Welcome on my blog. Because it’s always kind of difficult to introduce himself, I thought I would do it as a fictive interview. Happy reading!
Who are you?
Stanislas Jourdan, 24, French. Citizen before all.
I am somewhere between a journalist, a blogger, an activist, a social movement organizer… To put everything together, I define myself as a “mediactivist” (which is probably some sort of a species from the edgeryder‘s family).
What are you doing ?
I’m glad you ask. Basically I dedicate myself using, learning, training myself and other changemakers use web journalism practices and social media tools in order to have a more powerful and positive impact in society. I am mostly not paid for what I am doing neither do I have any official contract or position. And no, don’t worry I am fine with it :-).
I currently dedicate myself into two main projects:
Ouishare – a european action thank for the collaborative economy.
Born in Paris, the OuiShare Community’s goal is to enhance the shift towards a more decentralized, distributed, collaborative and open economy. I am the editor in chief of our webzine. my role then is to coordinate the editorial workflow, assist our contributors and help the community.
European Citizen’s Initiative for a basic income
Since 2012, organizations and citizens from more than 15 countries have decided to go a step further in pushing the basic income as the next alternative against the crisis in Europe. As a strategical means of promoting basic income and empower all basic income movements in Europe, we have decided to launch a european citizens’ initiative. If we gather one million signatures, the EU Commission will make a case for our proposal. I am the main coordinator of the project in France. For more information, see our website: basicincome2013.eu.
I also contribute to others projects such as:
- revenudebase.info (editorial coordinator) — french portal about basic income
- Global Voices (writer) — the grass-root global community newsroom
- Relfets.info (writer) — a news website founded by hackers & journalist
- …
Why this blog?
This blog intends to give personal views and insights about the financial crisis in Europe along with other economic topics, from a French perspective. Hopefully you will find here some new ideas. Even better, I hope this blog will help you and me meet each other and accomplish great things together.
What do you want to accomplish? And what’s your approach to it?
I want to make my contribution in making this World a better place when I’ll leave my seat to the next generations. Even though my focus on this blog is usually economics and finance, it is worth noting that I strongly believe the current crisis is most of all a crisis of values, culture and democracy.
We need to change our money system, implement a basic income-like system, extend our freedom in every sense, bypass the political system and shift to a human-based decentralized economy.
In order to do this, I think we must start from the existing situation. This means I am working on evolutionary policies rather than revolutionary. I believe in concrete & realistic utopias, not on constructive ideals. I believe that whatever you do, you have to consider the opposite point of view because one can never just get rid of it like this.
We have to push the frictional borders between the reality and our ideals.
What is your background?
Long story short, I graduated from a French Grande École in 2011, with a master of Entrepreneurship. In the middle of my studies, I started blogging on Tête de Quenelle and kept doing it for more than three years. This blog helped me a lot enlarging my vision of the world and opened my mindset to new ideas and lifestyle. Thanks to this intense activity, I was introduced to the journalism field at the geeko-alternative news website Owni.fr, and further the established french newspaper La Tribune.
When my contracted ended in january 2012, I went freelance and started to spend more time on personal projects and in the building of the French movement for basic income, which I’m now working on almost full-time along with the OuiShare project.
Where are you living?
It depends when you ask. I used to live in Paris for two years. Since february 2013, I am backpacking around France and Europe. Yet I have been Brussels, London, Bristol, Athens, Barcelona, Geneva, Berlin, Madrid, Lisboa, Porto, and a dozens of cities in France.
How do you make a living?
My nomad lifestyle allowed me to reduce drastically my spendings not paying more bills nor rent. Occasionally I write articles for magazines and do paid conferences. I also receive donations on gittip and most of all, receive much generosity form my hosts and friends.
