Muito bom ter amigos que contribuem para o nosso dia-a-dia ser mais interessante… eu não viveria sem os meus. Todos são especiais, mas tenho sorte de ter um amigo como o Roberto Sena, que agora está do outro lado do oceano, matando nossa turma de saudade.

Mesmo longe, graças a internet, ele ainda renova nossos laços com uma dica diferente, com o alerta de um evento novo, uma novidade… enfim, é o cara que te faz pensar para frente e além.

Na última conversa que tivemos, ele me passou o link do blog dele com um documentário. Pensei: “Putz! 60 min! Não dá tempo de assistir tudo agora, mas vou dar uma olhadinha…”  Tsi tsi tsi … além de assistir até o fim, a cada instante ficava mais e mais encantada.  Por isso gostaria de dividir com vocês. Para explicar do que se trata este documentário, nada melhor que as palavras de quem indicou:

[...] No meio de tanto conteúdo o documentário Us Now me rouba a atenção. O vídeo criado pela produtora inglesa Banyak aborda a colaboração em massa, generosidade, a influência da redes socias nos governos mundiais, e claro, cita muitos exemplos de projetos que sao sucesso, como o Zopa, banco em que todos são gerentes.

Em tempos em que a escassez de crédito tem sido um dos piores efeitos da crise financeira mundial o banco britânico traz uma idéia muito simples, porém funcional, ou seja, o dinheiro do investidor (pessoa que empresta) é dividido em diversos empréstimos de forma a reduzir o risco de inadimplência, o resto funciona como um empréstimo normal, nisso tudo o único intermediário é o site que gerencia a operação. Os juros cobrados para o empréstimo de mil euros, por exemplo, não passa de 4% no fim do período de um ano, taxa que é praticamente inexistente num banco tradicional, ainda mais no Brasil, onde as instituiçcoes financeiras cobram um absurdo. No entanto, segundo a legislaçao brasileira o banco inglês não pode operar em solo brasileiro, por ser considerado uma transação semelhante à agiotagem.

Outro caso abordado no documentário é o Ebbsfleet United, clube de futebol comandado pelos próprios fãs, fundado em 1946 e que hoje está na 5ª divisão. Ficou mundialmente conhecido quando foi noticiado que, estando à beira da falência, diante da situação, acabou abrindo seu capital para todos, através da rede, possibilitando que os próprios torcedores adquirissem ações pelo preço unitário de 35 libras esterlinas. Enfim, o documentário foca nos projetos e propõe questões e sugestões, ao invés de ficarmos apenas submetidos a redes sociais tradicionais, como Flickr, Facebook, etc.

Divirtam-se! Bjoka de UpaLupa

Em tempos onde a mídia social se torna uma das ferramentas centrais (se não a mais importante) na captação de clientes, muitos cursos, palestras, publicações e documentários, entre outros meios de divulgação, têm sido produzidos, e encontrados com muita facilidade na rede.

No meio de tanto conteúdo o documentário Us Now me rouba a atenção. O vídeo criado pela produtora inglesa Banyak aborda a colaboração em massa, generosidade, a influencia da redes socias nos governos mundiais, e claro, cita muitos exemplos de projetos que sao sucesso, como o Zopa, banco em que todos são gerentes.

Em tempos em que a escassez de crédito tem sido um dos piores efeitos da crise financeira mundial o banco britânico traz uma idéia muito simples, porém funcional, ou seja, o dinheiro do investidor (pessoa que empresta) é dividido em diversos empréstimos de forma a reduzir o risco de inadimplência, o resto funciona como um empréstimo normal, nisso tudo o único intermediário é o site que gerencia a operação. Os juros cobrados para o empréstimo de mil euros, por exemplo, nao passa de 4% no fim do período de um ano, taxa que é praticamente inexistente num banco tradicional, ainda mais no Brasil, onde as instituiçcoes financeiras cobram um absurdo. No entanto, segundo a legislaçao brasileira o banco inglês nao pode operar em solo brasileiro, por ser considerado uma trasaçao semelhante à agiotagem.

Outro caso abordado no documentário é o Ebbsfleet United, clube de futebol comandado pelos próprios fãs, fundado em 1946 e que hoje está na 5ª divisão. Ficou mundialmente conhecido quando foi noticiado que, estando à beira da falência, diante da situaçao acabou abrindo seu capital para todos, através da rede, posibilitando que os próprios torcedores adquirissem uma açoes pelo preço unitário de 35 libras esterlinas. Enfim, o documentário foca nos projetos e propõe questões e sugestões, ao invés de ficarmos apenas submetidos a redes sociais tradicionais, como Flickr, Facebook, etc.

Assista ao documentário:

Leia mais sobre o Zopa

(watch more in READ MORE below)
 
Us Now is a British documentary which looks at and online networks and the self-governing structures which make them possible.  The premise is that that we can all be the government and top-down bureaucratic structures will be eventually replaced.  The potential of social networks, new technologies and the internet generally, the type of participation demonstrated in the examples used,  it is claimed could change the way way countries are governed.  The film uses several examples to argue the point: opensource software Linux OS,   CouchSurfing,  mums helping each other on Mumsnet, loans from people not banks at Zopa.  Slicethepie, a platform enabling music artists to get financing from fans, who can also earn money from reviewing and promoting.  The fans of EbbsFleet United who own, manage and pick the players of their football team.  Access to technology, I thought was neglected from the discusssion.  If the means of production was to change (in the ways suggested)  surely everyone would need to have access? What do you think? Leave a comment.

WATCH THE REST: PART4   PART5   PART6   PART7

This week we turn our attentions to my home town, Gravesend and get an update on how Ebbsfleet are doing from our resident Man of Kent, Glenn Bowie.

So Glenn, nearly a quarter of the season gone, how has the season gone so far for The Fleet?
Not the greatest of starts to be honest with only one win and five draws from our first eleven games. This leaves us sitting just 2 points above the relegation places. Almost the entire first team squad was released last season so it’s nearly a completely new team. However, the team is now starting to gel and we have moved out of the bottom four relegation places so we’re moving in the right direction.

Still Gravesend & Northfleet to me

What is the situation with Myfootballclub? Last season was the vote to determine whether they would still continue to invest – what happened in the end?
The Myfootball club membership renewal figures reduced from something like 30,000 to 9,000 which really hit us hard in terms of the playing budget for this season. We had to release the majority of last season’s first team squad and had to put a new team together, basically made up of pre-season trialists who had been released by League clubs. It does seem that the 9,000 members that are left in the venture are in it for the long-term and continue to support The Fleet. So for the foreseeable future, Myfc are here to stay.

The club has attracted some big name sponsorship – a kit supplied by Nike and sponsored by Eurostar. Has that given the club a boost?
We attracted alot of big sponsorship deals when the Myfc deal was announced and in addition to Eurostar & Nike we had EA Sports sponsoring the back of our shirts as well. The Nike deal has now ended but we have secured a deal with Vandanel for this season. The Eurostar sponsorship continues which if I’m right is up for renewal at the end of next season.

What’s the best team you’ve seen Ebbsfleet play this season?
So far I’d say Cambridge United. Although we produced a great first half display against them, they really stepped up a gear in the second half and were far too quick and clinical for us on the break and we ended up losing 3-1.

What have the home crowd been like at Stonebridge Road this season?
Given that we haven’t seen the team win at home so far this season, (our only win came away at Eastbourne Borough), the crowd have pretty much backed the team. The performances have been good but we have struggled to score goals. We’ve pretty much matched the teams we have played and really should of had wins instead of draws against Rushden & Diamonds and AFC Wimbledon.

Liam Daish was rumoured to be off to Cambridge a few weeks ago, how did the fans react to that?
With the very minimal finances he is having to work with the season and having to rebuild the team from scratch alot of fans were of the feeling that they wouldn’t blame him if he went. It would have been an offer I don’t think he would of turned down and there was a rumour that he did in fact have an interview for the post before it was offered to Martin Ling.

Almost a second

Do you agree that the Blue Square Premier is an unfair playing field due to the structure of promotion/relegation from the football league? Luton Town, Wrexham, Cambridge United and Oxford United all attract crowds on a par with League Two (and One in some instances) clubs, yet others such as Hayes & Yeading and Gateshead barely get 400 people. Is that right?
I love it when the so-called big ex-League clubs come down to the Blue Square Premier as the majority of their fans have the arrogance that they shouldn’t be here, etc, etc. The majority of the teams that come down don’t usually go straight back up which gives an indication that the Blue Square Premier is a good League. The away following of the ex-league clubs does help the smaller clubs in terms of finances when they visit. We usually get between 900-1,000 but this usually increases to 1,500-2,000 when an ex-League club comes visiting.

What are the best expectations for the season?
Realistically it’s still got to be to finish just above the bottom 4. With the announcement that we have purchased our Ground last week (see here for details), this should give us something to build on for the future of the club and help us achieve our aim of getting into the football league in a few years time…..hopefully!

You can sign one player on a free – who would it be?
Thierry Henry. I’ve had the pleasure to watch, live, many great footballers around the world but he’s one of the best I’ve seen. Maybe more on our level, I would always welcome back Charlie MacDonald from Brentford. Whilst only having Charlie with us for a couple of seasons, he was without doubt a class goalscorer and probably the best finisher in I’ve seen in a Fleet shirt since the great days of our all-time leading goalscorer, Mr Stevie Portway.

Thanks Glenn for the update.  We will be down to Stonebridge Road later in the season for the game versus Luton Town in March next year.  For details of our previous trip, have a read of the post here.

Lo que sigue es un ejemplo tomado del maravilloso documental US NOW, de modo que intentaré ser breve con el objetivo de invitarlos a que lo vean.

En Inglaterra, cuna del Fútbol, existe un equipo sui generis llamado Ebbsfleet United. Juega en lo que, creo, puede entenderse como una 5ta división del fútbol británico (es decir, para jugar en la Premier League deben todavía ascender 4 escalones) y tiene más de 50 años de existencia.

En Enero del 2008, la mayoría accionaria del equipo fue adquirida por una “web-based venture” denominada Myfootballclub, convirtiendo a Ebbsfleet United en el “primer equipo del planeta en ser dirigido completamente por una comunidad online”.

Desde entonces, sus casi 30.000 hinchas (cifra en lo absoluto despreciable para un equipo de esas dimensiones) tienen voz y voto en las acciones del club, desde el equipo titular en cada fecha o el precio de los boletos para los partidos de local, hasta las transferencias de jugadores entre una temporada y otra. ¿Qué tienen que hacer para unirse a la comunidad? Pagar 35 Libras al año, cifra que se me ocurre baja para explotar el verdadero deseo del hincha: ser un claro partícipe en el funcionamiento del club de tus amores. Así, tal como lo define uno de los gerentes del equipo, “el éxito del club está en darle a los hinchas todo el protagonismo posible”.

La idea es fantástica por donde se la mire. Sin duda, se trata de un experimento más de lo que actualmente se denomina “crowdsourcing” (Wikipedia sigue siendo el poster child). El modelo de Ebbfleet Ut consiste en ceder control y reconocer a sus “consumidores” por el poder que hoy tienen, nutriéndose de la “sabiduría de las masas”. Se trata también de lo que Lessig denomina “economía híbrida”, pues los hinchas contribuyen no solo su tiempo sino también su dinero, a cambio de una dosis de protagonismo, dándole al equipo una novedosa forma de financiamiento que genera, además, una enorme “lealtad de marca”.

Ejemplos como este dejan abiertas varias inquietudes. ¿Podría reproducirse un modelo similar con instuticiones gubernamentales? ¿Podría una alcaldía, por ejemplo, administrar sus recursos en función de directrices que miles de personas den desde sus hogares? ¿Es este modelo replicable en una empresa, por ejemplo, cediendo el control de una marca?

No lo sé.

Lo que si es cierto es que la tecnología hace posible la activa participación de las personas en tareas o empresas que antes les eran casi totalmente ajenas. Necesitamos, más que nunca, explorar el maravilloso mundo de la participación masiva, porque si no lo hacemos, otros lo harán y nos quedaremos, como dicen los Ticos, “detrás del palo”.

Post Scriptum

Haciendo el “research” para el post, topé con el siguiente video de unos 9 minutos de duración en el que la BBC reporta el novedoso modelo. Vale la pena echarle un ojo.

One of the principle ingredients of innovation is capturing good ideas.  ”Designers at IDEO, which is based in Palo Alto, California, seem obsessed with learning about materials and products they have no immediate user for.  At lunch one day, we watched two engineers take apart the napkin container to look at the springs inside.” (Source: Building an Innovation Factory, Hargadon & Sutton)  Additionally, open source software has shown us that the masses of innovative product users can drive innovation by overcoming the inbred ways of thinking in corporate environments that shun openness.

It stands to reason that a larger pool of people capturing good ideas can play a role in increasing innovation capacity, provided that an effective experimentation and measuring process is place.

When Sony “set up a web site to support hackers who are interested in exploring and developing new types of games that could be played on the Sony PlayStation… it quickly attracted 10,000 participants, a number that vastly exceeds the number of in-house and contract developers creating games for the PlayStation.  It’s likely that, taken individually, in-house developers are technically more skilled than most user-developers.  But the user-developer community mobilized by Sony is diverse in its skills and interests.” (Source: Creating Breakthroughs at 3M, Hippel & Co.)

Just as we know that the inbreeding of royal familes of yore led to predictably bad results, inbreeding of a company’s idea generators is also bad.  Openness is the solution, and thus I present to you the top 15 companies from The Open 100 from NESTA Connect.

1. Amazon – Amazon marketplace

2. Apache – Open Source Webservers

3. Apple – iphone app store

4. Basecamp – Collaborative Project Management

5. BBC – Backstage/Labs

6. Berkeley Innovation Forum – Share Innovation Management Practices

7. BT Plc – 21CN

8. Cancer Research UK – Open Ventures Challenge

9. Creative Commons – Creative Commons

10. Dell – Ideas Storm

11. Distance Lab – Mutsogato

12. eBay – Online marketplace

13. Ebbsfleet Utd – Myfootballclub.com

14. Facebook – Connect

15. Flickr – Photosharing

(Source: http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/connect/2009/08/the-open-100.html)

I’d like to add another entry to this list: OhMyNews.  This Korean startup was a pioneer in citizen journalism, giving citizen journalists the opportunity and incentive to contribute quality articles to a truly read/write web as Tim Berners-Lee originally envisioned.  It is a stand-out example of open innovation!

It’s very easy to get carried away reading blogs, especially with the automatically generated links that often appear at the bottom of them. I just read first a post on smoke in English football back in the day – in a way that I can’t really hope to imagine, soccer players a hundred years ago must have found it almost impossible to run given the air quality. I find even cigarette smoke noxious nowadays with smoking bans all over the place, and can’t imagine trying to play a game in a smoke-filled environment…

I was then taken on to an article on corruption in soccer over the years – back when safety regulation was sparse if at all existent, and player power was restricted by various regulations, soccer clubs must have been lucrative businesses for owners, and hence one can only imagine the scope for corruption…

Finally, the automatically generated links took me to an article in Time about Ebbsfleet United, a soccer club in Kent owned by a website, MyFootballClub.co.uk. The members of the website vote on various matters related to the club, such as team selection, although the club manager has to make second-by-second decisions out there on the soccer field in-match. The team finished mid-table last season in the Football Conference, English football’s fifth division and one division below the Football League. The novelty is likely well worn off now for this club, given the Time article was written in November 2007, so it will be interesting to see where this experiment in the running and financing of a soccer club gets to in the coming season…

After a morning introducing the students to HTML, the afternoon session in week 1 gave the students a chance to step away from the computer screens and have a general discussion around the uses of social networks.

As a way of sparking dicussion we showed a film called Us Now, a film project about the power of mass collaboration and the internet.

The film featured the following examples of Internet-based group collaboration/organisation:

• Mumsnet
• Couch Surfing
• Directionless
• Ebbsfleet United
• mySociety
• Zopa
• Wikipedia
• Linux

The film isn’t a perfect teaching tool – it’s overlong in places, in some cases some better examples could have been used and not everything chimes with the realities of Internet access in the developing world.

However, the general themes raised are good, in particular the possibility of using the internet to enable mass collaboration.

Many themes came out in the discussions, with the different classes of school students, teachers and community organisations all bringing a different perspective. Topics included:

• the pros and cons of crowdsourcing
• privacy issues
• the lack of ubiquitous access to the Internet (especially vulnerable people in developing countries)
• spam, malware and viruses
• the reliability and accurracy of Wikipedia as an educational tool
• organisations following their audiences by establishing a presence on social networks

Last night I was on a panel following a special screening of the documentary “Us Now” in Parliament. It’s a fascinating film which examines the nature of traditional power in a world where people are able to organise themselves so effectively online.

Case studies featured in the film include the football club Ebbsfleet United (now owned by a group of football fans who, organising themselves online, purchased a 75% share) and Zopa, the social lending website which claims to be the only bank that is actually liked by its customers.

And, inevitably, the film looked at what effect the internet revolution will have (and is having) on our democracy – and Helena Kennedy, Rupa Huq, Sion Simon, Ivo Gormley (the film’s director) and I took part in a panel discussion on that very subject following the screening.

Inevitably, there were some disagreements. Rupa Huq, for example, quite reasonably questioned whether the Number 10 petitions site could ever be taken seriously after hosting such petitions as “Jeremy Clarkson for Prime Minister” – which went on to gather over 50,000 votes.

Ivo Gormley answered this point perfectly, arguing that the reason that so many of these “joke” petitions are posted and subsequently voted up is that the public realise that none of them will make one bit of difference and therefore treat the site with disdain.

It was a far more articulate version of something I had raised earlier – that the Number 10 site basically allows the Government to do online what it excels at offline: ignore people’s concerns.

In David Cameron’s recent speech in Milton Keynes, he set out plans to transfer control from the powerful (the government) to the powerless (the public). But what role does the internet have in this?

Watch “Us Now” (in the best traditions of the internet, Ivo has made it available to watch in full here) and let me know your thoughts. Either leave a comment on this blog post, send me an e-mail, or contact me on Twitter – I’m @craigelder.

Originally posted at http://www.conservatives.com/News/Blogs/What_politicians_can_learn_from_Us_Now.aspx

Ever since MyFootballClub announced they were taking over Ebbsfleet United, I’ve kept tabs on the situation at Stonebridge Road.

Now that they’ve hit a crunch time in their history, with rival clubs bidding for their star players, I thought it was about time for another Soccerlens piece on them.

US Now:

Us Now takes a look at how this type of participation could transform the way that countries are governed. It tells the stories of the online networks whose radical self-organising structures threaten to change the fabric of government forever.

Us Now follows the fate of Ebbsfleet United, a football club owned and run by its fans; Zopa, a bank in which everyone is the manager; and Couch Surfing, a vast online network whose members share their homes with strangers.

The founding principles of these projects — transparency, self-selection, open participation — are coming closer and closer to the mainstream of our social and political lives. Us Now describes this transition and confronts politicians George Osborne and Ed Milliband with the possibilities for participative government as described by Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky amongst others.

[direktlink]

[via kfmw.blog]

Shortly after the launch of Connecticut Sports Law last March, I covered the concept of minor league baseball players selling shares in their future earnings.  I called it “the ultimate in fantasy sports.”  (Click here to read “Can I Invest in a Rockcat?  The Ultimate in Fantasy Sports”).

Our Baseball Haven (OBH), a venture based in New Haven, Connecticut, takes the fantasy sports model to the extreme.  Based on a business model that originated with an English minor league soccer club (Ebbsfleet United), OBH seeks to bring a baseball team to New Haven that is owned and controlled by the masses.  For $100, one can become an owner and vote on everything from concessions, lineups, transactions and the team name and uniforms.  Voting will be conducted through the internet and an interactive social media site.

For more on this novel idea of team ownership, check out the Our Baseball Haven introductory video below, as well as the OBH website and blog.  Also, see Rick Hancock’s feature on OBH.

So, it wasn’t an April fool. Alan Shearer really is to be Newcastle manager. Nothing could have made “the best fans in the world” happier. But Shearer has rightly been critical of Mike Ashley. There must be doubt as to whether Shearer will remain as manager over the long-term if Ashley remains as owner of the club. 

Newcastle has previously given us “the people’s bank” – Northern Rock. Barcelona’s co-operative model of ownership is probably the closest that football has got to the people’s club. Andy Burnham has spoken warmly of this. So has Geoff Mulgan on the much smaller scale of Ebbsfleet United. If Ashley’s ownership is the bar to Shearer staying, then the obstacle to a long-term period of management from Shearer would be overcome by deploying Barcelona’s co-operative model and giving us the Premiership’s first people’s club. This might prove that Newcastle’s fans are, indeed, the best in the world.

Ein Tag ohne Termine….
Shit …
Forest Green vs. Lewes & Kettering vs. Ebbsfleet United
wollte ich irgendwie die “1″sen einbauen, nu’ gut die Nachrücker sind Portugal & die Schweiz …
3 & 4 aus 4
Niederlande v Schottland 1@1.30
Portugal v Schweden 1@1.60
Spanien v Türkei 1@1.35
Moldawien v Schweiz 2@1.45
GQ 4.07@ 0,10 Units
3er@ 0,25 Unit’s/Reihe

Kartenspiel hat’s versaut…warum? Zum Frühstück gab’s ’ne gebrühte Arabica Bohne, stark , schwarz ungesüsst und eine Session NL20. OMFG , wie in der Graph zu sehen war es Swing pur, meine eigene Schuld, da ich 2 x mit halben Stack schlecht gecallt hab’ , beide male war ich unterlegen und es waren schlechte Calls! Mit Aces up: A8 suited Haerts : Am Turn Ass Diamond am River kommt die Diamond 8….das 3. Diamond Villain zeigt K9 suited Diamond, hatte am Flop ein Paar 9er und damit ¾ Pot Size Contibet gecallt.
Im BB wurde mir an einem anderen Tisch A3 off gedealt, der SB raised auf 3 BB ich calle un treffe Aces up. Meine erste Hand am Tisch, nice.
Villain bettet 2 Big Blinds und ich minrase nur. Der Turn bringt ’ne Queen und Villain checkt zu mir, ich gebe ihm ein starkes Ass mit Jack oder King und bette Pott, er callt. River ist ’ne 2 und Villain stellt seine restlichen 23 Bigbets (46 BB) in den 23,5 Bigbet Pot rein.