What if I tell you that every month thousands of people gather to talk about their awesome projects to other awesome people with awesome ideas, abilities and projects? Better yet, all the awesome ideas have something aim making the world a better place. Not only for that awesome people. We are talking about worldwide awesomeness here. That is Permanent Beta.
I spent a day with Martijn Aslander, creator of life hacking and writer of the books easycratie and nooit af, as he gave speeches in an event in Rotterdam. The event included a solar panel powered car, multiple igloos with different activities and a ringue-stage for Martijn’s epic talks. Now let me explain why I am talking about Martijn. He is the guy who started the Permanent Beta movement.
Since always he had the power of bringing people together for a cause. When he was 15 he started his first company. He took groups for activities on open air. He did that because he was a boy scout and it didn’t feel like working. It was fun and people paid for it. When he moved during high school he noticed that his school was the only one who didn’t throw parties. In no time he gathered 80 students (that being the new kid in school) to organize a party. When he sold his company in a bad deal he thought: “hey, let’s gather 10 thousand people to pile stones”. Ok, maybe that is not exactly how he planned it, but that is what happened. 10 thousand people joined him in a festival where they gathered stones weighing literally tons. The name of the project was Gathering Stones.
Now, more than 10 years after the permanent beta gathers amazing people every month to meetings. Permanent Beta is an organization free of risks. The meetings occur in places free of charge, people who show up know that the cost is on them. In that way there is no way of failing. It is always going on. Evert meeting is about quality, so even if only one person shows up they are still having it, which doesn’t seem to be a problem – the next meeting already have 50 people confirmed out of 100 guests and that being they don’t even reveled the program yet. We are there for the awesomeness – which is guaranteed.
By being decentralized and awesomeness drive people who participate on permanent beta do project quicker, with more excellence and cheaper than any organized company does. Those same companies are already seeing the value on that and partnering up. For now there isn’t much I can say. What I can promise is that things that seen as impossible by some are happening and are catching up to everyone who is reading this sooner than what you think. Wait and see!
