the co-matter podcast
By the co-matter podcast
the co-matter podcastFeb 19, 2020
Sarah Drinkwater: What is the responsible tech movement?
Sarah Drinkwater is the Director of Responsible Tech at Omidyar Network, a social change venture that works to bring about structural changes that will fundamentally shift the systems that govern our daily lives.
Sarah is on a mission to make technology more ethical and responsible. In 2020 she and her team launched the Ethical Explorer, a collection of tools to help people building software and technology navigate its impact.
In our conversation we talked about:
- The responsible tech movement and what it takes to build software more responsibly and ethically
- The future of community organizing on the internet, micro movements and decentralization
- Renaissance literature, business books and where to find inspiration to break out of our own bubbles
Listen to the co-matter podcast anywhere by subscribing to iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app (search for "co-matter").
Follow Sarah at @sarahdrinkwater on Twitter and Medium. Thank you Omidyar Network for making this conversation possible. You can download the Ethical Explorer here.
Peter Sunde: What makes people become activists?
Now, Peter has released a documentary called THE ACTIVIST; a 5 part series for Finnish television where Peter meets with Edward Snowden, Greenpeace captain Paul Watson and other activists to find out what makes them fight for their causes.
Reasons enough for us to take a train to Malmo, Sweden, to catch up with Peter. In our conversation we talk about:
- How Peter thinks about activism, internet freedom and changing the world today
- What Peter learned from activists around the world: how moral integrity drives people to become activists, engage in civil disobedience and break laws to fight for a more just world
- Why we can’t fix the system within the system, power is more centralized and activism as a tool is more accessible today than ever before; and what that means for our future
Listen to the co-matter podcast anywhere by subscribing to iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app (search for "co-matter").
Follow Peter at @brokep and watch THE ACTIVIST wherever you can access it.
More of this, please? Join our mailing list for our monthly digest about the future of community.
Andres Colmenares: The Everything Manifesto
Andres Colmenares is the co-founder of IAM, the think tank, consultancy and conference that explore the futures of the internet(s).
Together with Lucy Black-Swan, Andres published The Everything Manifesto in late 2019: a call for citizens and organizations to act collectively to address the climate crisis.
We caught up with Andres to find out what it’s all about.
Follow Andres on Twitter, read The Everything Manifesto and join us at IAM Weekend on March 19-21 2020 in Barcelona.
More of this please? Subscribe to our mailing list for a monthly update about the future of bringing people together.
Philippa Wagner: The Hotel as a Community
Philippa Wagner is the director of 23lab, Ennismore’s future innovation lab that researches the hotel experience of the future.
Together with her team, she helps shape the future experience of The Hoxton, a series of open-house hotels based in London, Amsterdam, Paris, NYC, Portland and Chicago.
In this pop-in call Philippa talks about:
- The role of community in understanding future trends, cultural nuances, customer behavior and shaping the hotel experience of tomorrow
- The Hoxton as a community for communities that connects travelers and local communities
- How the Hox Friends community and influencer platform Musings drive ROI, influence the hotel experience and help launch new products such as "Working From", the Hoxton's new coworking space
Listen to the co-matter podcast anywhere by subscribing to iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app (search for "co-matter").
Follow The Hoxton on Instagram and Twitter.
More of that please? Join our mailing list for a monthly update on the future of community.
Julien de Smedt: The Architecture of Misuse
Julien de Smedt is an architect and the founder of JDS Architects, the award-winning architecture firm behind buildings such as Oslo’s Holmenkollen Ski Jump or Copenhagen’s Kalvebod Waves.
We met at JDS' headquarters in Copenhagen to talk* about how architecture influences the way we live and interact with each other as a community. We talk about:
- How JDS architects designs buildings and places with the intention to be misused and re-appropriated in unexpected ways
- Julien's youth as a skateboarder in Paris and how street culture shaped his approach to architecture and design
- The role of architecture to encourage social interactions and community engagement
Here’s episode #31 of the co-matter podcast with Julien de Smedt.
Listen to the co-matter podcast anywhere by subscribing to iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app (search for "co-matter").
Follow Julien at @juliendesmedt and JDS Architects at @jdsarchitects on Instagram.
More of this yes please? Join our mailing list for a monthly update from the co-matter network covering new insights about the future of bringing people together.
* Please note the following corrections from the audio introduction:
-JDS didn't build projects in 45 countries. but designed projects in 45 countries.
-JDS' offices are in Brussels and CPH.
Lea Korsgaard & Jakob Moll: Zetland, The Future Of Community Based Media
Lea Korsgaard and Jakob Moll are two of the four journalists who founded Zetland: a Danish digital newspaper and media company that’s built on a community based membership model.
Founded in 2012, the publication has over 10,000 paying subscribers in their community who read and listen to Zetland’s daily stories.
If you’re not from Denmark you might not have heard of Zetland before. But Zetland is part of an international wave of new media companies along with The Netherland's De Correspondent and Germany’s Krautreporter that pioneer digital first, quality-driven journalism that’s based on community based member subscriptions rather than advertising.
So how did Zetland get from 0 to a community of 10,000 paying subscribers? And what can we learn from journalism re-inventing itself through a community based membership model?
I met with Lea and Jakob at Zetland’s headquarters in Copenhagen to find out. We talk about:
- How Zetland grew from 0 to 10,000 paying subscribers
- The role of journalism in today’s society
- Why it matters to collaborate with your community
- The benefits of a community based membership model
Here is the episode #30 of the co-matter podcast with Lea Korsgaard and Jakob Moll.
Listen to the co-matter podcast anywhere by subscribing to iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or your favorite podcasting app (search for "co-matter").
Follow Lea at @LeaKorsgaard and Jakob at @JakobMoll on Twitter.
Hungry for more? Join our mailing list for a monthly update from the co-matter network covering new insights about the future of bringing people together.
Darius Kazemi: How to Create Your Own Social Network
Darius, who is also known as Tiny Subversions on the www, is an internet artist and a researcher on the future of social networks.
Based out of Portland, Oregon, he has recently undertaken a fellowship at the Mozilla Foundation in Berlin which resulted in “Run your own social” - a manual that teaches anybody how to create and run a social network for their close circle of friends.
We sat down with Darius at The Conference in Malmö, Sweden, to talk about:
- Darius’ journey from being a video game developer to blogging to researching the history & culture of the social web
- Why we should move away from big social networks — and how that leads to more power to individual people and communities
- How you can start your own private social network to share information, discuss topics and host movie nights with 50 of your friends
Here is episode #29 of the co-matter podcast with Darius Kazemi.
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Follow Darius at @tinysubversions on Twitter. Check out the full manual and manifesto to Run Your Own Social at runyourown.social.
A big thank you to The Conference for hosting this conversation.
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Join our mailing list for a monthly update from the co-matter network covering new insights about the future of bringing people together.
Payal Arora: Let the Next Billion Users Play Games and Watch Porn
Pop-In Call: The Future of the Future Forecaster w/ Helen Job
Yancey Strickler: Could This Be Our Future?
Pop-In Call: Adobe’s Creative Residency and Community Programs w/ Franziska Parschau
Amanda Michel: Why Not Ask Readers to Contribute?
Scott Heiferman: The Story of Meetup
Pop-In Call #2: What is Engaged Journalism? w/ Kathryn Geels
Today we're joined by the fantastic Kathryn Geels, director of the Engaged Journalism Accelerator based out of London, UK.
We talk about:
- The Engaged Journalism Accelerator and its mission to inspire, connect and support news organisations across Europe to empower communities and their conversations
- The shift in journalism to become more audience-focussed. Not just in terms of subscriptions / advertising revenue, but more in how readers can participate in all aspects of a news organization
- Germany's membership-based news platform Krautreporter.de and how they share their insights in their playbook for engaged journalism to help other news organizations break out of their silos
- Spain's Maldita.es that established an ambassador program called "Malditos" and an open CRM that allows its community to contribute to the organization
- How traditional news organizations can adapt to becoming more community-driven through opening up processes, decision making and letting people participate more
Follow Kathryn at @girlondon and @ejcnet.
A special shout-out goes to Kathryn's team Ben Whitelaw and Madalina Ciobanu who Kathryn chose to greet in her final remarks on the conversation. Hi Ben and Madalina!
Charles Broskoski: The Story Behind Are.na
Pop-In Call #1: Why Does WeTransfer Care About Your Mental Health? w/ Annie Malarkey
Pop-in calls are shorter, more hands-on sessions than our long-form conversations. For each pop-in call we invite a member of the co-matter community to call in and share insights, learnings and best practices about a specific project they’re currently working on.
The goal is to share that knowledge with you. So we can all be smarter, more inspired and more mindful about bringing people together in the future.
Our very first guest joins us all the way from Los Angeles. It’s Annie Malarkey from WeTransfer!
We talk about:
- Annie's journey to running communications, events and partnerships at WeTransfer after working at Ustwo, Wix.com and NY Media Center.
- WeTransfer's 10 year history as a creative company and its belief to use technology to support creatives, not make them addicted
- The story behind "Please Leave", WeTransfer's campaign that encourages creatives to abandon their screens and experience the real world: leave.bywetransfer.com
- Why WeTransfer decided to help pay off $30M of people's medical debt in Los Angeles and how it led to a partnership with meditation app Headspace
- Annie's approach to partnerships based on shared values and as a way to grow and experiment for a company, rather than purely measuring ROI.
Here is episode #1 of the co-matter pop-in calls with Annie Malarkey.
PS: A special shout-out goes to Sabrina Dridje in NYC who Annie chose to greet in her final remarks on the conversation. Hi Sabrina!
Jennifer Brandel & Mara Zepeda: How Zebras Unite Make Startup Culture More Inclusive
Spread across 6 continents, 40 chapters and an online community of 4000 founders, Zebras Unite is a global movement that aims to make startup and venture capital culture more ethical and inclusive.
At our third Community Leadership Summit, which took place in early September 2019 in Copenhagen, we had the chance to sit down with Jennifer and Mara to find out how it all came about.
We talk about:
- The story of Zebras Unite: how a movement was born out of an essay on "sex and startups" and the need to change something
- How the movement grew from four co-founders to a global community of 40 chapters and 4000 founders
- The power of metaphors to change culture, self-organized dance parties and distributing power from the few to the many
- A short manual on how anyone can start a movement to solve a problem they truly care about
Here is episode #23 of the co-matter podcast with Jennifer Brandel and Mara Zepeda.
Hampus Jakobsson: There is No Us vs Them in the Climate Crisis
Earlier this year, he decided to only invest in technologies that contribute to solving the climate crisis. In August 2019 we had the chance to sit down with Hampus at The Conference in Malmö to chat about topics such as:
Why is there no us vs them in the climate crisis?
What is the role of nuclear energy in this crisis?
Why are we acting like super anxious teenagers amidst this global debate?
Here is episode #22 of the co-matter podcast with Hampus Jakobsson.
Petra Costa: The Edge of Democracy
Yousef Hammoudah: How we Built Adidas Runners
Santiago Siri: Can the Internet Save Democracy?
A former video game developer turned activist-slash-founding member of Argentina's political party Partido de la Red, Santi takes us on a walk through NYC's central park to talk about the future of democracy. We explore the intersection between democracy and the internet to understand how technology can help make governance better - in the democratic systems of our future, as well as in any other community we’re building.
And because we like to keep our episodes unpredictable, this one features the lovely–yet sometimes distracting–chirping of birds on a spring day in New York City’s Central Park. Ladies and gents, here is episode 19 of the Community Podcast with Santiago Siri.
Solana Larsen: How to Keep the Internet Healthy
We talked to Solana on the occasion of the Internet Health Report’s third release. Her view on the health of the Internet swings from guarded optimism to hopeful pessimism in a fascinating way. Adding to that, her journalistic background and her contribution to initiatives like Global Voices and openDemocracy give Solana a unique perspective on topics like digital rights, digital literacy and Internet governance.
Jyri Engeström: Investing into the Web's Social Infrastructure
In our call with Jyri, we talk about him growing up in the Silicon Valley of the 90s, the roots of the social web, communities as essential building blocks of society, the role of venture capital in helping social movements grow, future trends and how the internet, at its best, helps people help other people.
The Life and Times of Harper Reed
Severin met Harper at MIT’s media lab in Berlin, in August last year. Being a fan of Harper’s work for many years, he took the opportunity to ask him about what Harper calls his life waves: periods in his career when he quit everything and said yes to any new opportunity that came his way. Like this interview. Or building one of the first crowdsourcing communities on the internet. Using social technology to get a president elected. Or predicting the future for a living. All this, and more, including sirens and pan flute recitals, in episode #16 of The Community Podcast.
Claire L. Evans: The Women Who Built the Internet
In our talk, we covered how Claire met the women who built the internet, how they translated traditional communication formats to the digital world, and what we can learn from early virtual communities about power dynamics, politics and gender bias today.
Khalid Albaih: How We Lost the Internet
In our conversation, we talk about how social media changed since Khalid got started, how politics got involved and the chances for the Internet to remain a space to raise our voices.
Where to find Khalid:
www.facebook.com/pg/KhalidAlbaih
twitter.com/khalidalbaih
www.instagram.com/khalidalbaih
Sarah Clark: The Secret Behind Rapha's Success
Rapha is a prime example of how a brand can build an authentic community around a clear purpose: it runs its own cycling club with thousands of members, operates 22 clubhouses around the world, organizes weekly rides that anyone can join, produces movies, has a beautiful print magazine and a ton of other projects that help people discover their passion for cycling.
I met Sarah at Rapha's London headquarters to find out how it all came about: how Rapha got started, how her vision of the brand evolved and Sarah's advice for people who want to start their own mission-driven brand.
Links:
www.rapha.cc
www.rapha.cc/rcc
Claire Wasserman: How Ladies Get Paid Helps Women Rise Up
We talk about how it all got started: how Ladies Get Paid grew from a meetup in a tiny New York apartment to a global movement, how Claire attached a business model to it, her advice for community founders and her vision for growing Ladies Get Paid in the future.
Links:
www.ladiesgetpaid.com
www.claireslovesyou.com
Charles Adler: What I Learned from Building Kickstarter
Charles then founded Lost Arts, a 25,000 sqf workspace in Chicago, and travels the world to speak about social entrepreneurship, technology and creativity.
We talk about his experience in building Kickstarter, how he designs community at Lost Arts, the difference in building a global online platform vs a physical workspace, corporate responsibility and social change through technology.
Links:
www.twitter.com/cadler
www.lostarts.co
Nelly Ben Hayoun: How to Design Experiences
They create orchestras together with NASA space scientists, put dark energy in your kitchen sink or create places such as The University of the Underground, Nelly’s latest venture that teaches critical thinking, unconventional research and social dreaming to post-graduate students.
At her studio in London, Nelly told me more about how it all came about and what it means to design an experience.
Rafe Offer: How Sofar Sounds Turned into a Global Movement
Linda Liukas: How I Became a Children's Book Author Over Night
In our conversation, we talk about how Linda's early adventures on the Internet have shaped her creativity, how she built Rails Girls into a global movement that teaches women how to code, the process of funding a book through Kickstarter and her thoughts on dealing with criticism, maximizing freedom and living a fulfilled life.
Justin Gignac: Building the World’s Most Obsessively Curated Community of Creatives
Founded in 2012 by Justin and his friend Adam Tompkins in New York City, the platform now includes over 10.000 members that work together with over 2000 of the world's best companies such as Apple, The New York Times, Airbnb and Wieden+Kennedy.
In our interview, Justin shares what it takes to build a community like Working Not Working; and how he wants to grow it while staying true to its mission.
Annamaria Olsson: Building Bridges Between Refugees and other Migrants
What started with a Facebook post in 2012 has helped thousands of newly arrived Berliners integrate in society, make friends and learn the language. In our interview, Annamaria shares the story on how it all got started and the learnings she made from building this unique community over the past 5 years.
Simon Caspersen: How IKEA’s Research Lab SPACE10 Open-sources Innovation
With projects ranging from vertical farming to the future of meatballs, the team at the Copenhagen-based research lab works with a global network of collaborators to not only research what the future brings, but also prototype it. The results are then open-sourced and available to anyone.
In our conversation we talk about how SPACE10 got started, how their community-based approach convinced IKEA to support them, and why Simon doesn’t believe in 300 page innovation reports - but rather in creative artworks like a photo series on the future of meatballs that went around the world.
Martin Jordan and Kara Kane: How the UK Designs Public Services According to Human Needs
In this conversation Severin sat down with Martin and Kara at The Whitechapel Building in London to talk about what it means to build better services for citizens, how GDS works like a startup within the government and how they share knowledge and build community with civil servants across the country.
Jerry Michalski on the Power of Trust in Today's Economy
Severin and Jerry talk about the role of trust and relationships in today's economy, the dynamics behind platforms such as Kickstarter, Airbnb, Wikipedia and Uber, the evil genius of Donald Trump and many other things.
Damian Bradfield: How did WeTransfer Become a Platform for Creatives?
Damian joined WeTransfer in 2010 along co-founders Nalden and Bas Beerens. I met him shortly after his talk at this year's Tech Open Air and caught him for a conversation on company values, trust and partnerships with the likes of FKA Twigs, Moby and Gilles Peterson.