How to work in a network?

September 16, 2010 by Riikka 1 Comment

Norbert Schmidt on the Creative Network Economy and the main things that play into it.

I’m part of a network project called Produforum and today we had a discussion about it from the point of Creative Network Economy, my friend Norbert’s thesis (download here) on the subject with Produforum as the case.

Discussions were surrounding openness, who’s the network for, what are the inputs and the outcomes of individual members and how does this relate to the marked based economy outside of the network and even further how can we deal with the tax office when we are working like this without them getting all the money and we none? A lot of questions and not so many answers. What you could see was that there are many opinions and the network is different for everyone.

For me it’s okay that we don’t exactly know everything and that this is just a platform to test different ideas (that’s what the EU money is for, anyway), but after being involved with the network for a couple of years through my studies and only last spring becoming a member I’ve only started to realize how hard it is to try to create your own system of working within an already existing on, the network based one within the market based one, when you are working freelance. You still have to get that money from somewhere.

I also see the similarities between Produforum and To Culture With Love. Isn’t the ultimate goal the same in both of them? What makes them different? And should they be more focused? When you are trying to work for better working conditions for professionals within arts and culture, are you taking too big of a bite? Can you actually work for everyone? Is that realistic or is that just another utopia?