Imagine the first farmers: they lived in a society of hunters and gatherers. Every so often, you'd pack up your stuff and move along, to follow your food. Find new things to eat, because you've exhausted the place you lived in.

The farmers introduced a new way of thinking: what if we could just grow our food in one place? That would save the effort of travelling around. So they started experimenting: sowing seeds, taking care of the young sprouts, trying to cultivate their plants. Until it was harvest time: reap the benefits of your labour, indulge in cornucopia for a while, store a bit, and start working on the next cycle.

The hunters and gatherers must have looked upon those folks as weird people: building houses ("sure, nice to live in but not very practical on your travels!"), creating ploughs and tools ("great way to move dirt, but how are you going to catch a mammoth or pluck a berry with that?"), storing food in storages ("won't the mice and the rats just run with it?"). The hackers and nerds of their times, saying "go ahead and chase your mammoth, I'll see you around, next Summer".

The farmers prevailed. They changed the way society works in most places on the world. We try to stick to where we are, and we even make rituals and routines around that, to affirm our convictions and location. And most of us are no longer involved in producing food, but rather in pursuing other goals.

I'm working in the field of international development collaboration. I often feel like a farmer, talking to hunters and gatherers, about what "web 2.0" is really about. Oh, he's a techie, an engineer. But I'm experimenting with ways to grow compassion, engagement, collaboration. Online communities? Blogs and  bookmarks? RSS and wikis? Social networking? Sure, but won't the rats just eat your products while you're having a party?

We don't eat a lot of Mammoth Burger these days. And we could cultivate collaboration towards a common goal, without sacrifice or giving up (a lot of) our current live. We can build a global society based on solidarity, without loosing identity or community.

Lets move from chasing to cultivating.

(photo: CC-BY-SA-NC-20 by Poo-tee-weet?)