Prosperity of The Digital Commons
A different perspective on Information & Technology
Press → or spacebar to start the presentation
Information & Technology
The offer: a new approach that solves bottlenecks in Information & Technology, provides new opportunities, and clears the way for more innovation
- Seeing opportunities
- Tackling bottlenecks
- Strategic investing
Seeing opportunities
Change begins with perception
The next big innovation is not a new technology: it’s a new way of seeing
— Beau Lotto
Opportunities
Exploiting the characteristics of digital
- Free : no (intrinsic) value
- Instant : instant distribution → low transaction costs
- Perfect : perfect reproduction → low marginal costs
Gates open secret
— Bill Gates
Digital abundance
Data, software, knowledge is a public good,
- Abundant → has no scarcity
- Deflationary → more value at lower costs
- Exponential
But we continue to invest in commercial goods
Tackling bottlenecks
Bottlenecks
Vendor lock-ins aimed at profit maximization
- Financial
- No market forces → recurring subscription costs
- Legal
- Restrictive licenses with unilateral adjustments→ data collection and software rental
- Technical
- Closed data format
- Upgrade pressure and coercion
Growth opportunities
The FLO alternative
- Free: Free from financial and legal obligations
- No restrictions on growth
- Local: Local processing
- Independence
- Open: Accessibility
- Prerequisite for more knowledge and innovation
- Open software, open data, open science, …
Reproducibility crisis
Irreproducible research
Why Most Published Research Findings Are False
— John Ioannidis
Reproducibility
Reproducibility answers the question:
“How did you / I do that?”
Reproducible knowledge → The consistent documentation of a process in a programming language
Benefits:
- Insight by coding of the process
- Collaboration through sharing and reproducing
- Growth in functionality, accessibility, stability, knowledge, …
The different approach to Information & Technology
Digital
- Free / Instant / Perfect
Public technologies
- Free / Local / Open
Reproducibility
- Insight / Collaboration / Growth
The Digital Commons
The prosperity of the digital commons
if we choose to do so
Strategic investing
Strategic investing
The Digital Commons
Investing in the prosperity of the digital common good for
- Professionals
- Organisations and sectors
- Society
The alternative for the influence of commerce and big tech
Investing - professionals
— Steve Jobs
- Mindware as an intellectual tool
- Building knowledge in software
- Bottom-up contributions to the digital commons
Investing - organizations and sectors
- Cost reduction
- Intangibles (knowledge, software) as assets
- Being able to respond more independently to change
- Synergie / Spillovers / Spin-offs
- Adding value at amortized costs
- Standards
Investing - society
- Second machine age → mindware
- Perception of truth in the virtuality
- The influence of digital infrastructure
- Trickle-down technological change →
- Economic change →
- Social change →
- Change in perception and minds
- Social change →
- Economic change →
- Tragedy of The Commons → Prosperity of The Digital Commons
Overview
Conditions for growth
Why great leaders and scientists open their minds to uncertainty?
| + | Mindset | The other perspective |
| + | Material | Data, information and knowledge |
| + | Method | Reproducible science |
| + | Means | Mindware |
| + | Money | Low investment → digital abundance |
| + | Momentum | “First slowly, then suddenly” |
| Milieu | Digital ecosysteem | |
| People | Culture of sharing, and collaborating | |
| Mandate | Leadership? |