Category: article

The LEF – REconomy’s ‘Killer App’?

Jay TomptLeave a comment

I’m old enough to remember when word processing and spreadsheets were the ‘killer apps’ that not only enabled wide-spread adoption of desktop computers across the business world, but unleashed an industry. That was over 30 years ago. Today, it’s – what? Dodocase cardboard virtually reality glasses? I’m a bit out of touch.

What’s a ‘killer app’? Originally, it referred to the software application, or method of use, that enables a hardware platform to become indispensable and ubiquitous. It’s the thing that unlocks market potential, unleashes successive waves of tech booms and boomlets, and creates kid coder billionaires. Today, the term is a bit cliché and oxymoronic – it is the thing that delivers the breath of life.

Continue reading “The LEF – REconomy’s ‘Killer App’?” →

Guadal: Journey to a Post-Crisis Economics

Jay TomptLeave a comment

“El viajero reconoce lo poco que es suyo al descubrir lo mucho que no ha tenido y no tendrá.”
― Italo Calvino, Las Ciudades Invisibles

“The traveler recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and will never have.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

For many people longing for real alternatives to fake democracy and corporate oligarchy, the new politics arising in Spain over the last few years has been a wellspring of inspiration. In 2011, when the Indignados, the ‘outraged’, occupied the Puerta del Sol, Madrid, and other plazas across Spain, we watched and cheered, mostly because we wanted to see ourselves in them—regular people of every age, every gender, standing up, being heard, practising democracy, perhaps for the first time and clumsily, but they were participating in their own destiny in a new way.

Continue reading “Guadal: Journey to a Post-Crisis Economics” →

Relocalisation – is it meeting your needs?

Jay TomptLeave a comment

Growth is a good thing, at least for economic re-localisation. Interest in re-localisation, as well as related notions of de-centralisation and community resilience, has gone viral with new initiatives popping up seemingly every day. With all this new enthusiasm, it’s easy to forget that the roots of these ideas go back several decades, and that this ‘movement’ is just one current of a much broader global movement seeking to manifest economic, environmental, and social justice at every scale of society. No matter, these ideas are beginning to infiltrate the mainstream, even finding their way into EU policy.

ttt_logo_webThere are inspiring success stories unfolding, such as in Totnes, Devon where I live. But many community-led initiatives trying to spark this kind of local economic change fail to reach their full potential, or simply fail, and for many reasons. Some because they jump straight to prescriptions without adequate diagnoses. Others simply fail on project design. Still others cannot reach beyond their core base of ‘usual suspects’ and stand accused of being non-inclusive. Some can’t rally adequate community support to sustain their work beyond a project or two.

Continue reading “Relocalisation – is it meeting your needs?” →