This site was archived on 24 April 2012. No new content can be posted. The mailing list remains online and the site will stay in this archived state for the forseeable future. If you find any technical errors on the site, please contact Callum.


Archive for the 'history' Category

Page 2 of 2

Casey’s Magic

Published by Callum on 22 September 2007 at 16:30 in Casey Fenton, couchsurfing, history, Leadership Circle and Participation. 32 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

While reading an NY Times article about CouchSurfing (thanks Mary) I was reminded of the magic that Casey created in the CouchSurfing project. I’ve definitely lost track of the magic over the last few months since becoming involved in the inner workings of the CouchSurfing organisation.

There’s a great sense of community, a great PR image, a wonderful “feeling” when reading about CouchSurfing. It’s a feeling that Hospitality Club and BeWelcome definitely don’t have. It’s more bohemian, more offbeat and quirky, yet somehow more mainstream.

Casey struck a great balance between the hitch hiking “true” traveller and the mainstream. CouchSurfing appeals to people from all walks of life, and that’s undoubtedly because of Casey’s ability to pitch it well.

In many ways, this makes it even more tragic that Casey chooses to run the organisation in the way he does. There’s such a huge opportunity to do something really, trully exceptional here. Unfortunately, it’s being stifled by the closed door, backroom politics style of leadership.

So here’s my question. Can we create the same magic in another network? Can we recreate that wonderful bohemian feeling in BeWelcome? Or CrashAtMine? Or a whole new network? Or is it something uniquely Casey that can’t easily be copied? Is it a quality that can’t be replicated?

In retrospective

Published by on 24 May 2007 at 01:12 in Casey Fenton, Crash 2.0, history, Leadership Circle, Open Source and Transparency. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , , , .

During all recent events I often thought about what must be going on in Casey’s head. He’s the one pulling the strings. Then I remembered an email I received from Casey Fenton, a long time ago, November 29, 2005 10:01 PM to be exactly.

Subject: Censorship in Hospitality Club / CS

Hi Kasper,

I was just sent a link to your page about HC censorship.
(http://www.industree.org/guaka/index.php/Censorship_in_Hospitality_Club)
You said: “The thing that I find most revolting is that it, at least to
me at this point, seems such a closed process. Rules are somehow being
set up, and the 90000 members of HC are just to follow them.
CouchSurfing has actually the same problem, and I think it will be good
to address this.” I was wondering what the problem is that CS has that
you’re referring to? We always want to make sure that we’re doing
things right… and it there’s something we’re not doing right, please
let us know! If you need any questions answered, I’d be happy to answer
them.

btw, love your photos… especially the one of those kids in Bamako and
the one of you on the beach with the guitar.

Cheers,
–Casey

Which implies that Casey read about the ideas I have for hospitality exchange a long time before we actually met in Montreal. As Joe wrote: “Many aspects of CouchSurfing have been marred by these issues: (a) a tendency to do
things in the dark, (b) a tendency to tell people what they want to hear, and (c) a tendency to work *near* people, but not *with* them.”

Sometimes I feel sad, sometimes I feel bitter. But…

Life is still good, though I hope that some things will change. In my opionion there are several principles a free hospitality exchange network must follow:

  1. Open policies
    It should be clear what is going on. Policies and guidelines should be accessible by anyone.
  2. Democratic processes
    All people making part of the network should be able to take part in discussions.
  3. Open data
    People should be able to “take” their own data in a portable, open format onto their computer, into their phone. It should be possible to give permission to others (based on a trust level) to copy part of one’s information. Similar to ideas implemented in Indyvoter (http://beta.indyvoter.org).
  4. Free software
    Like Wikipedia, hospitality exchange networks should be based on free software. This will attract more programmers, open up new possibilities (like integrating electronic authentification and encryption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuPG) or efficient access on portable devices (http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/25/139202&from=rss), extending it into a getting-car-rides system where drivers and hitchhikers can get in touch using GPS…).