ICTlogy

Some conversations with Ricard Faura — head of the Knowledge Society Service at the Catalan Government — about my recent research have triggered some questions that need being clarified.

The following lines are a very simplified approach on what I think should be the design of public policies to foster ICT usage in a place like Catalonia or Spain, though it is my guess that it can be extrapolated to most developed countries facing similar problems like Spain’s.

Barriers for adoption

In general — and again, being really simplistic with the analysis — there are three main issues identified as a barrier for ICT adoption in Spain and a third issue that, unlike developing countries, it is identified as not being a barrier:

• Age (and some would add gender) is a barrier: younger generations are way more online than older ones, being dramatic in elder people
• Skills present a barrier too, as people do not feel confident, or even threatened, by Information and Telecommunication Technologies
• Indeed, most people not using ICTs also state that they find them useless. Thus, utility and attitude are also a dire barrier and the one with a strongest trend.
• Last, and in general terms, infrastructures and affordability are not a barrier or, at least, they are not stated as being as important as other reasons for lack of usage.

Critique

I believe that the previous barriers can be summed up in just one single barrier: lack of utility of ICTs, with a stress on lack of utility on being online.

This lack of utility can be explained in two ways:

• A real lack of utility, mainly due to lack of digital content and services that fits one’s purposes, be them personal or professional: for leisure, for activism, for work, for training en education, for health, etc.
• A perceived lack of utility, mainly due to lack of e-awareness and not knowing the benefits (or a real measure of the costs) that ICTs can bring to one’s life. This lack of e-awareness, of course, can be accompanied by the lack of several digital skills, which create a vicious circle: less digital skills, less e-awareness; and so.

What about age? I believe that youngsters — besides the fact that they find ICTs not technologies but something that was always there since they were born — have already found ICTs useful: they absolutely fit their needs in matters of education (the Internet is full of stuff) and in matters of socialization (the “communication” part of ICTs), which are the two main “occupations” of people under 16.

Policies

So. We’ve got digitally illiterate people and people that cannot find in the Internet anything worth being connected. What to do from the government?

Concerning utility, my own research shows that pull strategies are the ones that work. It’s absolutely coherent, on the other hand, with trying the Internet to make sense for unconnected people. More hardware or software or broadband will just put stress on the citizen to use something for “nothing at all”. In my opinion, policies should be threefold:

• A high commitment to put public services and the dialogue government-citizenry online, by means of e-Administration and e-Government
• Help the private sector not to have an online presence, but to go beyond and use the Internet for their transactions, with the government (G2B, a part also of the e-Administration strategy) and with their customers (B2B and B2C)
• Last, but not least, empower the citizenry to bring relevant content and debate online. Citizen organizations (political parties, NGOs, neighbourhood associations, patient associations, foundations, clubs, etc.) would be my pick as huge impact collectives which to begin with, as they’ll have manifest multiplier effects by pulling other citizens towards the use of ICTs.

Concerning skills, there three groups of evidences that are worth being remembered:

• People with digital skills are more likely to be more productive and, hence, to earn higher wages. On the other hand, lack of digital skills is likely to reduce employability.
• People with digital skills go more online and happen to meet more people, which improves both their social engagement (and self-esteem and so) and their professional opportunities.
• Digital skills are, by far, acquired on an autodidact basis or, in the best cases, on a P2P basis (family, friends, colleagues). Formal training in digital skills is only partially present in schools and is rare past school age.

That said, and again in my opinion, policies should be threefold:

• Urgently mainstream ICTs — in a very broad and intensive sense — in curricula and syllabuses. This mainstreaming should be based in two approaches: (1) training for trainers and (2) embedding ICT practices in the overall learning process (i.e. not just bound to the computing subject or classroom — though I’m neither saying students should forget about pencil and paper)
• A proactive public strategy aimed to people out of the educational system to catch up with these skills, by means of telecenters and libraries (and other points of access), subsidised courses in computing academies, etc.
• A joint strategy with the private sector to do alike in their in-company training programmes. The public sector could provide training for decision-takers to raise their e-awareness and even help with funding in-company digital skills programmes. But, the private sector should be committed enough, as the benefits are evident and would sooner or later positively impact the firm with higher productivity rates.

Summing up

I honestly think that pull policies to trigger demand (trigger, not contribute to the aggregate demand with direct expenditure) would, sooner or later, trigger to a demand for training in digital skills, which implicitly states in which order I’d be setting these policies.

These what-to-do-policies also, by construction, set aside the what-not-to-do-policies. If we keep in mind we’re talking about (digitally) developed countries and their characteristics, policies not to foster are mainly those aimed at subsidising hardware or connectivity in any way, or fostering the creation and expansion of infrastructures and carriers without anything to be carried on. Static and eminently informational public or corporate websites fully fit in this category; and also fits in this category the creation of content with no further purpose or strategy of usage behind.

Some bibliography

The next 5th Internet, Law and Political Science Congress has been scheduled for 6th and 7th July 2009. Organized by the School of Law and Political Science at the Open University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain), the event has evolved into an interesting forum where it is highlighted what’s happening nowadays in the fields of law and cyberlaw, intellectual property rights, privacy, data protection, freedom, political engagement, politics 2.0, empowerment, etc.

Aimed to both researchers and practitioners, during the four editions that we’ve been running the congress, we’ve had here people the like of Jonathan Zittrain, John Palfrey, Eben Moglen, Helen Margetts, Lillian Edwards, Yves Poullet, Erick Iriarte, Stefano Rodotà or Benjamin Barber, among others.

The main topic this year is social networking sites (SNSs, in a broad sense). We want to have sessions were at least two speakers present opposite points of view (pros and cons). The programme (almost closed, though some changes might apply) is as follows:

• Keynote speech with James Grimmelmann, providing an analysis of the law and policy of privacy on social network sites, and an evaluation of some possible policy interventions.
• Session 1: Social Networking Sites and Individual rights, privacy, intellectual property rights, image rights, intimacy…,
  chaired by Raquel Xalabarder and featuring Jane Ginsburg, Antoni Roig and Alain Strowel.
• Session 2: Data protection and SNSs,
  chaired by Mònica Vilasau and featuring Franck Dumortier, Esther Mitjans and Maya Nieto
• Session 3: Access to public information and SNS
  chaired by Ismael Peña-López and featuring José Manuel Alonso, Jordi Graells, and one/two more speaker(s) TBC.
• Session 4: Policies for a secure Internet,
  chaired by Agustí Cerrillo and featuring Salvador Soriano Maldonado and Nacho Alamillo.
• Session 5: Public participation and SNSs,
  chaired by Ana Sofía Cardenal and featuring Rachel Gibson (TBC), José Antonio Donaire and Ricard Espelt.

Daithí Mac Sithigh will be the official reporter of the event, providing, at the end of each day, a summary of the main subjects dealt in that day’s sessions.

More information

• Official website: http://www.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2009/engl/index.html
• Dates: 6th and 7th July 2009
• Venue: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Rambla de Catalunya, 6, Barcelona, Spain
• The event is free.
• Official tags: idp2009 and idp
• Liveblogging at: Lexferenda and ICTlogy
• Event in Facebook (Spanish)
• Event in Facebook (English)
• Notes and videos from the 4th Internet, Law and Political Science Congress (2008)
• Notes from the 3rd Internet, Law and Political Science Congress (2007)

Last May 14th 2009 I imparted a seminar entitled Measuring digital development for policy-making: Models, stages, characteristics and causes. The role of the government in the framework of the Internet, Law and Political science research seminar series that take place at the School of Law and Political Science, Open University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain)

Though I had previously presented part of my phd research in public, this is officially the first time that I present final results.

The presentation only shows a brief introduction to Part II (quantitative analysis) and partial highlights from Part III (quantitative/statistical analysis), which makes most slides quite cryptic without a speaker (more cryptic, I mean).

Put short — very short —, after defining a conceptual framework (the 360º digital framework) the research draws 4 stages of digital development (after cluster analysis), the three of which are but different levels of a similar digital development path, and the fourth of them a completely different digital development model: leapfroggers.

These stages of digital development are characterized (a profile for each of them is described), and some determinants (causes) for this digital development (or underdevelopment) are calculated by means of logistic regressions.

Main ideas/findings

The research shows the huge importance of governments in framing and fostering digital development, which is more important and should be more direct the less digitally developed is a specific economy.

It is important to note that government action should be, firstly, focused in framing and give incentives to the real economy, entrepreneurship and innovation; and secondly, to foster the digital economy by means of providing it with an appropriate policy and regulatory framework but also by means of “pull” strategies.

Thus said, the findings show that digital development is compatible with both liberal and Keynesian policies, and that supply-side policies and direct intervention are only worth applying below a minimum threshold of infrastructures. After some infrastructure is installed, policies should especially focus to trigger demand (not to increase the aggregate demand, which is a completely different thing).

This goes against the belief that the government should subsidise computers or content; but it also goes against the belief that the government should just care for the regulatory framework: public policies are a determinant of digital development.

What policies then? Fostering digital services, both private supplied as public e-services, as these services will pull de demand more effectively than other kind of policies.

Two caveats:

• Basic development (income, health, education, equality) accompanies any other kind of digital development, which means that it has to be addressed first hand and, indeed, be the target itself where to apply the benefits of digital development.
• Leapfroggers show that another model from the previous one is possible. It is my concern, nevertheless, how a model based in a powerful ICT Sector aimed towards international trade will impact the domestic economy beyond an eminently direct level. In other words, policies fostering a domestic digital development will have both direct and indirect multiplier effects, the latter being the most powerful ones and, maybe, absent in a leapfrogger model.

Citation and downloads

On Wednesday 13th May 2009, 17:30, I will be speaking at the 4th session of the seminar series e-Research: oportunidades y desafíos para las ciencias sociales (e-Research: opportunities and challenges for social sciences), side by side with Antonio Lafuente.

My part of the seminar will give a practical insight into eResearch — or Enhanced Research —, a concept that meets in the same crossroads as Open Science, Science 2.0 and e-Science do. Unlike what is generally believed, I don’t think about eResearch or Science 2.0 (the two more neighbouring approaches) as opposite to “traditional” science, but as a complement, as a next step, as an enhancement as the name itself implies. Of course, the more an enhancement is mainstreamed, the more it is likely not to enhance but to transform the enhanced subject. Thus, I believe that the Internet brings an inflexion in the practice of Science (and all knowledge-related practices — dozens of them), and that it is only a matter of time to see how new literacies are a must to keep on with such practices.

That said, the presentation begins with a (very) simplified scheme of a researcher’s timeline — again, the extrapolation into other knowledge-based jobs is almost immediate —, from having an idea to seeing it published on a peer reviewed academic journal, and including (some of) the steps the researcher usually goes through.

The timeline is then complemented — enhanced — by some “2.0” practices that can potentially help the researcher (the knowledge worker) in their work. One of the key points to stress here is that for this potential to (a) materialize and (b) have a positive return of investment, it is strictly necessary to mainstream the “2.0” practices in the researcher’s everyday life. At least in a higher degree (e.g. 80%).

For instance: this post is but my own guidelines to impart the seminar, which exist not in paper;the presentation that follows is the one I will be using; and the reference to my bibliographic manager feeds the database with the bibliographies I work with, the online repository of my works and my online CV; hence the only “added” effort is uploading the zipped file of the presentation.

More information

• Citation information and downloads of the presentation
• e-Research: oportunidades y desafíos para las ciencias sociales, official website of the seminar series
• The personal research portal, collection of works (of mine) in the field of eResearch
• Research Blogs and Blogging for Science Diffusion, (non comprehensive) collection of works (by several authors) in the field of blogging and science in particular, and eResearch in general
• This event in Facebook

I want to thank Adolfo Estalella, Elisenda Ardèvol and all the Mediacciones research group for the idea of setting up this series of seminars — thanking (or blaming) them for inviting me, this falls on the audience.

NOTE: to comfortably browse the presentation in Prezi.com, open it in a new window, click once in the presentation, and use Page Up and Page Down to move along “slides”.

Notes from the I+C+i. Liberty, equality and P2P conference held in Barcelona, Spain, on March 31st, 2009. For more information about the event please see I+C+i. Liberty, equality and P2P (part I).

The Bank of Common Knowledge
Olivier Schulbaum, Platoniq

There’s more in P2P than file sharing — and way more than music or movie “piracy” —. Can P2P networks change citizenry, engagement or governance? Is it a new way of thought? Is it citizenship empowerment?

Relevant questions to pose to ourselves:

• Can we create culture together?
• Is self-management and self-government possible?
• Are the commons or public ownership possible?

P2P is shared resources in the digital era. Can it be translated into the analogue world?

Olivier Schulbaum presents the Bank of Common Knowledge, a project that applies P2P tools in the “analogue” world to work with and create communities that share knowledge. Tools emanate from the free software movement, enacted by a network of volunteers.

The Bank of Common Knowledge (BCK) works at two levels: cells, that cluster interests and experts in long-term exchange experiences; and microtasks, aimed to quick exchange of knowledge. Besides these two main axes, other models apply: consultancy, handbooks, etc.

One of the main goals of the BCK is to replicate it elsewhere or to apply it to different environments (the University, the corporation…), as though as benchmarking other experiences like banks of time, etc.

Framing a P2P Society
Ismael Peña-López, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

(see I+C+i. Liberty, equality and P2P (part I)).

Liberty, equality and P2P
Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation

How do we change the society? We come from a tradition where “there is no alternative” to the economic and social system we’re living in. It was believed that only power could bring change in. But the end of slavery at the end of the Roman Empire was a matter of a social change that emerged bottom-up, not top down from the power. The Industrial Revolution was also a grassroots approach to disclose new patterns of doing things, in this case moving from land to capital.

We now see new patterns emerging, new forms of property and new ways of producing and of social practices. We are building a new society which sees new ways of disaggregation, highly decentralized organizations. People aggregate to create added value.

Three new things emerging today:

• The ability to create in common
• The ability of participants to manage the processes, to govern themselves
• The ability to protect the resulting value from private appropriation

P2P is a third mode of production, governance and property.

Centralization is no more needed: we can broadcast our needs and people will aggregate around tasks according to their profiles and the described needs. Indeed, we have design from inclusion, where design itself is collaboration based.

• No more division of labor, but distribution
• No exclusivity, but inclusivity
• No composite tasks, but granular
• No finished products, but unfinished artifacts

If we lower costs of access and transaction, motivation will enable the emergence of common interests and cluster communities together.

If a traditional for profit company faces an open community, it is likely to loose: Britannica vs. Wikipedia, Explorer vs. Firefox, etc.

Key factors of success:

• Motivation, based on self-interest — not extrinsic, enforced, monitorized motivation
• P2P brings externalities into the system
• P2P makes it possible to create things that the market cannot commoditize and/or set prices in exchange of it
• Innovation stays within the system and is added up to the process — it is not taken away from an external owner

Open design and open innovation as the core of the evolution forward of P2P production.

The crisis of value: “making things is not more interesting”, as added value in manufactures is dropping. Marketing information does not make any much sense any more, as information is abundant, the information economy just will not work. Only open design will work.

Business models move along two axes: open vs. close and paid vs. free. Traditional business models work on a paid+closed basis. The free software business model works on an open+paid model: you charge not on the product, but on services around it. Closed+free is based on a portfolio approach. Last, open+free is based on common value.

The role of capital has changed: to innovate, in many cases you don’t need capital any more. There is a divorce between entrepreneurism and capitalism.

The core value of the whole system will be the P2P process, based on a gift economy, on values, and away from a market based core paradigm, where everything is a commodity.

To enable a P2P society we need distributed institutions.

Q & A

Enric Senabre: Isn’t it fragile to have everything distributed, dis-allocated, in remote places? A: Opennes creates value, and closeness captures it. Communities can create the necessary social struggles to avoid fragilities to break. On the other hand, struggles of control are needless if everyone gets its benefit/profit from the community.

Enric Senabre: sharing and helping as way of living isn’t an ancient concept, religiously talking? A: It is scarcity that creates hierarchies. It is very different being a teacher or a facilitator than being a guru or a priest. There’s an ethic or moral difference there.

Oliver Schulbaum: do we need a state of the commons? A: We need an enabling authority, an institution that fosters social innovation so that the community becomes more competitive. If you loose your job, the Welfare State will pay you to do nothing (which is better than starving). But if you can keep on contributing in an open system, you can do things, create value, get a reputation, continue to be active and productive. We need institutes of the commons, incubators and we have to create mechanisms, new ways of patronage so that people can contribute in projects.

Q: What are the risks of losing net neutrality? What other freedoms are in danger? A: The good news are that people have been able to create organized decentralized coalitions to efficiently fight for their rights.

Ismael Peña-López: we’ve talked about engaging and enabling motivation. What do we do with the failures of the P2P model, e.g. free-riders or people that objectively add little or no value? A: P2P processes (1) getting people (2) selection and (3) defending from your enemies or infections. Free-riding might not be an issue in a world of abundance, where there is no scarcity and no competition or for consumption. So, free-riding does not destroy P2P, to say the least. And it can even be a learning process. Of course P2P is not perfect, but it’s better than the existing system.

Q: How do we create social networks owned by the citizens, how do we gain autonomy from proprietary and closed platforms? A: sharing and commons modes are different, and we have to decide what model do we want. The P2P model can be based on both modes. And, indeed, communities have to be conscious that enablers (e.g. YouTube or FaceBook) do have to get support (funding) for their job.

Maria Jesús Salido: how far do have to go until the P2P model is fully sustainable? can it be applied in a mixed model where traditional capitalist systems live together with P2P initiatives? Can e.g. intellectual property rights, backing systems, etc. allow for P2P initiatives? A: It is possible to create P2P communities compatible with a non-P2P framework.

More Information

• Interview to Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwens used an abridged version of the following presentation:

The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (Contemporaneous Culture Center of Barcelona) is organizing the Research and innovation in the cultural sphere conference (I+C+i in its abbreviation in Catalan) during the whole year 2009.

On March 31, 2009, there is a session belonging to the conference entitled I+C+i. Liberty, equality and P2P, chaired by Olivier Schulbaum and I, and imparted by Michel Bauwens.

I have been invited to provide a very brief framework about the subject, so that Bauwens can go straight to the core of the issue and deal with the revolutions that P2P can bring to the creation of culture, political and civic engagement and participation or the producing economy.

So, in 10 minutes I will present the main lines of the following statements:

• Digital tools have reduced marginal costs of transactions nearly to zero, making necessary a redefinition of concepts such as firm, group, distance, original & copy, send, time, etc.
• The most important commodity in the Information Society is information. It acts as input, output and capital at the same time and it is not scarce, but abundant. Value is not embedded in itself (as, say, food) but in being able to convert it into knowledge.
• P2P is free circulation of information, based on two assumptions: information is abundant (valueless) and transactions are costless.
• There is a huge potential in P2P to foster many advancements in society — way beyond file sharing — like government and politics (goverati, citizen mashups), education (casual and distributed education, deschooled society), science (open science, eScience, eResearch, grids) or production (design & fabs, networking), just to name a few.

Follow and participate

• March 31, 2009. CCCB (El Mirador), Montalegre, 5 – 08001 Barcelona.
• Live in streaming in Open Server
• Official hashtag: #leP2P
• Michel Bauwens @ Twitter: @mbauwens
• Platoniq @ Twitter: @platoniq
• Ismael Peña-López @ Twitter: @ictlogist
• I+C+i. Liberty, equality and P2P (part II)

More information

• The Political Economy of Peer Production, by Michel Bauwens
• La economía política de la Producción entre iguales, de Michel Bauwens
• P2P Foundation
• P2P Foundation (en Español)
• Coase’s Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm, by Yochai Benkler

Thanks go to Oliver Schulbaum for always counting on me.