Collective Intelligence
A three day workshop about exploring our own values, the idea of commons and the values that we share as a community.
Last updated
A three day workshop about exploring our own values, the idea of commons and the values that we share as a community.
Last updated
Faculty : Jessica Guy, Sally Bourdon, Jorge Munoz
The first day of the seminar started with a warm up exercise where we had meditate for a 2 minutes and think of a core value that was important to us as an individual. We then had to walk around the class till the music stopped and discuss the values that we had thought of with a person who was closest to us. The exercise encouraged us to share what matters most to us as people and professionals. An interesting observation was that 'kindness' was brought up a lot by many different people which is reassuring haha :)
We then had a class about what what collective intelligence means, design ethics and principles, the importance of collaboration in different contexts. Jessica and Sally elaborated further by sharing some examples of projects, initiatives and systems that embody the principles of collective intelligence and start a dialogue or bring about a change.
As a culmination of the first day, they introduced another group exercise. In one big group, we brainstormed about the values that define our MDEF community. Then we had to divide into smaller groups based on the value that we thought resonated most with us.
The group that I was a part of was 'Change'. Addressing a set of prompts shared by Jessica and Sally, we discussed what 'change' meant to each one of us. Since change is such an abstract word, we had intense conversations about the subjectivity of the word, its definitions and the actions that bring about change. I found it fascinating that each person, with the same intention of bringing about some change, had entirely different approaches. We eventually agreed to disagree and realized that it was a spectrum of ideas - from almost surgical interventions to a complete upheaval of the system.
The second day started with another warm up exercise about discussing commons that we share in the city. Sally then delivered a lecture on Commons and the actions of Commoning. Most of the day went was involved with the learning about the principles of community and then commons, followed by a discussion on creative commons where Jessica shared details about Dafne. Amongst the actions of commoning, they shared multiple initiatives which include community as a core value.
The third day started with Jessica explaining to us how the Distributed Design Platform works. The stakeholders involved, the way EU funding is used, the events and initiatives that are organized by all the members across EU. I think this was the first time where the practical aspects of a project were shared in class, and not just the concept. As an MDEF student, I sometimes find it hard to take the conceptual ideas into practical life, because most of the times, its the practical steps (like securing funding, bringing in engagement from community or breaking even financially) that make or break the idea. So when transitioning from academia into practice, getting some insights into a functioning EU funded project was definitely useful, hoping to hear about more such projects in the coming weeks.
The workshop ended with a gamified version of commons- which I think was probably one of the best games I have been a part of. It encompassed all that we had discussed in the past three days, and now we had to apply it practically, in our own mini version of society. Its also interesting to note the different approaches all groups decided to take, while trying to balance how much one takes from the commons vs. how much is given back. It also brought out a negative side to us, with people accusing eachother of being greedy, which was expected but still surprising. All in all, I think the game was an excellent way of understanding people's responses when dealing with a community and commons, the complexity of maintaining healthy common resources while also maintaining individual ones.
10/10 Recommend!
