The following story is written by Ariane Brisson, a member from Québec, Canada. Ariane loves reading, photography, writing, video games, and movies. She studied French literature at Université du Québec à Montréal and is currently working on contract in the film industry. She also directs a magazine project titled Costumade Québec Cosplay. (Photo credit: Claudia Laplante)
I learned about Simbi this week, through a friend’s Facebook page. At first, I was just intrigued by Simbi’s concept. On paper, it looked great, and I didn’t know of any other services like that in my area. I gave it a try, not too sure, but following the steps the best I could. My first offer took me a while to write, but I thought, ” Yes, this is the angle I want; I can use that offer for my personal project and get “paid” to get other services!” Only win-win situations. But I was skeptical and I thought to myself, “Can it really work? Can my offers interest anyone? Will they gather dust or bring me some interactions? Will I ever be able to get rid of my Newbie title?! Please someone, help me!”
I had seen that awesome “Get an anime sketch of your picture” service and I could afford it. But, as I was a newbie, I couldn’t get in touch with that person yet. So I searched frantically for any kind of deal, already saying to myself that it would take months before I could talk to that talented missy. Then I found a survey to fill out, and just like that, I had a deal! I could finally ask for my anime portrait (that I’ve been waiting for so long, like 1 hour)!
Happy with the fast result and wanting to feel my new “experienced member” status, I started checking all of the offers. Scrolling through the other services available gave me plenty of ideas to write more offers.
Wow, I didn’t know I could become a “website tester”, a “shoulder to cry on” or a “gaming buddy”! And, above all, I didn’t know I could get dance classes, tarot readings, sweet artwork, and EVEN CAKES for free! How cool is that?
All you need is your time, and Simbi truly incarnates the saying, “Time is money”. I started to understand all the possibilities of this original website. All the effort I’ve put in commenting texts or helping in other ways could be done here and it would be like instant (good) karma! My actions would be taken into account and help me receive things I really need or have some meaningful interactions with my society and the rest of the world. And it wasn’t the last of my surprise.
After checking a few “Ask a…” services, I posted my “Ask a Film Industry Worker – Qc” offer. I was very happy with my idea, because I know that people are interested in this field and that I could be useful to them. On the same day, I received a request from a lovely sumo actor named Mike who was actually having his first speaking role in India and wanted to know more about landing roles here in Quebec. How freaking cool is that?! I was so thrilled that I filled him in as fast as I could, giving him extra information and tips to win over our talent agencies. He was really pleased with my answer, so it resulted in a nice and positive exchange.
I’ve been here for almost a week now, and Simbi is totally worth the 0$ I put in when I registered. For real — it’s just a fast, simple, and awesome tool, and I recommend it to everyone that has a bit of creativity.
—Ariane B.
Simbiotic Stories are real anecdotes told by you and other Simbi community members. Tell us about your Simbi deals and experiences with other members. If your story is published, we’ll credit your account with 150 simbi. Submit your entries by starting a conversation with us via this link.
Bravo Ariane!!!!!
One of the things I am trying to figure out is the value of a simbi. This could be an even greater tool if there were a common understanding of the value if 1Simbi.
I think time measured currencies are helpful but time banking makes an hour if brain surgery equal to an hour of wine tasting.
Better to think of an hour a unit of value equal to some activity we can translate easily accross all cultures such as the value you would place on one hour semi-skilled or physically demanding work by your 16 year niece or nephew.
This may involve an intuited exchange rate based on the common currency and cost of living in your culture and geography. For example one person living in a poor neighborhood in Mississippi might assess the value of an hour of the kind of work described aboved to be worth $5 while a person living in a middle income neighborhood in New York might give that same work a value of $20.
If you could survey enough participants, you could come up with average exchange rate and if everyone agreed to use that average then you could have a broadly functional currency demobinated in units of time.
Hi! Sorry for such a long delay in our reply. Since its early days, Simbi is moving towards a model where nonprofit organizations are the “central banks” who create simbi credits on our platform, by rewarding volunteers for their organizations. We encourage them to see simbi credits as roughly 1:1 with dollars, and to reward volunteer work in rough proportion to the national standard accepted “worth” of volunteer work, which is ~$27/hr for 2020: https://independentsector.org/value-of-volunteer-time-2020/ — so someone volunteering for a nonprofit Simbi Org could expect to receive 25-30 simbi credits per hour of their time given. With this as an initial guideline at the currency’s point of creation, that reference can flow throughout the Simbi economy.