Us Now – The Power of Mass Collaboration

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?

The anthropologist and filmmaker Ivo Gormley created a documentary on the power of mass collaboration which was released late last year. Focussing on the new technologies which allow the nearly boundless exchange of knowledge and opinions and coordination of collaborative work with people you've never met, Gormley tries to get to the bottom of the way these new possibilies lead to new models of social organisation in general. The hour-long film is just a part of a greater whole with an interesting intention:

This project brings together leading practitioners and thinkers in this field and asks them to determine the opportunity for government.

Using the example of the football club Ebbsfleet United, which is owned and managed by a community of 35.000 fans from all over the world, the film documents the ability of distributed networks of people to run complex organisations. The big question behind these observations is what affect these new developments and possibilities will have on our current models of society and government. For more information visit the project's website. All the material generated during the project can be viewn online. (via Eye blog, usnowfilm.com)