Community Connectors Notebook

Invitation

Hi All.

I am looking for people who would like to join me in studying the role that an Information Advocate might play in neighborhoods, community centers and churches. This role might include ordinary neighborhood news, but in addition, it might also work on a personal, one-on-one "real needs" counseling and match making level to help people find the social supports and material connections needed to make their everyday living work more smoothly. Please write back if you'd like to learn more...

I currently manage an email list with over 50 participants who have shown some interest in Information Advocacy.

See the email list on the Web here: http://groups.google.com/group/wikidelphia-planning?hl=en

Stan <pokras@ntronline.org>

The Notebook

This page and the associated links and materials are available as a method for collecting resources that Information Advocates might use in the course of their work.

Background

Everything for Everybody

The blog post about the Temple U meeting last Spring.

I met Jack Scully in 1970. I ran the Everything for Everybody shop on South Street in Philly from June of 1970 to June of 1971. The following year we called ourselves the "Information Store Collective." Alec Claton's experience as revealed in the essay below, happened between three and six years later. Stan 19:06, 19 August 2011 (EDT)

Alec Claton's article about his experience with Everything for Everybody in New York. 

Civic Consciousness: Increasing Self-Sufficiency in the Complex Adaptive City

Jennifer Pahlka believes that the value of a city reaches far beyond its borders.

Network Theory

Mark Granovetter's "Strength of Weak Ties" paper (1973)

Alternative Currencies

Timebanks are systems that allow people to obtain & offer services without using cash. Learn more about them at the links below. These services offer the ability to keep track of the value of the services that are exchanged.

http://www.letslinkuk.net/home/theory.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TimeBanking/

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/HOURS/?yguid=176590836

Local timebanks are listed here: Is-Timebank

Resources Exchanges

Resource Exchanges provide ways for people to exchange goods or services, but without providing a method for keeping track of the value of the exchange. 

See Is-Resource Exchange Network

Qualities of An Information Advocate

Community members may wish to nominate Information Advocates to a regional advocate network. The qualities that an advocate should possess might include:

• Honesty
• Reliability
• Clarity
• Sincerity
• Discression
• Graciousness
• Knowledgeable
• Values

Bibliography

• The Challenge of the Resource Exchange Network - Seymour B. Sarason & Elizabeth Lorentz (Jossey-Bass, 1979)
• The Future of Money - Creating New Wealth, Work and a Wiser World - Bernard Lietaer (Random House, 1988)
• Complexity - The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos - M. Mitchell Waldrop (Simon & Schuster, 1992)