eco2FEST - week 1: Collaboration in Motion

It was an ambitious second week of eco2FEST with workshops and conferences revolving around four different themes: Public Policies, Governance, Habitation, and Urban Agriculture. A lot of important questions were raised as citizens, entrepreneurs, and government officials worked through them all to find collaborative solutions.

Even when no concrete solutions were proposed though, the discussions set the stage for a more focused framing of these themes in the future.

Public Policies

At their most basic, public policies are the intersection between what citizens ask for and what governments can provide. It is this constant flux from one side to the other that creates the common ground of how society is run. Finding a common ground that’s truly for the benefit of the greater good, however, is a different story. This has been the root cause for countless of political struggles since the dawn of civilization.

For any equilibrium to be achieved, there has to be a balance of energy or power on all sides. And that starts with trust and a willingness to collaborate. Governments need to make a greater effort to seek input from citizens impacted by proposed policies while citizens need to take initiative to engage in constructive dialogue with government officials. Only then can innovative public policies take shape.

During the Public Policies segment of eco2FEST, Guillaume Lavoie – professor at ENAP and former city councillor of Montreal – observed that citizens have been asking their elected officials the wrong question about innovation. Instead of just seeking their support for innovation, elected officials should be asked, “What is your level of tolerance for disruption?”

Historically, governments often favour stability while businesses mostly thrive on disruption. But for overall progress to happen in society, it depends on government’s ability to stomach change.

Businesses have always been a step ahead of governments not only because they embrace change, but also because they actively seek out public opinion. If governments want to keep up, they have to do the same and go a step further by establishing units or processes that provide future projections based on current socio-economic trends.

This will allow governments to at least proactively prepare for future growth rather than reacting too late to realities on the ground. It will result in more opportunities for governments to engage in timely discussions with the public.

Besides examining the role of government, eco2FEST participants also considered the other side of the equation: how can we empower citizens with the notion that they have the right to express their opinions on how society is run?

Participatory democracy was brought up several times as a potential way for people to get in the habit of working together with the government. Of course, it means that the government has to transition to that concept and introduce how it works early in the education system.

Once citizens start to participate more and governments have a better pulse on what the needs are, what’s the best way to use crowdsourced data effectively to implement public policies? This was another sticky point in the workshop discussions last week.

For example, there’s a massive amount of urban traffic data out there compiled by both public and private sectors. But it’s been difficult to design mobility models and transportation systems based on that data because every source wants to protect its data for different purposes. On top of all that, there are privacy issues that people are rightfully concerned about.

The question then turned to regulation, which is sometimes a waypoint of implementation. For that, Guillaume Lavoie recommended not to jump straight to regulations before the subject is fully understood – that would be worse than not regulating at all. “The goal is to have the least possible, to access as much as possible,” he said.

Governance

Public Policies naturally lead to Governance. How do you build the consensus and the principles everyone has agreed on during the development of public policies into a long-term governance system? In short, as Agathe Lehel – Projects Promoter of OuiShare Québec – so succinctly put it, “How do you make sure that [governance] culture persists over time?”

Technology was consistently proposed as a possible solution. Technology can facilitate the processing of governance processes because of its dynamic ability to provide real-time information and instantaneous feedback.

One of the most promising technological applications in governance comes in the form of smart contracts in blockchain. The potential of blockchain as a governance tool is so strong that it has been adopted by businesses and even governments such as Estonia’s digital republic.

Blockchain platforms are designed to evenly distribute the power of governance and direction that decisions take. In that sense, members of the platform are simultaneously users, investors, and stakeholders. All these members are brought together from different cultures and values. The issue is how we make it work and achieve consensus.

Another concern raised in the discussion was maintaining decentralization. What we want to avoid is the consolidation of power in any extreme and not knowing who actually holds the power.

In response to the governance concerns of blockchain, Pascal Ngo Chu – co-founder of EOS/Steem Québec – pointed to EOSIO as an example. It is a blockchain platform that introduces a governance model. A constitution can be created first, which all other application systems must follow. From there, a democratic system can be established with voting tools for people to make decisions.

At the end of the day though, it’s the individuals who form the hub of a blockchain network. Yes, government needs to be involved in supporting the system, but the grassroots level needs to first demonstrate that it works even in a rapidly evolving society. However the platform is designed, governance has to be ingrained yet remain flexible enough for new directions.

We also have to remember that the platform is not the solution – it is a tool for governance and transparency that works so long as the human connection is stable.

Habitation

For all the talk about progress in society, it can’t go very far if the basic needs of the people aren’t met. That brings us to the theme of Habitation.

We’ve seen the steady rise of housing costs for years and it’s time we come up with creative solutions to combat that issue.

Many ideas were pitched at the eco2FEST workshops, including transitional use of vacant spaces. So rather than leaving undeveloped lots sitting empty, is there a way we can make use of them? The same goes for unoccupied buildings or infrastructure. What would a system that temporarily repurposes vacant spaces look like?

Housing cooperatives were also mentioned as proven working models, although everyone acknowledged that they do have some hurdles to overcome. These include setting up reliable conflict resolution systems as well as systems properly recognizing everyone’s specialties and contributions.

The most significant hurdle has to do with the public image of housing cooperatives. They are neither social housing nor places where everyone is expected to scrub the common floors together. Housing cooperatives are all about lowering the housing costs for their members. If that is what everyone ultimately wants, why is participation still so low?

It seems that housing cooperatives could do with more support from governments and more rebranding campaigns from the private sector.

Urban Agriculture and Food Sovereignty

Food is another basic need that needs to be addressed. And in an urban environment, it’s even more important that sustainable approaches are used.

It was fitting that communal food was served throughout eco2FEST, but especially so during the urban agriculture workshops. It ties in with the fact that it really does not require massive infrastructure to feed people.

What emerged from the discussions was the need for us to completely change our way of thinking when it comes to urban agriculture and food sovereignty. In a sense, we need to think big in small systems.

For instance, we can first change our concept of food consumption. Instead of consuming what we want, we can start by consuming what we want among what’s locally available. That would cut down on infrastructure being used to produce food for distant locations, along with all the transportation costs that come with it.

Douglas Jack, a sustainable community development expert, gave a presentation advocating people to take a 3D approach to agriculture. That involves considering the collaborative effect of plants occupying all height levels – from trees to fungi – that contribute to a healthier ecosystem. He also talked about various indigenous techniques for sustainable livelihood, the details of which he catalogued online for open-source sharing.

From his example as well as that of Jack SoRelle – who created the Plenty4All organization from scratch – there was a consensus that open-source sharing of agricultural techniques is an economically feasible way to establish grassroots-oriented solutions for communities all over the world.

As the second week of eco2FEST came to a close, it was apparent that there is a common thread that ran through these four themes: it all comes down to education.

It’s about learning how to let your voice be heard; it’s about teaching how to run an equitable society. It’s about learning how to live affordably together; it’s about teaching how to feed the world sustainably.

What inspired you the most from the conversations you’ve had last week at eco2FEST? What would you like to accomplish by the final week?

Winluck Wong is a freelance writer helping companies grow their businesses through blogging, web content writing, copywriting, and social media management. He gets excited about an eclectic mix of topics from business strategies and sustainable development to personal finance and life hacks. Follow his cheeky musings on Twitter and imagine how he can fit in your story on his website.

by All of us

eco2FEST - week 1: Collaboration in Motion

Last week marked the beginning of eco2FEST, a three-week journey to explore new forms of economy, sustainable open-source design, and more. Organized around nine themes, eco2FEST highlighted Mobility and Collaborative Economy as the first themes of the week.

Mobility

eco2FEST was aptly jumpstarted with the first theme, Mobility. Progress has always traveled on the
back of our ability to transfer ideas, resources, and people over great distances in the shortest amount
of time possible. The need for this ability to be efficient has become more pronounced in the growing
urbanization of society.

As ecosystems of urban jungles continue to spread, mobility is what will preserve their delicate balance and keep them thriving. Without mobility as the primary consideration in infrastructure design, cities run the risk of a drawn-out but inevitable decay.

It’s a well-recognized issue and many cities throughout the world have ventured ahead with innovative models of mobility. Take Barcelona and the Bicing program, for instance; London and its GATEway project; or Guangzhou’s Bus Rapid Transit system.

And we can do the same here. Montreal is the ideal city for mobility innovation and it’s evident when
the city hosted the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress last year. The world came to us last year and this year, we’re demonstrating through eco2FEST that we’re ready to bring our ingenuity to the world.

The official launch of eco2FEST last week inspired a lot of frank discussions about the future of mobility in Montreal. Mobility entrepreneurs like Eva Coop and OuiHop’ met with local residents as well as citizen groups like Trainsparence. Together, this open forum invited everyone to give their input on major mobility issues such as the “last mile” problem, bike-integration solutions, and even specific issues such as mobility challenges in Verdun.

It is a promising start to eco2FEST. Jean-François Parenteau, the Mayor of Verdun, mentioned at the
eco2FEST press conference last Tuesday that he and his elected officials wanted the borough to shine
when it comes to a collaborative economy. It captured the intent of eco2FEST perfectly. This is our moment to take the lead by getting the private and public sectors together to collaborate on inclusive solutions that improve the day-to-day lives of everyone.


Collaborative Economy

As the conversation moved from Mobility to the second theme, Collaborative Economy, the ideas continued to flow. Although the participants in the workshops and roundtables were from different backgrounds, they all found common ground with these two statements:

1. Access to resources can be very difficult for individuals; collaborative workspaces can meet this requirement as well as create opportunities and accessibility for entrepreneurs;
2. Collaborative economy adds social and economic benefits within society.

Moreover, certain words came up again and again that showed how strongly they resonated with
everyone: inclusion, participate, equity, growth, and empowerment. All these are values that a
collaborative economy strives toward.

It means less constraints from a traditional workplace and less emphasis on profit before all else. It
means more innovation and ecological results driven for and by the community. Above all, it means
genuine collaboration that goes beyond the family unit and reaches every facet of society.

What’s striking about the first week at eco2FEST was how deeply engaged all the participants were in the discussions that took place. Everyone had something of value to contribute and it’s all these ideas in aggregate that will make a difference as we co-build the society of tomorrow.

All this came out of just the first week. Imagine what we can accomplish next. Find out what’s
happening this week at eco2FEST on our schedule and participate!

What really spoke to you during the first week of eco2FEST? What would you like to see done differently in the upcoming workshops and conferences?

Winluck Wong is a freelance writer helping companies grow their businesses through blogging, web content writing, copywriting, and social media management. He gets excited about an eclectic mix of topics from business strategies and sustainable development to personal finance and life hacks. Follow his cheeky musings on Twitter and imagine how he can fit in your story on his website.

By AllOfUs

Developmental stages and problems for open communities and networks

Over the past 8 years, I have contributed to the development of www.sensorica.co, an open network for open innovation and peer production. 

SENSORICA can be described as a commons-based peer production community as defined by the p2pValue project, and as a permissionless p2p network like Bitcoin. 

Along with my hands-on involvement in SENSORICA, I have also contributed to other open networks and communities and observed their evolution. It didn't take long to noticed that these new types of organizations were developing similar problems as they were growing in complexity. A few months ago, I sat down to uncover the underlying mechanisms behind these problems. My theory is synthesized in the table below. 

In essence, open networks and communities go through developmental stages. The transition from one stage to the next requires organizational transformations, which are adaptations to the new conditions that the organization is facing. More often than not, these transitions are accompanied by organizational crisis. Sometimes, these crisis are fatal, they destroy the organization. This is an attempt to inform those involved in setting up open communities and network, to help them steer clear of potential pitfalls as their organization mutates through its developmental stages.  

Summary of developmental stages (see details below)

	Developmental Stage	Contribution and reward	Structure	Athmosphere	Problems
1	Informal	Only volunteer	Ambiguous and ad hock	Friendly, loose, fun	Attract attention
2	Formal	Mostly volunteer	Some basic roles, some norms, some procedures	Mostly friendly and fun	Dealing with complexity
3	Managing material assets	Volunteer and for benefit	Clear and more stable roles and relations, written rules, some adopted methodologies	Higher responsibility, some frustrations.	Dealing with the freerider
4	Tangible rewards generation	Mostly for benefit and volunteer	Clear and stable roles, formal relations, system of rules, body of methodologies, legal structure	Formal, professional	Dealing with the thief
5	Large potential	For benefit, wealth generation and projecting influence	Always filled roles structure, excellent governance, solid legal standing, proven body of methodologies, connections with the larger ecosystem	Responsible, formal, professional	Dealing with the jealous enemy

This table was created by Tibi, as part of a new synthesis work. In alpha version. CC BY-SA 3.0 licence

If the table above is not clear, if you need clarifications, please ask questions in the comments below, and I will use your feedback to improve this post. 

More details and explanations

After the Black March, the Women's March on Washington. When are we going to start marching towards the future?

First: I am not sexist nor racist. I am also very proud to say that I have never participated in the rigged game of representative democracy, never voted in my entire life, although I consider myself as part of the 1% of doers when it comes to concrete action and sacrifice to make the world a better place. I am completely outside of the Hillary vs Trump or left vs right debate.

Reading the Wikipedia page and a few articles on the Women's march on Washington 2017, I understand that after some issues during its planning and organisation, the goal was to come up with a very inclusive statement and to create an inclusive movement. I am going through a bunch of videos on Youtube and although I can sense inclusiveness, here and there I also sense a divisive language, a confrontational language between women and men. During the Bush years we've experienced the religious divide. During Obama, we saw the racial divide. Trump vs Hillary brings us the sexual divide. We had the left and right divide for more than a century... How many divides can our society sustain before it disintegrates and falls pray to a tyrant who will force piece upon us? 

We don't like our friend because s/he is a communist or a libertarian. We don't like our neighbour because her/his skin is of a different colour, or s/he eats or doesn't eat pork. Am I soon going to fight with my female friends because I am a man and therefore guilty of all the sins men have done in the past? Hey, I am just a guy brought up in a traditional family, trying to be fair and to respect the complementary between men and women, doing as much as I can to support the movement of emancipation of women, but sometimes I do make stupid mistakes... I am trying to unlearn and to improve my worldview tinted by my upbringing in my traditional family, trying, ... I think I am not alone in this situation. I don't want to be criticised or accused by my female friends of being "patriarchal". I want to be able to stay focused on building a better world. I don't want to feel obliged to measure my words and calculate my actions, afraid of being called a sexist, or a racist, a leftist, or some other ...ists. I feel alienated by all this and perhaps many other men who mean good feel the same. 

There is some racism in the struggled of race emancipation. There is some sexism in the struggle of women emancipation. Let's make sure we truly emancipate and not overshoot in the opposite side. 

And by the way, about Trump's victory, I think it is part of a global trend. Our society is in deep crisis and in need of a new world view. We are bouncing between the two extremes of our debilitating right/left dichotomy. Yes, we are going to see the extremes growing more popular, both of them, in different parts of the world, until we get exhausted and realise that these old models don't apply anymore. Only then the imagination of the masses can jump to something new. Only after this exhaustion people will go through the gestalt transition and see the new paradigm, which is already here, developing and picking up steam under their gazing eyes. 

Don't get me wrong. There is racism and sexism in the world. But the general problem in our society doesn't come from the Muslim or from the Man. Let's come to terms with the past. The world is what it is now. The problem is a system in decay, facing huge transformations coming from deep within. Read more about p2p, commons-based peer production and other things like that, and you'll realise that we are trapped into all these fights because we don't have the new/proper language to speak about what's wrong with our society and about how we can make things work better. So we put the blame on what's immediately visible (skin color, gender, etc.) and on the past.  

This is my angle on it, there are others to see, in order to get the full picture.

Broken Assumptions of GovernanceThe Future of Governance is not GovernmentsSituational Assessment 2017: Trump Edition

Deep code, foundation assumptions

The Coming Great Transition

See also Arthur Brocks view on FB

By Tiberius Brastaviceanu

The sharing, collaborative and participatory economy: what are we talking about?

There is a lot of confusion between the sharing, the collaborative and the participatory economy. In fact, you can see it on this Wikipedia page. I will propose some distinctions from my experience with www.sensorica.co and from my knowledge about other peer production systems.

I conclude, from my informal analysis of currently used language, that the semantic separation between the terms sharing economy and the other two is greater than the semantic separation between collaborative economy and participatory economy. In other words, people tend to use the terms collaborative economy and participatory economy interchangeably, but sometimes in opposition to the current use of the term sharing economy. I also agree with this Harvard review, which states that sharing economy is a misnomer, and with their conclusion to replace it with the term access economy.

When we speak about the sharing economy we put the emphasis on assets (material or immaterial) that are "shared" (redistributed or circulated) among individuals and/or organizations, which in turn share information among themselves about needs and offers, about the location (physical or virtual) of these assets and about rules of engagement or terms of use. The term sharing is used somewhat abusively, not necessarily as a reciprocal relation. In this context, sharing can be a transfer (gift or barter, monetary exchange), or rent (payment for use). The use someone makes of these assets is, for the most part, irrelevant, as long as the integrity of the asset is preserved (when it is rented), and the transfer respects the basic rules of engagement. The use can be personal or part of a commercial activity and the provider can be an individual or an organization. Some applications/platforms that facilitate the access and transactions can be agnostic to that, some of them use strict rules to enforce p2p, b2b or a combination. Critics of the sharing economy propose alternative terms such as access economy or rental economy. These critics focus on the lack of reciprocity as well as on the lack of social externalities that are normally created through reciprocal sharing.

When we speak about the collaborative economy, the focus is mostly on the allocation of time for a common output. More concretely, we think about people producing something together through a process that minimizes exchanges. In other words, in its purest form, no one is paying anyone else to do something, and usually no one can monopolize the output. Classical examples are Linux, Wikipedia, open source hardware development, etc. There is a lot of cooperation in a traditional company setting, but everyone involved engages in an exchange process, trading skills/time for money. For this reason, this is not a collaborative economy example. 

There can be rules about how the output of a collaborative process can be leveraged by others to generate wealth. A good example is RedHat that offers consultancy, installation, and maintenance of IT systems built on Linux. These rules come in the form of licenses, which range from no restrictions at all, to non-commercial usage. 

This concept of the collaborative economy can be extended to other forms of contributions, which can range from financial (crowdfunding for example), to material (sharing a 3D printer with a group to prototype something). In this case, the use of these tangible and material forms of contributions is directly related to the common activity, it is project specific, unlike in the case of the sharing/access economy where the use someone makes of the "shared" asset is most of the time irrelevant. Moreover, these tangible resources used as contributions don’t necessarily exchange hands in the process, there is no transfer of ownership and they are not rented, these resources are shared within the group for common use, and are accounted for as contribution to the project. There can be rules related to the redistribution of potential benefits based on these tangible and material contributions, which can take the form of public recognition (ex: “a big thank to such and such for having contributed with the physical space and the 3D printer”), or equity - monetary compensations at a later point in time.  

The way I use the term participatory economy is by putting more emphasis on the process through which something is collaboratively created. This process is open, i.e. it has very low or no barriers to entry (ex. the Bitcoin open permissionless network). This is proper to the Open Value Network model developed and implemented within www.sensorica.co.
A classical co op can be the locus of collaborative production, making open source artifacts (material or immaterial), but access to participation in the process can still be invitation-based or conditioned by a strict filter. This is how the Enspiral network and las Indias operate. Co ops are not open or permissionless networks. I see the participatory economy as a set of relations that grant access to collaborative production processes to anyone that can deliver, no other questions asked.

By Tiberius Brastaviceanu   AllOfUs

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Open value networks and global economic fairness

davidsluka

Disclaimer: This blog entry reflects the thoughts of the author and does not speak on behalf of the Sensorica OVN.

In February 2011, economic fairness became a real possibility with the launch of SENSORICA. The new economic model proposed by this network promised open access to economic activities for everyone in the world, with a system for fair redistribution of benefits, based on merits. 

SENSORICA is an open value network. People propose projects and develop them in collaboration with others. The affiliates use open project development methodologies and generate tasks that are made available for anyone in the world. The time, the cash and any material resource that are used during the execution of a task are logged. A contribution accounting system compiles all the input to projects and displays a profile of the economic activity. If the project becomes a commercial venture the revenues are redistributed to all the participants, without exception, in proportion to everyone's contribution. The venture belongs entirely to the participants, anyone can join, any time. We call these ventures open enterprises. SENSORICA is an incubator of many open enterprises. 

Since the inception of SENSORICA we spent a lot of time developing the open value network model, building infrastructure, designing new methodologies, refining the open governance, implementing a proper legal structure, and developing open new technologies. In 2015, SENSORICA is closer than ever to become an economic success, with a few projects to be crowdfunded during the summer and a few service offerings that have already generated revenue.

This post is not about revenue generation and sustainability. The main goal is to illustrate economic fairness, to show the world how we are fulfilling our promise. 

In January 2015 Atelier Barda, a group of architects and designers from Montreal, trusted SENSORICA with a contract to design an interactive imaging system, to be installed in Forillon National Park, in Gaspesie QC, Canada, which is administered by Parks Canada, a branch of the federal government. The project was executed in an open way. Three SENSORICA affiliates answered the call and delivered successfully, exceeding the client's expectations, who was a bit skeptical in the beginning, knowing that he was dealing with a new type of organization. One of these affiliates, Abran, lives in Pakistan. The project was coordinated using SENSORICA's new open service providing methodology, mediated by our virtual infrastructure.

In the end, the revenue was distributed according to everyone's contribution, and Abran was paid as if he was working and living in Canada. 

credit to Massimo Sestini—Polaris

Europe is now dealing with a major social problem caused by waves of immigrants coming from Africa. This crisis is exacerbated by the drama surrounding the death of a few hundreds of these unfortunate people, who are desperate enough to put their lives in danger by crossing the Mediterranean sea, using inadequate means, lead by human traffickers who are mostly interested in profiteering. A social problem coupled with a humanitarian crisis that keeps politicians on their toes and pushes them to use extreme means, to militarize the Mediterranean sea using UN forces. Are these desperate human beings invaders? Are they the new enemies of Europe? Or are they the result of colonialism and victims years of political interference and economic exploitation? Are guns the solution to this problem? Or more economic fairness?

While our western governments, who created the problem in the first place, make it even worse, we are developing infra-national economic structures, a peer to peer economy, to address the problem at its core.

 By AllOfUs

On how to conduct open and peer to peer ventures

In the Batman The Dark Knight Rises movie there is a scene, called the social experiment, where people in two boats need to make a decision to avoid an imminent catastrophic explosion. In one boat, they form a democratic system and they debate about the problem in order to make the best decision. The second boat is filled with prisoners and their guards, forming a hierarchical, army-like system. The movie shows these two situation in parallel, with a clear preference for the hierarchical situation, essentially trying to convince the viewers that in times of crisis, when things need to get done effectively, we don't have time for democracy. This movie was made during America's military operations in Afghanistan and in the Middle East, justifying the need to bypass democratic processes and even take illegal actions in the name of national security. We can now go back in time and judge if these decisions have had a more positive or negative impact on the US and on the world.
I live in Canada, a so called democratic country, where people spend most of their time in a totalitarian setting, the workplace, where they get things done. If we do the math, we spend most of the time executing or giving orders, depending where we are situated within the hierarchy, Once in a while, very rarely, we are called to vote on community or social issues, and even that is most of the times reduced to chose a representative from a short list that is presented to us, to delegate our decision making power.

Our concept of democracy is affected by our very reduced experience with democratic processes. We seem to appreciate our minimal involvement in shaping the social power structure. We demand transparency and accountability form those in power. But we don't seem to trust a wide open involvement of the public in making granular decisions. We don't even seem to understand how that can be done.

The multitude, or the p2p movement prescribes methods for wide open processes for problem solving (value creation) and decision making. This is known as open (source) development (peer production) and open governance. These methods have been shown to be very effective, but very few people are accustomed to them. Those who don't know them don't trust them, and find them risky.

I have participated in many collaborative projects in the past, which started with the intention to develop as open peer to peer projects and when the panic set in to meet the deadline many of these projects defaulted back to hierarchical/centralized and closed. The argument was always the same, we don't have time for openness, we need to deliver with the expected quality, and fast, which implies that open processes cannot be effective enough.

Can open and peer to peer processes be effective and efficient? I have been involved in such processes for over 7 years and I can say with certainty that they are. But we have to agree on what we mean by open and peer to peer. Gathering together on the basis of good will is not enough, without the proper infrastructure, methodology, governance, and culture. Like with any other process, we need structure or at least a proper environment for structure to emerge, as needed, in context. Open and peer to peer doesn't mean no structure.

We often hear that we need to let the process self-organize. That is fine, but the next question is self-organize into what? As soon as you ask that question another one pops up, how do you do that? How do you set up the environment to foster that self-organizing process so that the system transitions into a state that has the desired characteristic? Emergence will happen, but you might end up in an undesired state. Lock a bunch of people in a room and come back two days later. You may find them divided into two teams, playing a competitive game, or in a circle, trying to solve a problem in a collaborative way, or everyone else listening to one person giving a presentation, or everyone fighting against everyone else like in a bar scene of a classical western movie. All that is possible, and more. But if you give them some initial suggestions, or even some rules, if you put some boundary conditions on the system and prescribe some processes, you will restrict the array of possible outcomes. You can drive this group into a more collaborative or a more competitive state for example.

Groups that are setting up to do something in an open and peer to peer way, and that don't have the proper culture and knowledge about it don't know how to create the conditions to self-organize into a desired state, one that preserves the characteristics of openness and peer to peer. Some of the features of this desired state are to deliver solutions in an effective and efficient way (and yes, it works), along with empowering the participants, giving participants the opportunity to lean something new, increasing the level of participation, etc. As soon as the panic sets in, their familiarity with hierarchical and closed processes feels like a comfort zone for them, and that pulls them back into their default dynamics.

So what does it take to conduct projects in an open and peer to peer way, effectively and efficiently? There are various recipes that apply in different contexts. Scale is an important factor, which is about the number of participants. The type of project is another one, related to the type of resources needed, to the nature of the deliverable, to the type processes involved, ...

First, we need to evaluate if the initial group has the open culture. This post is not the place to describe what that culture is in detail. Let's just say that the individuals involved need to be comfortable with sharing early, working transparently, collaborate and even co-create, which involves being non-territorial and non-egoistical, accept and provide constructive criticism, be independent, be respectful, be inclusive, be helpful and attentive to others' needs, understand the value within the network or the community, protect and nurture the commons, have a sense of purpose, etc. The better the culture the less governance is needed, because people instinctively know how to conduct themselves. I have worked in groups with the proper culture and it feels like honey. Everything runs smoothly, people find their place rapidly, they know how to take initiative without stepping on anyone's foot, decisions are made effectively without alienating many, ... I also worked in groups with a poor culture. It feels like rolling a stone ball up the hill, dropping it from time to time and starting all over again. People are in for their individual benefits, they fight to occupy prominent roles, they are focused more on having their ideas accepted rather than having the best idea shaping up, they can't share early or collaborate and produce poor results for which they cannot take constructive criticism. When it comes to benefits, they would like to have it all. Instead of helping others they try to outperform them to gain more visibility, ... Sometimes we are forced by circumstances to work with people that don't have the proper culture, and in that case we need norms and rules, we need to install open governance.

Open governance is about decision making processes, conflict resolution mechanisms, norms and rules of conduct. There are many recipes for this too, and we are not going to provide a complete overview here. If you want to dig more, search ''peer governance'' on http://p2pfoundation.net
Examples are: define ''membership'', frame ''initiative'' and describe how to make incremental decisions, describe how broad scope decisions are made (see consensus building and lazy democracy for instance), describe rules for accessing, modifying, and sharing content, describe representation rules, describe expulsion rules, etc.

Third, we need to put in place methodologies, which describe how new members are integrated, how meetings and other tasks are conducted, how to deal with documentation, how to allocate different types of resources, how to conduct research and development, how to do outreach, etc.

Last, but not the least, we need to put in place some infrastructure, which is a system of tools used in processes. These are internal communication and social media channels, content management system, resource planning system, project management tools, perhaps a reputation system and a value accounting system, etc.

It is important to note that the tools and methodologies used affect the culture of the group. For example, if the content management system is a public wiki and the methodology around documentation is designed around this tool, the group will most probably inherit a collaborative and open culture. That is because the tool and its associated processes are inherently open and collaborative. First, they act as filters, attracting predominantly individuals with the proper culture, which will form a critical mass and induce a change in the not so accustomed minority, which will tend to conform. Second, being exposed to these tools and processes allows one to experience and learn the open ways, and perhaps to even appreciate them.

We also need to mention that the culture, the governance, the methodologies and the infrastructure need to form a coherent system. If the group adopts an infrastructure with limited access for the majority of its members, for instance if the content management system allows only a few members to edit content, these privileged members will effectively have at their disposal a lever of power by controlling the content. This situation can spoil other processes, but it can be addressed by putting in place rules for content management, allowing the group to democratically elect those who hold the key to the content and to remove them from this position in case of abuse. Small groups that also have the proper culture can probably function even without these rules, but the situation can be unstable.

Even before we put all this in place to increase the resilience of an open and peer to peer endeavor, there is still a big hurdle to pass. I can say that this is probably the hardest one, even for someone with a lot of experience. If the forming group doesn't have the proper culture, it might become very difficult to create the proper conditions for the project. That is because those with little experience with the open and peer to peer are not very good at recognizing talent and skills, and at stepping aside to let those with experience set it up for them. Most probably, you will find at least one in the group who, for various reasons, will oppose or marginalize those who show initiative and fine skills, who could set the ground for a successful venture. Sometimes, the initiatives of the skilled individual are rejected because they are simply not understood, and since in the beginning there is no governance in place to frame initiative or even to make decisions, the chance to even put that in place is reduced. In these situations, most often than not, the skilled individuals get frustrated and quit.

In conclusion, open and peer to peer ventures can be very efficient and effective. If you want to experience their benefits you need to understand that in order to run this types of ventures successfully you need people with the proper technical skills, experience and culture, which can create the proper initial conditions. If you succeed in attracting some of these people, make sure you keep them close and happy.

t!b!

By AllOfUs

Crowdfunding capacity for peer production

Last updated on July 23 2015
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They did it again!

In the spring of 2015, the SENSORICA network delivered another important proof of concept for commons-based peer production. We demonstrated that equipment for peer production can be endogenously crowdfunded.

Everyone today knows about crowdfunding. In case you are just returning from a trip to Mars, crowdfunding is a new way to raise funds which involves hundreds or even thousands of individuals, the crowd. If you need money for a venture, instead of going to the bank for a loan or getting venture capital you can now use websites like Goteo, Indiegogo, Kickstarter, etc. You present your project on one of these platforms and ask people from around the world to fund you. Crowdfunding is either a donation scheme, people help you to achieve something without expecting much in return for themselves, only a good feeling for having contributed to a good cause, or a pre-sale scheme, people give you money upfront for a service or a product that doesn't need to be finished before the crowdfunding, that you will deliver a few months later. There is also crowdfunding for equity, where people give you money in exchange of shares in your venture, but very few countries have permissive laws for it.

You can find a lot of stories about individuals or small groups who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for their product ideas. This shows that crowdfunding democratizes innovation.

It didn't take long before companies caught up with this trend, realizing that they could not only finance the productization phase (transforming a prototype into a manufacturable product at a competitive price) but also get immediate and valuable feedback from the market (if people finance you before you even have a finished product that means that you have a market, and they might even tell you how to improve your product).

So, before we see what SENSORICA did different, let's review a few important features of crowdfunding in general.

Most crowdfunding is used as a pre-sale scheme, Kickstarter being the most popular platform. Goteo is more for open source projects, or for projects that have a social impact. Crowdfunding for equity seems to be adequate for financing infrastructure or capacity development, but it is still in its infancy. 

Almost all the crowdfunding mechanisms are dissociated from the ventures that are using them. They are centralized platforms owned by a classical organization that acts as a mediator between project initiators and their support crowd. 

The crowdfunding model is fueled by three types of actors: the project initiator who proposes the idea and/or project to be funded; individuals or groups who support the idea; and a moderating organization (the "platform") that brings the parties together to launch the idea.  [Wikipedia]

There are also a few examples of self-crowdfunding, where organizations run their campaign on their own platform. This practice is problematic though, because people see in it a conflict of interest. When a third-party that specializes in crowdfunding is used, people trust that the same rules will be applied to everyone and that the data displayed during the process reflects reality.

But things are changing very fast now. Within a year or so, crowdfunding will be implemented on p2p infrastructures based on block chain technology. This means that instead of doing crowdfunding on centralized platforms (the website lives on a proprietary server or cloud, Kickstarter for example) the process will become entirely p2p (the information will live in a bunch of interconnected machines, individually owned by everyone who uses the system). Simply put, the block chain technology (and who knows what will follow next) decentralizes funding even further. If traditional crowdfunding allows people to fund each other using a centralized proprietary platform, this new technology eliminates the need for a proprietary platform, the company in the middle, and  puts the same people in charge of the process. See more here.

Born in 2003, crowdfunding is already making a leap forward, leaving platforms like Kickstarter wondering about their own survival. The new p2p (or real) crowdfunding, based on block chain technology, can give much more flexibility to projects or ventures. The problem is that its time has not come yet. It is technologically possible, but the world around it hasn't advanced far enough for it to have a proper ground for implementation. This is where SENSORICA and its proof of concept comes in.  

SENSORICA is not a typical organization. It is an open value network. It is an open network that does peer production. It is a cluster of open enterprises. It is, in my opinion, the most audacious attempt to implement commons-based peer production of hardware, started in February 2011, one year and 3 months after Satoshi Nakamoto published his paper "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System". It is the furthest humanity has gone into hard core peer production, building peer-run physical labs, peer governance and normative systems, methodologies for open product development, as well as legal structures compatible with all that. SENSORICA is the proper environment for p2p (or real) crowdfunding.  

Recent technologies like Ethereum, which also builds on the block chain technology, have made possible new types of economic entities, the so-called DACs, for Distributed Autonomous Organizations. The first implementations of DACs are quite simple, service based, see for example Peertracks. But this technology will very soon mature to fulfill the needs of p2p hardware innovation and production, which is very complex. This will most probably become the infrastructure on which open value networks like SENSORICA will be built in the not so far future.

All that to say that in parallel with the continuous development of crowdfunding there is also a continuous development of organizations, following the same philosophy, based on the same logic, enabled by the same technology. The two movements are about to merge into a coherent economic system, operating on new principles. We are already passed half way into the transition and we can already see what's on the other side.

So what did SENSORICA demonstrated? Sorry for holding it, I am trying to save you the best for the end  : )

SENSORICA used its network resource planning and value accounting system (NRP-VAS), in a context of peer production, to endogenously crowdfund a piece of equipment for the first time in its history. In other words, this is the first time a p2p network that is focused on hardware innovation and production has used a crowdfunding mechanism part of its own infrastructure, not as a service from an external platform, centralized or not.

We used the NRP-VAS to co-finance a $4,000 3D printer. 11 SENSORICA affiliates have contributed to this purchase. The example might seem insignificant for the untrained eye, but there is a lot more behind it.

First, there is the issue of trust. Most of these participant affiliates have never seen each other. Two of them live in the US, the rest live in Canada. Some of them are so far away that they will not even be able to use the 3D printer. We passed the trust hurdle. Participation was a bit slow in the beginning, but after we reached a critical mass it got easier. This is trust in a system, trust generated by processes, trust generated through openness and transparency, not so much trust in each other. This is what makes a system scalable and reproducible.

Second, there is the complexity that comes with co-purchasing. Who owns it? What's the agreement between the co-owners? Who can use it and under what conditions? Who is going to pay for maintenance? How are we going to deal with community use, and commercial use, and other types of uses? It is not simple, but this is what technology is good for, reducing complexity or hiding it behind user interfaces.

We created a co-owner agreement and we implemented new functionality within our NRP-VAS to handle the printer's use logging and to perform calculations to account for the material used in the printing process, usage time, technical assistance, etc. For example, is someone makes commercial use of the 3D printer the cost is split into:

• cost of the material used, 
• some % will go into a maintenance budget account for the 3D printer, 
• some % will go to a general infrastructure maintenance and development account,
• some % will go to pay back the co-owners (the agreement stipulates that once they are paid back plus 20% to cover their risk, the 3D printer becomes part of the pool of shareables), 
• some money will go to pay a technician, if needed.    

All that complexity is absorbed by the technology that we are developing.

NOTE: SENSORICA's NRP-VAS is not decentralized, it is not using block chain technology, because this new p2p infrastructure is not ready yet to handle all the complexity that the open value network is dealing with. This will probably come in two years from now. Moreover, when SENSORICA was created the block chain technology was still in its embryonic state. Therefore, it is probably difficult for the untrained eye to understand how this new SENSORICA proof of concept fits with new pure p2p processes. Think of SENSORICA as p2p at the socio-economic level, but not entirely at the infrastructure level. This is still a work in progress.

This crowdfunding endogenous to an open value network was implemented using the Custodian's financial tools, a Paypal account (open the webpage where the contributions where gathered). See definition of a Custodian. All the contributions were recorded into a virtual account on SENSORICA's NRP-VAS, specifically opened for the purchase of the 3D printer. Once the printer was purchased this account balance went back to 0$.

The lesson here is that an open value network is able to not only crowdsource and crowdfund innovation and production, but also infrastructure development. The tools used by SENSORICA, a p2p organization at the socio-economic level, are not entirely p2p, but we are building understanding and valuable experience, and we are anxiously waiting for the block chain technology to mature.


By Tiberius Brastaviceanu

By AllOfUs