Big changes at iCommons ahead

Dear friends,

At the 2 August iCommons Board Meeting, the board decided to make some difficult but necessary changes at iCommons. It has become clear over the past months that our vision for iCommons is different from the Board’s and that it would make more sense to enable the current team to be able to implement our vision independently, while iCommons develops a lighter, federated structure that enables global membership while keeping core costs low.

During the next few months, we’ll be transferring keyp projects over to The African Commons Project in South Africa and handing over to the new iCommons staff that the board will appoint. The team that has been running iCommons in Johannesburg will also soon be announcing its plans for the coming year, which includes, among other things, an iSummit in South Africa in October, 2009.

We’re very sad to be saying goodbye to the organisation that we’ve all worked so hard to build over the past two and a half years, and we hope that the new iCommons and the new African Commons Project – along with Creative Commons – will find clearer ways of collaborating with one another in the future for the greater good of the global commons.

Best wishes,

Heather.

This announcement is pretty significant because it means that the iCommons community will see quite a significant change occurring at iCommons in the coming months as the current team moves from iCommons to the African Commons Project to continue and initiate what will surely be innovative and fascinating projects.

At the same time iCommons itself will move in a different direction as a sort of community development organisation for the benefit of the broader Commons-based community.

Both shifts are pretty exciting and although my time at iCommons comes to an end at the end of this month, I am looking forward to seeing how the team continues to grow and innovate in the African Commons Project and how iCommons shifts its emphasis to make a greater contribution towards community building overall. I have been privileged to have the opportunity to work and interact with Heather, Kerryn, Daniela, Rebecca, Rosanne, Hettie, Anna, Stephanie, James and Raj on one hand and with the iCommons board, in particular Ronaldo Lemos, Lawrence Lessig, Joi Ito, Catharina Maracke, Paul Keller, Tomislav Medak and Jimmy Wales (unfortunately I didn’t have an opportunity to interact all that much with Laurence Liang and Jonathan Zittrain during my short time at iCommons) on the other hand.

The bottom line for anyone involved in the broader community or interested in the community’s work is simple: watch the space!

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