This is super relevant aspect and I dont have it clear either. So, should we block some time during the summit to work on this? @francesca @manel2017 and whoever whats to join?

Yes, let's do that at the summit :)

If any of you are interested in reading more about my participation in the EHF Fellowship, see here: https://stories.ehf.org/ehf-fellow-francesca-pick-12f922fa8364

@francesca I am digging into your previous posts... I want to leave a trace here for a new experiment with Ouihare Montreal / eco2FEST 2018. @agathelehel1 can perhaps complete my short reporting.
In short, in order to execute eco2FEST 2018 we used a very reduced version of Sensorica's contribution accounting model, coupled with some level of pre-planning and budgeting. I set up the tools in a very rudimentary way, using Google spreadsheets (see everything here and dig deeper into these links). Tools are tools and methods are methods. What's most important is the social dynamic around them. This has been my main focus within the Sensorica network, observing how tools, methodologies and rules model socioeconomic behavior at the individual level.

The context is this: funding for the event came late, the Ouishare MTL community was not engaging with the calls for participation, we essentially had one month to build a team to roll out the event, a 3 weeks-long event, very heavy on programming. We had to bring people from beyond the Ouishare bobble / sphere. This is when I propose to use Sensorica's methods for open projects: set in place a contribution-based reward system, make a call for participation, build a list of potential candidates, call them into action according to their profiles - see contributor's page. Again, all this was stitched together using very rudimentary Google tools. The result was that in one week and a half, counting the time to put everything in place, we got a pretty good list of potential contributors and started the work, before we even had the money in the bank.
My first conclusion is that the contribution-based open project methodology worked well to attract contributors to the project. People kind of understood the game and it was enough for them to jump in and contribute.
Despite the fact that the tools were really simple to use, the lowest common denominator, Google forms that people had to fill and Google spreadsheets, all integrated on a website linked above, some people still found it difficult and non intuitive.
The reality is that I had one week to act, only 3 weeks before the opening day of the event, when we were only a team of 4 on the whole project. So people did not get trained on these tools. I tried as much as I could to make the whole ting stigmatic, leaving traces and hints and explanations all over the place, to lead people from one thing to another, but according to people's reports, this was not enough. And I totally understand. Very few people went on the website where all these tools were integrated or better say MacGyvered within a few days. The fact that they didn't follow the instructions, didn't use the website, shows a work culture discrepancy. And to that, I would add the obvious human laziness factor, which plays a big part in failure to use tools in collaborative communities, especially the small, informal ones.
The result is that even if people complained about the tools and being lost in fuzziness, they still logged their contributions with, I would say, 70% clarity and accuracy. Taking aside a few minor issues with the logging, we distributed the HR budget to all contributors in a way that was generally fair for everyone. No one really complained. In general I think people were happy. A bit more work ended up on Agathe's side, who was also new to this way of doing things, having to play around and adjust some contributions. Much of this extra work could have been avoided if proper tools were used, for example the Sensorica's NRP.

All that to say that I strongly believe that without this methodology eco2FEST would have been a disaster, with a team of 4 people (including myself) at only 3 weeks from the start of the event, and a non responsive Ouishare Montreal community. What Michele Bauwens calls "contributory accounting", what Sensorica calls "contribution accounting and benefit redistribution" is a good recipe to use when you want to run a project in a more open way, when you're not able to rely on a team from beginning to end, when you're in a dynamic situation. It is very important to note that tools are not everything. They need to be complemented with methodologies of work, with governance (rules), and everything works better when people share the same culture of work. Training tools, on-boarding and facilitation services are required in order to allow any new contributor to fit in and rapidly become productive (diminish the being lost, things aren't clear feelings).

Very interesting, thanks for sharing Tibi! This sounds a lot like our experience with the first Ouishare Fest in Paris in 2013. One of my take aways was though that the urgency and the novelty of something is amazing for getting people to mobilize and contribute, but that if it becomes continuous, it stops working. But with the right method and tools maybe not!

@francesca Congratulations on the grant and fellowship! I'm from India and collective finance is my specific area of interest. India has over 200 million members in cooperative societies and about 300 million members of self-help groups. These are mostly offline today and will need good tools in the coming few years. I'm curious to explore Cobudget and other tools and see if they can be adapted to India. What's the best way for me to learn more and get in touch?

That's awesome to hear @revathi ! I've heard quite a lot from some people in the fellowship actually who do work in India and Africa about the extensive savings pools networks that exist there! Let's have a chat, we're already connected on telegram so let's talk there.