The Age of Cooperation and Community

Vinko and I were lucky enough to attend the TEDxBrisbane conference last weekend which, in between moving house this week, left our heads reeling with new concepts and information. There are incredible ideas out there in the world and it was inspiring to meet some of the people who are sharing those ideas, nurturing them and growing them into a new paradigm for our time.
The three speakers that stood out for us the most at TEDxBrisbane were FrankAnsell, Eva Cox and Edward Harran, three polar opposites (if that could be possible!) and a good mix of past, present and future. Frank is an Australian Aboriginal healer who spoke of the connectedness of all things in the universe; Eva received a standing ovation for her ideas on governments’ role in fostering more community wealth rather than focusing solely on economic wealth; and Edward brought pure awesomeness and inspiration in the form of his visionary interpretation of what it means to live both in the real world and the cyber world. The most exciting thing was that despite all three speaking about three very different topics, the same thread regarding an Age of Cooperation & Community was woven through all their talks - and, in fact, most talks from the day.

This got me thinking…

Darwin’s theory regarding Natural Selection or Survival of the Fittest, as it is most commonly referred to, is based on a competitive strategy: genes with the highest success rate in a competitive situation will survive and thus be propagated. Seems logical enough to me and – seeing that it has been widely adopted by humans of the modern world – this scenario would appear logical to most people. But my problem with this model is that by definition it opposes the notion of cooperation as a successful survival strategy, which is in part what I believe has led us to this dog-eat-dog world we live in now. But what if the paradigm of our nation could shift to include cooperation as a competitive strategy for survival? What if cooperation was the next model for success? Considering the success and growth of open-source software projects, user-driven content websites like Wikipedia and many other collaborative projects enabled with the help of the internet, is it really such a far stretch to imagine that the world is changing towards a collaborative and cooperative model as a natural reaction to our current overly-competitive reality?

With this in mind, I am reassured and encouraged in our decision to put our Arribaa project online and discuss our ideas with other creatives and innovators during the “incubation period”. After all, we have seen first-hand in the Ideas Worth Sharing tent that a community of the most progressive thinkers, the leaders and innovators of our time are all living in this collaborative, cooperative world already – and doing more than just fine for it. It also reminds me of what Jeremy Frazoa from Kiva.org once told me: “A good idea spreads itself". I have come to realise that in order for an idea to get out there and go grow organically, you need to let go of  the idea as your own. Because let’s face it: good ideas are not born from our own brilliance – they are born like stars out there in the collective conscience and by necessity come door-knocking looking for the right human host to make them materialise in this world. The idea of Arribaa is not mine, but the responsibility to make the best of it is. So – in sticking to the theme for this blog – connect with us, let us know your thoughts, share your ideas and let's give this particular idea the best possible chance. 

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