“How to push” because the #fashionistas, the #geekproblem, and the #mainstreaming crew all move - but in circles, avoiding the compost pile, polishing surfaces while the heap rots.
Don’t try to convince them in the abstract. Show them. If a #fashernista sees a space where the shiny stuff grows on top of real soil, they’ll drift toward it. If a #geekproblem sees a tool that’s simple enough to use but still respects their itch for precision, they’ll tinker. The #mainstreamers won’t join until it looks inevitable, but working prototypes shift the gravity.
Shift their habits into usefulness
#fashionistas crave visibility - give them the role of spreading compost metaphors, making the work look fresh.
#geekproblem crave edge cases and puzzles - hand them the “hard” parts (trust plumbing, metadata sieves) where their obsessiveness is an asset.
#mainstreaming crave recognition - frame #OMN as “the next big thing everyone will need to join,” so they can be early adopters without risking reputation.
Turn their weaknesses into leverage, rather than fighting them.
⁂ Article
Pick up the shovel: turning habits into compost
The problem isn’t that people refuse to act. The problem is that most are stuck in paralysis: “What do I do?” If the only options they see are worshipping the #deathcult or reinventing the wheel, passivity looks like the safest choice.
The design challenge of the #OMN isn’t just tech - pipes, tanks, metadata - it’s rituals and rhythms that invite participation. We need a seed affinity group whose job is simple: set the shovel down in front of people.
Don’t only complain that […]
⁂ Article
Pick up the shovel: turning habits into compost
The problem isn’t that people refuse to act. The problem is that most are stuck in paralysis: “What do I do?” If the only options they see are worshipping the #deathcult or reinventing the wheel, passivity looks like the safest choice.
The design challenge of the #OMN isn’t just tech - pipes, tanks, metadata - it’s rituals and rhythms that invite participation. We need a seed affinity group whose job is simple: set the shovel down in front of people.
Don’t only complain that […]
Shift their habits into usefulness
#fashionistas crave visibility - give them the role of spreading compost metaphors, making the work look fresh.
#geekproblem crave edge cases and puzzles - hand them the “hard” parts (trust plumbing, metadata sieves) where their obsessiveness is an asset.
#mainstreaming crave recognition - frame #OMN as “the next big thing everyone will need to join,” so they can be early adopters without risking reputation.
Turn their weaknesses into leverage, rather than fighting them.
Don’t try to convince them in the abstract. Show them. If a #fashernista sees a space where the shiny stuff grows on top of real soil, they’ll drift toward it. If a #geekproblem sees a tool that’s simple enough to use but still respects their itch for precision, they’ll tinker. The #mainstreamers won’t join until it looks inevitable, but working prototypes shift the gravity.
“How to push” because the #fashionistas, the #geekproblem, and the #mainstreaming crew all move - but in circles, avoiding the compost pile, polishing surfaces while the heap rots.
⁂ Article
Commons and the metaphor of “grow a backbone”
With the tyranny of the structureless path, every attempt to share the commons decays into a fog of personalities, cliques, and unspoken power. What needs composting here is that, at best, you end up with a smiling violent man as the backstop of governance.
Without mediating structures, what emerges is not freedom but hidden hierarchy. “Smiling violence” - the agreeable man (or clique) who insists they’re just holding things together - quietly blocks challenge, manipulates process, and […]
⁂ Article
Commons and the metaphor of “grow a backbone”
With the tyranny of the structureless path, every attempt to share the commons decays into a fog of personalities, cliques, and unspoken power. What needs composting here is that, at best, you end up with a smiling violent man as the backstop of governance.
Without mediating structures, what emerges is not freedom but hidden hierarchy. “Smiling violence” - the agreeable man (or clique) who insists they’re just holding things together - quietly blocks challenge, manipulates process, and […]
⁂ Article
OMN projects are tools for YOU to change and challenge the world we live (and die) in
The Open Media Network (#OMN) is an “anything in, anything out” network powered by a mediated trust system. Instead of one corporation or #NGO controlling the flow, the commernerty decides what happens to the data that moves through it. At its core, the #OMN is a data soup: tagged data objects flowing through channels. These flows are shaped by trust. You consume and share based on your trust relationships, not on algorithms designed to manipulate you.
Key features are built-in, not […]
⁂ Article
OMN projects are tools for YOU to change and challenge the world we live (and die) in
The Open Media Network (#OMN) is an “anything in, anything out” network powered by a mediated trust system. Instead of one corporation or #NGO controlling the flow, the commernerty decides what happens to the data that moves through it. At its core, the #OMN is a data soup: tagged data objects flowing through channels. These flows are shaped by trust. You consume and share based on your trust relationships, not on algorithms designed to manipulate you.
Key features are built-in, not […]
⁂ Article
Looking at working with legacy media thinking – silo vs flow
Every so often I answer the out reach calls from more traditional alt/progressive media orgs, let’s look at some of the very illustrative “common sense” knock backs. The recent examples are Freedom’s reaction and Good Internet’s submission call – As their reaction is useful to illustrate the fault line of “radical publishing” in a federated media path.
Here’s a sketch of how it can (and arguably should) work if we’re serious about, #openweb, and soft-communing […]
⁂ Article
Looking at working with legacy media thinking – silo vs flow
Every so often I answer the out reach calls from more traditional alt/progressive media orgs, let’s look at some of the very illustrative “common sense” knock backs. The recent examples are Freedom’s reaction and Good Internet’s submission call – As their reaction is useful to illustrate the fault line of “radical publishing” in a federated media path.
Here’s a sketch of how it can (and arguably should) work if we’re serious about, #openweb, and soft-communing […]
⁂ Article
Rebalance, by shifting focus from tools to cultures
Appropriate technology in activist tech means tools built for our real contexts, not for Silicon Valley fantasies or bunker-dwelling paranoia. It’s about lightweight, repairable, understandable systems that communities can actually run, adapt, and share. Right now, the #geekproblem pushes us toward shiny, #dotcons shaped over-engineered toys that serve developer ego more than people and community need or bloated encryption stacks nobody understands, federated protocols that collapse under […]
⁂ Article
Building bridges instead of walls
Activist tech has been stuck in “bunker mode” for 20 years, and the only way out is to start building #4opens native, commons-first systems that store, share, and protect movement knowledge in ways that don’t require a priesthood of insiders to operate.
https://hamishcampbell.com/activist-tech-has-been-stuck-in-a-defensive-crouch/
In an active movement, forum threads, shared docs, livestreams, and photos aren’t just chat noise, they’re collective memory. If we treat them as […]
⁂ Article
The OMN with indymediaback and makeinghistory are paths
Most of the mess, and most of the #blocking, comes down to the same old story – ownership and control. Who holds the keys? Who decides? Who gets locked out? Instead of wrestling in that cage, the #OMN takes a simpler path: we walk away.
We put a class of media into the commons, governed openly through the #4opens: open data, open process, open source, and open standards. That means no one can close it down, hoard it, or fence it off for profit. The value comes from the shared pool, not from […]
⁂ Article
Compost the blocking, keep the seeds alive, and make space for growth
It’s good to see more people turning their focus back to the #openweb. For the past five years of the #reboot we’ve been distracted in a signal-to-noise mess from the #fashionistas. That time needs to be over, we need to start looking clearly at both internal rot and the external threats.
A good first step is in balancing the realisation that we actually have far more direct power to deal with the internal mess than we do over the eternal #dotcons and their #closedweb “common sense”. […]
⁂ Article
Compost the blocking, keep the seeds alive, and make space for growth
It’s good to see more people turning their focus back to the #openweb. For the past five years of the #reboot we’ve been distracted in a signal-to-noise mess from the #fashionistas. That time needs to be over, we need to start looking clearly at both internal rot and the external threats.
A good first step is in balancing the realisation that we actually have far more direct power to deal with the internal mess than we do over the eternal #dotcons and their #closedweb “common sense”. […]
⁂ Article
Why “teach everyone to code” has become a dead-end slogan
The geek answer (bad faith or blindness): “If only everyone learned to code, then society would be fairer.”
The activist answer: Code is part of the landscape, but culture, governance, and lived practice matter more. We don’t escape domination by teaching more people to type commands, we escape by changing what we do together with the tools.
Why “teach everyone to code” has become a dead-end slogan – it’s been tried, it’s been funded, and yet it hasn’t shifted power one bit. […]
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