Non-profit & public

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Last week at the Creativity & Innovation PICNIC conference in Amsterdam a new remarkable project was being presented. The artist Christian Nold explained his concept ‘Bijlmer Euro’, a name for an alternative currency used only in a specific district of Amsterdam called Bijlmer. In this region he delivers a service towards the local ethnic community. To celebrate the variety of people he gave them their own currency by sticking RFID tags to normal and therefore legal euro bills. Thereby he’s able to track the social relations between these groups. Local shops that are willing to participate receive a RFID reader to scan these bills. Then when local residents are paying with these bills a shop owner can decide to deliver a community experience towards these clients. Examples of this could be an extra gift, special products or just an extra friendly treatment what could enforce the bonding of this community. Do notice that Christian works on this project for free. The return he receives lies simply in the positive image of the project that will enforce his own reputation as an artist. Alternative currencies are a hot topic these days. Many conference speakers like Nick Bilton, Douglas Rushkoff or Bernard Lietaer are talking about new business systems that use these alternatives. As a society we introduced tangible money due to the simple fact that we couldn’t always exchange services and goods directly in our local community. My local barber was not always pleased with me paying him with my own vegetables. As a result a form of currency came in between and I could pay my barber with a tangible bill that he could be use to buy fruits in another village. But today things have changed. Due to the internet customers can again find other people to exchange services directly. For instance I could get my website made by a German student in exchange for a translation of his homework. And when direct exchange still isn’t possible, many online communities are using other means. Credit systems, karma points and beta-invite’s (Google Wave anyone?) are being used to pay each other. Money will always be there but many new forms, both tangible and intangible will flourish in the coming decades. This real-life Bijlmer Euro is only one of them.

Internet & media

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A trip to Las Vegas  for a painting! New York artists Christine Santora and Justin Gignac are painting portraits of all the things they wish to get on WantsForSale.com. Wants For Sale is not new yet interesting to look into further. It is a nice variation on the Intention Economy in which the buyer’s intent shapes the production and delivery of a product or service, as in “I would like to have this” (similar to Igglo, Zillow, Eventful; yet offering a painting instead of money now). Each painting represents things like a new bikini, a month’s rent, gambling money, a customized Adidas shoe, and special experiences on a trip to Las Vegas. People buy the paintings by paying the value of the painted item or by delivering the item or experience itself.

Wants For Sale also follows along the lines of The Million Dollar Homepage and One thousand paintings – selling paintings of all numbers from 1 to 1000. Once featured on BBC, WIRED, boingboing and others, they create enough buzz for companies and individuals to be interested in the exposure and reputation – like iRobot for example. Wants For Sale brings an interesting concept which almost begs to be developed in a broker platform where everyone can post a painting, a song, a performance… for something they want to get! I am sure companies/brands would be interested in their fan’s productions.