Loomio
Fri 21 Jul 2017 10:31AM

Ouishare in Asia

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Congratulations to the Ouishare team for the extraordinary 2017 edition of the Ouishare Fest. This has been a both an inspiring and humbling experience, it is very refreshing and energizing to know that such a vibrant community is thriving across the globe and thanks to events like Ouishare, they are able to connect and grow stronger.

Sylvain Mahe and myself are based out of Asia, Sylvain in Singapore and myself in Hong Kong, and both of us were attending this year's edition of the Fest. We have been following the Ouishare movement for a while now and we are super keen to grow the community here in Asia, in both countries.

Sylvain and myself are also colleagues and work for an tech innovation consultancy and we are building an Impact Lab which purpose is to leverage the collective genius to address some of the largest challenges and opportunities of our time. It will work to harness the transformative power of technology to create enduring positive impact in our world. The Impact Hub is a direct embodiment of our company values and a vision for a shared future...

In this larger context, we are wondering if Ouishare recommends to kick start a Ouishare community in a new geography in a certain way? Do you guys provide any kind of guidelines, do you have recommended approach? We are already hosting a few Meetups events in our premises and we were thinking of starting simply by hosting a new Meetup to map and connect the community of like-minded people locally. If anyone has any feedback on how best to initiate a new Ouishare group in a new location; any tips at all, we would really appreciate!

Thanks a bunch
Cheers
Cedric & Sylvain

MH

Manel Heredero Fri 21 Jul 2017 5:43PM

Hello Cedric! Great to hear that there is the beginning of a community in HK. @albertcanigueral is, in my view, the best community weaver. He is based in Barcelona and has done a lot of community building in Spain and in LATAM

DU

Sun 23 Jul 2017 7:19AM

Thanks a lot Manel, we are contacting Albert :)

MH

Manel Heredero Tue 25 Jul 2017 9:57PM

Hey @cedricmainguy I forgot to mention. A few weeks ago we recorder the experience of Alexandre in Quebec. There he talks about the first steps of getting a small team on their feet, mapping the local ecosystem, and so on. Worth listening! https://www.spreaker.com/user/ouishare/2017-04-14-t05-36-09pm-final-mix

MH

Manel Heredero Tue 25 Jul 2017 10:03PM

Another tool that some of us find interesting is the Community Canvas. I haven't had the chance to use it yet.
https://community-canvas.org/

DU

Wed 26 Jul 2017 2:57AM

Thanks a lot again Manel.

F

Francesca Sat 12 Aug 2017 4:05PM

Hi @cedricmainguy , it's very cool that you would like to kick-start activities in Asia! I am likely to be in Hongkong early next year, so it would be great to connect then and maybe use the occasion to organize a meetup.

Here are also a few more resources about building a community that could interest you:

AC

Albert Cañigueral Thu 24 Aug 2017 5:44PM

@cedricmainguy really sorry for the enormous delay. That allowed Manel and Francesca to contribute with some documentation & talks (great stuff!) :)

I lived 2 years in Taipei and jumped into HK couple of times. Amazing energy with the young people. I enjoyed attending http://www.mad.asia/ which might also be an interesting place where to pitch / present OuiShare HK.

In Singapore you already have the Sharing Economy Association (http://www.sharingeconomy.org.sg/), several universities interested on the topic, public policy related debates, or Sangueet from http://platformed.info/

Apart from the community in Montreal you can also check with the community in Quito (@juanpaespi ) who bootstrapped a community in record time last year.

I've the experience mostly in LATAM communties and @yabedcontreras1 (Lima / Peru) has managed to create a kind of workflow. In short (Yabed, correct / improve my description please)

a) Get a team of 1-2 people to lead this initial call and be a point of contact. That's already you and Sylvain.

b) Recommended to create a OS FB Group (Secret one) and invite the initially interested. In small communities (where people know each other) the value is not so much the exchange of knowledge or contacts but the fact of being the initial bit of a node in a global network. In larger group the gathering of people with similar interests + the exchange of local & global knowledge is a great value

c) Then you organize 1-3 meetups (we used to call them OuiShare Drinks or OuiShare Talks. Make the events visible to the global OS community (anounce it on OS FB Global groups / twitter / write on the magazine or in your Medium, etc) + share the pictures on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/ouishare/albums. This is a way to get a team of 3-5 people involved (event production & design, communication, documentation, ...) That's also a way to force yourself to ask people in OS for the design toolkit, get permision to publish events in OS Fan page, get the password for Flickr ... so you will have several links in the community.
At this stage the FB Group should be private (not secret) and 1-2 people appointed to make it dynamic with information and interactions.

d) With this extended team 2-5 people
--> Get to know each other well at personal level and build trust. Start documenting on the general OuiShare GDrive and ask questions to the OS community when you've doubts.

--> Decide on what you'd like to focus as a team effort for the community. This first group task has to be complex enough to require extended work + several people. It has to be not to simple yet not imposible to achive. Very often the first task is a mapping of the ecosystem (I always suggest that). As in the case of Montreal if done with care and a nice design.. you can be relevant for the press. Ask @alexmtl for his experience :)

--> Beyond the collective work it is imporant to provide room for personal autonomy so people can feel ownership of their own destiny in OuiShare. Debate about your own personal areas of interest (blockchain? future of work? cities? platform design? startups?) and starting linking with the rest of the OS network on the topic. The denser the network is the stronger it gets.

Traditional roles/tasks you will need: event production, graphic design, social media expert, communication (press?) expert, project manager (better if agile or similar) or someone with entrepreneurial mindset, etc.

e) After that ... each community takes different routes and priorities. In general at some point there is a larger event or project as the next group objective. @katiamoralesgaitan lead the organization of the 1st Summit in LATAM (http://ouishare.net/fr/events/ouishare-summit-ciudad-de-mexico) + the Platform Coops (http://ouishare.net/fr/events/cooperativas-digitales-platform-coop-la-experiencia-alemana), @alexmtl launched http://www.eco2fest.com/ 1st edition, @juanpaespi lead http://quitocomparte.ouishare.net/, some communities will go for a study or start teaching somewhere (teaching is the low hanging fruit actitivy to generate income at the beginnig). At this stage there will be money around (so you'll need to think on how to invoice) and larger teams (so management, information flow, etc.) gets more complicated

... and from my experience
* Use all the common pool knowledge (gitbook, open source ouishare, etc.) and don't be afraid to ask in Loomio or other channels.
* Use the advance knowledge of the OS network on the topics to talk about forward thinking and bold contributions to the local debates.
* Engage with local media and be relevant for them. That's still needed in most countries.
* Be as open as possible onboarding people on the FB group but be a little bit cautious when on boarding people to work on important bits. Find a way to test their culture fit, way of working, available time, etc... in a company it would be "hire slowly".
* Be a strong leader and help to define agreed objectives with deadlines and deliveries. On the other hand the task of a leader is to create more leaders, so create a space for other people to take responsability and ownership on different tasks or by leading a project on their own.
* Get the most involved people into the global / international network (communication chanels lilke this) ASAP. If you are the only contact point you'll become a bottleneck at some point. Emergence and serendipity are magic sauce in OuiShare and for that you need more connections.
* Cultural fit and having fun is the most important bit with a nascent OS community!

And this video always come handy when talking about starting a community --> https://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement/transcript?language=en :)

I hope that helped and I also hope other community leaders can share their experience!

DU

Thu 24 Aug 2017 5:56PM

Thanks so much for taking the time Albert, these are really good and valuable advices, really much appreciated. I'll keep you posted on our progress soon. Cheers

AC

Albert Cañigueral Fri 25 Aug 2017 11:23AM

@cedricmainguy also check https://www.mindmeister.com/929071927/starting-and-building-a-local-community where @manel2017 and other started collecting some of the knowledge around this area of local communities

KB

Khushboo Balwani Mon 28 Aug 2017 10:02AM

Hi @cedricmainguy , I'm Khushboo, OuiShare connector from India and living in Brussels. Glad to hear your interest in kicking-off OS community in Asia. I'm also in touch with a few people who are interested in this initiative. If you want we can organise a call and kick-off this discussion together. My email address is [email protected] :)

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