The del.icio.us subscriptions network visualization is really impressive. This is what mine looks like!

Once you get past the clunky interface you’ll quickly start stumbling onto information you’d never seen before. For example, I’d seen posts tagged sharing_economy before but it was only once I’d seen the who and what was connected to it that I thought to check it out.

And I’m really glad I did because I discovered a link to a Sunday Times article about a local community exchange project.

The Talent Exchange is a community-based trading system using a ‘money’ other than our familiar national one—an alternative money system if you like. There are many similar trading systems around the world, commonly know as Community Exchange Systems (CES) or Local Exchange and Trading Systems (LETS).

I’ve been reading about these for a while now but never realised that it’s been happening right under my nose all along. One of the reasons these community exchange projects are so interesting is because of the, almost symbiotic relationship they have with technology.

Building a Sense of Community: The increasingly transient, temporary and mobile lifestyle in the world today has seriously damaged our sense of belonging to a meaningful community. Because a community currency builds local relationships it is a powerful means of regenerating a sense of trust among members, a necessary component to the health of any community. As communities become more self-aware and self-reliant through the use of a community currency, isolation, fear and loneliness diminishes and everyone benefits.

Technology is not solely responsible for the decline in community, it’s merely a tool we ourselves have made, a tool which we’ve put to use to serve our own invidual gain. It’s good to see it being put to use for the community again.

All of this sounds like the relationships between shipwrecks and coral reefs

Red Sea researchers have found several shipwrecks have become thriving coral communities. These artificial reefs attract divers, easing human pressure on natural reefs.

“Coral reefs all around the world are experiencing substantial decline, partly due to human activities,” says marine biology professor Yehuda Benayahu, who is studying how artificial reefs become part of the natural environment in the Red Sea. The University of Tel Aviv project is supported by the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration.

The project is looking at how coral reef communities around ten Red Sea wrecks serve as models of artificial reefs. Benayahu is comparing the artificial reefs with adjacent natural reefs in the area.

“With time, the shipwreck becomes part of the natural environment,” he says.

He hopes the study will provide information for future artificial reef projects aimed at the restoration and conservation of their natural counterparts.

These artifical social networks, aided by technology, could become the ’shipwrecks’ that help restore our natural networks.