Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier
Howard Rheingold
ISBN-13: 9780262681216
This book, as the title suggests, offers its readers a tour of the virtual world; a world where digital bits of information are instantaneously zipped/zapped across the globe. Countless online communities have sprung up since this book was originally published in 1993, and some of the phrasing used can date author, but the overall ideas brought out by this book are still as relevant today as they were in a pre-Google internet. Through his own personal experience in online communities, the author mixes together factual information and personal stories to bring these virtual worlds to life. He offers his readers the idea that virtual reality is a world much like reality; it is a world where people can talk and argue about topics, they can seek out information on their interests, romantics can fall in love, organizations can generate interest in their causes, and yes, you can even get swindled online. The book has been updated recently to include additional information relating to the logarithmic growth of the online community. This book will give its reader a good picture of what was happening online around the turn of the century and points to some trends that may have already begun and even some that may be extended out over the course of the next one.
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The internet seems to be exactly what any user dreams it to be; that is, the internet is turning into all things to all people. We had better make sure that we are using this most powerful tool correctly for the betterment of humanity and the improvement of our local communities.
When it comes to communicating with friends and family, the internet is better than the telephone in that it can carry multiple conversations simultaneously and keep a record of them for future reference. When it comes to buying things online, nothing beats the convenience of looking for the perfect product at the perfect price from the comfort of your own living room. When it comes to writing a research report for school or work, nothing beats the power of having every book in every library, as well as commentary on those books, all in a small little laptop that you can carry around with you. While the examples just cited may be ‘popular’ uses of the internet, another less popular use of the computer is gaining ground. There is developing a use for the computer that makes the way we have been manufacturing and producing goods up until now obsolete. This new method of developing consumer goods guarantees satisfaction while increasing the efficient use of materials. By streamlining the design and development phase with consumer input, not only can society cut down on waste, but businesses can also boost their sales.
Of course, I am talking about open-source collaboration. What exactly is open-source collaboration, you say? Another name for it is mass collaboration; does this ring any bells yet? Well, of course, Wikipedia is probably the most famous mass collaboration project to date. If you don’t hop on to the Wikipedia website at least once per day, you are probably not gaining as many insights into culture, history, economics, or even philosophy and psychology as the next person who does.
The Wikipedia resource is a compilation that is constructed by regular online users. The fundamental precept for Wikipedia’s development is that we are all a specialist in one or another topic. Even if I do not know every detail on a specified topic, someone else can come along and fill in the blanks. The idea that we can all compile our collective knowledge into a central source that we can then all benefit from was the catalyst for Wikipedia’s development. The service is completely free because it is created by the very people that use it.
Collaboration is a very different concept that cooperation. Collaboration entails that each participant is intimately involved in the project; this means that each contributor has a full understanding of the project’s goals and objectives and the ability to monitor the project as it is being developed. Unlike cooperation, where the goal is to simply work together, collaboration entails that working together is the process that allows the project to include more people’s ideas and, therefore, become better.
The idea that if more people contribute to the development of an idea or a product then the product or idea will become better is a new one. Before the internet, most ideas were kept secret so that their ‘owners’ could claim some kind of proprietary rights or copyright or patent information. This age of owning information is beginning to show its weaknesses, and a new generation of thinkers are coming of age who do not necessarily need to possess knowledge in order to own it.
This is truly a new idea is the evolution of modern society. For the first time, governments and businesses can tap into the regular citizenry to find out what would work best in terms of policy or products.
How do governments and businesses and, hence, customers and the environment benefit from mass collaboration? Take for example climate policy. By opening up a public comment page that is organized into varying subtopics and degrees of interest, an overall structural web can be created. Professionals from the scientific and business community can then develop implementation plans that are then recycled back through the public domain where they are once again fleshed out for environmental, social, and economic impact in local communities. The central concept in mass collaboration is that all stakeholders receive an opportunity to have their concerns voiced.
Gone are the days where businesses make secret backroom deals that negatively affect the larger community. Gone are the days where powerful lobby groups receive special treatment in the form of government subsidies for their industries’ pollution and inefficient production methods. Gone are the days where the 'Corporate Bill of Rights' trumps the U.S. Bill of Rights and The Constitution.
The internet has opened up a window of opportunity for the modern world in order to assist us in cleaning up the mess created during the Industrial Age. In order to make use of this opportunity, it is necessary to put aside traditional notions of economic competition; do Coke and Pepsi really need to compete, or can they work on streamlining their manufacturing processes to use less energy, as well as a method to recycle their cans and bottles, and even a formula to produce a healthier product? What about oil companies; do they really need to work in direct opposition to renewable energy, or can they begin collaborating on how to bring abundant, free, clean energy to market? This 'Corporate Reformation' period that we need to go through as a society will have a never-ending supply of industries, companies, and processes to work through.
Essential to our survival, as the earth becomes more crowded and more flat (as Friedman points out in his book) we have to remember that whatever is produced today will still be around tomorrow. Will what we produce become a feedstock for another of society’s essential processes, or will it produce more toxins that will ultimately poison our water supply and atmosphere.
Mass collaboration helps us understand the full impact of our actions on every stakeholder. The concept that multiple perspectives of an idea yield a smarter product, and that smarter products consume less resources and dissipate back into the consume cycle or the environment more easily is something that the internet has brought to the foreground of global consciousness. Currently, the world is ripe for change; it is ready to begin a new era where secrecy is shunned and openness yields new perspectives and the possibility that there are enough resources to go around. Mass collaboration requires that all stakeholders share the allotted resources equally. Gone are the days of hoarding more for ‘me and my own’.
This is the fundamental thinking behind many of today’s open-source collaborative communities that are beginning to spring up. These online spaces create domains around specific topics where users can gather to collect and share information. Individuals can contribute their own information that will be reviewed by their peers and learn from the most current discussion going on around real world problems and issues. These kind of systems do not have a centralized governance structure; rather, they are a collection of mostly self-organized communities, monitored by the very people that use the services. There are no lobby groups acting on behalf of the more powerful members trying to create favorable policy in order to obtain more of the resources within the system for themselves.
An organization created by MIT students has set up a mass collaboration community. Thinkcycle is a non-profit online community. It is essentially a collection of ideas from students, professionals, citizens, and organizations worldwide connected through a collaborative communication structure. Thinkcycle acts as the hub around which topical communities are linked. The communities allow users to access current information and not only become more aware and interactive in their ideas regarding solutions to some of today’s most critical problems by continuing ongoing dialogue with people who have similar interests, but also creates a catalogue of ideas for others to reference in the future. Of course, the nature of the topics changes over time as society continues to evolve, but this is the beauty of mass collaboration; it is fluid and ever-changing, just like the human condition.
These types of communities on the internet are changing the way companies do business. Thinkcycle and other groups like them are proving that collaborative design methods far outweigh the secrecy inherent in capitalistic competition in terms of social, environmental, and financial benefits. Thinkcycle is proving that collaborative design is producing a win-win-win-win outcome; business cut down on costs, the consumer gets a product they want, resources are preserved, and waste is minimized.
If capitalism is going to be respected in its current form, then there are bound to be products whose development is not suitable for open source collaboration. If this is the case, then companies will always reserve the right to gain a competitive edge through secrecy, but this open-source collaborative approach will always be more appropriate in larger, more community-based initiatives like healthcare, utilities, transportation, and disaster recovery. When it is critical to facilitate the organization of large amounts of information from multiple sources, collaborative models are the most effective choice. As for Coke and Pepsi (and The Colonel), we will let them keep their secrets for a few more years.
There are many reasons why the business world will evolve, slowly at first, but into its more sustainable collaborative form in the near future. First, the growing human population on the planet is depleting resources at a rate that cannot support our own future development, so companies will have to manage a limited feedstock and innovation that can stretch supply will evolve from fashionable to necessary to mandatory. Second, growing poverty and an increase in natural disasters, combined with modern media devices, is causing companies to become more aware of the repercussions of their business decisions. By the end of this century, companies that collaborate with stakeholders in the development of their products will far outnumber those companies that do not. The companies that employ secretive measures to hide unethical behavior are soon to become criminal, archaic, then extinct.
The idea of using the concept employed at MIT in other areas of learning did not require a far stretch of the imagination. ePals has created a social network that allows participants from anywhere in the world to share information and work together to solve problems. Right now, students in over 200 countries participate. When students are able to connect ideas in their books with people and places, an excitement for learning is developed. This new opportunity that ePals affords its users is unique to the degree that the communication is instantaneous. To be able to work together with people in other countries rather than in competition with them is creating a new breed of human being along our evolutionary trend.
In2Books is another learning community geared toward students. The concept of changing competition into collaboration is a generational project because of the nature of the beast. Almost the entire evolutionary spread of human development has been centered around competition. To undo all of the physiological as well as psychological impulses and aspects involved in retraining the mind is an arduous task; to do this overnight is not realistic.
In schools across the country, emphasis is being placed more on collaborative learning methods instead of the traditional competitive nature of tests and grades. The social/emotional development of students is something that is considered on students; report cards in more and more schools. The process of collaboration is trickling into teaching theory and is being taught to new teachers in more and more teacher training programs across the country.
The trend of mass collaboration will continue because a multi-dimensional future is the direction that our business, social, environmental, and local communities are headed. Ever since schools became responsible for shaping the societies of the future, they have had a responsibility to uphold our most idealistic visions.
___________________web recommendation
Dassault Systems
www.3ds.com
This is a company (business enterprise) that is focused on lifecycle assessment (LCA) and collaborative product development (CPD) and fuses them together into a concept they call PLM or product lifecycle management. They make computer software that allows product manufacturers to be able to view their ideas in a simulated reality. This ability to try things out and extrapolate trends and issues when processes are broadened out into economies of scale is an invaluable tool. This software not only allows all members along the chain of production, from conception to production to maintenance to recycling, the ability to communicate freely and visually in a 3-dimensional format through the use of the computer and collaborative formats, but it also incorporates input from the consumer into the design. This ability to visualize reality before acting in it saves companies untold sums of money in failed ideas, and society untold sums in removing or storing waste; for this reason, this type of software will be the way business ideas are brought to fruition in the future.
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