Personal Introduction

[matt...@couchsurfing.com]

My name is Mattthew, but everyone calls me Triple-T (for perhaps
obvious reasons). I am the General Manager of CouchSurfing where I'm
responsible for setting the strategies and goals of the organization
and for leading the other division/team coordinators. John stopped by
the CS home/office this week, told me about this project, and I was
very excited to hear about it. John invited me to the group so I can
learn about your progress. I probably won't post much. I'm just here
to observe.

The reason I'm interested in the project is that CS has for a long
time wanted to implement a "CS University" that would be very similar
to P2PU. CouchSurfing is a non-profit charity whose mission is to
find the quantifiably best methods for helping diverse people
appreciate the differences between them. Our surfing/hosting platform
allows two people to find each other, meet face-to-face, and share
hospitality. The hospitality shared between surfer and host is a
bridge that allows them to connect deeply despite their differences,
and ultimately appreciate that they have differences. We believe that
knowledge shared between student and teacher creates a similar
bridge. The intention for CSU is to become another way to achieve our
mission.

CSU is only an intention at this point, and CS doesn't necessarily
want to build and manage a new platform. That's why I'm excited about
the possibility of partnering with another non-profit organization
such as P2PU. P2PU can be the leaders in knowledge sharing and open
learning. Its strength can be finding free teaching materials and
creating the right platform for teacher and student. CS's strength is
nearly a million members who are seeking personal growth, who want to
share their knowledge in some way, and who have physical spaces they
are willing to share freely. It's easy to imagine a fruitful
partnership.

I can't promise any support or endorsement at this time, however I'm
very excited by what your doing. I hope we can keep an open dialog as
your organization and platform comes together. I'm sure at least that
CS and P2PU can share knowledge.

Mattthew Brauer
General Manager
CouchSurfing International, Inc.

[Stian Håklev]

Matthew,

Welcome to the group. I am a big fan of Couchsurfing, and have used it frequently. I think the philosophy of the two groups mesh very nicely, and I would love to see some kind of synergy happen in the future. IN addition, I am sure we could learn some things from you in terms of managing a large community of participants/volunteers etc.

Stian

--
http://reganmian.net/blog -- Random Stuff that Matters

[Philipp Schmidt]

Hi Triple T:

Welcome to the list - and thanks for introducing yourself. It's great
to have you lurking here - and hopefully you can't resist getting
involved.

Like Stian, I am a fan of CS. Many of the people who resonate with the
idea of a P2PU, also "get" the CS concept, and vice versa. There is an
similar underlying philosophy of sharing and collaborating, and CS
helps people deal with those not as abstract concepts, but in very
real ways.

We are currently gearing up for the pilot phase during which we will
run a small set of courses to test different ideas and models. The
pilot is designed to work out a lot of the details, so that P2PU
doesn't run into big problems later. We are also investigating
different "pathways" to formal credit, and a reputation model that
could replace formal credit to some degree. There is a lot we can
learn from the way CS handles trust and reputations.

Best regards - P

--
Jan Philipp Schmidt - "Sharing Nicely" at www.bokaap.net - "Hacking
Education" at www.peer2peeruniversity.org