Re: [OK] Digest for openkollab@googlegroups.com - 6 Messages in 2 Topics

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Suresh Fernando

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Jan 11, 2010, 10:05:12 AM1/11/10
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James,

Great questions! - see below.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 5:21 AM, Data Pathway <data.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
So, Suresh,
Based on the explanations you have given, is there an intention on the part of openkollab to steer as well as map?
by this I mean: once a clear idea has emerged as to who is doing what, where, will this be plotted against who NEEDS what where, again in terms of a vision of how each individual group (or clusters of groups) efforts drive for a specific paralleled goal?

It's difficult to predict exactly how all of this will unfold and a lot will depend on what are resources are, but you can keep the following in mind:

OK is in discussion Sam Rose and his Forward Foundation team about developing a more expanded approach that will broaden the service offering beyond strictly financing. This will include help;
  • Identification of business models,
  • Development of associated strategies (marketing, revenue generation, financial modeling etc)
  • Development of associated collateral materials
  • Etc.
The ultimate goal of the Pooled Fund Initiative is to start the process of creating a completely new way of funding early stage social ventures. Hence we are committed to helping early stage entrepreneurs. That said, we will never have infinite resources and therefore. practically speaking, there will be a focus on projects that:
  • Are a part of an ecosystem that we think we can finance
  • Have resources to pay us for consulting services.
We would love to say that we can help everyone, but I think that would be a misrepresentation.

In that context, a look at what is ultimately needed could reveal what is not being addressed at all, to transition to a new mode of operation.

Absolutely!

As a former GIS project manager, I understand that mapping reveals what your data "knows" about some spatial phenomena, and reveals the gaps or inconsistencies in that knowledge. 

So the real question I am asking is: does anyone have a clear vision of what elements are needed to effect the change we are talking about? and I mean specifics like at what threshold of small scale manufacturing will be needed as a percentage of GDP to impact the current paradigm? 

I certainly don't. I should also say that what is conspicuously absent, to date, from this model is a strategy that is domain specific. This is to say that nothing that I have proposed so far references in any way any specific characteristics of either the manufacturing process or distributed manufacturing. All I have proposed is that we explore the possibility of building collaborative frameworks and pull projects together.

I am hoping to commence conversations this week with some of the actual project leaders, such as yourself, with a view to getting a better understanding of the nuances of the domain itself.

In other words, I would like to be able to develop a logic that gives me insight into what sorts of Distributed Manufacturing projects might be best aligned.

It would be great if you can help us with this in some way. 

Need to dig up a statistician or two... ;-)

Even in asking the question I doubt that the answer conforms to that rigorous a model since that type of analysis typically takes place AFTER the things have changed rather than in anticipation of it.

But, ultimately, if your project does in fact end up financing these ecosystems then by design or accident, you will exert substantial influence on the process by merit of what you choose to support.

True

In the absence of a detailed vision of what portions of our current system need to change makes this potentially quite arbitrary, for what is needed may be non-intuitive as compared to what is desired.

I'm not planning on making value judgments about what/what should not get financed. This is a mechanism that is focused on supporting social entrepreneurs.. Hence it is assumed that all candidates have projects that are of social benefit and therefore are worthy.

So another layer of query is revealed: what exactly are we trying to do to improve our society(s), and what specific changes will help usher those changes in at the quickest pace (or the most sensible pace) (or least disruptive pace).

I think your desire to support progress is laudable, and I support your premise that in forming awareness of parallel activity, duplication will be reduced, since more borrowing of successful results can occur and numerous other benefits are intrinsic to the concept.

I further believe that collaboration on reaching goals, without some contextual framework of the goals potential impact (either positive, neutral or negative) on progress toward an intentional state, is less desirable than choosing goals that develop toward specific and measurable progress within the larger context. 

I don't deny that that collaboration, in and of itself, cannnot be result in negative outcomes. Terrorists effectively collaborate!

That said, my contribution to the human race will be focused on getting people to:
  • Understand the potential positive outcomes of collaboration
  • Develop innovative structures to make this possible
  • In the process provide increased opportunities to those that have great ideas that can benefit possibly benefit humanity but are currently are marginalized

I encourage you to contribute any thoughts and intelligence that supports a particular strategic direction that you think we should pursue.

Also note, that I will be authoring a report on Ecosystems at roughly the end of march on the concept of Ecosystems, that will be an input into the Open Infrastructure Report that is being jointly developed by the Forward Foundation, OK and the P2P Foundation. The broader topic is Ecologies and Ecosystems.

Any substantive analysis could be integrated into my portion of the report. Full credit will obviously be given to the contributing authours.


Let me know what you think.
 
Share your thoughts, please
James






 


On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 1:15 AM, <openkolla...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab/topics

    Eric Hunting <erich...@gmail.com> Jan 10 09:50AM -0700 ^
     
    Actively, there's Open Pario (http://openpario.mime.oregonstate.edu:3000/) Samuel mentioned earlier and the Open Innovation directory project (http://open-innovation-projects.org/) and harkopen (http://twitter.com/harkopen) and Open Source Machine (http://opensourcemachine.org/), which are both more blog-like directories. I strongly suspect that at some point Sourceforge will get into the act too, once the idea of open hardware reaches a certain critical mass in the traditional open software community. I've noticed there seems to be some reluctance in that community to embrace this concept, as if many see it as a passing fad. Maybe the current open hardware projects haven't been sufficiently structured enough to be taken seriously by programmers. Or maybe they're just getting old. That community seems to have been missing the boat or coming on late on a number of things lately, like the OLPC, the software package revolution, net-appliance-based personal computing (what I call distributed computers), ubiquitous computing, open microprocessors, virtual computers (based on programmable gate arrays), etc.
     
    There's also my own ToolBook concept, but that's still just a proposal and it's more focused on the notion of a publishing cooperative as a means of economic support for open hardware development within a collaborative community of Makers, writers, and graphic/media artists. The basic idea is that it's pursuing free and open designs and technologies and a collectivization of open industrial knowledge but are earning a basic living for its participants and supporting the overhead of this work and shared workshop facilities by the income from publishing media about it. (it sometimes looks like Make Media is evolving in this direction, but won't actually commit to something like this) It would also have a world outreach side where it would be using some of its first-world income to support third-world knowledge and appropriate technology distribution through mobile fab labs -which, of course, gives our Maker community very practical things to devise open hardware solutions for. (like the flat-pak refrigerator concept we've been discussing in Open Manufacturing lately)
     
    I'd be happy to contribute where I can, though I've been stretched thin lately. I'm trying to find a way to transition out of the college textbook brokering business I've really come to dislike. (it's gotten to where it's hard for me to even read a book for pleasure anymore because every time I pick one up the thought of the blatant and ubiquitous corruption in academia, the mafia-like practices of the publishers, the growing right-wing political corruption of textbook content and its export overseas, the casual lying and cheating of everyone in the industry at the expense of students, and the worsening resentment of the students themselves just fills me with a sense of disgust) I've two key projects that may lead to this; a T-slot Sourcebook project which is intended to be an introduction to the potential of extruded aluminum T-slot profiles -like the old 80:20 system and the new MakeBeam- and the Utilihab project, which is the development of an open source plug-in house-building system based on larger T-slot profiles. (see http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:T-SlotPavilion1b.jpg http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:T-SlotPavilion1a.jpg http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:MarineEcoVillage.jpg http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:MarineEcoVillage12.jpg) But I'm sort of stymied by a lack of at-hand workshop facilities. Projects like yours, though, may help as they establish networks of fabricators I might be able to contract production from and also as a way of hosting info for these projects for their own promotion. I'm also very active in the space advocacy community and have been working for some years on a futurist writing project called TMP2 (http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) which, if I ever find sufficient illustration, is also intended to produce a book and simple Venus Project style films. So you'll have to bear with me if I'm behind the curve a lot.
     
    Eric Hunting
    erich...@gmail.com
     
     
     
    On Jan 9, 2010, at 1:42 PM, Suresh Fernando wrote:
     

     

    FX Lab <lab...@yahoo.co.uk> Jan 10 09:33PM ^
     
    See how involvement in communities of practice, is helping Rio Tinto people share expertise and collaborate across the group :
     
    http://www.riotinto.com/whatweproduce/376_video_library_6891.asp
     
     
     
    --- On Sun, 10/1/10, Suresh Fernando <sur...@radical-inclusion.com> wrote:
     
     
    From: Suresh Fernando <sur...@radical-inclusion.com>
    Subject: [OK] Re: CloudFab Update & More
    To: "Eric Hunting" <erich...@gmail.com>
    Cc: "Michel Bauwens" <michel...@gmail.com>, "Nick Pinkston" <ni...@cloudfab.com>, "Samuel Rose" <samue...@gmail.com>, openk...@googlegroups.com, media-ecolog...@googlegroups.com, Cooperati...@googlegroups.com, "Peer-To-Peer Research List" <p2pre...@listcultures.org>
    Date: Sunday, 10 January, 2010, 17:01
     
     
    Eric,
     
    Can we arrange a time for a quick chat on Skype? You can find me at sureshf. Over the coming couple of weeks I want to talk to a few folk that are working in this space to get a better feel for what is actually going on. Right now I'm still operating at a pretty theoretical level.
     
    You obviously know a lot about the space and have an informed perspective.
     
    If this works for you, just give me a couple of times and I'll confirm.
     
    Thanks for your interest.
     
    Suresh
     
     
    On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 8:50 AM, Eric Hunting <erich...@gmail.com> wrote:
     
    Actively, there's Open Pario (http://openpario.mime.oregonstate.edu:3000/) Samuel mentioned earlier and the Open Innovation directory project (http://open-innovation-projects.org/) and harkopen (http://twitter.com/harkopen) and Open Source Machine (http://opensourcemachine.org/), which are both more blog-like directories. I strongly suspect that at some point Sourceforge will get into the act too, once the idea of open hardware reaches a certain critical mass in the traditional open software community. I've noticed there seems to be some reluctance in that community to embrace this concept, as if many see it as a passing fad. Maybe the current open hardware projects haven't been sufficiently structured enough to be taken seriously by programmers. Or maybe they're just getting old. That community seems to have been missing the boat or coming on late on a number of things lately, like the OLPC, the software package revolution, net-appliance-based personal
    computing (what I call distributed computers), ubiquitous computing, open microprocessors, virtual computers (based on programmable gate arrays), etc.
     
    There's also my own ToolBook concept, but that's still just a proposal and it's more focused on the notion of a publishing cooperative as a means of economic support for open hardware development within a collaborative community of Makers, writers, and graphic/media artists. The basic idea is that it's pursuing free and open designs and technologies and a collectivization of open industrial knowledge but are earning a basic living for its participants and supporting the overhead of this work and shared workshop facilities by the income from publishing media about it. (it sometimes looks like Make Media is evolving in this direction, but won't actually commit to something like this) It would also have a world outreach side where it would be using some of its first-world income to support third-world knowledge and appropriate technology distribution through mobile fab labs -which, of course, gives our Maker community very practical things to devise open
    hardware solutions for. (like the flat-pak refrigerator concept we've been discussing in Open Manufacturing lately)
     
    I'd be happy to contribute where I can, though I've been stretched thin lately. I'm trying to find a way to transition out of the college textbook brokering business I've really come to dislike. (it's gotten to where it's hard for me to even read a book for pleasure anymore because every time I pick one up the thought of the blatant and ubiquitous corruption in academia, the mafia-like practices of the publishers, the growing right-wing political corruption of textbook content and its export overseas, the casual lying and cheating of everyone in the industry at the expense of students, and the worsening resentment of the students themselves just fills me with a sense of disgust) I've two key projects that may lead to this; a T-slot Sourcebook project which is intended to be an introduction to the potential of extruded aluminum T-slot profiles -like the old 80:20 system and the new MakeBeam- and the Utilihab project, which is the development of an open
    source plug-in house-building system based on larger T-slot profiles. (see http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:T-SlotPavilion1b.jpg  http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:T-SlotPavilion1a.jpg  http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:MarineEcoVillage.jpg  http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/File:MarineEcoVillage12.jpg) But I'm sort of stymied by a lack of at-hand workshop facilities. Projects like yours, though, may help as they establish networks of fabricators I might be able to contract production from and also as a way of hosting info for these projects for their own promotion. I'm also very active in the space advocacy community and have been working for some years on a futurist writing project called TMP2 (http://tmp2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page) which, if I ever find sufficient illustration, is also intended to produce a book and simple Venus Project style films. So you'll have to bear with me if I'm behind the curve a lot.
     
     
    Eric Hunting
    erich...@gmail.com
     
     
     
     
     
     
    On Jan 9, 2010, at 1:42 PM, Suresh Fernando wrote:
     
     
    > Also, we are in the process of putting a team together to scale this process up. Your understanding of the issues in the space would be invaluable. Let me know if you would be interested in getting involved in some way.
     
    > Regards,
     
    > Suresh
     
     
     
     
    --
    Suresh Fernando
    WEBSITE: http://radical-inclusion.com
    WEBSITE: http://wiki.openkollab.com
    BLOG: http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com
    TWITTER: http://twitter.com/sureshf
    FACEBOOK: facebook.com/suresh.fernando
    604-889-8167
     
    --
    This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en
    To post to this group, send email to openk...@googlegroups.com

     

    Suresh Fernando <sur...@radical-inclusion.com> Jan 10 07:58AM -0800 ^
     
    Hey Folks,
     
    The featured project at OpenKollab is the Ecosystem Pooled Fund
    Initiative<http://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ASJ9wl9qbZEzZGM0Z2Jnc2pfMTI1MjhxcXM5eGNq&hl=en>,
    the objective of which is to develop an innovative funding structure to
    finance early stage social venture
    projects<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_entrepreneurship>.
    In developing this structure OpenKollab will begin the process of filling an
    existing whole in the capital markets landscape; the absence of investment
    capital for *early stage social entrepreneurs.*
     
    Central to the structure of the fund concept is the notion of *ecosystems*.
    It also comes up in a lot of my communication, it is a part of the structure
    of our blog <http://mudball.net/openkollab> and it is prominently featured
    in this <http://www.slideshare.net/sureshf/openkollab-project-matching>, and
    other, documents and presentations.
     
    *I think that it is time that I make it clear why the idea of ecosystems is
    central to the OpenKollab view of the world.*
     
    *
    *
     
    *What is an Ecosystem?* In general terms, an ecosystem can be understood as
    a natural set of relationships that exist between projects that makes it
    possible that they *collaborate*. Hence projects that are a part of an
    ecosystem interact with each other, the leaders know each other, and the
    projects are mutually interdependent in some way.
     
    In more specific terms, an ecosystem can consist of projects that share the
    same larger goals, that share common team members, share common customers or
    markets, that are a part of the same value chain (partners, suppliers etc.),
    share a common technology infrastructure etc. There is no theoretical limit
    to what is constitutive of an ecosystem and, in reality, this will be
    determined in practice by talking to projects that might form a part of an
    ecosystem. This is what we are doing as we map out the Distributed
    Manufacturing Space<http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiJ9wl9qbZEzdGRYY2YzRlhHemVMT3ZFd1otSHp0anc&hl=en>.
     
     
    *So at its essence, an ecosystem view of the world makes sense is if
    collaboration across boundaries makes sense in the world that we live in.*
     
    *
    *
     
    *Does Collaboration Across Organizational Boundaries Make Sense?* This is a
    large question that could be understood in two ways:
     
    1. Is collaboration, *as a principle of engagement, *important in the
    modern world?
     
    2. Is collaboration *due to change in communications mechanisms* more
    relevant today than it was in the past?
     
    The answer is a wholehearted yes to both questions!
     
    That said, for the purposes of this discussion let’s focus on 2. I will
    treat 1 on a different occasion.
     
    In addressing two I suspect that I am preaching to the choir. This is to say
    that we all know that the modern world, from the standpoint of
    communication, has the following features:
     
    · Internet connectivity penetration rates are increasing
     
    · Bandwith limitations are being reduced
     
    · The cost of communication is dropping (thank you Skype!)
     
    · Interoperability protocols, applications etc. are evolving
     
    · Social networking platforms (Facebook...) are changing the culture
    of communication
     
    · Processing power is being pushed to the edge of the network
    (Smartphones etc.)
     
    · The real time infrastructure is evolving (Twitter)
     
     
    All of these, and other, socio-technological forces lead to an environment
    and culture of interaction where :
     
    · Information flows freely across organizational boundaries
     
    · Geographic constraints are less meaningful
     
    · Structural limitations on information management don’t constrain
    participation (thousands of people can work on projects!)
     
    · Meetings can be run virtually
     
    · Projects can be managed asynchronously
     
    · Projects can be scaled to involve many people with minimal
    incremental cost
     
    · Your communications infrastructure can be scaled to include many
    people with minimal incremental cost
     
     
    Hence the inhibitors to collaboration and engagement are being reduced.
     
    The coordination cost of working together is dropping dramatically. It is
    simply much easier, and less costly to coordinate the activity of many
    people around the world than it was in the past.
     
    *Or, shall we say, it makes economic sense to collaborate! *
     
    *It, therefore, makes sense to seek out collaboration opportunities as this
    is the most efficient means of organizing resources to satisfy larger
    mission driven objectives! *
     
    (Note that, from a theoretical perspective, it remains to be seen if
    collaboration makes sense for the purely self interested since this is
    a *resources
    efficiency *argument... Since this is an open question, I restrict my
    arguments to the structure of organizational relationships in the social
    venture space.)
     
    *
    *
     
    *If it makes sense to organize ourselves collaboratively, what is the best
    way to structure organizational relationships?*
     
    If it is the case that the best way to achieve objectives is through seeking
    coordinated activity with others, then one must structure ones relationship
    with the world in a manner that makes possible coordinated activity of this
    sort.
     
    In short, one must attempt to organize activity in collaboration with others
    by developing, or participating in, the infrastructure that makes it
    possible for you to:
     
    · *Have visibility into the activity of others in* a manner that
    will make it possible to identify collaboration opportunities.
     
    · *Communicate and explore* ways of working with other projects.
     
    Again, the reason one wants to do this is that the infrastructure cost of
    communication and information exchange is nominal.
     
    Gains that you make in what you learn from each other, and the opportunities
    that will evolve, will far outstrip the cost of the infrastructure over the
    long term.
     
    *
    *
     
    *Ecosystems: the model that supports this view of Intra-Organizational
    Interaction?*
     
    Given the above, we can understand ecosystems as groups of organizations
    that:
     
    · Are related to each other in such a way that they can support and
    learn from each other
     
    · Are connected by a common communications/collaboration
    infrastructure
     
    · That explore, in an open ended way, ways of working together that
    are mutually beneficial.
     
    It makes sense to do this because there is much to be learned from each
    other and it costs little to develop the systems that make this possible.
     
    *
    *
     
    *Ecosystems, Risk Mitigation and Financing*
     
    In organizing groups of projects in this manner, the probability of the
    success of the group of projects is increased, thereby also mitigating risk
    for investors. In mitigating risk for investors, we will be able to flow
    capital into projects that sorely lack capital at this time.
     
    This is the aim of the Ecosystem Pooled Fund Initiative.
     
     
     
    *I hope you will collaborate with us as we work towards bringing to fruition
    these possibilities...*
     
     
    --
    Suresh Fernando
    WEBSITE: http://radical-inclusion.com
    WEBSITE: http://wiki.openkollab.com
    BLOG: http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com
    TWITTER: http://twitter.com/sureshf
    FACEBOOK: facebook.com/suresh.fernando
    604-889-8167

     


--
This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en
To post to this group, send email to openk...@googlegroups.com


--
This is a message from the OpenKollab Google Group located at http://groups.google.com/group/openkollab?hl=en
To post to this group, send email to openk...@googlegroups.com



--
Suresh Fernando
WEBSITE: http://radical-inclusion.com
WEBSITE: http://wiki.openkollab.com
BLOG: http://sureshfernando.wordpress.com
TWITTER: http://twitter.com/sureshf
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/suresh.fernando
604-889-8167
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