This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ShareMelbourne (Australia)
This CTP (CTP3) is about the Melbourne ShareFest, which took place in May 2014, six months after the Mapjam – CTP 2. ShareFests “are participatory events designed to connect the local sharing economy that range in size from intimate sharing events within community organizations like timebanks, to large three day public gatherings with over 3,000 people.” (shareable.net, 2016). Their goals vary from one ShareFest to another depending on what the respective community wants and needs. The Melbourne ShareFest coincided with the launch of the Sharing Cities Network earlier in 2014 and the on-going global ShareFest activities encouraged by Shareable.
Darren had used the opportunity of Shareable’s call to host a ShareFest in Melbourne. So he planned the event in May at co-working space, which was the venue sponsor and event partner, called the Henley Club. Darren invited at least 25 ‘sharing leaders’ and ‘sharing innovators’ to the Melbourne ShareFest which he facilitated.
Attendants of the ShareFest came from diverse sections of the Melbourne community and for the first time included around three to four persons from local governments around Melbourne, as well as legal scholars interested in the sharing economy, community groups and sharing initiatives such as tool libraries, car sharing, ride sharing, community gardens and sharing start-ups. The ShareFest included some of the same people who came previously to the Mapjam and also the first launch event (CTP 1 and 2).
Darren called this ShareFest event the ‘Sharing Economy Leaders’ Forum’. He aimed to introduce to the attending community of leaders the notion of the Sharing Cities and Sharing Cities Network. He further discussed how Sharing City Melbourne could look like, and what a vision for Sharing City Melbourne can be. With the attendants he identified challenges, opportunities and relevance of Melbourne becoming a Sharing City. He mentions: “Through the ShareFest event, I tried to lay the groundwork and sow the seeds around the notion of Melbourne as a Sharing City”. The following link provides more details of the event: http://www.shareable.net/blog/challenges-opportunities-of-a-shared-economy-in-melbourne.
This event was the first time that the notion of Melbourne as a Sharing City is discussed with leaders in the sharing field. Previous discussions had mainly addressed separate sharing initiatives in Melbourne and general concepts of the sharing and the commons. So the event is a CTP as for the first time a more holistic vision for Melborune as a Sharing City is tackled and discussed among sharing economy leaders.
Two main partners within Melbourne played an important role in facilitating the event, who were again from Darren’s strong local network: The Henley Club’ and Darren’s friend Onur Ekinci, who co-facilitated the event with Darren.
The Henley Club provided the venue; it was an opportunity for them to bring new audience and community leaders to their space. Onur helped Darren in designing the event and program, and facilitated a part of the event. His background is in facilitation and community building and P2P-learning. He has got his own business, but he is not officially part of Shareable or the Sharing Cities Network.
Darren again had reached out to his strong local network, collaborated and invited them to the event; his network includes friends supporters, fellow-travellers, kindred spirits and persons who share a similar agenda around urban issues, place-making, community development and sustainability, social entrepreneurship and social innovation, those who are interested in starting businesses around these issues or who are in local government and are trying to influence the policies concerned, or a combination of both.
On a global level, Shareable network certainly helped co-produce the event, when they initiated the ShareFest idea and encouraged local manifestations to host ShareFests in their cities. They facilitated local events by providing help measures to local leaders through the Shareable website, such as a ShareFest guide, and articles explaining how to arrange a ShareFest toolkit and webinar. Moreover, they posted ShareFest stories and videos to help in the learning and in increasing the momentum around the ShareFest idea globally. The following link provides more details about the role Shareable had in facilitating ShareFests: http://www.shareable.net/sharefest.
The global event of the ShareFests, which was initiated by Shareable and led to tens of ShareFests happening simultaneously over a few weeks around May 2014 in different cities, was certainly the main catalyst for the Melbourne ShareFest. Not only did the global ShareFest idea create a sense of global movement for the local initiatives, but it created a platform on the Shareable website, where each ShareFest happening around the world was listed and narrated by its owners, creating a fruitful learning and stories sharing environment. The approach and form each city used to host its ShareFest was different. Some cities were focused on grassroots, such as organizing a Repair Café, a Fix-It Corner, a Clothes Swap, or a Food Swap in their local community hall for instance. Others were more strategic, which was how Darren had organized The Melbourne ShareFest, involving different interested stakeholders of the city from the public and private sector.
The first two CTPs, namely the launch event of Shareable in Melbourne and the Mapjam were certainly prerequisites for the ShareFest to happen. They led to the strong connection to Shareable network, which provided support and guidance through the website, and which was the driver of the different global events. Moreover, the two previous CTPs resulted in the growing and strengthening of Darren’s network in Melbourne and the start of the newsletter and more intensive blogging on the Shareable website about Shareable in Melbourne. All this generated the background ‘buzz’ about the Sharing Cities network, and about linking that to the Melbourne context i.e. it started the discussion about what could it mean for Melbourne to become a Sharing City. In addition, at least three to four people from the second CTP - Mapjam had attended the ShareFest.
The Melbourne ShareFest evoked setting up the ‘Share Melbourne’ Facebook group. Darren set it up as a channel to continue the conversation. He found that people were interested in the conversation about the Sharing Cities Network and about Melbourne becoming a Sharing City, so he created this group to keep the discussion going. The Facebook group has currently around 130 members.
In addition, the ShareFest was the start of Darren’s engagement with local government actors about the Sharing Cities notion and the start of more intensified talk with local officials and other political leaders in the future.
Further on, Darren started his PhD in Low Carbon Communities for Sustainability Transitions during the following months after the ShareFest, which was not probably directly related to the ShareFest itself, but was certainly partially stimulated by the growing discussions, growing interest and network of Darren in the sharing economy field.
According to Darren, contestation was minimal in this CTP. He mentions that there were varying degrees of interest within the attendants of the ShareFests. Some people were “neutral about the Sharing Cities idea, but they are not opposing it”. Others are more interested in the idea and the movement. But in general, no one actively opposed it, or sought to challenge it.
Darren further describes: “Some people come to events and were more like observers; they were kind of looking around and taking notes, but not actively involved. Or I didn't hear from them again.” But these were not real contestation acts for him.
Several actors from the local government were interested in the Sharing city notion, but their degrees of interest also vary. Some are increasingly interested in the notion, others are for instance more interested in the notion of the Smart City. However, these differences in opinions didn’t cause any real tensions, since the Shareable approach is not to oppose and alienate different notions, but rather to provide an alternative to existing systems in the community and show how beneficial this can be.
As Darren explains: “Shareable is about telling a new story for a new economy. In terms of the framing. So, it is about the telling of this new story of sharing and the commons and trying to develop practical break through innovative solutions to solving socio-economic and environmental challenges. I think Neal has probably come out the strongest against some of the more extreme operators like Uber and drawn a line in the sand there. So, there are certain actors which are called into question. But in general Shareable's approach is about movement building, is about telling a new story of sharing, it is about practical ‘how to’ grassroots advice, doing this in your own city and community. In touch with local government as a partner, where there is interest to help achieve those ends.” So Shareable is more about the vision and the story of Sharing Cities. As a global network its philosophy is to create a global movement towards sharing cultures, and engage those who are interested and want to be part of the movement. Non-interested parties can just continue following their own beliefs as “there is room for everybody.”
It is important to mention, that Darren does a lot of work with local governments and other public sector organisations to activate local sharing communities through his consulting practice.
For Darren the ShareFest event was foreseen to take place once the global ShareFest was launched. Similar to the launch of the MapJam (CTP 2), there was on-going buzz within the Shareable community promoting it, blogs about how it can be implemented and organized, and about ShareFest stories happening in different cities simultaneously. So Darren and interested people knew more or less what would be expected.
In addition, Darren had already organized two events promoting the sharing ideas: CTP1 – Launch event of ShareMelbourne and CTP2 – Melbourne MapJam, which were of similar size and content. These gave him a sense of how to organize such an event, what to expect in terms of attendance and motivation, how people’s reaction would be and what kind of impact the ShareFest could have on the ShareMelbourne initiative. He had already established a trust-based relationship with his network and his good reputation for organizing events within the sharing community was shaped. Darren mentions: “There was a lot of goodwill generated from the previous launch event and the MapJam before, so there was already a bit of a groundswell of interest, activity and generosity. So all that helped make a good event and bring those different people together.”
Acquiring support from the Henley Club to sponsor the venue at that point was expected by Darren after he had been a member of this private club for a long period and had built a good relationship with them. Moreover, he knew that for them it was certainly a good opportunity to bring new audience to their space especially that it included community activists and leaders. Onur’s support in the event facilitation was expected too; he had been a fan of Shareable since almost a year at that point and was supportive of what Darren was doing. All this helped make that CTP successful.
Darren anticipated this event to be critical for the ShareMelbourne initiative, but didn’t foresee all its impacts. He knew that this event would be the first time the notion of Melbourne as a Sharing City is discussed with leaders in the sharing field. He had called the ShareFest event ‘Sharing Economy Leaders’ Forum’, and was aware that the attendants would include leaders and decision-makers related to the sharing economy domain. In fact, attendants included at least three people from local governments around Melbourne, as well as legal scholars interested in the sharing economy, community groups and sharing initiatives. Darren had planned this event to cover a more holistic discussion about a sharing vision for Melbourne, introduce the Sharing City notion, and discuss with attendants its opportunities and challenges for Melbourne. While the overall purpose and impact of the event were anticipated by Darren, other outcomes were not. For instance, opening a Facebook group to continue the discussion was not planned in advance. It was more a spontaneous reaction of Darren after he felt the interest of attendants and the need to continue the discussion. He thought that such a Facebook group could have a stimulating impact for further engagements and collaborations of the members.
The ShareFest event was the first instance where Darren introduced the Sharing Cities notion and the idea of Melbourne becoming a Sharing City to an audience of influential leaders in the community. It certainly was a step forward towards bringing these notions to a more serious and longer-term discussion, not only through a more influential audience but also through the subsequently opened Facebook group. Moreover, it was an essential event that further built Darren’s network, which proved very useful throughout the following CTPs.
Through this event Darren gained confidence and courage to continue promoting Melbourne as a Sharing City. It proved to him that “there was an appetite, and support and interest for Sharing Cities in Melbourne.” Since this event his aspiration for Melbourne to become a Sharing City was crystallized. He became more publicly outspoken about the need for Melbourne to become a Sharing City and to tackle this almost as an inevitable goal that Melbourne will reach.
As Darren states, “in many ways Melbourne already is a Sharing City through various sharing initiatives and projects, but it is not yet on a formal level.” Since the ShareFest he has been increasingly starting conversations with the City of Melbourne about what Melbourne Sharing City could look like and they are starting to engage him to run community workshops and speak at public events so it is definitely gathering momentum. It was through this CTP that he learned that new ideas are welcomed by Melbourne local government, or at least by some of its officials, especially when these ideas provide new solutions to relevant problems in society, and are being implemented in other cities and have a global network support base.
This CTP had certainly a positive impact on the development of ‘ShareMelbourne’ initiative and its goals; after mapping and connecting the initially scattered sharing initiatives in Melbourne, this CTP has taken the ShareMelbourne initiative to the higher level of the city as a whole and had opened discussions to more formal actions of the local government and on the policy level.
References
Available at: http://www.shareable.net/ [Accessed 2016].
Available at: http://www.shareable.net/cities/melbourne-australia [Accessed 2016].
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