School is almost out. I can post again!
Last weekend, which was my last official "class" weekend of MBA Year 1 - I presented a controversial paper on Burning Man's gift economy. My Fellow Future Leaders of America (aka the FFLA) were entranced with the concept of *giving* gifts of service and things to others and the community all while expecting absolutely nothing in return.
In a well-timed sequel, we had the founder of glimmerofhope.org speak to my elective class today. He spoke a lot about how he made his zillions, and how he was now able to spend time and money helping the world. I have a problem with that. I don't think you need to have made your zillions to make a difference.
And here's my point. Like Web 2.0 so clearly demonstrates, we are all connected and not only that... we *want* to be connected. Sure, you can hole up in your room with your tv on and live your little pretend life, but your little pretend life tends to disintegrate into community (Second Life anyone?). Man, this is a really big topic to cover in one post. So I'm not going to try. Let me just stop here, for today and say: Web 2.0 shows that the world is more like Burning Man than an office building full of cubicles.
Tune in later this week... and I promise this will make more sense.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
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1 comments:
Much like school, you get a "B" on this blog article. Great idea, plenty of space to run with it and a drizzly ending. I expected something more from a FFLA. There are any number of gift economies that function quite well (Rainbow gatherings pre-date Burning Man). Is your point that communities can help each other without expectation of remuneration?
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