Overview

The Context
New social network software tools, developed by many independent efforts, will make it possible for the members of a vast number of organizations to see themselves as a whole, recognize shared purpose, communicate and collaborate more effectively. A cultural transformation of society is poised to happen, but may only be made possible by our ability to see ourselves, our own numbers, and our collective values with the aid of an emergent electronic communications phenomenon.

The Idea
Create a forum as an attractor for those interested in devoting their technical expertise to helping humanity find ways to live sustainably on the Earth. The essence of the project is to bring together and integrate software, which will allow people to describe themselves and their relationships, create greater interoperability across existing membership structures and thereby facilitate an emergent global network. There are a number of specific areas in which new software tools, beyond existing email, listserv, and websites, could change the nature of interaction between individuals and organizations on the Net. These terms are used in a new way here to describe potential new social empowerment functions.

Mirroring - will make it possible for us to see how many of us there in fact are. This experience alone will be tremendously empowering and has the potential to shift the political and cultural landscape overnight. These representations may be geographical, literally shown as an overlay on a map, or purely abstract conceptual depictions in 2 or 3D showing how we are inter-linked in over lapping networks of networks.

Mapping - will make it possible to explore these networks of people and organizations who share interests in detail. This will reveal where redundancy could be avoided and where collaboration would be natural. By allowing us to see the "lay of the land" together, various groups will benefit from seeing the same view of the space they all hold in common. This will allow us to see ourselves as part of communities of mutual interest. Ultimately, these tools will also make it possible to discover and match vast numbers of interrelated projects with skills and resources.

Messaging - will make it possible for everyone using these systems to filter and pre-file the message traffic they receive to better manage their own time and attention in the face of increased interconnectedness. Many are already overwhelmed with the sheer volume of messages we receive from the existing email system. The only solution to that current dysfunctional situation will be to implement new messaging protocols which will allow us to better manage and filter that traffic.

The Software
The software will necessarily be an evolving and ever changing process. For this reason it is best described in terms of goals and principles rather than specific technology. However, there is a specific set of technological efforts which have come together at this time to found the consortium. These efforts represent such compelling examples of state of the art technology that they convincingly demonstrate that this is not just a theoretical idea but a real opportunity to bring together and build on software available now. All partners agree to strive to achieve greater interoperability in the software they offer through the Consortium.

The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter represents a long standing effort by a very large cross section of global civil society to develop a statement of purpose on the sustainability and social justice values shared by the vast majority of humanity. As such, it is both the symbol and the tangible touchstone for many broad based grassroots efforts. We propose to create an online process whereby individuals can declare themselves "citizens of the Earth", by endorsing both the Earth Charter and the equivalent of an "information age bill of rights" embodied by Identity Commons, whereby individuals declare their right to control their own on-line identity and relationship data. Thus, the act of registering one's identity as a "planetary citizen", through a self-service, user controlled, distributed database system, made available through nonprofit, non-governmental organizations endorsing the Earth Charter, might become both the first demonstration of such software and the carrier wave for its deployment.

updated: October 14, 2002 - 2:20 pm PDT