This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ShareMelbourne (Australia)
This CTP (CTP2) is about the first MapJam held for ShareMelbourne in October 2013, which was part of Shareable's MapJam initiative that was going on simultaneously in different cities across the world. It was the first time that the MapJam idea happened globally and Darren was involved in coordinating one of the first MapJams. All-over different locations of Shareable MapJams started first in 2013, coinciding with the creation of the Sharing Cities Network.
The Melbourne MapJam aimed at mapping different sharing projects such as sharing agriculture, community gardens, tool libraries etc. The mapping process is basically an allocation of the projects in different areas in Melbourne on a digital map and not involving any official procedure for putting the initiatives under Shareable. Darren explains “It is just like a public directory of what is out there.”
The MapJam was attended by about 20 people; some were from the sharing groups like Car Next Door, which is a P2P car sharing service, others from the Civic Tech Space, or from the Urban Agriculture. Through the MapJam Melbourne became a node in the Sharing Cities Network Hub and the different sharing groups are part of that Node, but in a totally informal way.
The MapJam event was held in Depo8, a co-working space in a room with a big screen and had the following proceedings: a 10-15 minute presentation by Darren introducing Shareable and explaining the MapJam idea and the categories of the mapping exercise. Afterwards the founder of mapping tool CrowdSpot introduced the technology, which was used for the mapping. Participants grouped in teams of three to four, each focusing on a different category for the mapping: a neighbourhood they knew, or are all from, a sharing field, such as community gardens, ride sharing or other services, and the teams mapped the particular points of sharing activities that they knew about, and that they could identify.
The mapping event had a casual and friendly ambience, where people where eating pizza and having a beer while mapping. Darren describes: “everyone had a very fun, social time”. A blog on the Shareable website describes all the details of the MapJam: http://www.shareable.net/blog/we-gathered-we-mapped-we-shared-a-mapjam-follow-up.
This MapJam led for the first time to having a concrete picture of the amount and diversity of sharing activities in Melbourne. According to Darren: “I think MapJams are a great opportunity to make the invisible visible and help local communities connect the dots in their city”. On the transnational level, the Melbourne MapJam, as part of the global MapJam initiative by the Shareable network, was the first in its nature that aims to put sharing initiatives on the map globally. It promoted an asset-based approach to community development and showed, which abundances of resources exist within communities. The MapJam brought different stakeholders together, who used digital maps to locate resources, and started building connections and making creating collaborations and partnerships. Moreover, it was a step towards establishing and growing a network of supporters and like-minded persons for the ShareMelbourne initiative.
There were different stakeholders besides Darren Sharp, who played an important role in producing this CTP. Within the Melbourne community there are two, namely, Depo8, the venue sponsor and CrowdSpot, the technology sponsor. Darren knew Erz Imam the co-founder of Depo8, the co-working space that provided the venue for the MapJam. He states that Depo8 were happy to sponsor the event, as it was an opportunity for them to bring new audience and host a ‘co-working’ event in their space. CrowdSpot, a Melbourne-based mapping start-up, is owned by another contact of Darren’s, named Anthony Aisenberg. It is a mapping platform, which is used as a community engagement-tool by local governments of Australia to engage with citizens around transport and planning related issues. Anthony had developed a new platform technology during the preceding year of the MapJam event, and he was keen to show it and test it out with a new audience, thus, he co-facilitated the mapping activity with Darren. During the event they explained the technology platform and how it works, and made sure the mapping exercise went smooth.
As obvious, the co-production process was facilitated through Darren’s already established networks, and was encouraged by the different partially overlapping interests of the stakeholders. Darren describes it: “So, it is all about symbiotic, reciprocal relationships.” He further elaborates “all of this is like a snowball-effect. So, the proceedings of the CTP and the network building had laid the groundwork, and the seeds for the next thing to happen.”
Moreover, the Shareable transnational network team played a very important role in initiating and facilitating the MapJam, not only in Melbourne but on a global level. The idea of a MapJam started when they decided to create this portal on their website to support local sharing organizers on the ground in various cities to allocate their assets and resources. The Shareable team’s role in this CTP is further elaborated in ‘Related events’, as initiators of the global MapJam.
One main event was crucial for this CTP to happen, namely the global MapJam festival which was initiated by the Shareable transnational network team. It was announced on the Shareable website that a MapJam festival on a worldwide level will start and encouraged local sharing cities to get involved and run their own MapJams if they are interested. They presented the way to do MapJams on the website and aimed to create a motivating environment by using inspiring words to get a global movement started and encouraging local initiatives to share their MapJam stories. Goal-driven people in different local initiatives who are interested to apply the MapJam concept to their own community can take advantage of the opportunity, make contact with the Shareable MapJam team and use the provided resources. This resulted in 55 cities around the world conducting their MapJams during a period of two weeks in October 2013. For Melbourne MapJam, the initiation process was slightly different due to Darren’s close involvement with Shareable; he was specifically invited to take part and was told about it in advance during its development process by Neal Gorenflo, the co-founder of Shareable.
The launch of the MapJam festival encouraged mapping events to take place on a global level. Darren explains: “That was the catalyst to get that event [Melbourne MapJam] happening. They [Shareable] provided the training and resources like a toolkit, how to do the MapJam and what technology to use and the categories that can be used for the mapping. So what they provided was a guiding framework and infrastructure to help the different cities achieve that.” Moreover, the global MapJam festival made local initiatives feel that they are part of a larger movement. As Darren further elaborates: “As all the other MapJams were happening around the world, it led to this feeling of building a movement. Because there were I think around 50 MapJams that happened simultaneously, within a matter of a few weeks.”
Besides the global MapJam festival, the first CTP - the launch event of Shareable in Melbourne and Darren becoming the editor of Australia – was crucial for this CTP to happen. Being a part of the Shareable network gave Darren and thus the Melbourne initiative the possibility to connect with the mapping platform and play an active role in it. The triggered events of the first CTP, which include the on-going network building and informal conversations held by Darren, helped him invite and bring together keen, interested participants for the mapping activity.
Since this MapJam movement took place in Melbourne and other cities, a common language has started to be used by interested cities and the ‘Sharing Cities’ movement has started to evolve. In addition, several events were triggered by this CTP including further networking and following-up with the participants of the MapJam, leading to the following CTP, which is the Melbourne ShareFest hosted by Darren in May of 2014.
According to Darren there has not been much contestation in this CTP.
As explained previously, the Melbourne MapJam event itself had a very relaxed and friendly environment, where people were enjoying themselves and making many new friends. Darren describes: “It was after work, from 18:00 o'clock until around 20:30. It was in a nice, old warehouse which was converted to this co-working space and everyone was relaxed and many people knew each-other. People made new friends. It was very social. And there was more kind of network building than mapping. I had to encourage people to get back to the mapping, because some people were so happy talking and making new friends, catching up with old friends. It was all very social.” This kind of ambience indicates that there was limited opportunity for entering in debates or opinion discussions that could cause contestation. Moreover, the idea of a mapping activity is mainly to build on each other’s knowledge and learn from each other, which again doesn’t align with contestation.
Preparing for the event went smoothly and didn’t include tensions that Darren remembers. The different actors facilitating the event were on good terms and had clearly defined roles and responsibilities, which created a nice collaboration environment. In addition, the way the Shareable MapJam team has facilitated it through their website, made it simple and flexible for the local initiatives to implement. Being able to access all necessary details of how to conduct the MapJam, yet have the autonomy to adapt it to the local context, Darren didn’t face the problem of differences in opinions or of lacking capacity.
The MapJam was anticipated by Darren as an important event in the development of ShareMelbourne. He knew that such an event would facilitate for the first time a concrete picture of the amount and diversity of sharing activities in Melbourne. This was an important starting point for being able to promote sharing ideas for Melbourne; through such a map one would be able to refer to certain sharing initiatives, explain what and where they are, and how they benefit citizens in Melbourne.
Moreover, taking part in the MapJam festival, ShareMelbourne would strengthen its connection and feeling part of a larger movement, which Darren expected to positively impact ShareMelbourne.
Before the MapJam Festival was launched, Darren was already informed about the MapJam plans by Neal Gorenflo and had already planned for arranging a MapJam event in Melbourne. Once the festival was announced on Shareable website an on-going buzz started within the Shareable community about MapJam ideas and events. The Shareable MapJam team was promoting the movement and covering MapJam stories happening simultaneously around the world in diverse cities. So Darren and interested people got an idea of what was expected from the event overall. However, since the mapping activity was quite new for him as a facilitator and for the community of Melbourne, he wasn’t sure how it would be perceived by the attendants and how smooth the facilitating the activity would be. In fact, many attendants had no idea what a MapJam actually is, and came to the event to find out. According to Darren, many still don’t understand exactly what a MapJam means until now, and it will still take some time to translate to people the concept of asset mapping. But for him the MapJam played an important role in introducing such a concept for the first time.
Darren didn’t have specific expectations for the size of the event, but from his previous experience in holding the launch event of ShareMelbourne (CTP 1) he estimated a similar number would show up. But he expected the event to be impactful for ShareMelbourne as regardless of the number of attendants, the MapJam would bring different stakeholders together, part of whom at least are truly interested in the sharing notions, and can be an extension to his network of supporters and like-minded persons. He also hoped they would connect and start collaborations.
Having around 20 people show up to take part in such “a strange new thing” Darren was happy with the attendance rate. Some came just based on the idea that Darren arranges interesting events and were curious to know what it was all about. He states: “That is just the strength of the network and the community. It is a kind of trust: Hey Darren runs cool events, this sounds interesting, we don't know what it is exactly, we'll come along and check it out.” He was also glad that the environment was so friendly and that people enjoyed it and made new friends and collaborations through it.
The Melbourne MapJam had a positive impact on the initiative, because it introduced more people to the sharing notions and the asset-based approach, in which abundances of resources are mapped, to community development. It started the conversation around and laying the ground work for Sharing Cities in Melbourne and globally. Moreover, it helped Darren extend his network, and get more people signed up to Shareable's newsletter and introduce them to Shareable and the launch of the Sharing Cities Network. In addition, it strengthened the virtual connection with Shareable and confirmed the fact that Melbourne is part of the bigger global movement of Shareable. All these accomplishments through the MapJam certainly added to the development process of ShareMelbourne, and to the learning experience of Darren.
In fact, Darren learned the power of the “reciprocal relationships”; one needs partners to be able to arrange such an event and make it successful. He points out: “I needed a venue partner, technology partners, promotional partners… It is an ecosystem. It is about leveraging that ecosystem, nurturing it and creating the conditions so that there is fertile soil for you and for everybody. It is this idea of creating a shared value and the ‘commons’, knowledge and cultural commons, where we are all putting into the collective pot and then taking a cup when needed as well.” Without this belief, Darren wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this important CTP.
In addition, Darren understood that new, unconventional ideas or events can be very interesting for many people. One must be courageous to introduce them and be flexible to adapt to the needs and conditions such new ideas and activities evolve in. It was also the social capital that Darren had already built that made people be more trusting and enthusiastic.
References
Available at: http://www.shareable.net/ [Accessed 2016].
Available at: http://www.shareable.net/cities/melbourne-australia [Accessed 2016].
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