OuiShare Fest 2014 Blog

A three-day festival about the Collaborative Economy.

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OuiShare Fest Day 3: a day full of learning

Although there might have been a little less people showing up for breakfast on Day 3, this was more than compensated for by the stream of people that joined the Sharing Fair in the afternoon, where companies and other players from the collaborative economy got the chance to present their projects to the wider public. A nice way to end three days of conference, co-creating and connecting, and to make people aware of the new way of doing business in the 21st century: collaborative and open.

Decoding Open Source Festivals in the Factory

Who knows better how to organize an open source festival than the people who have actually done it? Day 3 in the Factory started with a panel on how to organize an open source festival, featuring OuiShare’s own Francesca Pick, Lars Zimmermann from Open It Agency and John Thackara from Doors of Perception. What seemed to be one of the key take-aways from the panelists’ experiences was actually that festivals are not about lessons from experts, but about encounters and co-creation. Francesca underlined that also things like sponsorship has to be rethought in these terms. No wonder then that so many of the OuiShare Fest partners were actively participating in various workshops and panels, not as sole experts but as co-creators. The rest of the morning in the factory was further dedicated to the themes of distributed leadership and horizontal organizations, for example dealing with the potential synergies between “traditional” cooperatives and peer-to-peer structures.

Mapping it out

At the boat there was a long and intense morning workshop about Mapping the Collaborative Economy, with examples from all over the world of local initiatives triggering a “It’s just around the corner and I didn’t even know about it” effect. Participants further discussed how to coordinate the various projects and databases in place to show the power of the collaborative economy to the world. 

“What do grown-ups share? Not enough!”

Clever words by the far youngest OuiShare Fest speaker Pearl before the start of a panel about circular economy, followed by a series of talks on the environmental implications of the collaborative economy, led by OuiShare co-funder Flore Berlingen. You can see her speech about what kids and adults share in this 1 minute video. 

One of the keynote speakers during the morning was Robin Chase from Buzzcar, who stressed the urgency of starting to change things with the stuff we have right now, and not wait for technology to solve our most pressing problems, like for example climate change. Taking the exponential evolution of AirBnB as an example, Robin said that peer processes have a lot to contribut towards building a string “community muscle” to respond to complex challenges.    

“We want a sustainable new economy, and the sharing community is a big part of that” – Robin Chase, Buzzcar

Helen Goulden from Nesta followed up on the theme of climate change, pointing to sad fact that in many studies, climate change often turn out to be of little concern for people, at least in relation to closer, more tangible issues. She also saw a collaborative paradigm as a way to respond to such challenges in a new way, seeing that “stitching” sustainability into existing businesses does not seem to be working all that well.

The morning at the Circus proceeded with an interview with Nathalie Foster, executive director of Peers, who expressed that she had come to the OuiShare Fest to learn, but also to bring back messages to her colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic.

“I’m a transmitter” - Natalie Foster, Peers.org

Another important person who was at the OuiShare Fest to learn was the French Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs, Axelle Le Maire, who surprisingly entered through the back stage to meet the crew working in the “coulisses” of OuiShare Fest. She said that one of the most important reasons to be there was to meet people working “on the ground”. With over 1000 visionaries gathered in one place, we hope that the minister was pleased. 

"I can't be blind. This is happening" - @axellelemaire about sharing economy - Gayané Adourian via Twitter

  The chance to meet with people form “the ground” was indeed provided during the Sharing Fair, where OuiShare Fest opened up to the public during the last afternoon in the Circus. From everything to more known businesses like BlablaCar to the Basic Income movement, the fair reflected the diverse fields in which the collaborative economy can be found.

Tools for learning

In the meanwhile in the Camp, the afternoon was dedicated to chances for projects and start-ups in the collaborative economy to learn about new tools and opportunities to develop their ideas further. For example, the European Commission sponsored project Digital Social was holding in a Q&A session about funding opportunities for digital social innovation: a topic that lies close at heart for many collaborative Start-ups. There were also many useful tips and tricks given by various specified companies on how to build community, trust and a sustainable business model. These aspects are of course inter-related and there is no one-fits-all solution. However, what seems to be important for services in the collaborative economy is to find the right focus, be personal, and of course to solve a problem for users in a clear and easy way.

Awards and celebrations: #OuiShareLove

When it was time to close the there days of conference, co-creation and connecting, the winners of OuiShare Awards were announced and called up on stage, including: Copass, Common libraries, Guerilla translation, Sofa Concert and Symba, who will all be coming back to Paris this autumn for a one week acceleration program among OuiShare peers.

But also for those who did not win a price, there was still reason to celebrate the new knowledge acquired or new contacts made during the fest. With excellent music provided first by the Brass Band, then by great DJs, including OuiShare Fest Co-Chair Benjamin Tincq who amazingly was still standing after 25hours straight of work putting his records on.

Before going away for a few days retreat on the French country side (kindly organised by La Mutinerie) the OuiShare Fest team would now like to thank to all people attending OuiShare fest 2014, and for making it such an unforgettable experience. Now lets use all the positive energy gathered during these three days to bring about changes to our local areas and fields of work. The collaborative economy is everywhere, and to borrow and remix the expression of Michel Bauwens on the FLOK society:

Lets collaborate this, lets collaborate that… Lets collaborate the world!

See you at #OSFest15

Delivered by: Stina Heikkila, OuiShare Fest communications team

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Day 1 already feels so far away.. Here is a reminder of the start of a journey!

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Day 3 of OuiShare Fest, captured by our amazing video team. Thanks guys!

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Inspiring re-cap of three magic days of #OSFest14 in Paris. Thanks again to all attendees, team members and volunteers for making this amazing thing happen! See you at #OSFest15

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Charles Eisenstein sends his special greetings for OuiShare Fest 2014, talking about communities and how we can help each other thrive.

Thank you Charles!

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Live voices from the collaborative economy, with Neal Gorenflo and Javier Creus

What do you share?

Javier wants to share the beauties of life

Although Neal was a bit too tired after last night's festivities to answer, basically "his" shareable platform says it all: he has a lot to share!

What would you like people at OuiShare Fest to talk about?

Javier: Underground world of paris and PARTY....."seriously, when is the party?"

What is the one thing you love and that you want others to love too?

Conversations and other people!

Something that very few people know about you:

Javier has triplet sisters and Neal is a life hacker/ experimenter.

So anything new, wild and crazy bring it ON!!!!!

Thanks guys!

Narmada Ramakrishna,

Besides the stories here, check out the array of cross-pollinating collection of ideas and creative food for thought also here: www.thelittlevioletbook.wordpress.com

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Live voices from the collaborative economy, with Robin Chase from Buzzcar

What do you share with people?

"Everything, and right now: INTERNET"

What do you want people to talk to you about during OuiShare Fest?

Climate change

What do you love that you want others to love as well?

Handmade stuff. (What few people knows about Robin is that she likes to knit). 

Thank you Robin! Don't miss her session dealing with Climate Change, in the Circus at 11.30.

By: Narmada Ramakrishna,

Besides the stories here, check out the array of cross-pollinating collection of ideas and creative food for thought also here: www.thelittlevioletbook.wordpress.com

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Drivers for Empowerment, with Maëva Tordo

Are you passionate about social and collaborative entrepreneurship? Working on a startup project? Offering support for entrepreneurs? Innovating within your company as an social "intrapreneur"?

Maëva Tordo, Head of European Incubators at Blue Factory, invites you to join their highly interactive workshop this afternoon at 4.30pm at the Camp! After a short and dynamic intro about how communities are growing to foster entrepreneurship, the stage will be yours ! Pitch your project and share your challenges, wishes and thoughts with the audience to activate collaborative intelligence and efficient serendipity.

Thank you Maëva! See you there! 

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Join Digital Social

Know who these guys are? You should! They have a lot of interesting information to share with you. If you haven't already noted it down, Digital Social will take part in a Q&A session about European Funding opportunities for digital social innovation, at the Camp at 2pm today. Read on to discover more on what's on offer.

  What is the role of Digital Social in the collaborative economy ecosystem?

The European Commission has funded the digtalsocial project to build a living map of communities and projects that use digital technologies for the social good. Led by Nesta, the project partners are Esade, Waag Society, IRI, FutureEverything, and Swirrl. We have developed a crowdmapping facility http://digitalsocial.eu/ based on open linked data to crowdmap the different types of DSI organisations, where they are based and how they are connected. The network wants to become a hub to find information about funding and resources across Europe for digital social innovation. Sharing economy projects are invited to join the map and create a digitalsocial.eu profile, and become part of a growing Network of digital social innovation. By joining  the network you can discover new funding opportunities, find the right partners, share skills and knowledge, and find support to develop and scale your collaborative project. Once the network of digital social innovation actors in Europe is mapped and its dynamics understood, it will inform future EC initiatives, research and policy to foster open and inclusive innovation for social good in Europe.  What is the European Commission doing to support digital social innovation and the sharing economy? The development of open data infrastructures, knowledge co-creation platforms, wireless sensor networks, decentralized social networking, and open hardware can potentially serve collective action and help scaling the collaborative economy ecosystem.  Today the growth of digital services has resulted in an imbalance between the dramatic scale and reach of commercial Internet models and the relative weakness of collaborative alternatives, mainly filling marginal niches and unable to gather a critical mass of users and exploit the network effect. However, the European Commission is creating new funding instruments and policies to support grassroots social innovators within the framework of the Digital Agenda for Europe (http://bit.ly/1o34tQ8), and in particular the Collective Awareness Call (http://bit.ly/1cTfmPq) that ail launch a new funding call of around 30 million Euro in the next EU Research and Innovation programme, Horizons 2020 (http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020).

What can people expect to find in this session?

We are going to discuss the opportunities that EU funding can offer to nourish and scale the collaborative economy ecosystem.  We will introduce the next EU funding instruments that could support projects in the collaborative economy such as the next Collective Awareness call.  We ail also share Nesta's experience in implementing specific EU funded projects, providing some tips and tricks and discuss what it can be learned from our projects.  The big challenges for the EU are how to make it easier for small scale radical innovations involving digital technology and sharing to emerge and evolve, but perhaps more important how to create the conditions for the really powerful ones to get to scale – which will nearly always involve disrupting existing structures and institutions, build new collective instritutions and infrastructures for the XXI century. So join the digitalsocial.eu network and contact us [email protected] or send us a tweet @digi_si  to know more.

Thank you Digital Social! See you at the Camp!

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OuiShare Fest Day 2: stories from around Cabaret Sauvage

“Another cracking day. Thanks to everyone I spoke to today - got some great advice & real food for thought” #osfest14 – Polly Cook, Team Up MacMillan via Twitter

Even if the first day of OuiShare Fest was really intense, people seemed to have a lot of energy left for Day 2 - a day full of interactive sessions and workshops taking place around Cabaret Sauvage. 

Trust, fun and serious at the Circus

Like Day 1, the morning at the Circus kicked off with a series of “Inspire” sessions, where the concepts of communities and trust were dealt with at length both at a more abstract level and through the lens of user platforms such as HomeExchange and BlaBlaCar. The BlaBlaCar team had recently figured out that the best work principle for them as a company is a mix of “Fun and Serious”, meaning individual serious that enables collective fun, while HomeExchange’s experience with trust had taught them that: the best way of knowing whether you can trust somebody is to trust them!

When the microphone was handed over to Castorama’s CEO Véronique Laury, a stream of Tweets appeared in the Storify captured for this session, recording her insight about the impact of the collaborative consumption on the traditional retail industry. It seemed rather clear for Véronique that while retailers may have missed the first revolution of Internet, they are not to miss the second one: sharing economy and DIY. This idea seemed to be shared by representatives from the other OuiShare Fest corporate partners Orange and La Poste, as well as ParkAtMyHouse, who during the panel How Large Companies Can Empower the Collaborative Economy discussed how consumers are becoming increasingly involved in the design of products and services, and that companies who wish to survive have to follow this trend.

Imagining SharExpo on the Boat

The morning session SharExpo: International Exhibitions and Sharing Economy on the boat were about understanding the various opportunities presented by the collaborative economy for international event management. One interesting example and sort of “test” for the potential of the Italian collaborative economy will the Universal Exhibition to take place in Milan 2015, which constitutes a great chance to propose collaborative services as a means to empower local initiatives and to meet the excess demand expected to be generated by some 14 million people coming from around Italy and other 6 million from abroad to attend this occasion. People from the Italian organisation Collaboriamo (Lets collaborate) and its founder Marta Manieri thus have a lot on their plate in the near future. To see some social media highlights, check out the Storify of the morning session.

OuiShare Factory Workshops and #Factorytalk

Today the OuiShare Factor was full of energy, with no less than two workshops held throughout the day, as well as talks and discussions about common problems and solutions.  Check out the Factory Storify for more. Talking to one of the key forces behind OuiShare Factory Marc Chataigner, he seemed happy about the activities so far.  What had struck him when talking to local maker spaces in Paris and beyond is that even if he may have thought so previously, they mostly turn out not to be competing, but rather complement each others’ business models. Some may be mostly oriented towards providing free access to a large audience, such as FabLabs, while others focus more on special niches of activity or specific projects. Most importantly: they have a lot to learn from each other, and they are taking the chance to do so at OuiShare Fest!

  In the meanwhile at the Camp…

In the Camp, most of the morning was taken up by The Hottest Research Questions On The Collaborative Economy, bringing together researchers from many different countries and institutions to present their research projects and discuss common issues and possible future collaboration. One recurring theme seemed to be the desire to be able to measure the social and environmental impacts of the collaborative economy, which seem to be a lot mentioned but in reality little recorded by startups and actors from the collaborative economy field. But with a lot of interesting ongoing projects, the hopes are high for soon finding some answers to the many hot questions raised during the session.

After lunch, the Camp was occupied by another type of workshop: Platform Design Workshop: Corporations & The Collaborative Economy led by Simone Cicero and Javier Creus, which focussed on building a business model apt to cope with infinite demand for products.

Cities in the Collaborative Economy 

In the afternoon, Albert Canigueral, April Rinne and Marco Torregrossa did a great job moderating no less than three sessions about cities in the collaborative economy, from city mayors discussing policies, to people presenting case studies from amazing initiatives taking place around the world in cities trying to become "rich in the currencies that matter" as April Rinne nicely put it.

“We need to change our story about cities: from cities as marketplaces to cities as commons” - Neal Gorenflo, Shareable.net   

And much, much more!

These stories only show a small fraction of all the things happening during OuiShare Fest Day 2, but hopefully they capture some of the diversity that gives the event one of its key strengths. 

And don’t worry: we have plenty of stories lined up waiting to be told! But first, lets see what the third day has on offer. You don’t want to miss it!

Thank you from the OuiShare Fest team!

Delivered by: Stina Heikkila, OuiShare Fest Communications Team

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Live voices from the collaborative economy, with Benjamin from The Food Assembly

What would you like to share with others?

Benjamin says that what he wants to share is a good meal with friends.

What would you like to talk to people about at the Fest?

"Food me baby".....Benjamin wants to talk food, food, food: great local awesome food! Or, you can also just go with cats! Why not enjoy lunch and talk about cats with Benjamin?

What do you love that you would like everybody else to love too?

Benjamin loves cats and wants other people to love and pet the black cat that is cruising around OuiShare Fest. Give him a pet....

Thank you Benjamin!

Narmada Ramakrishna,

Besides the stories here, check out the array of cross-pollinating collection of ideas and creative food for thought also here: www.thelittlevioletbook.wordpress.com

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Arun Sundararajan is joined in the 'studio' with Katie from the Irish Independant, Jem from University of Cumbria.

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Live voices from the collaborative economy, with Ariane Conrad

These days, Narmada is, expressed in her own words: "goofing around" Cabaret Sauvage to ask speakers and contributors "goofy" questions, and record live voices from the collaborative economy directly from OuiShare Fest. This afternoon, she caught Ariane on the front yard, asking her her about love and sharing.

What do you want to talk to people about at OuiShare Fest?

If you go talk to Ariane, you might want to know that she wants to talk about collaborative Hula hopping - she has two hula hoops in her van parked outside the festival venue, and she is ready to hula hoop whenever you are ready. So don't wait: go find her and hula hoop!

What would you like to share with people? 

Ariane lists two different things that she wants to share with people: her wisdom and her sowing machine.

Finally, what is the thing you love, and which you would like everybody else to love as well?

Ariane says: "elderly souls....Yes we all love them...go hug them :)"

Thank you Araine, see you around! 

Narmada Ramakrishna,

Besides the stories here, check out the array of cross-pollinating collection of ideas and creative food for thought also here: www.thelittlevioletbook.wordpress.com

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OuiShare Fest 2014 Day 1: snapshots from the start field

There are probably few better ways to capture the sprit of the opening day of OuiShare Fest 2014 than the statement by two of our last standing volunteers, just before the closing of Cabaret Sauvage in the eveing.

“We're wrapping it up, setting up the place. Still fun!”

That’s the feeling we hope that you have shared with us throughout day one: a day of tireless fun and lots of experiences to keep and remember. For those of you who might have missed the first day, or just would like to refresh your memory, here we share some of our own impressions from the first day of OuiShare Fest, the international festival fully dedicated to the collaborative economy.

And like most of the work within OuiShare, this post is no exception: it builds on the contribution of “knowledge caputurers” taking notes as the festival unfolds, and of course on the social media contributions of all the attendees, which are nicely wrapped up in this Storify from the first day. Thank you for your help!

An intense morning full of knowledge, passion and surprises

The morning started with a brief introduction held by the two OuiShare Fest Co-chairs Benjamin Tincq and Francesca Pick, as well as OuiShare co-founder Antonin Léonard, who urged everybody to turn to their neighbours and give them a hug before launching the great line-up of speakers scheduled awaiting.

The morning program almost exclusively read “Inspire”, which was a very precise forecast made by the program architects. The first speaker, Tomas de Lara from Brazil, quite unexpectedly sat down on the stage, asking everybody to close their eyes and look into their inner selves for a moment, collecting energies and physical presence for the day to come. For some highlight of this very first speaker session, we created this storify.

Several of the morning talks were about the passion that most actors from the collaborative economy put into their work, like for example Manjil Rana from the Maya Universe Academy, whose movement started with a tent school for children in the Nepal countryside, based on the string belief that big multi-national NGOs should not be the “solution” to development issues, but that the inhabitants of such realities are well able to take matters into their own hands by joining forces and share knowledge and efforts. No need to underline the warm applauds when he left the stage.

Guilhem Chéron from The Food Assembly also talked about how local communities can join forces to have a fair and sustainable food system rather than one dominated by single big players often completely alienated from the local producers.

“Do you know where the steak you eat comes from?” Guilhem asked the crowd. To see a few highlights, check out the Storify generated from this session. 

What is the Collaborative Economy?

A recurring theme from theory-oriented speakers was the fact that the collaborative economy still remains a concept without clear boundaries. Rachel Botsman talked about the collaborative economy like a fragile baby that we all need to care for and protect from “label-washing” that may distort the essence of the movement. Therefore, instead of pushing for definitions, we should let the collaborative economy take time to grow organically.

(Despite some slight Wi-Fi troubles during the day, the listeners were particularly active during Rachel sessions, as shown in this Bluenode diagram created by OuiShare Fest Team member Nicolas Loubet.) 

From an economist’s point of view, Arun Sundarajan pointed out that one important facet of the “new economy” enabled by the Internet is that many services actually emerge from consumers and develop as business ideas on a later stage. Often production even fuses together with consumption, blurring the line between the personal and the professional.  

Lisa Gansky talked about learning from “miss takes”, and the need to build resilience in the collaborative economy, which according to her can be found in the diversity and complexity that allow communities to survive.

To further add to the debate, the people the Misfit Economy project started with an amusing role-play like presentation, showing some of the different characters that can be seen as “change agents” in society, such as the pirate (the audience was asked to grin and grunt), the protester ("We are the people! We've had enough") and the insider (a person driving change from within the corporate world).

Will OuiShare Fest lead to one step forward towards an answer as for what the collaborative economy is?

Just before lunch, there was another surprise on stage: Shareable celebrated its five-year anniversary, for which occasion Benjamin had come up with the idea to surprise them with a specially made birthday cake! So, after the discussion between Shareable’s Neal Goranflo and OuiShare’s Antonin Léonard, this beautiful piece was carried on:

To see some more highlights from this session, check the Storify about the true love story between two “independent yet connected communities”. 

A diverse afternoon 

Kick-starting the afternoon in the Circus were the first pitches held by OuiShare Fest Award nominees, for example Eric van den Broek from CoPass presenting their project wearing this elegant costume:

A little bit later in the Camp, one important field of the collaborative economy: peer-to-peer and shared mobility, was treated in a series of talks by people from Uber, Drivy, Zipcar and Djump (among others), culminating in a panel debate moderated by Antonin.

"Competitors for us are not the different services, but the car-ownership", said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty from Uber in  the closing debate. Ellis from Zipcar agreed, saying that it would be nice if various platforms could work together.

During this session, Drivy further released their news about raising no less than €6 million for their planned international expansion.

Meanwhile, there were activities going on all over the Cabaret in the Factory, Boat and in the Circus, including sessions on how to build trust and communities for collaborative services, and how to construct Furniture and Open Source Beehives in the OuiShare Factory (more from this in the days to come).  

"Thank you to everyone who attended my playshop at #osfest14 on Trusting Oneself to Better Trust Others. Fun time playing with all of you :)" - Alison Cebulla via Twitter

Day one ended with Michel Bauwens from the P2P Foundation and dear friend of the OuiShare community, who unfortunately was not able to be there in person. But in an era where distances are shrunk by the capacity to connect to each other online (yeah, we know, maybe not always at Cabaret Sauvage), this was no reason to stop him from delivering his keynote. Benjamin connected his computer, and a giant Bauwens turned up on the screens, talking about his experiences with building the Social Knowledge Society, or FLOK society, in Ecuador: a national project aimed at introducing commons based solutions for different segments of society, like agriculture, education and other industries. 

Basically, to capture his point: Lets FLOK this, and Lets FLOK that... Lets FLOK france!

For the OuiShare Fest team, there was still time to sit down on the grass together for some lessons learned during the first day, and what to do better the next time around. And perhaps most importantly, to applaud each other for the great efforts put in to get the festival going.

We hope you are enjoying it as much as we do!

Delivered by: Stina Heikkila, OuiShare Fest Communications Team 

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How to make the most of the OuiShare Fest program

The countdown for the OuiShare Fest has started!

Here are some useful tips and tricks for how to make the most out of your three days, both how to easily find the program highlight that suits your mood and taste, and how to share your experience with the rest of the world!

It’s easy as 1, 2, 3!

#1 Navigate the Program

There is a lot to discover once you walk into the Cabaret, and to make it easier for you to be at the right place at the right time, we have listed a few “rules of the game” that may help you to pick your slots. See it as your own program dictionary and social media Wiki.

On the right-hand side of the program page you will find a bar with various tabs (the best complete view is on  the normal web browser, also for mobile devices) that will help you to find what you are looking for!

In the search window, you will be able to look for names of PEOPLE and session in the SCHEDULE, but not only!

To browse the program for specific TOPICS you’re interested in, simply search for a #hashtag relevant for that theme. For example, you are interested in makers, simply type it in #Makers and the program will pull out the tagged contents for you!

You can also choose to simply go by day of the fest, found in the dates tab, or by venue in the Cabaret Sauvage tab.

Another option is to click on the MOODS of the session you would like to attend, found under the labels listed by the coloured bullets above.

For this, here is a bit more on what to expect from the various moods:

- Co-Create: you will be actively involved in co-creating both knowledge, and physical things, like in the various Research sessions or during OuiShare Factory Workshops.

- Connect: these are sessions for mingling and shaking hands. Whether it’s gathering around a cup of coffee or food, you will be able to look out for people you would like to connect with.

- Debate: these sessions include more than one speaker discussing one specific issue of topic area, organized like a panel or Unpanel.

- Inspire: These will be short, inspiring talks by thought leaders and other collaborative economy players sharing their unique stories and experiences.

 - Play: well, it’s all in the name. These are moments to experience new things with an open mind.

If you are looking for the FORMAT of the session, simply click on the Format tag, which will give you a range of new options:

- Break: well, you got it!

- Experience: moments to expand your horizons through a new and shared experience.

- Focus Session: these sessions include a series of talks about a specific field that culminate in a Q&A session, for exploring topics in depth.

- Keynotes and Talks: stories and inspiring speeches by famous and less known speakers.

- Panel: a bunch of interesting people being asked a bunch of interesting questions.

- Q&A: moderated + time to raise your hand!

- UnConference: The UnConference is also a time where you can submit topics you would like to present or explore together with others, in a Barcamp open for your own ideas.

- UnPanel: The unpanels

- Workshop: these will be led by moderators who will organise a specific way to co-create or share experiences. NB: To avoid disappointment: be there EARLY, as places are limited.

So, you found your session: then it’s time to make yourself heard in the crowd.  To do this, there are some ways that will help to generate a critical mass of communication and thus increase the impact and visibility of the session.

# 2 Make it heard and seen

Comment and share!

Rule number one: always use the #OSFest14 hash tag for whatever posts and tweets you make. In addition, we really encourage you to use the specific tags for each session.  We would love to be able to track what’s been said about the various themes and issues discussed throughout the fest.

For example, you are listening to From Fab Labs to Fab Cities, and want to tweet about it.

 #OSFest14

Plus, choose one or more of the topic tabs at the bottom of the session page: #CitiesAndTerritories, #Makers, #OpenKnowledge, #Production,    #Transformation

We have also introduced a new and experimental feature this year, which we really want you to explore together with us: HackPad!

Your in a session, and want to note down a highlight. Share your thought with us! By clicking on the OuiShareFest Hackpad tab you will be able to choose the right Hackpad for your time and place, and type your notes live onto the screen!

Last, but not least, we know you will have amazing picture moments to share, so why don’t you load them onto OuiShare Fest Flickr group.

# 3 Have fun!

We have tried to find tools to make the live reporting of OuiShare Fest both collaborative and fun. So the most important rule of all is to ENJOY the sessions, and to take all possible chances to connect with people both off- and online!

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Take the chance to discover!

"I have come to believe (and very much want it to be true) that a huge part of how we connect in communities are by the questions we ask each other" - Bernie Mitchell, Sharing Economy Radio

Like Bernie rightly write a few months ago, before we started communicating about the OuiShare Fest on this blog, that knowing the answers to all the questions we ask is not what we are looking for at OuiShare Fest. It's the way there that matters. When people come together and discuss, disagree, defend their position, change views, agree and discuss some more: that's when community is built, answers emerge and a new paradigm takes shape. And that's exactly what we hope to see during the festival.

So, this question is not only for novices to the field, although there will be opportunities for people to discover the collaborative economy even for those who do not have a ticket for the Fest, or for those who have a ticket but want to get sneak a peak before Monday.

Perhaps you arrived in Paris already, or maybe you live there. Then you shouldn't miss OuiShare Village, taking place at Foire de Paris between the 1st and 4th of May (yes, it started already, so get on you skates!). OuiShare Village offer four days of discovery for the wider public, and to guide the visitor's experience through the various spheres of the collaborative economy it is set up like a... guess what?  

Another chance to discover OuiShare and the collaborative economy is of course the Sharing Fair, which is going to take place at the OuiShare Fest venue itself: Cabaret Sauvage.  

As if this wasn't enough, there will also be chances for people all over the world to contemporaneously enjoy collaborative economy events, during the Satellite Events organised around the globe.

Find your own way to join the discussion!

[ouisharefest]

Volunteering and purpose, by David Weingartner

When I was asked to help develop the team of volunteers for this years´ OuiShare Fest I was delighted – being part of this marvellous community since a year, learning a lot, meeting awesome people and get to know inspiring, game-changing initiatives. As I actually volunteered myself last year this just feels right and it's great to have the opportunity to give back and to help with an amazing team to make the second edition of OuiShare Fest even more awesome.

In the last weeks I received a lot of applications and messages from people from all over the world willing to contribute voluntarily. This really blew me away – also literally (sorry again at this point if you had to wait a bit for my response). It was just so beautiful to see how many great people from different backgrounds with different gifts and skills are happy to help out. On the other side, of course it made me sad – knowing that there won’t be space for all those great people to come and therefore having to say “no” to some of them.

This task also gave me the opportunity to reflect on what it means to “volunteer” and why some people have this crazy idea to work for someone else for free – based on my own experiences.

From helping out in a permaculture Centre in Bolivia over some WWOOFING experiences in Argentina to joining educational programs around sustainable development for kids in Spain– I´d say I spent a lot of my time in the last years on volunteering – but why?

Was it just because of not knowing what else to do – boredom? Was it a Jesus-like attitude based on blind altruism? I do not think so…..when I remember those experiences, they all had something in common:

They all had one or more objectives that for me as well are worth achieving, they all had one or more values that I shared and were worth spreading, they all offered and received the opportunity to grow through the work done. Therefore, for me it all has to do with PURPOSE: Doing something meaningful, something that makes sense – something that needs work done voluntarily to thrive because it creates value where current market mechanisms don’t attribute this value to.

On the other hand, it gave me the chance to learn a lot about myself and grow (e.g. that being a fulltime farming has nothing to do with my romantic illusion of an happy life on the country side – it’s a tough job, dude!).

It’s like giving your energy unconditionally to a cause you believe in and therefore receiving the chance to encounter beautiful and hidden gifts and/or wrong, misleading beliefs inside you – at least for me…..how about you? Did you ever volunteer and if so, why? Is it just for a bunch of idealists believing in a project actually unsustainable from the beginning or shouldn’t all of us have the opportunity to volunteer once in a while, independent from economic or family situation?

By: David Weingartner

Photo credits: So.lochet