Thanks so much for replying Steve! I certainly buy into the decentralization of the economy into microbusinesses. I wonder though, if it's possible to decentralize the company itself. A "starfish company," if you will.
For example. Take the same principles that drive the development of open source software, but instead of developing free software, your community performs a service or sells a product for a profit. Everyone in the community is paid based on the value of the contribution to the desired goal. It would be different from a standard profit making company because it is headless. Well, as much as an open source project is headless. Certainly there will be community leaders. Also, the founder of the company has to step down, out of the way of community. If you run down the "commons based peer production" laundry list of necessities and apply them to a business they might look something like this: (I got this list from Bruce Sterling at SWSWi 07, whom I believe derived it from Yochai Benkler's work in a "The Wealth of Networks." Though I could be mistaken.) 1) Granular work loads - The workload must be able to be distributed across the community 2) Self selected - Members choose to join you. You don't select them. 3) In or out mechanism - Members may contribute 5 minutes of work and leave or 200 hours. Either way the end goal is enhanced respectively and the member is paid accordingly. 4) Communication - Need clear communication channels 5) Humanization - The community and its members should work on something that is compelling on a human level. 6) Trust - Members trust each other. Customers trust the community. 7) Norm Creation - AKA there is a company culture 8) Transparency - No NDA's. No secrete elite VP board room meetings. No unaccounted for monies. 9) Monitoring - The community policies for rotten members 10) Peer Review - Members review and rate each others work. Everyone knows who stacks up in the community. This, in conjunction to the amount of work performed, is how you come up with who gets paid what amount. 11) Fairness - It doesn't work if a few people are exploiting the community for their own personal gains. Transparency helps keep it fair. 12) Sustainability - It's gotta' be profitable, or at least break even and be compelling. An example might be a company that made an open source version of SalesForce.com and then charged other companies for the service of technical support, hosting, or customizations. Again without any salaried employees or stock holders. The money is going back into the community and then to the members that the community deems has earned it. Further, that company doesn't even have an office, the company members collaborate face-to-face via coworking spaces, and over long distances via the internet. The infrastructure is distributed. Hosting may even be done on a grid of community member's computers, with those member being paid for the use of their idle processing power and bandwidth. No interviews, no bosses, no owners, no HR, just peers with peer- review and "commons based peer production" mechanisms in place. Does this seem like a possible scenario? On Oct 13, 3:34 pm, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi: > > My name is Steve King and I'm the project leader for the Future of > Small Business report you reference (and thanks for the reference:)). > To make a long story short, we agree that coworking is part of a > broader, long term shift towards economic decentralization. I've been > following this group for some time (as a lurker) because coworking is > an interesting example of the impact of the growth of personal > (meaning solo) businesses . > > We see coworking as a supporting trend - by that we mean coworking > facilities and the coworking movement is a sub-trend of the broader > trend towards more personal and microbusinesses (1-5 employees). > There are many impediments to successfully building a personal or > microbusiness, and coworking helps overcome some of these. In > particular, providing a social environment and access to a broader > work-related network is extremely useful and potentially very powerful > - but of course anyone on this group gets all this. > > I'm not ready to declare privately developed software dead. There is > a clear trend towards open source software and meta revenue models for > software. This is even more true for software aimed at consumers. > However proprietary software will be with us for a long time and will > continue to dominate many segments for at least the next decade, if > not longer. This is particularly true for enterprise software and > most B2B software. Whether or not you consider software as service > business models meta or not, most are not open source and companies > like Salesforce.com will continue to do well for some time. > > Stevewww.smallbizlabs.com > > On Oct 12, 9:27 am, Dusty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > What if coworking is more than a space for independents? What if it's > > part of turning business on it's head? > > > I'll frame this with 3 sub plots "Revolutions" then I'll get to my > > main point. Tell me if you think I'm smoking crack. :) > > > Revolution #1 - The fall of privately developed software > > > Software quickly approaches a value of $0 over time as it becomes > > obsolete. In the mean time open source software is gaining ground on > > privately developed software. Even Google doesn't make money on > > selling it's software, it makes money on advertising. So (here comes > > insight from 2005), let's assume the next wave isn't making software > > and selling it, it's making software and making $ in a "meta" way > > around that software. Such as selling ads (Google), or supporting it, > > as in a technical services company that's keen to open source > > development. Yes, web services as a business are big now. But I'll > > argue that even products like Basecamp aren't exempt from open source > > competition (see activeCollab). And web services actually make their $ > > in a "meta" way. They manage the hosting for their customers. > > > Revolution #2 - Rise of the independent worker > > > The days of company, employee loyalty are over. Gen-Y doesn't trust > > big corporations and the baby boomers are pissed they lost their > > pensions. Also technology has given individuals the ability to work > > remotely and independently of a single employer. Check > > outhttp://http-download.intuit.com/http.intuit/CMO/intuit/futureofsmallb... > > for more on the rise of the independent worker. > > > Revolution #3 - Coworking spaces form > > > I don't need to explain why coworking spaces are forming to this > > group. :) > > > So with these 3 things in mind. Wouldn't it make sense for a coworking > > community to create a decentralized service company based on open > > source values? Thus creating a company with near 0 full-time > > employees. And is instead powered by independent workers who are > > already gathered in a coworking space and community and may come and > > go as they please. > > > In other words. Could you take open source values, a coworking > > community, and create a decentralized company that supports it's > > community and rewards it's contributers fairly based on the value of > > their contribution? > > > Thoughts? --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to coworking@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
