Project: How to Marry the Needs and Offers
This is a continuation of conversation started in another thread but which deserves its own Project.
It seems to me that there are a lot of people out there who wonder what they can do. My interpretation is that this doesn't only mean to sort our the recycle-bins and have short rather than long shower and switch the light off when not in the room, but they also may mean: 'how can I help'?
At the same time there are many ideas for projects that are struggling to start - because they need help. Sometimes that is financial help, but many times they would benefit from a good brainstorming session, or from bouncing the ideas around with other people, or maybe they need an expert help for a few hours every month and maybe somebody could sponsor this expert to actually help them? There are so many possibilities...
But where can one state one's needs, what infrastructure exists, what could (easily) exist if it doesn't already etc...
One thing to try and understand is the Murmurations protocol (mentioned in the thread ...) https://murmurations.network/2022/07/05/what-can-you-build-on-the-murmurations-protocol/
some other links that could be useful
https://open.coop/2021/06/16/a-new-model-for-grant-funding-to-finance-the-collaborative-commons/
So... what does already exist and serve the purpose or marrying the needs and offers? What could easily exist and what is needed for it to come into being?
Then how to spread it, scale it, grow it so that we can say to everybody who wonders how they could help: ok, put your profile here, tell us what you can do/offer, and see who needs that in your locality or elsewhere? And equally, we can say to struggling projects: tell us what you need, put your profile here, and see who has what you need in your locality or elsewhere?
Then some kind of matching algoritm does its thing, et voila! we get the ball rolling a bit more...
Thoughts? Ideas? Reflections?
Thank you.
Simon Grant Tue 16 May 2023 9:15AM
@Ivana for volunteering perhaps... I can't see anything at all to find other people of interest
Ivana Tue 16 May 2023 8:06AM
Hello all. Not mch happenign on the marriage front here... but I just found this... what do you think https://match4action.org/home#contact
Ivana Sun 1 Jan 2023 9:21AM
Here is a an application that offers one solution to the 'needs and offers' . Please use it and share it in your social, professional or any other circles. https://www.sharebay.org/
Hapy New Year to all.
Oli SB Thu 27 Oct 2022 9:24AM
this is a great idea - and should be pretty easy to develop, based on the Murmurations API, so that people can 'post' the the index straight from their browser plugin and searches the index (for similar Offers local to you) when you search via the usual search bar... although we may need to find a way to limit it so that it's not searching the Index every time you search for anything...
Let me think about this a bit more...
Grace (Rebecca Rachmany) Thu 27 Oct 2022 2:35PM
Awesome because the person I am talking to is in the GEN-EU network and I know they are working on some stuff with the Murmurations team. I think she said the application for funds wouldn't be until August, so that's a pretty long time, but maybe if we have a team and a budget, we can explore other sources of funding as well.
Matthew Slater Thu 27 Oct 2022 12:42AM
The beauty of the REST service approach is that yes, you can just build a browser plugin if you want. While you are seeking funding for future work, do put in a word for those who did past work without waiting for funding! @Bob the offer_want schema currently deployed is aimed at local community groups more than products. We could have broken it into two levels to better support future innovation but I recall there was a preference to keep it simple so we just defined one to get going. Some technical debt there perhaps.
Bob Haugen Wed 26 Oct 2022 7:41PM
d a Browser Add-in which would pop up whenever you were shopping and offer you local goods instead of the online goods?
That's a great idea, but different from at least one version of offers and needs (which is if course not the only version, and yours is also doable). The version I have seen is often not commercial, but offers and needs among friends in a community. Could also be local businesses, but also barter or just stuff to give away.
Grace (Rebecca Rachmany) Wed 26 Oct 2022 6:45PM
A couple of us were thinking this through and we thought: what if instead of needs/offers, we had a Browser Add-in which would pop up whenever you were shopping and offer you local goods instead of the online goods? The local businesses could sign up and post updates to what they have to offer, and then everyone in the network installs the browser plug-in which just simply searches for whatever term you are looking for within a certain radius, or with the attributes you want (ecological, accepts the community currency, etc.) Does anyone know of such an add-in or have thoughts about how to create this? We were thinking we might be able to apply for the Erasmus funding for that kind of a project
Jennifer Damashek Fri 28 Oct 2022 1:30AM
Thank you for the invitation, @Renata Ballesteros. I’ve learned that my personal experience of facilitating events with more than a small number of participants that I don’t know well is stressful and quite unpleasant for me. It’s one of the reasons I’m working on co-creating small communities of people who have decided they want to care for each other. I hope you find someone to help you facilitate an OANM.
Ivana · Tue 16 May 2023 10:53AM
@Simon Grant Working together on projects is a nice way to get to know people. (But I remember the emails we exchanged about a different way of meeting people - the idea that still resonates with you.. I hope you find a way forward with it and I hope it brings you lots of fun.)