Dear Colleagues:

This site, The Commons Sustainable Agenda at http://ecoplan.org
<http://ecoplan.org/> , has been close to moribund for several hears
now, which is a pity but as you can doubtless imagine there have been
reasons for it. I have now initiated the first stages of a major rehab,
and I wonder if I might at this point ask each of you on this small list
(barely a tenth the size of other programs of The Commons such as The
New Mobility Agenda at http://newmobility.org or the World Carshare
Consortium at http://worldcarshare.com <http://worldcarshare.com/> ) to
take a few minutes and give me your views on the process which is
underway.

Let me quote the opening page of the site which I think does a fair job
of explaining what this is all supposed to be about:

"The Commons is today a shared space on the Internet, that was first
placed there in a then state-of-the-art version in the late eighties
with the intention of providing a wide open, world-wide, non-government
forum which could serve as a working tool and assembly area for people
and groups concerned with improving our understanding and control of
technology as it impacts on people in their daily lives. The three
central themes of all our exchanges and work here: the much needed move
to sustainability, social justice, and the critical role of individual
responsibility in the making of both

"As we put it with only half a grin: "Increasing the uncomfort zone for
hesitant administrators, industrialists, and politicians; pioneering new
concepts for activists, community groups, entrepreneurs and business;
and through our joint efforts, energy and personal choices, placing them
and ourselves firmly on the path to a more sustainable and more just
society."

The idea is to fashion this into a useful, free and independent
first-stop shop for anyone interested to get up to speed on the topic
quickly and well, and in that respect the Sustainability News Alerts and
the new sections on Leading Programs/Sites and Think Technology should
have their uses. Then too there is this moderated forum which, though no
chat room, is nonetheless a powerful tool for sharing ideas,
information, news and calls for collaboration. (To see how this works
best, I would refer you to either of the Discussion Fora of the two
sites indicated above, both of which are doing a superior job in this
respect.)

Finally, it would be good if you might be able to suggest:
* People and groups who could usefully be brought into this forum
* And your ideas for leading programs and technologies (of the
sort we are targeting here).

Sorry to trouble you with this call to collaboration, but I think we
have a potentially valuable tool here however it must be defined an put
to work as a group effort otherwise it is just more floating electrons
(and who knows what harm they might do).

Do let me hear from you, either in private or if you think it
appropriate through the group as a whole.

With kind thanks and all good wishes,

Eric Britton

The Commons __ technology, economy, society__
Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara 75006 Paris, France
Tel. +331 4326 1323 Fax/Voicemail hotline: +331 5301 2896
http://www.ecoplan.org IP Videoconference: 81.65.50.149
Personal webpage: www.EricBritton.org
Email: Eric.Britton@... or ecoplan.adsl@...