OurGoods: A barter network for the creative community

I have the good fortune of being on a panel this weekend at the ICEA Conference with one of the founders of OurGoods--a public service platform to support bartering within and among a community of creative makers and doers. In their words, "OurGoods exists so that creative people can help each other produce independent projects. More work gets done in networks of shared respect and shared resources than in competitive isolation. By honoring agreements and working hard, members of OurGoods will build lasting ties in a community of enormous potential."

I love these folks. The emphasis here is on honor, collaboration, and mutual respect. Driven by social and human values, they speak to the idea of industry, hard work and improvement. It's a brilliant service using a thorough and thoughtful process to bring talent together in an open, negotiable and mutually respectful way. What I'm particularly drawn to is their careful consideration on explaining how the process works, so people can confidently engage in new practices. Bartering may seem like a familiar idea because of it's informal nature. But OurGoods is very clear in explaining that bartering is very different than gifting. Bartering is a process of negotiation and expectation setting. There are rules involved that support trustworthy and satisfying transactions and interactions. 

I appreciate too the tone they use throughout their whole service: one that is clear, convivial, and inclusive. There is clear thought that has gone into their values and how they play out throughout and across their service. This service is a real inspiration and important case study for anyone interested in putting together a similar service or project centered around negotiation and resource sharing.

Sugared Puppy Dog Tails: Gender and Design

This is a new article in Interactions by Elizabeth Churchill which focuses on questions of gender, identity, and empowerment provoked by design and technology.

In the article, Elizabeth holds the opinion that "designers should think about gender at a level of sophistication beyond color and shape. We should be reflective and conscious of the assumptions of use and user that are being built into our products. We should know how we are reifying and/or reinforcing behavioral norms or challenging them. And just as we recognize white space in graphic design is not an absence of content, we need to be conscious of who is not present in the cast of designed-for characters."

I believe she's bringing into light important questions about how design influences the ways we come to identify the world. And that design has the power to persuade us into believing there are "appropriate" ways of defining and interacting with it based on our gender. It does this by communicating through appearance, (re)actions, gestures, and embodied experiences and exists across the design gamut--communications, interactions, objects, and environments. In her view, "such representations lead to “incidental learning” about who we can be and what is possible/appropriate for us to do, and in this way, these characters embody messages about gender-appropriate behaviors."

Read all about it.