Break these Chains

To get to shopping as it can be we have to expand the context of consumption. Being a consumer is not just about being a bottomless pit that sucks more and more stuff into it. For many of us, being a consumer is about being the final link in a chain, a supply chain, that extracts materials from the earth, transforms these materials into useful products that we then buy and use.

In the Big Is Good World, where insatiable consumption is a requirement for market sustainability, the chain is a straight line from raw material extractor, through producer to consumer.

As the Industrial Age gave way to the Information Age, there was the start of a paradigm shift that is reflected by futurist Alvin Tofler’s coining the term prosumer [more at Wikipedia], a concatenation of the words producer and consumer. Tofler and others were exploring the potential for consumers to take a more active role in the form and substance of these supply chains that satisfy our needs. As recently as the Cluetrain Manifesto we’ve been told that we can expect to be more satisfied consumers to the extent that we are invited into the conversation that shapes what is produced for our consumption.

Still, there is something missing. As Peggy Lee asked, “Is that all there is?” [Lyrics to the most depressing hit song ever and about Nihilism].

Enter the Inprosumer

But a chain can link back onto itself to form a circle, the supply chain becomes a cycle. We take a step beyond prosumer to inprosumer — investor, producer, consumer.

There will be many ways that we can tap into the dynamics of stories and games to empower new forms of shopping as it can be. But here are a few ideas we’ve had along these lines… ideas that could help to shape the NED community and its associated shopping experience (both on-line and in-store).

For rich folks, exclusivity has often been a sought-after feature of a product. Exclusivity in this context is closely related to limited supply and high price. But what if product exclusivity was instead a matter of foresight, risk-sharing, and creativity!?

Under shopping as it is, you might get the thrill of owning a limited edition sweater by going to an exclusive high fashion store and paying an extraordinary amount of money for something that only a very few people can afford.

On the other hand, you might get an equally exclusive sweater by shopping as it can be at NED. Instead of needing a giant pile of cash, at NED you need foresight and creativity.

First, you’d want to invest in two or three sheep in a shepherd’s herd in southwest New Mexico or maybe West Africa. Planning ahead for your share of the Spring shearing, you’ll want to have invested in some Loom Time Futures for sale by a talented Weaver’s co-op or guild such as Tapetes de Lana.

Even after you have that one-of-a-kind sweater made from the wool of your own sheep, woven by your favorite weaver, you still have a few pounds left over. So you take your excess wool, along with your quarterly share of lumber from your investment in a sustainable forestry venture in Maine, along with any excess Craft Production Time Futures you have accumulated from other activities you are invested in, and you go searching around the story-driven, game-oriented NED marketplace.

You search finds that there are three community development fundraising campaigns going on that you’d like to support. So you negotiate the contribution of your raw materials and production capacity, and come to terms on your expected return on investment if any.

Some time passes and you’d like to add a goat to your herd-share. Rather than pay for it outright, you do some marketing work and land a nice order for the herd’s pooled surplus wool.

Over the five years that you have been a NED Inprosumer, you have racked up quite an Impact Quotient. When you log onto the NED community web site, your User Profile makes your world-changing impact very clear. You’ve had a hand in drilling dozens of wells in villages in Africa. You own a nice chunk of Loom Time Futures in a famous Weavers Co-op in New Mexico. You know the potter who made your dishes, and the chandler who makes your candles. You don’t just know who these talented people are, you know them as fellow entrepreneurial activists as you’ve shared risk and reward with them on dozens of community and personal development projects.

A Game of Inches

Does this mean the end to shopping as it is? Not at all. Shopping as it can be isn’t a replacement to traditional markets. It is a moderator of the excesses of unbridled consumption.

Imagine the total impact on the planet if we were to shift just a few percentage points of consumption from shopping as it is into shopping as it can be. This shift will get more and more of us to broaden our perspective, to see consumption in terms of the people impacted rather than the stuff produced.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–

Break these Chains

To get to shopping as it can be we have to expand the context of consumption. Being a consumer is not just about being a bottomless pit that sucks more and more stuff into it. For many of us, being a consumer is about being the final link in a chain, a supply chain, that extracts materials from the earth, transforms these materials into useful products that we then buy and use.

In the Big Is Good World, where insatiable consumption is a requirement for market sustainability, the chain is a straight line from raw material extractor, through producer to consumer.

As the Industrial Age gave way to the Information Age, there was the start of a paradigm shift that is reflected by futurist Alvin Tofler’s coining the term prosumer [more at Wikipedia], a concatenation of the words producer and consumer. Tofler and others were exploring the potential for consumers to take a more active role in the form and substance of these supply chains that satisfy our needs. As recently as the Cluetrain Manifesto we’ve been told that we can expect to be more satisfied consumers to the extent that we are invited into the conversation that shapes what is produced for our consumption.

Still, there is something missing. As Peggy Lee asked, “Is that all there is?” [Lyrics to the most depressing hit song ever and about Nihilism].

Enter the Inprosumer

But a chain can link back onto itself to form a circle, the supply chain becomes a cycle. We take a step beyond prosumer to inprosumer — investor, producer, consumer.

There will be many ways that we can tap into the dynamics of stories and games to empower new forms of shopping as it can be. But here are a few ideas we’ve had along these lines… ideas that could help to shape the NED community and its associated shopping experience (both on-line and in-store).

For rich folks, exclusivity has often been a sought-after feature of a product. Exclusivity in this context is closely related to limited supply and high price. But what if product exclusivity was instead a matter of foresight, risk-sharing, and creativity!?

Under shopping as it is, you might get the thrill of owning a limited edition sweater by going to an exclusive high fashion store and paying an extraordinary amount of money for something that only a very few people can afford.

On the other hand, you might get an equally exclusive sweater by shopping as it can be at NED. Instead of needing a giant pile of cash, at NED you need foresight and creativity.

First, you’d want to invest in two or three sheep in a shepherd’s herd in southwest New Mexico or maybe West Africa. Planning ahead for your share of the Spring shearing, you’ll want to have invested in some Loom Time Futures for sale by a talented Weaver’s co-op or guild such as Tapetes de Lana.

Even after you have that one-of-a-kind sweater made from the wool of your own sheep, woven by your favorite weaver, you still have a few pounds left over. So you take your excess wool, along with your quarterly share of lumber from your investment in a sustainable forestry venture in Maine, along with any excess Craft Production Time Futures you have accumulated from other activities you are invested in, and you go searching around the story-driven, game-oriented NED marketplace.

You search finds that there are three community development fundraising campaigns going on that you’d like to support. So you negotiate the contribution of your raw materials and production capacity, and come to terms on your expected return on investment if any.

Some time passes and you’d like to add a goat to your herd-share. Rather than pay for it outright, you do some marketing work and land a nice order for the herd’s pooled surplus wool.

Over the five years that you have been a NED Inprosumer, you have racked up quite an Impact Quotient. When you log onto the NED community web site, your User Profile makes your world-changing impact very clear. You’ve had a hand in drilling dozens of wells in villages in Africa. You own a nice chunk of Loom Time Futures in a famous Weavers Co-op in New Mexico. You know the potter who made your dishes, and the chandler who makes your candles. You don’t just know who these talented people are, you know them as fellow entrepreneurial activists as you’ve shared risk and reward with them on dozens of community and personal development projects.

A Game of Inches

Does this mean the end to shopping as it is? Not at all. Shopping as it can be isn’t a replacement to traditional markets. It is a moderator of the excesses of unbridled consumption.

Imagine the total impact on the planet if we were to shift just a few percentage points of consumption from shopping as it is into shopping as it can be. This shift will get more and more of us to broaden our perspective, to see consumption in terms of the people impacted rather than the stuff produced.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–