Posts filed under 'Globalization 3.0 and the Small Is Good World'
UPDATE: In an earlier post to this thread, we described how recycling laptop computers in Small Is Good World is not about the computers, it is about the people who use the computers. The computer exchange is not just a one-off event but rather the start of a persistent social and economic relationship. In the first Sohodojo Life in Africa Laptop Exchange, Christina Kirabo Jordan (Life in Africa) connects Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn with her invaluable assistant, Monica Nankoma. In the process, a laptop makes its way from Fairfield, Iowa to Kampala, Uganda via historic Oxford, England. Part One showcases the idea behind the program, and Part Two documents the first exchange during the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–
April 9th, 2005
Mbaki and Gerry,
Thank you both for reading and considering our post above about the Big Is Good World, Small Is Good World, and Recycling Computers.
There is an organization-centric assumption underlying each of your counterpoints to our comments. In both cases, you are thinking that the goal/focus of the recycling computers ‘problem’ is the computer. As such, you are both correct in suggesting that an efficient, coordinated (Big Is Good World) solution service is better (in the sense of efficiency, manageability, and accountability) than a myriad of individual, uncoordinated computer recycling services. And to this point we would agree, regardless of whether this solution design is realized as a large conventional organization or a large coordinated, decentralized network.
The organization-centric assumption creeps into your counterpoint comments when you suggest that the myriad of individual, inefficient, uncoordinated computer recycling services is a Small Is Good World solution design. You are thinking too literally — comparing apples to apples, in other words — in your assessment of the relative advantage of size in the ‘game’ of recycling computers. This organization-centric perspective assumes that the Big Is Good World vs. Small Is Good World Game is being played on the same field, by the same rules.
But if you revisit our comments above, you will see that we are talking about two different games, played by two different sets of rules. Both games may involve the movement of surplus computers around the metaphorical playing field, but this is where the comparison ends. Both of your Big Is Good World versus Small Is Good World counterpoint comments reflect an ‘apples to oranges’ comparison.
The objective of the Small Is Good World game is to create persistent, rewarding social-economic relationships between individuals. Organizations in the Small Is Good World are pools of resources, brand-identifiers, and context-setters. Useful, yes, but fundamentally non-essential to the central theme/goal of the game which is all about creating person-to-person networks.
To use our Sohodojo/Life-in-Africa example, we now know by way of correspondence with Christina Kirabo Jordan, that the laptop we (Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn) are donating to the LiA Webbed Empowerment Center is going to Monica Nankoma. The laptop will physically stay in the WE Center because there aren’t enough to go around yet, but Monica is designated as this laptop’s ‘care-taker’.
With the exchange of this laptop — we’re bringing it to the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship later this month to give to Christina who will take it back to Uganda — Jim and Timlynn are committing to develop an on-going, mutually-rewarding, and mutually-supportive relationship with Monica. As we get to know and care about each other, we will work with Monica to draw our relationship beyond the social and into the economic.
The Small Is Good World is a network of intimate, person-to-person relationships. The organizations Sohodojo and Life in Africa Foundation may facilitate linkages within this world, but they are not the essential elements of it. Now, multiple the tiny network of Timlynn, Jim, and Monica but many orders of magnitude. The Small Is Good World can eventually be a global network that transcends national boundaries and the influence of global corporations and their markets.
So, Gerry, when you say we need to get “Small in a Big Way”, we absolutely agree. And Mbaki, when you say that the Small Is Good approach to international aid and development tried in Africa to date hasn’t worked, we agree.
Think of global capitalism as a two-cylinder engine. For the last 100-150 years — essentially what we might characterize as the Industrial Age — this engine has been running on the Big Is Good World cylinder. The engine runs rough and dirty. If we put a spark plug back into the Small Is Good World cylinder and give the engine a tune-up, this engine can run cleaner and more efficiently. (Of course we still have to steer wisely to lengthen the flight of Spaceship Earth… but that is another discussion.)
As we said in our initial comment above, our Small Is Good World approach to recycling unwanted computers won’t solve the whole surplus computer problem, but it does attend to the opportunity to reinvigorate and extend the Small Is Good World… and that is a Great Game to be playing.
–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–
March 17th, 2005
This discussion thread is a perfect context in which to make some general comments about fundamental differences in program design in the Small Is Good World and program design in the Big Is Good World. In doing so, we will publicly respond to Christina Jordan about how Sohodojo proposes to work with Life in Africa to recycle computers.
‘Small Is Good’ in the Small Is Good World is a reference to a collection of organizing principles and design goals that shape our view of and participation in the world. Small in the Small Is Good World is not about size. The Small Is Good World empowers individuals to be less dependent on conventional organizations and to thrive in a self-support community of kindred spirits.
Recycling Computers in the Big Is Good World
In the Big Is Good World, old unwanted computers are a problem to be solved with a scalable service. This problem definition leads to a certain kind of solution design. That solution, with any number of variations, will end up looking something like this: A Person with an old Computer interfaces with a Computer Recycling Service that processes and distributes the recycled computers to Organizations and Persons needing a computer (providing the recipient meets some eligibility requirement). Even if the recycling service includes an ‘accountability/traceability’ feature built into its service, the focus is still on the computers and not on the people who supply and use the computers.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach to the problem of surplus computers, nor with the Big Is Good World. The problem comes when this is the only way that we approach social innovation design.
As has already been discussed in this thread, Big Is Good World problem solutions have side effects. These side effects primarily result from the scale and speed of execution once a Big Is Good World solution is set in motion. In the case of recycling computers, we might be solving the developed world’s landfill problem by shifting the same problem to the developing world.
Recycling Computers in the Small Is Good World
Things are much different in the parallel universe of the Small Is Good World. The mountain of surplus computers in the developed world is not a problem to be solved directly. Rather this surplus is an opportunity to advance our primary design goal which is to connect people-to-people in persistent socio-economic networks. In the Small Is Good World, a surplus computer serves as an exchange token in an evolving network relationship.
For example, a laptop supplied through Sohodojo could establish a link between an artist/entrepreneur in our home town of Fairfield Iowa and an artist in Christina’s Art4Life artist co-op in Uganda. This relationship could evolve into an on-going set of exchanges. Enough economic value could flow through this relationship so that the next computer the Art4Life artist gets might be one bought personally rather than given. Or maybe the artist’s child gets to go to college, or his or her family builds or upgrades their house. Maybe a family member gets medical attention that would not be affordable otherwise.
These kinds of results can be helped more by an on-going interpersonal exchange relationship than by a one-shot provision of a surplus computer.
What Measure of Success?
In the Small Is Good World, our performance targets will be to recycle hundreds rather than tens of thousands of surplus computers. Establishing and maintaining hundreds of person-to-person persistent network relationships are our most important program design goals. This is not the same as simply moving computers around without any commitment to building an interpersonal relationship.
Granted, Small Is Good World exchange networks are not going to completely solve the unwanted surplus computer problem. But this is just one example of how we can apply program design methods that challenge our concepts of the “One Right Way” to see and solve social problems.
Fortunately, there will always be creative folks — like those contributing to this discussion — working to develop Big Is Good World solutions to the recycled computer problem. But while these good folks continue their best efforts, we need to also seek new creative ways to solve problems through programs that connect people-to-people.
Small Is Good World Design may Solve Some Big Is Good World Problems
Big Is Good World solution designs are optimized for scaling. Small Is Good World solution designs attend to replication and transformation. Both solutions have growth potential. It is just a matter of the type of growth we want to encourage.
Imagine what might happen if a viral network effect kicked in and we were to have the Sohodojo/LiA computer exchange replicated throughout thousands of communities around the world. The result would be a myriad of individuals networking with each other through a growing web of Small Is Good World interpersonal relationships. If enough of us live and work in the Small Is Good World, maybe one day we won’t need a Big Is Good World solution for recycling computers.
–Sohodojo Jim and Timlynn–
March 14th, 2005
We spent some time in an off-the-grid Permaculture eco-village in western North Carolina a few years back. One thing we became painfully aware of quickly was what a power hog your typical desktop PC is, especially if it has a CRT monitor.
The best solution for low impact computing where watts/amps are scarce and unreliable, the eco-villagers soom realized, are modest laptop computers. Rather than dump aged power hogs on our friends in developing countries, we should be concentrating on unwanted laptops. They are easier to ship globally, generally self-contained, storable in ICT centers where security might be an overnight issue, moveable/sharable, etc… and very light on electrical requirements, not to mention having their own built-in uninterruptible power supplies.
Laptops have been around long enough now and have gone through such price decreases that there are lots of still functional but unused ones around. As the applied R&D lab collaborating with Christina Jordan on her Life in Africa Network, this is what Sohodojo is doing. We’re putting the word out to round up unwanted laptops from our local community so we can send them to Christina for her newly opened and expanding LiA Webbed Empowerment Center in Uganda.
We know this isn’t a mega-scaled solution to the Big Picture problem that CompuMentor/TechSoup and Jim Lynch are working on, but it is an example of interpersonal networking and solutions in the Small Is Good World. If only we could connect hundreds or thousands of communities one-to-one with each other such that we could hand off rather than hand out.
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
March 8th, 2005
Lars, thank you so much for the congratulations and words of encouragement.
For those who might not know her Social Edge ‘handle’ (nickname), C Kirabo is none other than Ashoka Fellow Christina ‘Kirabo’ Jordan who folks know around O.net for her work developing the Life in Africa Network. Kirabo, meaning ‘gift’, is a name given to her by her friends in Uganda.
We are especially thrilled with the election result as we and Christina are kindred spirits, along with the father and son team of Toby and Richard Beresford of MicroAid.Net, and Pamela McLean of CawdNet and others who intend to get together at the Forum to launch the Small Is Good World Working Group.
We’ll have more to say about our trip to the Forum and the formation of the working group in the days ahead. For the moment, we’re going to relax a bit and savor the idea of heading to the Forum in three weeks! 
Thanks again Lars. And thanks especially to anyone who took an interest in the delegate election at Social Edge, and who voted to send us and Christina as delegates.
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
March 8th, 2005
Sohodojo is an independent, non-profit applied R&D lab supporting solo and family-based entrepreneurs collaborating in microenterprise and small business networks. These networks live in the parallel Universe of the Small Is Good World. The function of the Small Is Good World is to act as a governor or moderator to the excesses of the Big Is Good World.
There are many potential entry points into the Small Is Good World. However, we’ve picked one article that we feel is particularly relevant to the focus of this group and to the ‘pay it forward’ dynamic that inspired the creation of the Omidyar Network.
We invite you to read ‘The Yin-Yang of e-Commerce Engines’. The subtitle of this article is ‘How Small is Good Business Webs Will Compete in the Story-driven Marketplaces of the 21st Century’. By way of a teaser, here are the opening paragraphs:
In the first installment of The Nanocorp Primer, we described the challenge of extending the ride on Spaceship Earth as that of finding an effective balance between Small is Good and Big is Good network organizing principles. Neither approach being right nor wrong, just different. Each fulfilling a value-proposition ensuring its survival.
Big is Good dominance throughout the Industrial Era economy has diverted attention from Small is Good economic network dynamics. Big is Good thinking, in other words, has become the ‘common sense’ of how we do business. This unquestioned assumption has given us a blindspot when it comes to designing the e-Commerce engines underlying our web-based business ventures….
We welcome your comments and questions in response to reading this article.
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
Sohodojo, Home of the nanocorp and small business revolutionaries
March 5th, 2005
Christina,
Great to see you here! For Omidyar.net regulars, we (Sohodojo) met Christina through our mutual participation in the Social Edge on-line community of the Skoll Foundation.
Christina is perhaps a bit too modest to mention in her profile that she is an Ashoka Fellow.
Also, we consider Christina a member of an informal network of kindred spirits working on the re-emergence and re-definition of the Small Is Good World. Each in our own way yet with many similarities, we are exploring the use of Internet technologies to facilitate the creation of sustainable social business ecosystems. These are realized as ‘extended network enterprises’ composed of collaborating individuals and organizations (both non-profit and for-profit). As such, these emerging ‘ecosystems’ present a new challenge for social investors… but this is another whole discussion.
Back to the point, Christina, thanks for the extensive and timely update on your LiA and Echoes projects. We look forward to connecting more with you through the Omidyar Network and directly.
FYI, after 2.5+ years of effort (and painful self-funding), in July Sohodojo finally got our U.S. IRS 501(C)(3) status which required a precedent-setting opinion to validate the ‘extended network enterprise’ model of social business ecosystem that we are talking about here.
We’re going to start a Small Is Good World group and see if we can round up some kindred spirits (and perhaps a funder or two). We’d be interested in hearing from you what, if any, challenges you face in Uganda/Africa in terms of implementing your extended network enterprise/ecosystem.
–Sohodojo Timlynn and Jim–
February 21st, 2005
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