I was reading the mAKE proposal again [ @Jessicang ] and was captivated by this graphic that sketches the mAKE concept. I am mostly interested in the Business Models and Venture Building section. When it comes to Venture Building and Business Model Catalog I was thinking that we may want to introduce a new tendency, what we call Collaborative Entrepreneurship. We have developed this practice over 10 years with Sensorica, and we are in the process of formalizing it and building an education program for collaborative entrepreneurs. Our work goes in waves, depending on who’s interested and on the availability of resources. If there is interest we can collaborate!
I think that there is value in exploring new entrepreneurship models and their associated new business models.
Dear @TiberiusB , greetings from Cluj airport!
I was just today at the closing meeting of an EU project on Social Entrepreneurship, they have done some work in developing some documentation and creating a platform, they may be willing to collaborate - I guess the next steps would be to remind me in a couple of days to send you the link of the platform, and then maybe I can do some back and forth if we decide to collaborate!
Best Wishes,
Haris
I hope that this will not fall through the cracks… I am leaving for a 2 weeks vacation on the 10th, this month. I’ll put a reminder in my calendar to contact you after the 24th.
We can start by discussing the difference between social entrepreneurship and what we call collaborative entrepreneurship. In any case, I am interested in exploring the EU platform for Social Entrepreneurship.
Since you’re interested in Social Entrepreneurship I can share the https://socialbusinesscreation.hec.ca/
Mai Thi, the creator and current director is a friend, I could mediate connections.
Dear @TiberiusB , may apologies for not having replied earlier even though I thought I had done so, I think we may well end up with an Erasmus Youth programme together if we play our cards together, I had pitched this idea to the EU project people (here’s the name of the project by the way, they have an online platform they should be putting online soon if they haven’t already, the name of the project is Inn Co (Innovative Collaborations). Yesterday I was discussing with a friend, Andi Hess (she used to be at the University of Arizona and now she’s doing career coaching who reminded me of a Gary Grosman (maybe slight misspelling) of Arizona State University who did Social Entrepreneurship and who was doing a lot of Cyprus work. At the moment it’s a dream, I am hoping on Friday to pitch this to another person and see how that goes!
List of hybrid business model patterns [click to open]
We took 60 business model patterns identified by Gassmann, Frankenberger and Scik - see more on bmilab.com, and ported them to the commons-based peer production context, and we further contextualized them to distributed material production. This is not straightforward, since traditional business model patterns are composed based on transactional relations between producers and consumers and are construed from the perspective of the producer, which is an asymmetric view, and speaks to a linear process. But we don’t know of any list of patterns for the p2p economy. We often find in the literature discussions about p2p business models, which are not truly p2p, but rather platform-based microservices, or double-sided markets intermediated by a company.
Some of the traditional business models can nevertheless be applied to p2p, or the field of commons-based peer production, because most of the organizations that engage in these new practices are hybrid and preserve some (a lot, in some cases) traditional characteristics. A true p2p economic model is Bitcoin, where there is no corporation in the middle, the infrastructure and the exchange service are not under the private nor the public property regime, but under the nondominium regime. There is no clear distinction between producers and consumers, as one can turn into the other or someone can be both at the same time. Moreover, the exchange service is not offered as a product on the market, which is not to be conflated with the sell of Bitcoin on crypto markets. Accessing the Bitcoin network to transfer some tokens to someone does cost some tokens, but this cost is designed to protect the network from spam and to incentivize mining, and it is baked into the protocol, not handled as profit by a central authority, based on market demand and capacity to supply.
There are 4 questions on which the authors of these 60 traditional business model patterns base their work:
- Who is your target customer (segment)?
- What do you offer to the customer?
- How is the value proposition created?
- Why is it profitable?
In order to port these patterns to the context of commons-based peer production we’ll transform these questions, in sequence, as follows:
- Who are the (potential) stakeholders in the network / ecosystem?
- What does the network as a whole provide to stakeholders that makes them stick around, makes them better off being part of the network rather than acting as independent entities.
- How does every stakeholder need from the network, how can they benefit?
- Why is this network sustainable?
Thus, the revenue model of the company in the traditional sense becomes the symbiosis model within the network, how every stakeholder benefits from the aggregate, in a complex way, or how every stakeholder becomes better off being part of the network than acting as an independent. entity. The value proposition moves from a win-win to an all-win, becomes a joint values structure (constellation of values sustains the continued interaction). The value chain becomes the complex flows of information and materials that maintain the network as an autopoietic system, i.e. regenerative network flows.
But again, most existing organizations run on hybrid models as the p2p economy is still largely dependent on the mainstream economy to reproduce itself. These hybrid organizations will have a more or less developed ecosystemic view, and nurture synergies with other organizations around, while being largely contaminated by the linear view, seeing themselves as a unit that transforms resources from suppliers into products for the market. These organizations predominantly see the world from inside out, and consider themselves mostly as providers to the market as well as to the ecosystem in which they are embedded. In other words, they tend to formulate value propositions for the market and for the ecosystem. They also tend to overlook forms of benefits that are not easily transferable into money, since their main focus is their survival in the predominantly capitalist economy.
Hi @Haris_Shekeris
I am back from my vacation in Cuba. We can schedule a call if you have time, perhaps early next week?
While in Cuba I also presented a case of collaborative entrepreneurship and connected with the Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Humanity (FANJ). Unfortunately, their website doesn’t work properly… well, … Cuba.
It may be early to say, but I have a strong feeling that collaborative entrepreneurship can have a good resonance with the Cuban people, presented as a synthesis of the socialist-capitalist dichotomy, with elements that we find culturally ingrained in the Cuban culture (commons - sharing, collaboration, sense of community), but also with elements that Cuban people can only fantasize about (peer, permissionless access, economic freedom). That is encapsulated in the commons-based peer production expression (definition), with no contradiction between the communal sharing and the individual freedom. as we know it from traditional ideologies. I am in the process of developing a more meaningful relation with this foundation. My primary contact in Habana is Mauri from Copincha (video of my visit 3 years ago).
Interesting thing, Antonio Núñez Jiménez Foundation has a large network of small size food growers throughout the island, organized in local hubs. The network is mostly sustained through live events / meetings as the Internet infrastructure is slowly developing in the country. This network is a great case study for IoPA @AndrewLamb . Cuba will see a rapid jump into the digital age and these existing socioeconomic networks will, in my opinion, leapfrog by tapping into the worlds pool of commons (digital designs of everything) and producing locally. 3D printing is already present and the MacGyver mind is very well developed. I suspect distributed manufacturing (DIY and other models) to overtake slow-changing national industrial processes when it comes to diffusion / penetration of new technology. Cuba suffers from high inflation and imports are very expensive for the locals. In other words, the average Cuban will make his own electric bicycle before that product becomes widely available on the local market.
I’ll try to have an exploratory interview with Roberto from the Foundation for the contracting assignment and a brainstorm about economic models compatible with the Cuban reality.
If anyone knows a grant that serves countries like Cuba and foundations like Antonio Núñez Jiménez please share. We can write a nice story about Sensorica (open source innovation network) + the Foundation (existing network of farmers) + Copincha (local makerspace and education hub) + IoPA (standards and economic models). A critical mass of components to demonstrate deep tech penetration and measure impact.
Dear Tiberius (Tibi? which one do you prefer?),
This all sounds great, I’d love to get involved in a capacity that would give such a push to a whole country (more or less any country, given that I’ve shed the idealism of homeland - Cyprus will never change - and secondly, my wife is from Iran, so I’d even love to help a country from the famous Axis of Evil). We can definitely have a meeting early next week, just before that, I’d like your permission explicitly, can I play ball directly with the heads of the project (they may not be that interested, or have other agenda, ie EU-whatever or simply mean to steer the concept of InnCollab to their own way which i suspect may be the case) by forwarding them the message as it is? That, I’d like to and could do today. (I want to get in touch with them anyway in order to plead for a chance to do something that would pay my rent).
Best Wishes,
Haris
Hi Haris,
I don’t understand your “permisison” request. Could you be more specific?
When it comes to what I say and to all my publications, everything is by default shareable. I associate with the open culture 
Dear Tibi, thanks, I think you’ve covered me there by saying that everything you say and publish is by default shareable - let’s just say I’m in transition (or a newbie, hopefully not forever though I may remain because of my environment) to the open culture, hehe
So I’ll try to make some contacts and see what comes out!
My specific worry was whether for example you wouldn’t want to work with EU people for reasons of mistrust, or if you didn’t want your name mention (which I may not mention specifically in first contact anyway).
Best Wishes,
Haris
Feel free to mention my name, more here. For collaboration, working with people, it all depends on the overlapping interests.
excellent, thanks man!!
Take care, I’ll keep you updated once I get a response!
Best Wishes,
Haris
Dear Tiberius,
Hope and wish you’re well!!
Apologies I didn’t contact you earlier, my EU project contact never got back to me, I tried contacting her twice. So I don’t think she’ll be in. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do, though if there is it may have to be full-time and voluntary as I’m under pressure to begin contributing to bringing food on the table for my wife (so far I’ve been unemployed, but i only have 15 more days of that otherwise I’ll have to take a minimum wage job).
Best Wishes,
Haris