Excerpt

From the Introduction:

1. “In the past years we have assisted to the rapid spread of what is now commonly called the “sharing economy” in various sectors, adopting different forms frequently based on the use of the Internet and digital platforms. Looking at the underlying discourses of the sharing economy (collaboration, solidarity, sharing), we find many elements in common with the vision and experience of the cooperatives. Because of these common elements, but also challenging that narrative on the field of governance and democracy, cooperatives themselves are becoming interested in the phenomenon and are trying to understand which forms of convergence they can develop.

Moving from a recent pioneer experience of research conducted in Italy, LAMA Agency and Cooperatives Europe expanded and explored the perspective and experiences on the sharing economy of cooperatives at European level. The research explored the level of awareness, the interest, practical cases, opportunities and barriers of the cooperatives approaching the sharing economy topic. The two organizations interviewed the representatives of national cooperative associations in 9 different EU member states and launched an online mapping survey collecting 38 sounding empirical cases from 11 European countries, plus 3 initiatives from outside the EU. The study demonstrates that cooperatives can contribute to the collaborative economy promoting models of community based on membership rather than usership, supporting new initiatives to manage the commons, but also getting the business model transformation opportunities enabled by digital platforms and internet technologies. The paper provides also suggestions for further research and work at EU level.”

2. “The interviews addressed 5 broad research questions:

i. What is the understanding of the collaborative economy on the part of the national cooperative movements, and their general attitudes towards this emerging phenomenon?

ii. What are the levels of awareness and knowledge of the collaborative economy among individual cooperatives at the ground level, and their degree of interest in terms of innovation potential?

iii. What is the actual spread of innovative practices among the cooperatives? What key sectors and types of cooperative innovations are directly or indirectly being inspired by the collaborative economy?

iv. What is the role of cooperative umbrella associations, in terms of promoting awareness, debate, and experimentation?

v. What are the key challenges, opportunities, and future paths for cooperatives in the collaborative economy field?”

From the Conclusions:

“Conclusions and implications for future research and policy This exploratory research intended to propose a new perspective on the relationship between the cooperatives and the collaborative economy in Europe, by gathering the perceptions and opinions of representatives of the cooperative movement in different countries, and by collecting some initial evidence of how cooperatives on the ground are actually engaging with collaborative economy innovations. The final aim of this reflection is to identify any potential opportunities and challenges deriving from the application and adaptation of collaborative economy models in cooperatives, and from the development of new “collaborative practices” from within the cooperative movement. The conclusions that we present here are based on the first ideas collected from our interviewees and review of empirical cases. They are not to be considered as official positions of Cooperatives Europe nor of the cooperative associations involved. Nor they are to be considered as the arrival point of a research process that has just started. The suggestions we present will necessarily need to be analysed more in detail, and supported by sound research to be assesswd for their actual feasibility and desirability in practice; nonetheless, we believe they can provide a first interesting stimulus on this topic for the European research and policy community.

Overall, the considerations raised by this study suggest that cooperatives may potentially benefit from engaging with the collaborative economy phenomenon. In particular, by exploring its innovation potential, it was suggested that cooperatives may discover new interesting ways to update and transform some of their established features, to better fit the emerging developments at societal, market, and technological level.

As some cooperative leaders highlighted in this research, cooperatives would first of all benefit from a deeper understanding and reflection on the collaborative economy topic. In general terms, it seems important that cooperatives approach this topic soon, and in an open and proactive way. It was highlighted that cooperatives should look at the positive potential of the collaborative economy phenomenon, and not fear it the even when it leads to the emergence of new, global competitors that use a “collaborative” language mainly for commercial purposes. Cooperatives have internal histories and resources which might allow them to build alternative models challenging such competitors, developing their new distinctive solutions that are in line with cooperative principles and fundamental values.

The cooperative movement, it was observed, has demonstrated the capacity to combine economic growth and impact with the capacity to promote significant forms of empowerment, participation, and social interconnectedness. These are an important asset in the collaborative economy model, and if cooperatives are able to valorise them also in digital ways, they may become their distinctive added value into this emerging movement. Cooperatives can indeed contribute to the collaborative economy with a new (new for the collaborative economy, not for cooperatives) idea of community that is based on membership rather than usership. Moreover, by valorising their widespread presence across Europe and beyond, it was suggested that cooperatives might also use the collaborative economy model to build large interconnected networks across the territories that challenge the collaborative economy incumbents.

Another area of opportunity and idea which emerged from the research is that cooperatives might also benefit from exploring more and deeper the potential of new concepts such as “collaborative production”, “collaborative learning and knowledge”, and new fields of development such as the area of the commons, where they can play an important role and contribute to sustainable social and economic development.

However, this preliminary study suggests also that a cooperative movement willing to fully invest the collaborative economy potentials may be confronted to a number challenges, for example:

• to raise awareness of the collaborative economy models and features and to understand the reasons and structural basic conditions for its success;
• to encourage existing cooperatives to exploit the potential of digital and web technologies to update and upgrade their internal participation patterns;
• to support the development of new cooperatives setting up financial, technical and strategic support schemes at national and EU level;
• to set up relevant frameworks to pilot solutions, evaluate results and replicate successes fostering at the same time an open and distributed discussion aimed at balancing the presence of the sole “capitalist-based collaborative economy” narrative.

The relevance of the opportunities that seem to emerge from this initial scoping of the topic, and the complexity of the challenges that accompany them, suggest that more research is needed in this area, to better understand emerging dynamics and possible ways forward.

At the same time, this study suggests that there would also be room to stimulate the EU at institutional level, to consider the possible role of the cooperative legal form into peer-to-peer commercial markets. Cooperatives can match democracy, transparency, local and global impact, employment regulation, consumer safety and redistribution “by form”, with the power of a digital, user friendly, attractive and effective environment typical of the collaborative economy business models. Moreover, from governance to learning platforms, and considering the wide world of noncommercial sharing activities in many way based on – or fostered by – digital social platforms, an even bigger space of opportunities could be opened up by looking at the possible contribution of cooperatives.

Lastly, the promotion of a collaborative-cooperative economy, deeply enrooted in local territories and combining economic opportunities with social and democratic values, may possibly represent also a valuable path for the EU institutions to strengthen reputation among citizens, and to effectively pursue the objective of a smart, sustainable, and inclusive growth, ultimately improving wellbeing, social cohesion and security in Europe.”

Find the full study here.

Photo by Burke Museum

The post Cooperative Platforms in a European Landscape: An Exploratory Study appeared first on P2P Foundation.

One trend in business models is platforms. Airbnb and Uber built extractive platforms on top of the sharing movement. But online platforms do not have to evil.

The Platform Design Toolkit released it’s 2.0 version this year.  Despite it’s marketing hype concerning brands and industry shaping, the toolkit is released under a Creative Common license. One of its commons oriented aims is to create additional value within an ecosystem by generating ecosystem knowledge.

In fact, this is the essence of conferences, like the one I attended.  The event (a platform) assembles practitioners, theorists, regulators, and entrepreneurs (an ecosystem) to interact and exchange ideas (knowledge generation).

Extracted from: https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/your-organization-too-can-be-a-platform-8d0668e55cb#.9vueudhbk

Platform Design Thinking is a totally new way to look at your organization going beyond traditionally imposed barriers on what a business or organization should be. Approaching organization design with a fresh mindset on what a modern organization can leverage on will help us reflect on its physical, structural and sometimes legal boundaries. This conversation is key to designing revolutionary value propositions and organization like creation spaces, that aim to be great for people, instead of big for shareholders.

Extracted from: http://platformdesigntoolkit.com/

Who is the Platform Design Toolkit for?

Corporate pioneers that want to shape reference markets, startup founders that want to disrupt incumbents, social entrepreneurs that want to achieve high impact.

Consultants that want to help clients, journalists and analysts that want to understand how platforms work: the toolkit is also a premium analysis tool.

As we’ve seen in many occasions while developing and explaining the Platform Design Toolkit, there are two key aspects of being a company-platform.

First, you need to ensure you build the right channels and contexts that make it possible for the transactions and relationships that exist in your ecosystem to happen smoothly and flawlessly.

The second key aspect is to see your organization as a powerful engine of learning. Provide means for performance improvement that can benefit not only the company shareholders but the ecosystem as a whole.

Extracted from: https://stories.platformdesigntoolkit.com/platforms-are-engines-of-learning-4f7b70249177#.2i98pvxcl

The topic of Positive Platforms is of course on our radar since a while. We’ve been keeping an eye on every relevant analysis and, in a few months old post, Marina Gorbis and Devin Fidler from Silicon Valley based Institute For The Future, identified eight principles of Positive Platforms design. All the points raised in the post are key and interesting, ranging from open access and transparency to democratic governance and more, and we took all of them into account in developing a new version of the Platform Schema that we will soon publish. By the way, among these principles, you will find one that we think is obviously key, that of “Upskilling”:

“The best platforms already show those who work on them pathways for learning […] and connect people to resources for advancement”

Extracted from: http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?%20u=e272a9d50c52efb331777c60a&id=5dbfee3a1e

Earlier on in July the team held a company workshop with one of the primary financial institutions in Europe. We’ve learnt how human capital in knowledge intensive industries can help these companies become platforms, capable of multiplying the value for the customer through the facilitation of the ecosystem interaction: experts can successfully play the role of trusted advisers for customers.

The greatest learning we achieved was that Platforms help these brands climb the value chain and provide customers with higher level services by leveraging the expertise in the ecosystem and the convergence of strategies between several customers, helping them connect around more ambitious plans and projects.

Extracted from: http://us11.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e272a9d50c52efb331777c60a&id=d19099239a

Blockchains & Platforms: shaping the future of Insurance and Liabilities

The future of the insurance will therefore be on one side unbundled and commoditized?—?with trading of standardized risk and high-speed on Blockchain?—?and on the other will be a key process to give the brand a chance to take responsibility for complex and dynamic business processes that they will create by combining components as the DAO, smart contracts, distributed resources and open-source data: that “general intellect” that?—?despite the destructive force?—?can not be held legally responsible.

In a nutshell, Platforms (not only in the insurance industry) will increasingly take advantage of distributed tools and resources to build their business processes. These processes will be made of activities and information that are not owned by the brand itself, but of which the brand will be accountable for towards the user and the law; in doing so, the ability to calculate the overall risk of such complex combinations, will be an essential factor in determining the success of tomorrow’s brands and companies.

Photo by -Jeffrey-

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“Cooperatives Europe, in collaboration with LAMA Development and Cooperation Agency, released today a new publication, titled ‘Cooperative Platforms in a European Landscape: An Exploratory Study’, at the International Social Innovation Research Conference in Glasgow.

The first known European exploratory study of its kind provides an overview of established cooperatives already developing innovations in the collaborative economy field and reveals the results of the online mapping study, analysing 38 cases from 11 European countries and 3 initiatives from outside the EU. In addition, the publication explores the interest, awareness, practical cases, opportunities and challenges faced, through a series of interviews conducted with cooperative associations from 9 EU Member States.

The study demonstrates that cooperatives can contribute to the collaborative economy promoting models of community based on membership rather than usership, supporting new initiatives to manage the commons, but also getting the business model transformation opportunities enabled by digital platforms and internet technologies.

The online mapping is considered only as the first step in building a comprehensive understanding of the cooperative landscape involving collaborative economy, aiming to continue the study and reach more cooperatives in the future in the EU and beyond.

Agnès Mathis, Director of Cooperatives Europe, commented: ‘Cooperatives and collaborative economy have much in common, yet there is a substantial amount to learn from each other as shown by initiatives carried out by cooperatives in the field and by their national associations. The cooperative movement should apprehend the emerging collaborative economy as an opportunity to promote a vision of an economy based on mutualisation of resources and increased democratic participation.’ ”

Publication: Cooperative Platforms in a European Landscape: An Exploratory Study. By Como, Mathis, Tognetti, Rapisardi (available here).

Photo by mahohn

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That’s why it’s heartening to see OpenMedia, a digital rights organization based in Vancouver, publish its guiding principles. Among other things, the piece outlines why the organization chose crowdsourcing as its primary digital organizing strategy:

Our processes and methods of crowdsourcing are based on our belief that the best ideas come those most impacted by our work, and that the challenges we face are really the result of a democratic deficit in governing institutions. In short, we believe that if citizens rather than lobbyists are in the driver’s seat of government decisions we’ll have better outcomes to the most pressing issues of our time including digital rights.

So what is crowdsourcing? We’ve all heard it in the context of fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, but it refers to the general process of obtaining services, content, resources, and/or ideas by soliciting contributions from a large group of people. While this concept has been around since the dawn of civilization, the internet has revolutionized it, and empowered all kinds of new participatory projects.

OpenMedia relies on crowdsourced civic engagement to tackle issues of access, privacy, net neutrality, and other key digital issues. It views its community as busy and intelligent, and emphasizes the importance of meeting people where they are at. Since its campaigns are so collaborative, it also makes sure to share ownership and decision-making in the organization with its community as much as possible.

What does this look like in practice? OpenMedia maintains an ongoing dialogue with its community on its website by asking for input on specific issues. It also has open chat channels to stay connected on a continual basis. The organization often embeds comments received by its community in its blog posts and reads them out loud in face-to-face meetings with policymakers.

The group’s report is an honest reflection of its methods. By publishing it, OpenMedia is further acting upon its principles, which is itself an extension of how it wants the internet to operate — open, participatory, and collaborative. In other words, it’s using the strength of the internet to save the internet.

Top photo: OpenMedia / CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 CA

Cross-posted from Shareable

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