Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
“…there’s more of a connection between black cooperatives and civil rights than there is between black cooperatives and capitalism.” Professor Jessica Gordon Nembhard talks about her new book, Collective Courage: A History of African-American Cooperative Economic Thought and Pratice to Colorlines magazine.
“Food sharing is still on the edges of mainstream.” But will sharing your leftovers with strangers become a thing? I’d personally like to stop throwing out fruit that my kids won’t eat…
This video chat lets teens abroad who want to practice their English connect with elderly folks who want to help teach them—or just want someone to talk to during the day.
Twenty years ago, Zapatistas in Chiapas declared war on the Mexican government for signing NAFTA. Since then, they’ve rebuilt their local economy to focus on solidarity, and to prioritize self-sustenance.
Geeking Out
MIT’s Center for Civic Media wants to make access to telepresence bots available to anyone, not just the rich. So they created the People’s Bot.
What’s Going On in the Workforce?
The “army of the self-employed” in Britain are wondering—will legislation ever catch up with the way we work now?
“Nobody ever asks a cyborg to lean in.” Haley Mlotek has some interesting thoughts about how robots and mechanization means we’re all becoming feminized at work—and how that might help us overcome oppression.
If you’re building a business that isn’t, strictly speaking, legal, attracting top talent to work for you can be tough.
Labor Secretary Tom Perez wants construction workers to Stand Down for Safety in the first week of June—to make sure employers are doing everything they can to ensure safety from falls on the job.
Do you make some or all of your income from freelance writing? If so, these folks would like to hear from you.
Organizing Theory
Fighting street harassment or sexual assault on campus? There’s an app for that.
I know, you hear the words “Pirate Party” and think of groups of people wearing an eyepatch while drinking rum and singing sea shanties. But the emergence of a continental political party that’s been largely organized online—and around digital issues—is not to be underestimated.
If you’ve got an email list with lots of inactives, you might want to try separating them out and running some tests…
From Partners
“If geeks are anything they’re problem solvers. If you give them a hard problem they get really excited about solving it. The problem is, many of them don’t have personal experience with hard problems. So the trick is to be very intentional about exposing them to the problems and then asking them to participate.
Things that don’t work are shaming, guilting, accusing. This whole attitude now that “techies don’t care” really bothers me. It’s not productive. “ This Reddit AMA by Catherine Bracy from Code for America might be my favorite thing ever.
Reputation, Reputation, Reputation
If we’ve come to Andy Warhol’s future, where everyone gets their 15 minutes to be famous (even if it’s just online)—will we next be searching to be forgotten in 15 minutes?
If you can’t opt out of a facial recognition world—can avoid it, by wearing someone else’s face?