unMoney Convergence Day 2 of 3

Brownies for breakfast! Yes!...I walked up Pike Street from the hostel (on 1st) and took note of the Kinkos as I made the right turn on 8th street to the Town Hall on Seneca. Kaliya explained the open space format and we signed up to lead sessions. For the first session, I decided to attend Michael Linton's presentation "Get the Money Moving." In the video, Ernie Yacub walks in to assist Michael. I was fortunate to join Ernie and Lori Heath for lunch.


[Part 2][Part 3][Part 4]

Michael describes a novel currency system that leverages businesses, nonprofits and the community to grease the wheels of exchange. The idea is that businesses give coupons/currency/points (a particular system implemented with card readers is discussed) to non-profits. People in the community give cash to the non-profits in exchange for the coupons. Now, people can buy things from those businesses with dollars and the coupons. The businesses have earned loyalty. The non-profits have a new source of revenue and the people get a good deal with participating businesses by supporting their non-profits. From time to time, you can hear Alan Rosenblith help the conversation along. You may know Alan as the director of the film The Money Fix.

Now is when I go back to that Kinkos to file an extension for my taxes, so I miss the first part of the second session. However, I return to see John Rogers. I love his response to Ellen H. Brown's question "Can you define a gift economy?"



Everyone seemed energized by Nipun Mehta's talk after lunch. Chris Lindstrom had met Nipun at another conference and invited him to give a talk. Nipun wanted some of the presentation off the record, but here's 10 minutes of Birthing the Gift Economy.



Next, I saw Kaliya give a great talk about user-centric identity. I asked lots of questions and I really appreciated the opportunity to talk digital identity with her. Kaliya was into identity before identity was cool.

I slept through the dinners provided by the hostel and the conference but my friends Rajeev and Ramya picked me up and we went across the lake to Factoria to the local sports bar for pizza. They dropped me back off at the hostel where I got to talk shop with Geoff Chessire as he showed me regenerosity. Needless to say, my first feature request was OpenID.