Future-Ready Co-Creating

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Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to

Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to

This is a guest post from Mirona Constantinescu, who is a Young Scholar at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. She’s cooking up the San Diego Future-Ready Co-Living Communities Initiative, which is really interesting to me because so many elements of an educational environment that reflects Burning Man principles and culture are captured by her thoughts. I asked if we could post this here because she describes several elements of an ideal, new economy community — and includes many resources for those of us who are dreaming about how we could blend what used to be called “higher ed” with coworking and co-living.

(For the record, Morgan and I WANT TO DO THIS! We want to do it in the context of growing something awesome out of the university environment.)

So, here are some thoughts from Mirona, which were originally posted on Facebook. Many thanks to her for letting us repost them here!

* * * * *

“Despite current ads and slogans, the world doesn’t change one person at a time. It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what’s possible.” Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze

My status update from November 27th seemed to spark something for people. This note is meant to expand and circulate the energy around creating a Future-Ready Co-Living Community in San Diego which started with a desire for:

 ” a co-housing setup with social entrepreneurs, futurists, hacktivists, progressive scientists, culture makers, and influencers who collectively and individually work on projects and partake in integral/collective insight practices…”

There is a lot of excitement around developing not just one but many  flavors of intentional community in San Diego and all over the world – it seems the time has come to move forward.

The landscape is prime for people to participate in the creation of these communities on a larger-scale than ever before.

  1. We have access to collaborative digital financing tools that we have never had access to before
  2. Social Media and sharing platforms allow us to communicate and share resources and tools as never before

Truly there are a multitude of “flavors” of co-living arrangements. A comprehensive list can be found from Venessa Miemes – http://emergentbydesign.com/2012/01/08/93-superhero-schools-collaboratories-incubators-accelerators-hubs-for-social-tech-innovation/#sthash.0Dybxfgf.dpuf and we are familiar in this thread with the Tech-Driven communities in San Francisco: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tech-entrepreneurs-revive-communal-living-4988388.php

So what is the secret sauce of the ideal community? And where is San Diego in all of this?

San Diego has a wide variety of communities that emphasize and actively embrace co-living. Here are some ideas of the varieties:

  • IDEA District and Maker Quarter  (in formation) – Including all the MakerFaire Peeps
  • San Diego’s Eco-Villages:

Several people and organizations have been experimenting and working toward communal living for many years and I’d like to acknowledge those efforts in our region, these include: Activated Villages and Emerald Village , Treekaya – part of the Transition Towns movement, LeCase EcoVillage, San Diego Eco-Village, Blue Sky Ranch and a new initiative called Boulder Gardens

  • San Diego’s Spiritual Community, affectionately called ‘The Community’ – this is a 1,000+ person community.

There are various home names: Bouncing Buddha, Moonlight Oasis by the Sea, The Den, Sanctuary, Fire Garden, Aum Dome, SkyPad, Ignite, Fusion Room, Whisper House and more…

In my time spent in the community  I’ve noticed an exquisite emphasis on relational practices and systems of influence (perhaps due in part to the confluent rise with Internet Marketers in our region). There’s no shortage of co-creation and collaborative endeavors between people!

In thinking deeply about the strengths of the community  and what it is that limits the potential of what such a powerfully connected community can be and achieve together akey differentiator of the co-living ideologies of the past and the ‘social labs’ being created can be summed up in this quote from Embassy Co-Founder Jessy Kate Schingler:

“We’re not trying to build isolationist, internally focused communes out in the middle of nowhere; we’re rebuilding cities”

I think this quality can come from one Key shift – the shift to seeing oneself as a Global Citizen.

What are the qualities of Future-Ready Co-Living Communities?

No matter what your personal “flavor” of communal living – be it eco-village, urban, spiritual, tech etc. there are a few keys that Future-Ready Co-Living Communities have in common:

  • A commitment to the betterment of humanity and a recognition of each member as a global citizen
  • Built-in self-supporting industries that makes the old system obsolete over time
  • Radical Opennness
  • A system of influence
  • The ability to improve living standards for everyone (Jacob Lucas-Schwartz)
  • A community of practice – Meg Wheatley article http://margaretwheatley.com/articles/using-emergence.pdf  (c/o Sheri Herndon)
  • A plan to move toward off-grid power and self-reliance
  • Shared communication networks

I’d like to pose a question to members of the community:

How do we create more engagement with the wider community and leverage our strengths in service of these Future-Ready Community ideals? How do we move toward a Future-Ready Community as a collective? What types of relational practices can we foster to bring out these qualities? Are these even the right questions?

Now for the all important question.

Why?

I alluded to a tool I’m developing… it’s a predictive analytics model to forecast the future career landscape based on emerging technologies to help people move through the economic transition. This project came out of one question. “HOW will this economic transition take place?”

Let this idea sink in: “We are creating technologies that could potentially displace the very consumer market that would purchase those technologies”  – Mirona Constantinescu

A new article estimates “that 47 percent of U.S. jobs are “at risk” of being automated in the next 20 years.” –http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/27/researchers_claim_many_jobs_at_risk_for_automation_here_s_what_they_missed.html

The next steps for this plan are being developed. Investors and Real Estate Developers are ready to support us in making this a reality. Money is not an object in this endeavor.

The purpose of this group will be to

  • Share resources about developing intentional communities
  • Strategize
  • Liaison with other intentional community groups

It’s clear we are ready for this.

When you share this note mention the name of the co-living space where you currently live (if you live in one) and let us know ONE thing… what’s your flavor?

If I have missed anyone that should be tagged, please tag them. If you want to email me personally you can reach me at mirona@ucla.edu

Resources:

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