OSE:Taxonomy Of Collaborators

Because of the breadth of the approach of Open Source Ecology, several approaches to collaboration must be made to realize the full capacity of participants. Thus, an understanding of where collaborators are coming from and what capacities they have can contribute to a more fluid organization of energies into the project of developing OSE into a full blooded Non Governmental Organisation. The end result will prove as a multifold approach to creating a bioregional, decentralized producive future through the engaging of capacities and creating new ones. Included in these collaborations is the GVCS, a design base which will offer much collaboration and many versions of each design, potentially reaching a point of thousands of designs under hundreds of technologies in the GVCS inventory. However, OSE's goals go beyond the GVCS, and are reaching into programs of economic localisation and public education and outreach, as well as policy work to provide the impetus for a new form of subsistence and human ecology to emerge

Geolocal Specifics:

These categories refer to your geosocial position as a collaborator, representing the comprehensive geographical reach of OSE's development.

These different specifics illustrate the different geosocial approaches to an open paradigm that OSE are taking, whether building capacity in existing communities or creating new ones, OSE is working towards rapid transition to open thriveability worldwide

Village Builder

Collaborating at a transitional rural homestead which will be developed under an ecovillage, globalvillage or other return-to-village model, utilizing appropriate technology and technique to apply an open, participatory model. Many capacities for OSE knowledge development here, from design to agroecology to microeconomic localised development, transitioning from an open rural to a more cohesive village level. Utilizing PAR to develop a resilient and participatory model for appropriate village development. Many OSE VB's are and have been at work at Factor E Farm

Homesteader

As a possible first step to village builder or to remain at homestead level, a single household or small cohousing group who develops and adds to an OSE model for open development of open engineered technology, open designs and permafacture. Tied to the back to the land movement, this can also translate to rural community development and economic localisation efforts, as well. This offers an opportunity for people living in rural or semi-rural situations to contribute to OSE and the GVCS and other projects. Of particular interest is development of open agroecological knowledge for your particular bioregion, and for appropriate bioregional building and fabrication and agro technology as well.

Community Capacity Builder

Similar to OSEMidMO's approach, the goal of a community capacity builder is to take the first step of applying sustainable community development principles to developing a localised economy utilizing a mix of traditional and community-emergent systems for economic, political and social exchange and to build a base of OSE collaborators after a community capacity assessment and skills assessment. Utilizing this as the first step in an OSE approach to urban, suburban and rural community development, learning and knowledge can be collected of a collaborative participatory community process or model which takes communities to the next step beyond mere sustainability to resilience, transitioning existing communities to an open and participatory ecological model. This can evolve setting up workshops and research collaboratives, appropriate technology exchanges and agroecology exchanges, experimental open microbusiness models and local fabrication towards an open, participatory and decentralized local economy.

Web Collaborator

An OSE Web Collaborator might be contributing to any one of these projects, whether developing GVCS technologies that can be applied by all of these above collaborators, or assisting in web skills or networking skills for building OSE capacity.

Collaborative Specifics

Outside of the Geolocal specifics, capacity exists for different forms of collaboration on different levels, and collaboration between actors can result in rapid development of technologies, knowledge and models. For example, members of OSE MidMO can collaborate with memebers of OSE Oregon and Factor E Farm and web collaborators on developing a knowledgebase for permaculture design, or web development.

And, as evidenced in the past, one person can have many of these titles, and can learn to contribute in many of these spheres of influence. Important to OSE principles is the end of specialization, and the rebirth of distributed knowledge between and within people.

Open Engineers

Open Engineers do some of the most important collaborative work, developing open designs for the GVCS

Documenters

Provide Documentation and explanation of the designs, techniques, models and concepts developed by OSE collaborators.

How will this Taxonomy help OSE in its goals?

-It will provide a robust framework for development of everthing OSE, from our image as an NGO to developing a global, distributed open engineering lab to tools for bioregional community development.

-It will provide options and capacity for all collaborators, and with clear positions, both action and location wise, one can learn or put existing skills to work towards OSE goals

-By outlining the current capacities of OSE, it will offer both new and established collaborators the opportunity to explore new approaches to OSE collaboration