The Future Of Money Project by Venessa Miemis

Original post here

What are young adults thinking about money and value? How can we create new systems of wealth generation and abundance? What does the future hold for banks and other financial institutions in the wake of massive peer to peer exchange?

“The Future of Money” begins a conversation on these topics and invites your participation (twitter hashtag #futureofmoney)

We did it! Thank you to everyone who has been a part of this process over the past few months!

I presented this video to a room full of bankers (200+, standing room only!) as part of my keynote on Monday, 25 October 2010, at the SIBOS Conference in Amsterdam. Though I don’t think most of them “got it,” the seed has been planted. And apparently someone found my talk compelling enough to quote me in an article on finextra.com! yay! (Sibos kicks off with call for innovation).

It will be interesting to see if we whetted their appetite enough that Swift or another organization might want to provide funding for us to take the project further. Perhaps we could roll out a whole video series that dives deeper into what is really going on with peer to peer exchange, the emergence of complimentary currencies, and the social movements that are fueling this (wealth generating commons, open innovation, coworking and open design spaces, sharing, cooperatives, collaboration, data transparency, social networks, mobility, etc).

In all, I’m so pleased with this experience and the energy and activity supporting it. We crowdfunded over $5,700 over on emergence.cc, and donations are still rolling in! Pretty amazing, and resonant with a comment Linus Olsson of Flattr makes in the video, describing the new way people are thinking about micropayments and the funding of an individual’s creative process -

It’s not a question that you pay for what you already got. You actually pay for what you will get… the things that can be made because you paid.

Please pass the video around, and let’s keep the conversation going. In just 2 days since we posted it online, it’s received over 4,000 views! Share, embed, spread! A Future of Money page has also been started on Facebook, and the #futureofmoney hashtag is alive and well on Twitter. 

I’d love any feedback on the video from you, or any suggestions as to where we go from here. As you know, we will also be creating an infographic as the final part of this particular project, so stay on the lookout for its release in the next few weeks!

Below is the transcript of my talk – it’s quite brief because I only had 15 minutes total, and the video took up half that time. I’ve also listed all the people who appear in the video, along with links to their initiatives/projects.

Thanks again to all!

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“I’m going to talk to you about the changes that are taking place in the way my generation is redefining money and value and wealth. To help convey this message, I spent the past three weeks co-producing a video with a creative studio in Berlin, especially for this event. Just using webcams and Skype, we interviewed people from around the world – from Thailand, Sweden, Germany, the UK, the US, Mexico – all of whom are involved with initiatives that enable new forms of peer to peer value exchange. So, without further explanation, here is the world premiere of The Future of Money.

(video played)

I hope you found that both though provoking and entertaining. There was a lot of information there, so if I had to distill it down into one main concept, one takeaway, it’s this:

There is a class of young, intelligent, creative people who are disillusioned with the debt-based monetary system, and are busy building the infrastructures for a commons-based economy, which is emerging, right now, in parallel to what currently exists. The foundation of this economy is built on trust… and transparency…. and the ability of distributed networks to self organize. And using the Web as a grounds for experimentation, we’re learning more effective ways to link unmet needs with unused resources, innovate, generate wealth, and build resilient communities.

This is the prototype of the future. This is where the opportunities are.

I hope that during the Innotribe sessions the remainder of the week, we can explore ways to create bridges between these two worlds and ways of thinking, and co-evolve the next global economy.”

__________

Future of Money Interviewees:

Featuring (in order of appearance):
Edward Harran, Attention Philanthropist
Caroline Woolard, Our Goods
Alan Rosenblith, Director, The Money Fix
Hans Schoenburg, Founder, GiftFlow
Ashni Mohnot, Founder, Enzi
Linus Olsson, Founder, Flattr
Jerry Michalski, Founder, Relationship Economy Expedition
Georg Zoche, Founder, Transnational Republic
Fernanda Ibarra, Advocate, Metacurrency Project
Jessica Harris, One Blue Dot Share Networks
Michel Bauwens, Founder, P2P Foundation
Douglas Rushkoff, Author, Program or be Programmed