[p2p-research] open manufacturing, generalized exchange, and non-market functions

[Michel Bauwens]

From: Erik de Bruijn <erikdebruijn1 at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 4:12 AM
Subject: [OK] Re: Third Part Research On Open Manufacturing
To: OpenKollab <openkollab at googlegroups.com>
Cc: reprap at erikdebruijn.nl


Hi Suresh and friends,

> Ideally it would have some discussion of the market size, market
opportunity etc.
It's hard to speculate on market size for an open manufacturing space,
since open implies there are few borders. It's hard to quantify all
the spill-over value. For the same reasons the studies on the value of
open source software are limited. These usually see how much the
production of the same amount of lines of codes would cost a
traditional organization. But the whole idea is that the output from a
traditional organization would be of a different KIND, even regardless
of scaling characteristics of communities that might be better.
I could even go further, since talking about an alternative to market
based production (nonmarket means that do not depend on market
strategies as Benkler puts it).
See: http://yupnet.org/benkler/archives/15#8

If there are deficits in nonmarket production, e.g. reliance on money
to do experiments, Open Kollab could play an important role here. But
always be careful when introducing market mechanisms into a
functional, non-market system. An example is this:
"Titmuss found that the British system had higher-quality blood (as
measured by the likelihood of recipients contracting hepatitis from
transfusions), less blood waste, and fewer blood shortages at
hospitals. Titmuss also attacked the U.S. system as inequitable,
arguing that the rich exploited the poor and desperate by buying their
blood. He concluded that an altruistic blood procurement system is
both more ethical and more efficient than a market system, and
recommended that the market be kept out of blood donation to protect
the “right to give.”" (excerpt from Wealth of Networks,
http://yupnet.org/benkler/archives/13 )

The potential for "higher quality" resulting from different
motivations is found throughout studies. Von Hippel, as he has an
emphasis on innovation, has encountered this high-quality aspect as
major, breakthrough, radical innovation as opposed to minor,
incremental, conservative innovation. Market production playing an
important role for the latter, nonmarket production being a signifcant
source of the former. (note that both are important, and organizations
can have an important role in diffusing (commercializing) innovation).

In all my searching on this topic, von Hippel has always turned up as
the most authoritative person with most papers on open source and the
democratization of innovation (also due to the book under that name).
Obviously you should read it. It's licensed creative commons but also
for regular sale:
http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/books.htm
What I personally like about DI is that it connects open source,
distributed/collaborative community and user innovation research.
Also, long before the phenomenon got big, he explained the main
reasons for its potential by proposing that most research is rooted in
inaccurate assumptions about the origins of innovation and the real
nature of the innovation process.
"User innovation networks have existed long before and extend far
beyond open source software. Such communities can be found developing
physical products as well."
Hippel, E, von. Horizontal innovation networks--by and for users.
Industrial and Corporate Change. 2007;16(2):293-315. Available at:
http://icc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/doi/10.1093/icc/dtm005.
"In a sense, hardware is becoming much more like software, up to the
point where you actually fabricate an object," von Hippel says.
"That's why you're starting to see open source techniques in hardware.
Design is largely going to shift out from manufacturers to the
communities."

More on this related to open manufacturing:
http://blog.erikdebruijn.nl/archives/71-von-Hippel-and-user-centered-innovation.html

A new article with Eric von Hippel, Jeroen de Jong and myself will
have the full emphasis on open manufacturing. So if you get more tips
for scholary/relevant articles on the topic, please also relay them to
me!

Also:
- Yoachim Benkler from Harvard Business School, Book: The Wealth of
Network, http://yupnet.org/benkler
- C.K. Prahalad, on what Shapeways, Ponoko and other commercial actors
in the ecology are doing (especially his latest book: The new age of
innovation)
- The group of Herstatt, Raasch, Balka, e.a. on open from TUHH,
Germany.
- Balka's Open hardware directory: http://open-innovation-projects.org/
- Some articles by Clay Shirky
- Gerschenfeld, N., FAB (it outlays the thoughts behond the FabLab
movement which he initiated, also see his TED talk)
- Vallance R, Kiani S, Nayfeh S, Foundation OD. Open design of
manufacturing equipment. Mechanical Engineering. 2001:1-12. Available
at: http://www.opendesign.org/CHIRP_Open_Design_Mfg_Equipment.pdf.
 Valance e.a. coined the term open design and were early advocates of
open manufacturing practices.
- I'm probably forgetting dozens of others...

If you like to know more about the phenomenon that is already in place
in open source project, but also many other types of communities:
Generalized exchange. Generalized exchange occurs when “an individual
feels obliged to reciprocate another’s action, not by directly
rewarding his benefactor, but by benefiting another actor implicated
in a social exchange situation with his benefactor and himself” (Ekeh,
1974:48)1 .
A publication by Levine and Shah "Towards a Theory of Large-Scale
Generalized Exchange." Exchange Organizational Behavior Teaching
Journal.

People start giving to groups because they receive from groups. In
practice they receive and give to individuals, but since output is
kept for all to value, it doesn't really matter who gets it.

Let me repeat that it is imminent that we don't just apply/introduce
market mechanisms to nonmarket projects (see Benkler's blood example).
When we keep this in mind we might end up catalyzing an important
paradigm shift, if we forget this, we might just mess up functional
projects!

Erik
http://blog.erikdebruijn.nl/

On Jan 27, 5:29 am, Suresh Fernando <sur... at radical-inclusion.com>
wrote:

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