Emergent structure

Two weeks ago I had the privilege to spend some quality time with Venkatesh and discussed in depth about the concept of legibility, proposed by James Scott in "Seeing Like a State" and developed by Venkatesh  in his recent book Tempo. A few days ago I watched the BBC documentary The Secret Life of Chaos. These two events had a profound effect on my views about SENSORICA's structure.

I think SENSORICA should NOT have a predefined structure. Roles within our value network must be emergent and fluid. Circumstances define functional roles. As conditions change the organization reconfigures itself. SENSORICA will mold to changing patterns underlying our society and our economy.

We need some level of legibility to connect different value networks (like SENSORICA) together into a super-network. This connection is first established at the level of the value system, to allow an unhindered flow of value between all the nodes. Knowledge must also be able to flow freely within the super-network, therefore some level of codification is required. Individuals must be able to start producing value shortly after they migrate from one sub-network to another. The accommodation time and the learning curve must be reduced in order to renter the super-network rapidly reconfigurable/dynamic. But we also need to realize that there is a price to pay for too much legibility, as Venkatesh brilliantly points out (see this short video).

How are we going to induce self-organization? What guarantees temporal stability? How can we make sure that emergent patterns optimize creativity and productivity? How can we make sure that the outcome will be a humane and ethical environment? I put all my faith into the human being.

I believe that humans are capable of spontaneously creating stable social patterns if their goals are aligned and if they know how to achieve their goals. We don't need to create a structure, we only need to create the conditions for the structure to emerge and evolve. I am in the process of designing data analysis and visualization tools that I believe will induce self-organization. At this moment I see 3 important systems: value, reputation and roles. Follow the previous link for more.

The seed value

How do you start an enterprise, be it open or not?
Any enterprise starts with an idea. If we are talking about a commercial enterprise this idea must be a product idea. But most commercial enterprises are collective endeavors. In other words, we need to build an organization. we need to convince people to collaborate, to deploy some of their resources for the project. In order to do that we need to make them a value proposition. What's in it for them?

The seed value is a source of value. From it stems different other values that our potential collaborators might be interested in. In our particular case, our seed value is a new sensor prototype. This device embeds some knowledge and constitutes the materialization of some effort. It also demonstrates that a group is already formed,  a locus of know how already exists, having the capability of putting ideas into practice, of creating things and making things work, of solving real problems. Moreover, this device responds to a particular need. Therefore, it also represents potential. It promises something down the road.

The seed value establishes a locus of innovation, creation and production. Some people might find value in exchanging knowledge and knowhow within our collaborative space. Others might be attracted by potential revenues, by a market-share promise, etc. The seed value acts as an attractor and I see it as our most important asset when we kick-start our venture.

But empty promises cannot go far. Our seed value must be a fecund one. What about our optical fiber-based force/displacement (tactile) sensor? You'll be the judge.