One key belief within the OuiShare community is that collaboration makes people achieve even greater success. Yet, it can be sometimes puzzling for the people in local communities to respond to the enthusiasm they are arousing.
We are Clara, Pierre, and Tanguy, three Business School students who came across OuiShare a few months ago and have since then been fascinated by its horizontal organization and the initiatives led by its communities. We decided to launch a research project to understand it better, with the goal to provide a framework and a tool for community building. Our methodology: gather a maximum of testimonies from OuiShare people including, last December, at the London OuiShare Summit. The outcome: a shareable and intuitive framework for community building.
Building your local ouishare community from OuiShare
OuiShare has always been about community. About gathering people in cities around the same purpose: spreading collaborative thinking and doing. But building a community is no easy matter, from launching to developing it. What should we do first if we want to create a OuiShare community in our city? What could we organize next to take it one step further? How should we deal with the stakeholders we interact with throughout our activities? These issues are only three of many discussed by people at OuiShare. You will find the beginning of an answer in this article and the slides you can find given above. And beyond that, this is an opportunity for you to share experience on community management and contribute to strengthening OuiShare communities worldwide.
Com·mu·ni·ty :noun, often attributive, describing a unified body of individuals, such as:
- people with common interests living in a particular area
- an interacting population of various kinds of individuals in a common location
- a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society
- a group linked by a common policy
- a body of persons having a common history or common social and economic interests
- a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society
Take a dictionary and check: all 6 definitions of community seem to match OuiShare. OuiShare is a global community of people who share an interest in the collaborative change, but most importantly it is anchored in specific communities in each city and country where it is present. Why most importantly? Because, to become effective, the collaborative change will have to come from tangible actions in local ecosystems. Therefore developing communities is a key issue.
How is just another one - an issue often synonym for vertigo. Indeed, we keep on organizing events, launching projects and so on, but we might sometimes forget to stand back and think about where we are going. The framework we are suggesting can be seen as a compass for communities. It provides them with insight on the multiple issues they are confronted with all along their development.
“Isn’t this too downward imposed? What if I don’t agree or would have liked to contribute? Where’s the collaborative spirit?“
Don’t worry, we’ve thought about that. Thanks to our great new knowledge-sharing tool, the Ouiki, you can share your experiences on community building and contribute to the successes of OuiShare communities throughout the world. And of course, you can use this knowledge to make your local community an even greater agent for change.
Because OuiShare isn’t just a name: take, give, share.
Guest post written by
Clara Fourquier
Through diverse corporate experiences in consulting, NGOs, and industry, she focuses on the impact of the organizational framework. Currently working on normativity in the public sector.
Pierre Chevelle
Social innovation addict with experiences at Sparknews and Ashoka, he is currently writing a how-to guide named "Changer le monde en 2 heures".
Tanguy Auffret
With organizational and financial experience in large corporations, he tries to foment change within them. Currently defining the strategy and presence of a major French company at the COP21 - Paris Climate Conference.