The role of COINS in the Civic Space: Building a pathway to shared prosperity

COINS 2009 Presentation

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder and Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), presented a summary of this material at the COINS 2009 conference hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) October 10, 2009.

The presentation describes a collaborative strategy for colleges, universities, and libraries in a networked model of I-Open Civic Forums to strengthen their role as conveners, connectors, and leaders in national and global prosperity.

The presentation describes an accelerated model of Civic Forums capable of incorporating COINS and CONDOR to connect legacy assets to innovation for education, economic, and workforce development. Our strategy is based on I-Open's experience in the last six years building face-to-face and online collaborative communities for enterprise collaboration. Learn more about our work at I-Open.

Learn more about COINS and CONDOR on the Swarm Creativity blog.

Posted by Betsey Merkel.

COINS: An Economic Development Tool for Education, Economic, and Workforce Development in Open Source Economic Development

COINS 2009 Paper 10-12-09

Betsey Merkel, Co-Founder, Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) contributed this paper to the COINS 2009 conference at the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) October 8- 11, 2009.

This paper describes I-Open's approach to a higher level of organization, process, and tools needed to build networked collaborative communities from our experience working in the "Civic Space" (everywhere outside the four walls of any organization) over a six year period from 2003 to 2009.  It offers a starting point for us to take a closer look at how to integrate COINS and apply CONDOR, an analytic and mapping software tool, to improve creativity, collaboration, and communications to accelerate Open Source Economic Development.

We're suggesting an accelerated networked model of Civic Forums hosted in collaboration with colleges, universities, and libraries. Let us know if you or your organization is interested in collaborating to build a three to five site Civic Forum model to advance creativity, collaboration, and communication.

You can learn more about COINS and Condor on the Swarm Creativity blog.

Please add your comments and suggestions! Thanks!

Posted by Betsey Merkel.

COINS 2009 Conference: the Emerging Science of Collaboration - Update 10/7/09

The COINS 2009 conference hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) is the first time people from many different places and disciplines have come together to share information and research about their work in collaboration. I'm looking forward to meeting a whole community of people interested in sharing insights and innovations in the emerging Science of Collaboration.The conference is a gathering (a swarm!) of leaders from research, business, and creativity.

The program (opens tomorrow evening) includes training in Cool Hunting - the science of finding and tracking trends - and many presentions covering the diverse applications of collaboration and collective intelligence in creativity, design, and in health care, knowledge management, and business innovation.

Explore the tabs on the beautiful COINS 2009 web space (thanks SCAD!!)

Enjoy the short video above with Peter Gloor, Research Scientist, MIT, who talks about the COINS 2009 conference and the value collaborative innovation networks offer to creativity and collaboration in business, and for anyone building enterprise.

You can start to learn more about collaborative innovation networks (COINS) in the delightful book, "Swarm Creativity - competitive advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks"  by Peter Gloor.

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

Ed Morrison Presentation Transcription 12-04-08

Ed Morrison, Economic Policy Advisor at Purdue University and Co-Founder & Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open) offers an introduction to Open Source Economic Development at the I-Open Leadership Retreat December 4, 2008 in Newbury, Ohio.

(Ed will be teaching the first Certificate course in Open Source Economic Development at Purdue University later this month. You can find out more here.)

I-Open Leadership Retreats bring education, economic, and workforce development leaders together to share new practices and tools to build networked economies and strengthen collaborative leadership habits.

Ed incorporates new insights about the shifts occurring in education, economic, and workforce development with clear examples of innovation in networked economies. Participants contribute their insights about patterns and trends they experience working with established and emergent economic systems.

I-Open Retreats practice an Open Source process by sharing and improving the relevance of the information discussed. Working this way strengthens trust between people in the I-Open community, lowering barriers to collaboration.

Here are additional information tools that accompany the transcription:

  • Watch the presentation on Vimeo here
  • Reference "An Introduction to Open Source Economic Development - Thriving on the New Economic Development Frontier" by Ed Morrison on Scribd
  • Learn about Open Source Economic Development at I-Open's website
Help us share what works in Open Source Economic Develoment. Learn by building your online networks and posting your stories about network building, collaboration, and innovation to the I-Open collaborative web space.

Posted by Betsey Merkel.

Insights in Open Source Economic Development

Ed Morrison, Economic Policy Advisor at Purdue University and Co-Founder & Director, The Institute for Open Economic Networks (I-Open), teaches an introduction to Open Source Economic Development at the December 2008 I-Open Leadership Retreat, Newbury, Ohio.

Ed incorporates new insights about the shifts occurring in education, economic, and workforce development with clear examples of innovation happening today in open networked economies.

Learn about our work at I-Open.

Be informed by people contributing their insights and innovations, defining what Open Source Economic Development is today on our community web space I-Open2.

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

COINS 2009 - a gathering about the emerging Science of Collaboration

One of our stops this past summer was to visit Peter Gloor, Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence in Boston. Peter and I put together this video to summarize our conversation. (You can learn more about Peter's work in Swarm Creativity here at I-Open.)

We talked about the upcoming inaugural COINS 2009 conference next month Oct 8 - 11, 2009. The conference is hosted by the Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) and co-sponsored with MIT's Center for Collective Intelligence and Wayne State University's School of Engineering.

Peter explained the conference focus is to broaden our understanding of the value creativity and collaboration brings to innovation. The gathering will be a mix of artists, business leaders, engineers, computer science, and mathematics people - researchers and practitioners - sharing insights and innovations in the emerging field of the Science of Collaboration. Just the kind of cross disciplinary thinking and idea exchange that really will help us solve the big problems of the world!

The program will have a strong emphasis on learning more about network and trend analysis, the deep research metrics now available to all civic, business, government, and academic leaders to inform economic investment.

I’ll be contributing a thought paper about I-Open’s work in the Civic Space, what we learn with all of you, and what that means for Colleges, Universities and Libraries. I’ll be posting more about the paper for your comments as well as during my time in Savannah.

(Formerly as the Center for Regional Economic Issues at Case Western Reserve University, I-Open was the first organization in Northeast Ohio to collaborate with Valdis Krebs, social network software and analysis guru of Orgnet.com, and map the region's investment in economic development. We continue "close ties" with Valdis to inform our own work in Open Source Economic Development, mapping and learning with our partners in education, economic, and workforce development.)

If you can attend be sure to check out the Cool Hunting Academy. I hope you can join us to enjoy the cool, collaborative culture of SCAD in the heart of Savannah!

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

 

I-Open Insight News September 2009

I've put together a brief overview of the I-Open interview trip this past July 2009. It summarizes our findings and points to the value research offers to leaders in networked economies.

Interviews are the stories of personal discovery and enterprise opportunity, and typically Open Source, are the models that make up Open Source Economic Development.

We'll be posting interviews, transcriptions, and process map results in the coming weeks.

A big thanks to everyone who generously contributed their time and efforts.

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

New York, New England, New Jersey, Cincinnati July 2009 - a set on Flickr

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I worked with one of my daughters this summer to learn more about how people are engineering solutions to accommodate rapid economic change. We traveled in New York, New England, New Jersey, Cincinnati this past July, 2009.

Our trip lead us to connect and learn from people across several States about their insights and innovations in education, economic, and workforce development. Typically, I do the interviewing and Alice does the photography.

This photograph set helps to frame a context, provide hints about where and what influences people, and begins to broaden our experiences with you from the perspective of civic, business, academic and government leaders.

(I recommend the Slideshow view and click "show info" to easily see our photo comments so you can understand more.)

The interviews share important insights from people from working in organizations and living as individuals. They begin to tell the story of people building networks, reflecting on the value of collaboration, and offering their ideas about what success looks like in communities and regions. You can learn more about I-Open's video interview research here.

If you care about economic development, employment, philanthropy, government, citizen journalism, education or just want to learn neat things about technology, art, energy, for example, take a look.

We're working on posting interviews and their transcriptions, and designing a way for you to easily access this amazing knowledge (all suggestions welcome!). We should have that soon so please check back -- or you can sign in to the I-Open site and recieve weekly site updates.

In the meantime, listen to a few here on Vimeo or choose from more selections on I-Open's Livestream channel. If you enjoy reading, we're posting download-able transcriptions to Scribd here.

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

Collection: I-Open Insight and Innovation Networks

 

Welcome to the networked 12D world of Open Source Economic Development!

Insight and Innovation Networks is a snapshot collection of leaders in government, civic, academic, and business sharing their insights and experiences in education, economic and workforce development. Their stories make up Open Source Economic Development, a networked approach to enterprise collaboration.

This collection is an introduction to deeper interviews posted to I-Open Conversations where people share their passions and insights about what matters most to them in their work and how they live.

Leaders everywhere are envisioning new systems, building the networks they need, addressing challenges to strengthen transparency, and grappling with the realities of why collaboration is so important to generating sustainable enterprise. You'll learn directly from a community of leaders focused on innovating from within these new contexts and their stories of pursuing meaning to deepen connectivity.

We hope you'll consider contributing an interview about your work and connect with this dynamic community. We welcome your insights about what Open Source Economic Development is today.

Thriving on the New Economic Development Frontier - Ed Morrison, Purdue Center for Regional Development and I-Open

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Photos by Alice Merkel, Ohio High School student and Dennis Coughlin.

Here's a link to a Flickr collection that brings together pictures of I-Open's work in Open Source Economic Development over the last several years.

The pictures begin to tell the story of I-Open's activity building open networks of collaboration, and strengthening communities to stimulate enterprise collaboration.

You can easily find additional resources from this page that will connect you to the people, their individual interviews, open conversations, and transcriptions.

Our biggest thanks goes to the people who continue to build the powerful open conversations and contribute stories of insight and innovation. By learning together, we can accelerate meaning and connectivity for each of us in this unprecedented networked world.

Created and posted by Betsey Merkel.

I-Open Interview Research

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I-Open Interviews on Vimeo

By Betsey Merkel

I-Open video interviews are rich in tacit knowledge and present personal perspectives - stories of human insight and innovation through the lens of an Innovation Framework, a guide to sustainable investment in education, economic, and workforce development.

Gathering the best knowledge from theoretical and practical research across diverse sectors such as health care, the creative industries, technology, business development - interviews strengthen community connectivity and opportunities for collaborative leadership.

What you'll discover over time, as you watch the videos and read the transcriptions, are the similarities we all share. You may be reminded of your own ideas and insights, and those of your colleagues and friends - a collective intelligence in Open Source Economic Development.

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I-Open Transcription Collection on Scribd

More about I-Open Interview Research.

I-Open publishes video interviews and transcriptions under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License - meaning you are free to share information, but are accountable to attribute source to the interviewee and I-Open. 

(Article revised July 20, 2011.)