Peer2Politics

Over the last three years, the Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, the innovative, collaborative ethos within City Hall fostered by Mayor Menino and his current chief of staff, Mitchell Weiss, and Boston's launch of a CRM system and its associated Citizens Connect smartphone app have all attracted substantial media attention. In particular, the City of Boston's strategy to put citizen engagement and participation at the center of its efforts, implemented by Chris Osgood and Nigel Jacob as co-chairs of the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, has drawn attention to the potential power of collaboration and technology to transform citizens' connections to their government and to each other. Several global developments have combined to make Boston's collaborative efforts interesting: First, city managers around the world confront shrinking budgets and diminishing trust in the role of government; second, civic entrepreneurs and technology innovators are pressuring local governments to adopt new forms of engagement with citizens; and third, new digital tools are emerging that can help make city services both more visible and more effective. Boston's experience in pursuing partnerships that facilitate opportunities for engaging citizens may provide scalable (and disruptive) lessons for other cities.

A discussion of scalable peer economics, from the standpoint of a practiced innovator. Tiberius Brastaviceanu (Tibi) is co-founder of sensorica.co Open Value Network. He is based in Montreal, Canada.

"At the close of the twentieth century, corporate capitalism extended its reach over the globe. While its defenders argue that globalization is the only way forward for modern, democratic societies, the spread of this system is failing to meet even the most basic needs of billions of individuals around the world. Moreover, the entrenchment of this free market system is undermining the foundations of healthy societies, caring communities, and personal well-being.

This platform meets a resounding need expressed by both job seekers and project leaders: “The collaborative economy is creating jobs and entrepreneurs often call us because motivation and collaborative spirit is what they are really looking for in their recruitment processes. On the other hand, many people contact us everyday because they want to get involved in the collaborative economy, either professionally or as volunteers.” explains Flore Berlingen, Global Connector at OuiShare who has been leading this project.