Global Collaboration - Six Months Later

Last December, I wrote about Habitat Jam, a watershed event in global collaboration.  Habitat Jam, with participants comprising leaders of business and government and members of impoverished communities from over 150 countries, was a Massively Parallel Conference, or MPC, in the tradition of IBM's WorldJam.  By the end of 72 hours, there had been 459,402 page views, over 20,000 posts from ca. 39,000 participants, and numerous connections and associations made. Jammers discussed six topics of global importance, ranging from "Improving the lives of slum dwellers", to "Finance and Governance in our cities", to "Humanity: The future of cities". 

I thought it would be a good idea, six months later, to see what the impact of Habitat Jam had thus far been.  If you missed the Jam, you can see the Habitat Jam Summary Report online today.  You can also search through the Jam's coda site to see what was discussed.  A new post-event message board allows Jam participants to stay connected with others while sharing information about urban sustainability.In March, the World Urban Forum Secretariat assembled a team that examined all Jam content, looking for implementable ideas for the World Urban Forum 3, which takes place later this month in Vancouver. This is noteworthy as ideas generated during the Jam become the basis for discussions at the Forum.  The Forum will also feature a Habitat Jam Networking Session, where Commissioner General Charles Kelly will moderate a panel that will discuss the future of Habitat Jams for the World Urban Forum.  

Finally, a documentary will be unveiled both at the Forum and online on 22. June.  The documentary will tell the story via interviews with Jam partners, experts, moderators, and participants, and will utilize video and pictures that were collected from around the world during the Jam.  It will be available from the Jam's home page.

It's rare that we can focus on using collaboration tools to truly solve the world's problems - Habitat Jam is a great first step in this direction!