.orbooks.com/our-books/program/

http://www.rushkoff.com/lifeincorporated

Come to Contact! http://contactcon.com

[Kristian Chickey]

Hello! As you may have realized, I am Devin's friend Kris here to talk about Gamification. I've joined the group to make this discussion easier. Let me take some time to explain how I'm hoping the game might work. I am going to focus on the "coin" system in the following discussion, as it is of the most general interest. Feel free to offer suggestions and comments. The game design is reaching the end of its first draft before it will be circulated amongst gaming professionals (yes, they exist, in numbers).

Jumping right in...

Background

FLOFarm, or "the land" as we often refer to it, is a 200 acre area of Pennsylvania forest. Starting out, the property had virtually no infrastructure but abundant natural resources. Not a bad situation as we envision an Open Ecology-style village. Point being, there was a lot of work to do. To complicate matters, each of us participants hope to get something different out of our experience, and so we each have different priorities.

Goals

We have to know what we are trying to accomplish by designing and running the game. To start, we need to define the scope of our game. We have a space -- what do we want to do with it. This exploration corresponded with our fundraiser planning. Spreadsheets and logistics. It became evident that the game would be directly intertwined with our fundraising efforts.

Next, we define our audience. This does not mean making allowances for each and every individual to join in. Some people will not be interested, some will not have the necessary skills, etc. Upon reflection, we define three main usage cases to consider. First, people with a lack of outdoor experience for whom we would like to provide a healthy outdoor experience. Second, individuals with whom we would like to fully engage as partners. Third and final, people with whom we would like to trade our surpluses.

Constraints

There are many limits on what we can enact for the purposes of the game. The obvious constraints are, well, obvious. Time, money, people, skills, location, accessibility. Legal realities. All familiar.

In addition to these constraints, there is another inobvious constraint. The personalities of the participants. All of our core members are fiercely independent, and any attempts that were suggestive of coercion would, I suspect, be immediately rejected. Of course, that is why we are making it a game. So people want to play.

Incentive Structure

Currently, we are going forward on a three-tier system of interaction. 

Unskilled visitors are to be introduced along a set curriculum of general outdoor, pioneer, and technical skills for which they will be awarded with badges to show their progress. Badges are earned and skill-based; they are not meant to be used for barter and exchange.

Engaged participants are incentivized with coins. Coins are awarded to the person leading a project to completion. These coins are specific to the game and do not have specified relative values. The coins come in different "flavors" to indicate the time of task accomplished, and the relative contribution to receive each coin of the same type is meant to be roughly equal.

An additional set of coins are reserved to reward specific behaviors. The first person to reach a certain milestone. The best example of a specific accomplishment during the timeframe. Et cetera.

Coins are meant to be bartered for whatever value can be obtained. In order to promote exchange, each coin type is given, in it's description, a suggested scenario for its exchange. No exchanges are ever mandatory, as the coins themselves are private property freely given.

Some coins, termed "tokens," are produced for a specific barter purpose when a project is completed. These are meant to be exchanged for finished goods. Having a backed value, they will be able to interact with other systems of exchange. These are most similar to CSA shares.

Design

Really, the basis of the design was the fundraiser spreadsheet. We made a list of all the projects we felt we could feasibly accomplish within the timeframe (Summer and Fall). We then divided up the work and resources required for the projects into similar types (documentation, clearing, water, power, et al.) and set relative values. This was most clearly accomplished with monetary requirements.

When designing the fundraiser, a gold coin was introduced to serve as a tie-in to the game. The donation required to receive the gold coin was used to evaluate how many "gold coins" the project was expected to cost to complete. Adding up the costs of all the projects and dividing by the donation level determined the number of gold coins that would enter circulation.

A similar mechanism was applied to each other category of coin, thus matching the expected of labor required to the coins produced.

Regularly scheduled audits correct the game to match the actual events.

Tracking

In order to show the progress of the game, and hopefully the increasing barter value of the coins, there is an online log of the exchanges the coins are used in. This online mechanism is optional. 

Players may give away coins listed on their profiles, with or without transfer of the physical coin. Moreover, the coins are not unique and the online narrative does not track each coin discretely, though the individual exchanges can often be reconstructed.

Meta

Each level of interaction explicitly offers a reward for its own redesign, as well as the option for players to add their own content (pending approval of course).

Projects can be added after they are started or even completed, provided they meet approval process. This reflects that the game is a front for actual events and the approval process for the game mirrors the legal realities of land ownership.

Within the game materials are included links to sites for online sales and other web resources. Virtually any aspect of the endeavor can be described in terms of a project for the game.

Well, that is a brief introduction to a game. Any questions?

[Devin Balkind]

Thanks for the info BenB.  I've passed this message onto our Drupal guy.  The inherent insecurity of PHP makes Drupal ideal for us to prototype but if/when we develop task specfic apps I'm sure we'll use other technologies, especially semantically friendly ones. 

Togethr looks great.  The folks at project00.net keep coming into my life with relevant projects/interests so I'm going to start following them more closely.

[Technoshaman]

Hi Gail, I knew a Gail Taylor in California in 80s, who worked on a
model of Group Genius. Do you happen to be the same or a different
Gail?

Anyway:

> until we reframe the art of our commons and
> design appropriate currencies, we will not be able to change our
> collective habits.

So true! That reframing is the essential work of the movements of the
multitude that I referred to here: http://groups.google.com/group/contactsummit/msg/cc661d2c55f83c08

.

> I would like to participate in helping with the design.

The project can certainly use any help it can get! Would you say
something about your background and talents so that we can think
together about the kind of contribution that the design needs and
would make your heart sing.

[Technoshaman]

On Jul 12, 1:23 am, Douglas Rushkoff <rushk...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm looking at the market system (central currency and corporatism) in terms of it's "playability" and how interactive and networking technologies open up a game that has been closed for six centuries.

Doug, do you also look at the "gift" of the capitalist system that
developed the forces of production (technology, general intellect,
global connectivity) that are now enabling the new game?

> I'm particularly intrigued by the potential for more incremental changes, and those that hijack current technologies and systems rather than those that want to just start everything over. The revolutionary in me is always tempted to wipe the slate clean, but I've been increasingly convinced that the "co-option approach" will do a lot more, while saving on unnecessary rebuilding from the ground up.

I'm fully with you! The "clean slate" idea was of the Jacobins and
Leninists, whose time was a time of _political_ revolutions well
served by it, although not going as deep as the starry eyes hoped for.
The (r)evolution that will be _social_ , and is already transforming
all social relations, works more "like "nature, where meaningful
beginnings are hardly perceptible"(Paul Hawken).

I anticipate that the transition to a Commons-based society will take
decades, not years. During that time, evolutionary agents must learn
playing the dynamics of "Commons-State-Market" co-existence so that we
end up with Commons-friendly partner states at all level (local,
national, UN), and Commons-influenced markets.

In that process, it is vital for the Commons to develop its own
currency and prove that its institutions can outperform the status
quo. All that will take building on the best of what is, then
transcend and include it in the gradually emerging new context. The
Commons cannot win but by making the whole society a winner. That
calls not for starting everything over but removing the systemic
obstacles to make the best use of our powerful technologies for
creating a sustainable world.

> Ethan Zuckerman of Geekcorps is particularly lucid on this subject.

Thanks for the reference. I've just learned that he is the new
director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media. Good for MIT! Did you invite
him to Contact?

> Finally, this is the discussion and the meeting of minds I was hoping for Contact to allow for in the first place. Yes, I care about the live event - but it's this gathering of people and projects that matters most.

To me what matters the most is the conscious exploitation of the
synergy between the dynmics of real-time and online communication.
When I talked with Venessa about my contribution to Contact, I
mentioned my passion for wrapping an unconference into a blanket of
collective intelligence tools and practices. We can start weaving that
blanket right here and now.

[Gail Taylor]

That's me!
More soon. I am about to leave home to catch a plane.

Tell me a little more about yourself so I can re-connect with you.

Sent from Raven iPad.

Ga...@tomorrowmakers.org
Http://www.tomorrowmakers.org

[Technoshaman]

hi all.

that's just a quick note to say that I didn't fall of the planet, am
in intense exchange with colleagues about how to go forward, and will
have, hopefully next week, some scenarios and related questions to
share...

george

[D'Coda]

George, thanks for the invite to this discussion. I've been reading
the posts & links...still much more to go through. I've some general
thoughts to share.

As you know, with Open Intelligence I've spent a great deal of time
researching topics within the "culture change" sphere. I've found many
wonderful "change-maker" groups and individuals. Each is struggling in
their own way for attention, action, support. Something is missing.
Coordination between all of these groups. Were they unified,
transition would reach "lift off". I propose that you consider
starting this game of the commons with those groups...with people who
are already invested in transition. I've a vision of something like a
Collective Intelligence Agency that does for "the commons" what the
better known intelligence agencies and think tanks do for the
corporate/governance powers. A "people's intelligence agency" which is
another way of describing a knowledge repository that offers the
commons whatever it is they need to know to be effective. And I've
envisioned this, too, as a game. There can be many variations and
levels of a transitional game (& ought to be to keep it going and keep
everyone intrigued). Some versions of the Collective Intelligence
Agency are already in the works (like Ledface)...but they,too, ought
to be coordinated...through a game.

A beginning version of the commons game to create an exchange of
currency, talent, resources between these groups would help everyone
and you'd be testing the game out among innovative, creative,
dedicated people. As it develops, all of these groups would help
extend the game to their circles. A focused way to network this. I do
have game mechanics in mind but will have to share that later.

Ok, I'll go back to reading for a time. Thanks to everyone in this
discussion for your inspiring work!

Elle D'Coda

[Technoshaman]

Update: the Commoning Game moved to my back burner because my two-
steps project initiation strategy looks like this:

1. generate viable project concepts that can add momentum to the grand
project of challenging the status quo and supporting the transition to
a sustainable civilization

2. articulate them, make them visible, then engage in co-creation with
those who are attracted to one

The one that successfully went through these steps is the Campaign for
Commons Literacy http://www.indiegogo.com/CommonsCampaign . Of course,
I don't abandon the the Commoning Game, just wait for the right
momentum when it gets as much dedicated and sustained attention as the
Campaign got. (My secret hope is that the Campaign will also put us in
touch with energies needed to realize the game.)