Natalie Jeremijenko, artist and engineer; director, Environmental Health Clinic, selects Parsons BFA Fine Arts faculty, Caroline Woolard, cofounder of Ourgoods.org and trade school, for The Wired Smart List! 

Caroline has set up two successful web companies, OurGoods and Trade School, that have transformed the lives of creatives. Trade School creates educational experiences and operates in 47 cities internationally. In addition to the classes, it creates the professional communities and social relationships required to use new knowledge meaningfully. I now only look at a CV that has at least one Trade School course (preferably 20). OurGoods is a formal barter network for the creative community, formalising with contracts and making explicit and accountable the activity that drives new urban economies. Small, real exchanges build innovative communities, and Caroline understands the social nature of exchange — that things worth doing are not done for the money; that the formal economy is an impoverished representation of what we actually do and why.

Caroline Wollard’s now iconic “work dress”, available for barter on Ourgoods.org