Ideas

I believe that the first step towards building an Open Commune begins with a website. This website would function as a Commune Organizer which provides the basic framework for a functional commune. Much like any other Web 2.0 site, the Open Commune would include biographical information for each members, along with message boards, voting tools, along with other necessary components of an online community.

The primary focus on the site would be to define the necessary roles and rules which regulate the commune. This would also include financial tools to help monitor the expenses of the commune, such as water and electrical utilities; phone, video, and Internet connections; along with transportation, personal wages, health care, and any other services which are required by the Open Commune. Essentially, this is iLife as Steve Jobs never imagined.

Most importantly, the Open Commune would not only provide an Open Source platform which can be used by any community -- commune or no -- but would also connect to one another in order to create larger communities that stretch beyond the physical boundaries of the community. This would enable the Open Commune to become viral and spread beyond the Commune 1.0 when hippies tried to escape the world they lived in. The Open Commune is no less than a Revolution.

Hi CRitter.

This open commune 2.0 sounds to me a little bit like 'Utopia' the perfect world as described in 1516 by Thomas More in his book “De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia”.
The word Utopia is taken from the Greek and means "no place" or "place that does not exist" and how much I would like it to exist, I personally don’t think you can pull this off.

Even the frontiers of countries are starting to fade more and more, as is written so clearly in “The World Is Flat” by Thomas Friedman let alone that you can make a “country in a country”.

On the other hand: if you believe in it go for it. After all without dreamers we who still be running naked on the African savanna.

Tommy

This sounds like a great idea for people who want to live that way. I see some logistical problems with including coders, artists, etc. Most traditional commune-type jobs are easily measured so you know who is contributing and who is not. Are the cows healthy? If not, the person in charge isn't doing their job. Did the dishes get washed? The garden tended? All fairly easy to keep track of.

When you include jobs like software development, they might be much harder to measure. If they're doing contract work, do they still get to eat when the salemen can't keep them busy? If their fancy Web 2.0 startup gets hot, everybody wins, but if it tanks and they lose a year's worth of work, do you feed them to the pigs?

And when you include artists, the problem gets more extreme. Real art (not commercial graphics) has almost always been supported by patrons. Will everyone in your commune feel strongly enough about the importance of art that they're willing to work all day to feed the artists who are not commercially successful? If so, sign me up as a sculptor...

Let me initially say that I do not consider this to be a Utopian ideal. College campuses employ a similar strategy -- one that has been carried into the Corporate sector through the multitude of Microsoft campuses, etc. This doesn't mean that thousands of people are necessary in order to make this work. Smaller communes of 3 to 5 people could also be quite successful within this communal model.

As far as "measuring productivity" is concerned, I see an Open Commune as a great leap forward when compared to measuring the health of a herd. Man hours can easily be logged in a digital environment -- should the commune warrant such -- while videos and blogs are easily tracked through timestamps, etc. Even the less technical tasks of washing the dishes is easier to monitor when software is present.

What I believe is necessary for an Open Commune to succeed is less attention to making millions, and more of a focus on the needs of the community. Is everyone fed? Did the electricity bill get paid? Do we want more disposable income per person? People can make a living off selling peaches on the side of the road. With a strong mind at the financial helm, feeding a few dozen people should be a lot easier than an IPO.

that the first step towards building an Open Commune begins with a website:

Isnt Secondlife not good enough as virtual world?

Website isn't the right word. Commune Organizer would be a better description. To make it easier to understand, let's use my grandfather's farm as an example:

Logging into the Commune Organizer I would begin by creating a new community. This would include detailing a list of individual resources (houses, barns, tractors, animals) along with the costs associated with each one. For houses, the costs would be broken down into rent, taxes, and utilities. For living assets such as livestock, this would include food and medicine.

Once I've entered the essential components of the Commune I would see a monthly and yearly estimate of associated costs. While this sounds as complicated as QuickBooks I honestly don't view this as a replacement for more advanced financial applications. The Commune Organizer should be as simple to use (and entertaining) as playing a web version of Civilization.

After entering all the people and places, the next step is to add the jobs and income which are associated with each -- from milking the cows in the morning to planing the seeds in the spring. (Of course, this example is much more rural than the original idea. I imagine the first Open Communes would be much more technical with less pigs to worry about.)

It is important to (again) stress the Sid Meyer's model of Civilization. Once the jobs have been entered and everyone has access rights, people log in to a fun and interactive world which shows not only what everyone is doing, but allows them the ability to affect the ways their commune grows -- ranging from the amount of disposable income to the quality of food everyone enjoys.

Remember: This is software we're talking about. This isn't simply Utopia.