airoots

Airoots is developing 12 principles for an architecture of participation, “based on an analysis of the success of the legendary open-source operating system Linux”:

1. NEED IT: Necessity is the mother of invention. What do you need, as an individual and as a community? It is not for master planners to guess what people need. Stakeholders should speak up.

2. GET IT: No need to reinvent the wheel again. Lets find what works elsewhere and adapt to the local/present needs and then expand it.

3. DO IT: You don’t really understand the problem until after you start implementing the solutions. It doesn’t have to be an all out “redevelopment”, we can start small and gradually build knowledge and best practices. This will develop the social and cultural capital of the community.

4. BE OPEN: With the right attitude, interesting (and unexpected) issues will come up and make the plan & development better.

5. SHARE: Do not feel proprietary about the plan. Or rather, let other people feel proprietary about it as well. The common goal is to have the best/optimal solution for all.

6. CONTRIBUTE: Residents should be co-planners and co-developers. The concerned population is the biggest asset for and of planners.

7. COMMUNICATE: The plan should be publicly accessible to all concerned parties at all times. Updates should be frequent so everyone has access to the latest information and can react immediately. Say what you have to say and listen to what other people have to say and immediately incorporate it. It can always be modified/adjusted along the way.

8. CONVENE: If we have enough people looking at different aspects of the plan, any issue can be recognized and addressed quickly. Finding the issues is the biggest challenge. Once identified, someone will have an idea about how to solve the problem.

9. INCLUDE: Finding an efficient way to get everyone’s input is more important than the inputs themselves. A lot of time and attention should be spent to cultivate the community’s active participation.

10. ACKNOWLEDGE: If participants are treated as the most valuable resource of the plan, they will become the most valuable resource of the plan. Contributions should be acknowledged and valued.

11. PROCESS: We should strive to activate the collective intelligence of a community, which also means processing, selecting and incorporating good inputs into the plan. This may or may not be the task of a sub-group of people acting on behalf of, and accountable to, all stakeholders.

12. BE CRITICAL: Realizing that our concepts are wrong might lead to the most striking and innovative solutions.