TED Community » Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Cultural Management.
Publishing.
Visual Arts.
Literature.
Latin America.
Design.

An idea worth spreading

Being part of a community means that supporting others is as important as supporting yourself.

Talk to me about

Arts and Culture, Magazine Makin', Latin America. Latin America and the USA.

People don't know that I'm good at

Making pancakes, my girlfriend likes to say that I'm a "pancake whisperer".

My TED Story

It all started in Oxford as a TED Fellow in 2010!

Comments

• TEDCred score: +171.00 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A comment on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Hey all! Thank you for sharing your ideas, time is about to run out! If anyone wants to keep the conversation going, feel free to shoot me a message! Have a good one!
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  A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Yep, it brings to mind the Okupa movements that have existed for decades in Spain and other countries in Europe, which create self-sustaining "squatting" (it obviously depends on the legal interpretation) communities; they're a referent in my work, but as a movement they seem unable to achieve their legal and political goals. I still wonder about the future of Occupy, winter and Wall Street notwithstanding.

• A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: This is a great question - without a doubt it is a communal effort to effect change around an issue. But does that make it a community? In a sense it seems to me that communities can organize around an issue, but I also think they have to be fleshed out to be called "a community". I think that it's that power of unity, and the potential to support multiple (potentially unrelated) ideas in time is what makes it a community as such and not just a movement. What are your thoughts?
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  A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Hi Sebastian! I agree with you about motivators for community engagement born of need or desire for a common goal, but so often, despite a great deal of potential motivation, there is no engagement. On the flipside there's also the hope that though these types of motivators spark community action, that the community itself is strengthened through other forms of engagement so that future collaborations could take other forms (say, a neighborhood festival, a food fair...)
  
  Only tangentially related to this last paragraph are the crowdsourced initiatives by city govt's to solve problems, I'm particularly thinking of transportation initiatives: http://www.fta.dot.gov/planning/programs/planning_environment_8711.html

• A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Hi Samantha! Now that you and Adam mention the Occupy-* movement and news, one thing I'm curious about is outreach. I remember that on a previous thread in TED Conversations somebody brought up the problem of "empathy fatigue", the fact that we're connected to so many people and initiatives that it becomes harder to empathize with anyone beyond our closest circles (family / friends). In your opinion, how can Occupy keep being a relevant movement as time passes?

• A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: This is a good point, though I guess I'm referring to community efforts in which individuals address issues / collaborate directly as opposed to the "proxy" method of government. And yes, we're supposed to be the government
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  A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Andrea, this brings up some good points about community building around issues of need to benefit each other, but how about framing innovation not in the sense in which it's a means to resolving issues, but as a common goal (which, in parallel, serves to strengthen community bonds, which comes in useful in times of need)
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  A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: This is very interesting - how can innovation theories be diffused effectively and to the right people (trendsetters/opinion leaders?). Could governments adopt better methods to deepen their positive impact?

• A reply on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Hi Bella! HI Adam! Awesome points, but lets say that a government / institution is interested in providing resources directly to a community, provided they have reached a certain level of organization that has made an impact. In your opinion what could be the most important indicator of a community's success?
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  A comment on Conversation: What do organized communities achieve more efficiently than government? What could they achieve?"

  Oct 7 2011: Good points, they bring to mind Majora Carter's talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/majora_carter_s_tale_of_urban_renewal.html). It seems like the consensus is that communities can fix their local problems more efficiently than governments but then the question becomes how can communities be engaged to collaborate and forge a sense of common identity?