August 15, 2002
Proposal for Investigation
How can creators be compensated?
I'm proposing to you an investigation that we might conduct together: How
can creators be compensated?
A desirable solution is to have an Economy of Projects, where people are
paid to work openly on projects, as catalysts for building relationships.
Sponsors pay authors to create works (software, writings, artwork,...) under
licenses that contribute to the public wealth.
I believe this solution is important because it addresses the challenges
of living in high uncertainty. What I think will make it happen is
an Economy of Wishes that reveals a community's wealth of relationships.
I will first explain what I mean by Economy of Projects, and then what
I mean by Economy of Wishes, and finally, propose the investigation.
Economy of Projects exploits high uncertainty
Corporations face a problem: How might they exploit high uncertainty, where
promising start-ups thrive? By "high uncertainty", I mean that there is
no way to estimate the potential, the needs, the risk and the return for
what will develop.
In a corporation, management and ownership are separate, and therefore
every action must be justified. High risk may be analyzed and controlled,
but high uncertainty cannot.
A related problem is that each corporation is structured to work with projects
of a particular size. How can they take up opportunities that are
too small and manifold to directly manage?
A solution is to take what you would spend for a single project, and set
up a business ecosystem for developing new markets. Publicly declare
your strategic vision, attract and organize constructive outsiders around
your vision, set up an Economy of Projects to encourage those that further
your vision, distribute resources across your company to be spent in this
economy, welcome prospective partners, focus on the projects that generate
the most synergy, and evaluate your options when they have grown to the
required size. This Economy of Projects ultimately crystallizes private
ventures around your public vision.
Certainly, an Economy of Projects can have strategic value. Hewlett-Packard
conceived and funded the open source software market SourceXchange as a
way to get around its own contracting system. Cisco dedicates 25%
of its University Research Program to risky "orphan" projects that have
no champion. Likewise, it organized the Cisco Networking Academy to
make sure that customers around the world could hire workers with an understanding
of its products.
An enterprise may choose to embark on such a strategy. But how can
an investor expect a return? What should it be? We need to model
how an Economy of Projects would ultimately generate outcomes that yield
returns. The right model will moreover allow us to manage the Economy of
Projects overall so that it performs as well as possible.
When it is impossible to evaluate wealth in terms of profits and returns,
then it is most appropriate to evaluate it in terms of assets, especially
relationships. How can we develop a measure that would let us know
along the way, in terms of relationships, what are we investing, and what
is our return?
Economy of Wishes reveals the wealth of relationships
Markets are the best way known for measuring value. How might we measure
the value of relationships? Let us consider their responsiveness: How does
one person respond to the wishes of another?
We can formalize responsiveness by establishing an Economy of Wishes. A
public wish opens up the opportunity to respond. There is a value to
posting a wish that is given by the actions in response.
Some people are especially effective wishers. They are more likely
to evoke good responses. This may be because they reciprocate, but
it can also be because they are thoughtful wishers, are considerate of others,
have good values, express themselves well, and wish just often enough.
In this sense, there already exists an economy of wishes. Our purpose
is to formalize a variant so that we might participate consciously, respond
productively, measure wealth invested and created, and identify key players
and emerging patterns.
Individuals back up their wishes with the social currency of their reputations.
A community can issue to its members the right to post official wishes,
much like a reserve board issues money, so long as the right does not get
devalued. Furthermore, a strong community might sell the right to
post a block of wishes (say, 1000) to an enterprise that wants to harness
that community.
Specifically, our laboratory Minciu Sodas can grant to our members the
right to post official wishes (say, one per week). Wishes range from "world
peace" to "get me a job" to "reply to Anne's idea". They typically have
expiration dates.
Wishes are public, and anybody can respond to them. A typical response
might involve one hour of work. A member can indicate through a web
page that they have responded, and they may upload a related letter or other
evidence that they have authored under a public license. The wisher,
may in turn, reply as to whether that was helpful or not. The wish
need not be completely fulfilled, what matters is that there was a satisfactory
reply.
Any wisher who gets a response and gives feedback is a thoughtful
wisher and deserves more wishes (say 1/2 a wish). Any responder
who was credited with helping deserves more wishes (say 1/2 a wish). Wishers
and responders may also lose wishes. The rules will need to be tweaked,
but I expect the results to be very revealing as to which people are
productive, and what projects are constructive.
The wealth of this economy can grow. Not every wish needs to get
a response, so long as the typical response makes wishing worthwhile. The
amount of wishes that the community can bear may increase or decrease over
time. Other enterprises with compatible visions may be allowed to
purchase blocks of wishes and distribute them.
The Economy of Wishes is a way to encourage responsiveness and reveal the
key people, projects and patterns. It provides a means for gauging
and tracking the wealth of a community's relationships. The better
we understand its working, the better we'll be able to understand the levers
by which a community harnesses itself. I expect that among the levers that
emerge we may find several that have monetary significance and can be converted
to yield a return on investment.
Proposal
If this delights you, and advances your strategic objectives, then I propose
that together we conduct an investigation to try out a modest Economy of Wishes,
and Economy of Projects, that we might understand their dynamics and model
their returns.
What might we both contribute?
I bring to you our laboratory, Minciu Sodas,
http://www.ms.lt
, with 30 active members around the world.
- I and other members have inspiration, flexibility and experience
in conducting all manner of thoughtful investigations.
- Over the last 4 years we have developed great feeling and understanding
for each other and our lab.
- From September to December of last year (until funding ran out) we
worked for Agile Media, lead by our member Peter Kaminski, to develop a
strategy for the mass customization of job boards, and to build a team of
web programmers (who remain active).
- We have a working group, http://www.ms.lt/openwork/
where since January, 2002 we have developed the ideas which I present
to you.
- We have set up our own Economy of Projects, a market for the services
of our members, http://www.ms.lt/serving.html
- We also have a working group,
http://www.ms.lt/ideaflow/
where we are interconnecting software tools for thinking. There
we have brought together remarkable talent that can be very attractive to
the right enterprises.
I look to you for:
- Your direction for our Economies, that we may integrate people and
passions around your interests that you have developed throughout your life.
- Your priorities, as an investigator, as to what ideas we should flesh
out, test and challenge.
- Your colleagues who would like to participate as members of our laboratory.
- Your ability to provide or organize funding, $70,000.
- Your own wishes, and those of your friends and acquaintances, 1,000
wishes in all that we might publicly respond to.
- Your advice how we should structure and apply future Economies so
that they might sustain themselves, and moreoever, provide a return for you
and future investors.
- Your many other strengths.
Our investigation will set up an Economy of Wishes where we will issue
1,000 wishes for you to use and distribute as you like, and issue roughly
250 wishes a month to members of our laboratory, for 4 months. We will also
set up an Economy of Projects where I will spend 30 x $360 = $10,800 on
services of our lab members to make sure that many of your wishes are responded
to.
We will be able to study the synergy that we expect in both economies.
Our expectation, and hypothesis, is that the Economy of Wishes will have
its own energy, where people respond to many wishes for free. Another
key hypothesis is that the Economy of Projects will be able to attract outside
work once there are examples of how it works and what it is good for.
I envision our investigation taking 7 months, with 2 for setting-up, 4
for conducting our pilot, and 1 for reporting our findings.
Setting-up:
- Develop clear rules for the Economy of Wishes.
- Create web interfaces for managing the wishes.
- Write up clearly what a "wish" is, the rights it grants, that everyone
might understand.
- Graphically design a wish, and/or an invitation to wish, that they
might be clear and attractive.
- *** Distribute 1,000 wishes for your own use, and for use
by your friends and colleagues, nonprofits that you support, and enterprises
that you invest in.
- *** Adjust our investigation according to your priorities.
- Reach out to those interested in your strategic direction.
- Reach out to those interested in "thinking out loud", blogging, alternative
currency, markets for open source software, etc.
- Monthly updates on where we're at, and what we're learning.
Conducting pilot:
- Issue wishes to members of the Minciu Sodas laboratory in an amount,
perhaps 250 per month, that would maximize the total value of all the wishes.
- Spend 30 x $360 = $10,800 through our Economy of Projects to make
sure that many wishes issued to you get responses.
- Develop useful measures of wealth as multidimensional assets in the
form of relationships.
- Examine the evidence to find the measures that are most valid and
helpful.
- Study, with regard to such measures, how assets increase or decrease
within the Economy of Wishes, and the Economy of Projects.
- Study what we can learn from Economy of Wishes, and Economy of Projects,
to identify key people and synergetic patterns, and the rates at which they
emerge.
- Promote our Economy of Projects, and consider who finds these services
useful.
- Look for enterprises that are interested in our Economy of Wishes
and/or Economy of Projects.
Reporting Findings:
- Write up findings.
- Identify enterprises that show interest and would benefit from an
Economy of Wishes, an Economy of Projects, or variants of either.
- *** Publish findings through your publication.
- Publish them elsewhere, as appropriate to reach relevant audiences.
- *** Make plan for approaching enterprises to extend these
Economies, or create new ones together.
- Write proposals to these enterprises.
I would need your help with all of the steps marked *** and we would
certainly benefit from your participation and direction as you are able.
What would you gain?
- Opportunity to investigate.
- Answers to questions such as: To what extent can such Economies sustain
themselves? How can we measure the wealth of relationships? How does the
wealth invested compare to the wealth generated? What kind of synergies do
we observe? What key levers emerge? To what extent can they be
converted to a return on investment? and others you may suggest.
- Data that you and others can return to.
- Responses to 1,000 wishes you distribute, or have us distribute by
your instruction.
- Responses to additional wishes that result, which may be quite numerous.
- An Economy of Projects, for working openly, providing affordable
and flexible services to your ventures and causes.
- Connection and synergy amongst participants in your many ventures
and causes.
- A variety of relationships between them and the wonderful members
of our laboratory.
- Development of a strategic unifying endeavor of your choice.
- Strengthening of relationships around your endeavor.
- Bringing together new people around your endeavor.
- Articles on the findings, which we can coordinate in releasing.
- Option to extend these Economies, with a voice regarding how we set
up the rules, who may purchase wishes, and what percentage of the sales
belongs to you as your return.
- Opportunity to participate in proposals to enterprises we approach
to set up more such Economies, especially as Business
- Ecosystems for addressing high uncertainty.
Most importantly, if we can find this to work, then our Economy of
Wishes will show us how to value relationships as a wealth that enterprises
can invest in responsibly. Our Economy of Projects will show how such
enterprises can hire people to publicly contribute their creative energies
to build up this wealth of relationships.
I am glad that I can approach you, and I am pleased that I may offer this
proposal. I imagine you have many endeavors for which we might adapt
our ideas. I await your response!
Andrius
Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
http://www.ms.lt
ms@ms.lt
+1 (773) 651-3785
Chicago, Illinois