Economic Utility — Is that all there is?

Related to your concern, Norbert, and as expressed by others in prior posts, there is the apprehension that the efficiency of a price- and distribution-optimized market has, by definition, higher economic utility — “I just want to get my stuff and go home.”

Again, no problem. When you are in stuff acquisition mode, you will engage in shopping as it is.

But to a large degree — and it is echoed by the level of activity in this discussion and in Onet itself as in other ‘change the world’ on-line communities — a lot of us are singing Peggy Lee’s song and asking “Is that all there is?”

A Few Words About Depth of Engagement

Please understand that incorporating shopping as it can be (inprosuming) into the NED business model is not a mutually exclusive choice that banishes shopping as it is from the picture. In fact, shopping as it is is both a necessary baseline of sales volume as well as a vital engagement opportunity that feeds new recruits into the ranks of inprosumers (those doing shopping as it can be).

You will see this “A-ha” idea-moment of self-recruitment reflected in a ‘feedback loop’ in our Entrepreneurial Community Ecosystem input/output model. This transformation happens when a ‘Surface Shopper’ takes the next step into active and ongoing participation in the NED community. The inprosumer is a Deep Shopper. By his or her persistent involvement in the community, the Deep Shopper is demonstrating that he or she has found a new level of personally rewarding economic utility that cannot be achieved by continuing to simply do shallow shopping.

Note, too, that this recruitment is not a means of merely cloning producers. The last thing we need is water down the producers’ opportunity by creating a vast army of home-based candlemakers, weavers, beaders, what have you. Rather, we need to entice each Deep Shopper to bring his or her own bottle of secret sauce to the table.

We need to entice Open Source programmers to contribute code to our back-end and eCommerce platform projects. We need to engage sales and marketing people to sell and market. We need multi-linguists to help the community to communicate among its members. We need lawyers and business folk to craft the agreements, licenses, and other instruments needed to create and evolve new forms of dynamic collaborative network enterprises. We also need to engage academic and other researchers to do applied research projects that help us to invent new ways to shop, organize, market, and collaborate. In short, we need a whole range of folks to find their own unique and personal way to participate in NED’s entrepreneurial community ecosystem.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–

Economic Utility — Is that all there is?

Related to your concern, Norbert, and as expressed by others in prior posts, there is the apprehension that the efficiency of a price- and distribution-optimized market has, by definition, higher economic utility — “I just want to get my stuff and go home.”

Again, no problem. When you are in stuff acquisition mode, you will engage in shopping as it is.

But to a large degree — and it is echoed by the level of activity in this discussion and in Onet itself as in other ‘change the world’ on-line communities — a lot of us are singing Peggy Lee’s song and asking “Is that all there is?”

A Few Words About Depth of Engagement

Please understand that incorporating shopping as it can be (inprosuming) into the NED business model is not a mutually exclusive choice that banishes shopping as it is from the picture. In fact, shopping as it is is both a necessary baseline of sales volume as well as a vital engagement opportunity that feeds new recruits into the ranks of inprosumers (those doing shopping as it can be).

You will see this “A-ha” idea-moment of self-recruitment reflected in a ‘feedback loop’ in our Entrepreneurial Community Ecosystem input/output model. This transformation happens when a ‘Surface Shopper’ takes the next step into active and ongoing participation in the NED community. The inprosumer is a Deep Shopper. By his or her persistent involvement in the community, the Deep Shopper is demonstrating that he or she has found a new level of personally rewarding economic utility that cannot be achieved by continuing to simply do shallow shopping.

Note, too, that this recruitment is not a means of merely cloning producers. The last thing we need is water down the producers’ opportunity by creating a vast army of home-based candlemakers, weavers, beaders, what have you. Rather, we need to entice each Deep Shopper to bring his or her own bottle of secret sauce to the table.

We need to entice Open Source programmers to contribute code to our back-end and eCommerce platform projects. We need to engage sales and marketing people to sell and market. We need multi-linguists to help the community to communicate among its members. We need lawyers and business folk to craft the agreements, licenses, and other instruments needed to create and evolve new forms of dynamic collaborative network enterprises. We also need to engage academic and other researchers to do applied research projects that help us to invent new ways to shop, organize, market, and collaborate. In short, we need a whole range of folks to find their own unique and personal way to participate in NED’s entrepreneurial community ecosystem.

–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–