Obviously people have to make a living. But oftentimes, it’s perfectly possible to share your knowledge, to help others for nothing – nada! Here are a few ideas in a world of people seemingly always wanting to get paid, when sometimes it’s nice to simply share your knowledge for free!
Get involved in the worldwide Repair Cafe movement, For a one-off fee, your community gets a starter kit, then people who know how to mend and repair things, can do it for free. It’s kind of like a real-world version of TV series The Repair Shop.
My Society is a great organisation run by techy peeps. They have built websites to write to your MP (and one to see how they voted) and how to complain about local litter. But what they’ve done is release their knowledge so that anyone worldwide can download the OpenSource software, to set up something similar. You can download free posters to promote the sites in your community.
Be My Eyes is an app to share your ‘second pair of eyes’, to help blind people to read recipes and instructions, decipher colours or or help them navigate when out and about. It’s one of the few areas that has more volunteers than those who need the service.
Creative Commons License can be used and placed on your website, if you are fine with sharing content to help others. We use this for our terms page (copy what you want, but include safety caveats, like toxic plants to pets if copying a gardening article). Not everyone likes to do this (artists etc). But it’s a good way to spread your work without people worrying about getting sued (we’re not America!) Leo Babauta (one of the world’s most popular bloggers) uncopyrights all his material, and says it’s done him no harm at all.
I’m not a big fan of copyright laws, especially as they’re applied by corporations, used to crack down on the little guys so they can continue their large profits. If someone feels like sharing my content, that’s good for me. My work is being spread to many more people than I could do myself. That’s something to celebrate. And if someone wants to take my work and improve upon it, as artists have been doing for centuries, I think that’s a wonderful thing. Leo Babauta
