CGN Wants Your Cognitive Surplus

At the CGN (Cooperative Grocer Network) annual meeting held during the CCMA conference, board and staff lauded the progress the organization had made in the last year. We are looking forward to the next several months as we implement more of the major reset plan.

At cooperativegrocer.coop, we’re building a rich and diverse array of resources on all aspects of food co-ops. Besides fully assimilating Cooperative Grocer magazine into the many online resources collected over the past years, a key element of the reset that has just launched is the social networking platform. This is designed to foster a more personal online community of food cooperators, who can then have richer discussions about best, worst, and anywhere-in-between practices.

During a CCMA workshop, we introduced internet guru Clay Shirkey’s concept of “cognitive surplus”—basically the notion that people are genetically disposed to generously share their surplus time to help make the world a better place. Social networking platforms now give us huge tools for this kind of collaboration. See Mr. Shirkey's TED Talk video here.

Our idea at CGN is that co-op people are especially inclined to share (it’s one of our principles, after all), and if we can build an online CCMA-like networking platform, we will better capture and use our “CGNitive” surplus to build a more cooperative world.
Come on and join us!