As collaborative practices spread, public institutions and businesses are beginning to adapt and experiment. OuiShare Fest speaker Javi Creus explains why they are better off in doing so, and sheds light on the challenges and contradictions of today. Strategist - Author - Entrepreneur - Professor - ... These are just a few words that describe what Javi Creus does in his everyday life and illustrate his out-of-the-box thinking. As one of the main thought leaders on the collaborative economy in Spain, Javi researches organisations that are embracing this new development. In "We Are Not Ants" - a book that he co-authored - he advocates for an optimistic approach to the challenges humanity faces. I am happy to have the opportunity to talk with Javi about the current challenges in the collaborative economy and his vision for society.Before envisioning the future, maybe let's start with the past. What got you interested in the collaborative economy in the first place, and why did you decide to get more involved in it?
Javi Creus: I spent a lot of time in late 2010 researching citizen powered initiatives for my book "We are not ants", which aims to show a well informed, optimistic view of the future. My co-authors and I found over 300 examples from all over the world of citizens organizing themselves to serve their own needs, which was so inspiring! This experience was what sparked my interest for the open knowledge, p2p production and collaborative economy movements. You already attended last year´s OuiShare Fest as a speaker. In your view, what has changed in the collaborative economy since then? Javi:
The development has been impressive. Collaborative practices have grown massively and become mainstream in many areas such as for programmers on Github or for the European youth on ridesharing platforms. The collaborative / sharing economy has become widely known as a concept thanks to the interest of the media and the visibility of its communities. In some industries, such as lodging or city transportation, the impact on incumbent businesses has provoked many reactions and forced public administrations to rethink how to regulate these new businesses to benefit the public good. At the same time, some advanced businesses have started experimenting and getting in touch with the collaborative economy themselves.
) I remember you saying in your keynote last May that traditional businesses can either resist or take advantage of the emerging collaborative economy. After one year, do you think this has happened? How do you think these businesses need to adapt?Javi:
As I said before, most business are now receptive to the collaborative economy and eager to experiment. But things are not always easy: basic concepts like mine & yours, customer & producer, partner & competitor, value & revenue, trust & responsibility may change dramatically when you integrate collaborative production systems. My impression is that most businesses see the efficiency generated by sharing resources, but have a hard time adapting to a new mental framework. What new mental framework you are talking about exactly?Javi:
Due to their fear of losing influence, many established institutions and legacy businesses are putting more energy into lobbying, regulating and limiting this new source of wealth, instead of using their position to accelerate and benefit from all the new wealth that is being created.
Since you also do a lot of research around the collaborative economy, could you tell me more about what you are currently working on?Javi:
I've been researching the growth patterns of 50 digital powered organizations (from Wikipedia, to Spotify or AirBnb) that have grown at least 50% per year (in users, revenue and impact) since 2008. As I had predicted, platforms that have taken advantage of the socio-technological landscape as well as distributed or common resources and have integrated these new agents into their system or empowered their customers to find new roles, have grown faster than centralized service organizations. My team and I have also analyzed the detailed growth history of 15 organizations and are researching the enabling factors of growth in different time periods. In 2013, main critics raised their voice about the Sharing Economy,
particularly saying
that some initiatives are nothing but "capitalism in new clothes". Do you agree?Javi:
I believe it is a legitimate criticism and that in the short term, collaborative economy businesses will have to prove day by day that they are capable of doing well. We all expect that a new level of efficiency allows a new level of transparency and more contributions from businesses. We are still in the first phases of adoption of collaborative practices and citizen empowerment, and in that sense this is a transitional moment in which we are still applying old ideas to new realities. I am sure we will see many new organizational designs emerge in the following years. [caption id="attachment_11105" align="alignright" width="269"]
The book is available for download - please click on the image![/caption] It was also discussed that one reason for this development could be that some initiatives are backed by Venture Capital. Do you see a contradiction or friction between venture capital and collaborative communities? If so, do you think new forms of ownership or a separation from markets is needed?Javi:
It is objectively very difficult to support new objectives with traditional financing means, so conflict appears as natural. Collaborative economy and open source projects have been financed by crowdfunding and P2P up to a point, but for the time being it is difficult to think of alternatives to VC in specific stages of growth. On the other hand, professional investors gain a profound insight into the businesses they invest in and can see when a long term view serves it better. Crowdfinancing, project currencies or open value chains are still experimental but promising. Marketplaces are at the centre of collaborative consumption and fundamental for very many other developments in the whole collaborative economy, which is why I think market mechanisms will grow and be introduced in many other aspects of our lives in the future. Regarding the ownership of those marketplaces and platforms we can find a variety of models including foundations, traditional for profit businesses and B-corporations such as Etsy that seek other goals than profit and thus maximize redistribution. I am quite surprised though not to see public institutions or structures such as cooperatives as main actors in this space yet. One could expect that a platform that offers distributed ownership would be distributed itself as well. On the other hand, it's been mostly startups who have embraced these new rules, and it has proven not that easy to reorganize large collectives of people once someone has been able to structure them. While many users where unsatisfied with the change of ownership at Couchsurfing, it is still the largest coach exchange network. Leaving business aside: do you have a vision of what our future society will look like? What model you would like to see?Javi:
My vision is that we are going to see major changes in the next fifteen years towards a more fair and open society. Technology will make us more connected and thus aware of interdependence, ecology will make us energetically as autonomous as we can, economy will embrace the benefits of contributing to commons, and transparency will bring us trust in institutions.
We are entering an era of abundance, absolute abundance of knowledge and relative abundance of material goods.
We gave this years´ Fest the theme "The Age of Communities". How do you relate to this topic?Javi:
I usually define a community as a group of people who share a common resource. Till the invention of the world wide web, communities where mostly confined to local environments as trust had to be generated face to face. The distributed structure of the Internet has allowed this traditional form of organization to scale directly to a global dimension. We are seeing new commons arising in all domains, and effectively already are in the age of communities! What do you expect from this year's Fest? What outcome would you like to see?Javi:
The fest is above all a celebration of collective achievements and the gathering of the different tribes that mingle in the collaborative economy. The fest is as well a unique moment to get inspired by others and realise that many questions you may have have already been answered. It is an opportunity to meet people who you have only exchanged emails or talked to on skype, or whom you will do this with in the future. This year I would be very happy to see even more diversity with more legacy businesses and public institutions among the participants and more multisided conversations rather than speeches. Thank you a lot Javi for this interview - I am looking forward seeing you in May at the OuiShareFest! If you would like to join OuiShare Fest, you can get your tickets here. _______________________________________________________________________________________________ Credit picture: WHATonline