10.15 Emergence of a Participatory Market Society
217
This creates “walled gardens”,
39 between which very limited information exchange
and cooperation exists. To build complex products, it is common to acquire other
companies, but this reduces their usefulness for third parties.
To catch up and be competitive, Europe may take another route. After all, the
organization of our economic system should serve our society best. Considering
that data will be cheap (since we produce as much data in one year as in all the
years before), it would make sense to engage in an Open Data approach and in open
innovation, where “walled gardens” are avoided, but information exchange is built
on merit-based principles. Money would be made by distilling useful information
from raw data and by distilling applicable knowledge from information. By requiring
differentiated interoperability, complex products could be created in a modular way
by organizing “projects” into networks of projects. For such “super-projects” to grow
in a self-organized way, the interaction must be mutually beneficial and will often
involve a multi-dimensional value exchange (see Appendix 10.2).
As I explained in the previous chapter, evolutionary principles will anyway sooner
or later cause a paradigm change from self-regarding to other-regarding forms of
organization, since this produces better outcomes on average. For companies, this
means that they need to communicate and cooperate more with their customers and
suppliers. Next-generation social media will provide suitable tools for this. Companies that manage to offer individually tailored, customized products and services
will have a competitive advantage. Obviously, this requires more information to be
shared, and in order for this to be viable in the long term, a trustworthy and fair system
of bidirectional communication and collaboration is crucial. As a consequence, the
business leaders of tomorrow will have to be well acquainted with “systems thinking”, an approach which integrates and balances different interests and perspectives.
Companies like Porsche, for example, are already aware that they can only produce
and sell top-quality cars by engaging in a partnership with both their employees and
their customers.
40
10.16 Supporting Collective Intelligence
The challenges posed by the increasing complexity of our anthropogenic systems
also call for more intelligence. Interestingly, collective intelligence can surpass the
intelligence of smart people and powerful computers. It thrives in environments,
where diverse knowledge and skills can come together. But collective intelligence
isn’t possible, if decisions are taken from the top-down (as this is restricted to the
intelligence of a single mind or a small circle of people). In comparison, majority
decisions are often better than those of single individuals or centralized authorities, because they take more perspectives and knowledge on board. However, in our
39 In fact, most smartphone apps are “walled gardens”, and they are usually not interoperable with
other apps.
40 See http://www.zeit.de/2014/34/porsche-betriebsrat-uwe-hueck.
217
This creates “walled gardens”,
39 between which very limited information exchange
and cooperation exists. To build complex products, it is common to acquire other
companies, but this reduces their usefulness for third parties.
To catch up and be competitive, Europe may take another route. After all, the
organization of our economic system should serve our society best. Considering
that data will be cheap (since we produce as much data in one year as in all the
years before), it would make sense to engage in an Open Data approach and in open
innovation, where “walled gardens” are avoided, but information exchange is built
on merit-based principles. Money would be made by distilling useful information
from raw data and by distilling applicable knowledge from information. By requiring
differentiated interoperability, complex products could be created in a modular way
by organizing “projects” into networks of projects. For such “super-projects” to grow
in a self-organized way, the interaction must be mutually beneficial and will often
involve a multi-dimensional value exchange (see Appendix 10.2).
As I explained in the previous chapter, evolutionary principles will anyway sooner
or later cause a paradigm change from self-regarding to other-regarding forms of
organization, since this produces better outcomes on average. For companies, this
means that they need to communicate and cooperate more with their customers and
suppliers. Next-generation social media will provide suitable tools for this. Companies that manage to offer individually tailored, customized products and services
will have a competitive advantage. Obviously, this requires more information to be
shared, and in order for this to be viable in the long term, a trustworthy and fair system
of bidirectional communication and collaboration is crucial. As a consequence, the
business leaders of tomorrow will have to be well acquainted with “systems thinking”, an approach which integrates and balances different interests and perspectives.
Companies like Porsche, for example, are already aware that they can only produce
and sell top-quality cars by engaging in a partnership with both their employees and
their customers.
40
10.16 Supporting Collective Intelligence
The challenges posed by the increasing complexity of our anthropogenic systems
also call for more intelligence. Interestingly, collective intelligence can surpass the
intelligence of smart people and powerful computers. It thrives in environments,
where diverse knowledge and skills can come together. But collective intelligence
isn’t possible, if decisions are taken from the top-down (as this is restricted to the
intelligence of a single mind or a small circle of people). In comparison, majority
decisions are often better than those of single individuals or centralized authorities, because they take more perspectives and knowledge on board. However, in our
39 In fact, most smartphone apps are “walled gardens”, and they are usually not interoperable with
other apps.
40 See http://www.zeit.de/2014/34/porsche-betriebsrat-uwe-hueck.