Mass Mosaic

Description

Anna Miller:

"Founded in 2014 on the belief that contemporary technology can and should be mobilized to eliminate scarcity, Mass Mosaic is an online forum for buying, selling, trading, renting, or borrowing goods and services. The company, which also builds custom web-based tools to help organizations use resources more efficiently, recently announced its intention to become a FairShares enterprise. As such, it will offer four stakeholder groups—customers, employees, founders, and investors—a voice in company operations as well as a share in profits." (http://www.shareable.net/blog/interviewed-mass-mosaics-eric-doriean-on-the-fairshares-alternative?)

Interview

The interview of Operations Chief Eric Doriean was conducted by Anna Bergren Miller:

* ABM: Let's loop back to the beginning. What is Mass Mosaic? What is your mission?

ED: [There is] a quote of Buckminster Fuller’s that drives the work I do: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Little did I know, Rob also aligned with Fuller's principles. Around ten years ago, he [started to see] the web as a medium that could help propel those ideals. We met a few years later and our common values led to us working on the project together. After many offline experiments to help build a base for our direction, we launched the website in July 2014.

Our mission is a bold one—nothing less than: End manmade scarcity. We continue to iterate and fine tune our approach, but it is and always will be our driving force for why we do this.

In addition to the offline experiments we’ve done over the years, our personal experiences have taught us so much. [They] showed us that each and every person has value. Skills, experience, things, ideas, opportunities, or even what somebody wants makes everybody infinitely valuable. Despite this, many of us are living lives where we're not fulfilling the real possibilities of that value.

Mass Mosaic is the platform to help break the scarcity paradigm so many are living in. People add the value they have and want. As the community grows, more and more matches become possible to unlock that value.

* ABM: Tell me about some of the offline experiences or work that preceded Mass Mosaic.

ED: Rob and I, we both had different experiences. Some of Rob's are relatively personal, and he'll talk about them when he does. For me, one part of it came from festivals such as Burning Man.

With Burning Man, you take lots of things and skills, and once you're there there's no money paid. It creates—it's hard to put a word on it, but the best term I've come up with is a field, where anything is possible.

I've seen on many occasions where someone asks for something audibly, and someone just walking by has it in their hand and passes it to them. For me, it really reinforces the power of abundance, and the value everyone has. That was definitely a big part of my personal journey.

We've done surveys over the years. We've asked people things like, what do they want, and what do they have—just to see, even within a small group of people, if we could make matches.

Rob and I knew we wanted to work together. But we really needed a "Why?" Bringing together our knowledge of Buckminster Fuller and our shared values was what allowed us to really go, "Why are we doing this? Why do we want to get up every day and put energy into this?" Money has never been a driving force for us. We need inspiration."

* ABM: Stepping back to Mass Mosaic, what's your vision looking forward?

ED: We’re seeing technology move in leaps and bounds on the knowledge front. Ray Kurzweil says in 20 years we’ll be implanting microcomputers in our brains to connect with knowledge. Our vision for Mass Mosaic in the future is more of a human view, where people’s value spurs on a renaissance of our time.

Within the team, we look at the Library of Alexandria in what is modern-day Egypt, and how it spurred a cultural awakening. In the future what we're seeing as needed is a Library of Value. We believe it's going to be the cornerstone of a renaissance where people of all walks of life are able to thrive. All the knowledge in the world is useless if, as a species, the value we all have isn’t properly being utilized. That's really our drive—to help people connect with the abundance that is there, both with the operations of Mass Mosaic and with the FairShares enterprise model as well.

* ABM: Is there anything else you'd like me to know, either about Mass Mosaic or about the change in ownership?

ED: Something we're really excited about is what we're doing here at Arcosanti. We’re in the process of implementing a web-based solution for Arcosanti, where the value of the place and its people can be used as efficiently as possible. At some time in the not-so-distant future, we’ll be releasing this solution into the public as well, so that any community group or project will be able to utilize the same technology.

It's an important case study for us as well. The network of Arcosanti is really, really large. A lot of people have come through here over the years. I think it's about 8,000 people who have lived here; 40,000 people a year come through the place as well. So it really is a win-win solution for us and Arcosanti.

It's a bottom-up approach, where the value that is here is used as efficiently as possible, and will help propel this place whilst giving us a really good test case for future development plans." (http://www.shareable.net/blog/interviewed-mass-mosaics-eric-doriean-on-the-fairshares-alternative?)

More Information

• interview details about their adoption of the FairShares model are here: [1]