Now that the whirlwind week of interviews for the Future of Money project has come to a close, we’ve been able to turn our focus to the layout and design of the personalized Open Innovation Certificate. (We’re creating these for everyone who donates $100 or more.) Thanks to the work of Patrizia Kommerell, our graphic designer, we think we’ve gotten a pretty spiffy result.

As we discussed what the text should read, it felt important to use language that went deeper than just a buzzword like “open innovation,” and instead try to convey something with thicker meaning. As you can see from the image above, we chose to title it “Patron of the Creative Process.”

This notion came to mind as I’ve thought about the way this whole project is being crowdfunded, and the realization that you’re investing in the process as much as the product. When we initially talked about fundraising, we considered using Kickstarter. With that service, you specify a fundraising goal and a timeframe to raise the money, and people pledge their potential donations. If the fundraising goal is met, the donations are processed. If it’s not, no donations are accepted. While this model works well, the constraints don’t quite fit with what we’re doing. We chose to take a leap of faith, and made a commitment to create this video regardless of if we make a dime or not. We’re just doing it.

Amazingly, despite this fact, we’ve already received almost $4,000.

Of course, that’s led me to ask myself – Why?

When it comes down to it, we want to participate in the process of creation.

It feels good to be part of something bigger than ourselves! Though I took the initiative to start this project, I’m only a small part of it in the scheme of things. The momentum is building because others have gotten involved – amplifying the messages on twitter, commenting on our blogs, connecting us to interesting people to interview, and contributing through donations. Though there will be value in the final product, I feel that the wealth is being generated now as the people who care about this topic come together, exchange information and ideas, and build relationships.

And secondly, the process itself is the innovation. The fact that I’m sitting in a studio right now in Berlin writing this, after having conducted a week of interviews with people on multiple continents via webcam over Skype, to be pulled together in less than two weeks into a video that will be presented at a financial conference in Amsterdam – is all pretty incredible. We’re doing our best to videoblog, update, and document everything we’re up to, in hopes that others will build upon this prototype.

That said, thanks for investing in our process, our talents, and our potential to inspire.

We’ll keep planting seeds and spreading memes! 😉

you can follow the future of money project at emergence.cc