conversational invitation

Very simply, I’ve invited Joachim Stroh and John Kellden to separate hangouts using MTTP. We’ll record how the conversation goes, evaluate via SEA, and then put up the video. Viewers can then evaluate it again using SEA, and if they think it is valuable, they go ahead and invite one of us or anyone else to further conversations.

Not sure why I hadn’t noticed this earlier. It is such an obvious application, much easier than writing this fictional narrative book. It is a way to start moneyflow at the conversational level. Must have been primed by John’s curated ‘epic’ hangout the other day. So simple.

The idea came up between me and Ian Merrifield on a well-meaning commentary on a post on facebook, about a whale, loneliness and the state of the world. Of course, he’s a tango man, so genuinely I must say the idea appeared between us. I’ve also invited him to a conversation, and we will see what additional value arises between us.

Whatever the result may be, it is a good start.

 

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scalable invitation (mttp)

This constitutes the primary boundary that constitutes the entity. It is purely an interaction of money. A good way to think about it is, money left on the outside, and value on the inside. For people inside, money is plastered up along the outside, so that internally, people are free to collaborate without concern about money. For people outside, they see the money that the entity is surrounded by, and are attracted to it.

 

How does this work? The basic mechanism is “double your money”. When you are invited to the entity, the person who invites guarantees the invitee will return with double what they bring. So, if I am invited to visit for £10, I bring £10, leave it at the door, do whatever is required for an hour, and when I leave, the person who invited me gives me £20. This money guaranteed. It is all black. In fact, they match the initial £10 at the beginning of the hour.

Imagine a glass plate. People on the inside plaster money to the inside. People on the outside see the money and plaster money to the outside. There is a matching of inner and outer money. Once a person enters, they leave this money there, and only when they return to they pick it up if they have been invited in. Otherwise, money floats around on the inside to match up with more money from outside.

The generalised transaction is simple:

or

 

f(2x,p)

(where x is the base value of the invitation, p is the time period)


or

 

“double your money”


Money is tagged to time. Since our time, each of us being human, is the same (at least in this first proposal, since it may be varied by intensity, wrt children and so on). The amounts and periods are given below.

 

Note: this has been subsequently described as MTTP, the Money-Time-Trust-Protocol, the two simple conditions of which can be found in the ‘Social Contract’ tab above.

subjective enumeration

These green dots represent value created internally. This may mean the building of some prototype, computer or physical, producing some designs or some music, or growing or cooking food, or providing some tools or advice. It is all about experience. This is not about money or things. It is about experience and what people offer in terms of resources.

The evaluations given above are not a substitute currency. They are subjectively enumerated values. This replaces the need for money. They are a record of how valuable people see their engagement with others. There is no absolute evaluation, no “objective” or authorative enumeration anything close to money.

The maths based on this might be interesting, the distribution pattern of a person’s evaluation over time, the mean and so on. It might be possible to see who is producing most value, in the eyes of others. It might even be possible to apply the value algorithm similar to google page rank. Consider the initial starting position:

(where V is the value of any person i at time 0, with N the total number of people)


And the iterative equation which tends to a relative value of any person to any other person in the entity:

(where V is the value of any person i, d is the “damping factor”, N the total number of people, M is the set of people who evaluate person i, the value of pj at time t)


Such an equation might highlight particularly “valuable people”. It might also be used to root out those individuals or cliques who are gaming the system, producing “fake value”, who are in it purely to take advantage of the doubling protocol at the boundary entry.

This kind of equation is something that will be useful for sure, and will evolve over time, as the entity evolves, just as google’s page rank algorithm has. Nevertheless, it is essential to emphasise that the design of the entity has its own values (mine I guess;), and that is for equality. These are merely number games. What happens in the real world is what matters. Whatever equations we produce that play with subjective value is gameable only in the sense that we use the equation for us to highlight those people whose work, effort, insight, we actually value. It is hoped that gaming induces a positive value.

Which is why so much effort is being made to design the outer boundary as self-enclosed as possible. If the outer boundary that constitutes scalable invitation (#4 above) has its own sustainable “income”, it means that everyone within the entity has at least the money they brought covered, and if the entity is healthy, then they are guaranteed to double the money they brought. At whatever level of scale, this entry guarantee is a healthy living, individually, in current 2012 prices. It gives those within the entity the best environment for them to produce value, simple, without the need to make it commercially viable, and thus compromising their ideals and ethics and design to “fit” the current organisational situation, the mess of bureaucracy and money-making directives.

regular non-directed meetings

non-directed meeting

non-directed meeting

If the whole entity is a collaborative network, then the regular non-directed gathering is a concentration of the whole network. This is not the nucleus of the cell, but perhaps something like the vacuole. It is a greater intensity of social capital, and the interest generated is at a deeper human level. Although a lot of “work” is done in the entity, the work that is conducted in this gathering is no less important because it works at a deeper level. Warm relationships are fostered, connections are reinforced, people get to know one another beyond strict “work” boundaries. It is about being comfortable, knowing, community.

These have been capably facilitated by Lloyd with his Tuttle club meetings. There is no direction for the group. It has no function in terms of movement of the whole body. It is not like a company (depicted here by hierarchical mountains), or the executive at the top of these hierarchies who are responsible for making a company move in set directions, or even to “evolve”.

New members can find themselves here on the first time they visit. Indeed, they may be invited to participate in them, or they can self-select to come to one. Because of it’s nature, on any given gathering, there may be a wide range of players, from long-term players who are on an annual cycle, to graduates who have just turned up on that day. What matters is that it is regular.

self-selecting filter

eco^2 membrane

eco^2 membrane

The initial boundary of engagement is very important indeed. If someone is personally invited to attend, it is advised that they go through the following procedure. The objective is that they leave with a greater understanding of where they are in terms of business practice, build some network relationships, clarify what they offer and their aims, and perhaps have actually demonstrated their skills. For the entity, which consists of the other people who are currently there, it is about accessing the resources of that new individual as quickly as possible, their skills, awareness, assets, get them connected and useful, producing value.

It is essential to realise that the filter is a direct confrontation of internal value and external institutional thinking and practice. Money might be the primary motivation that attracts people to the economic entity, with the guarantee of “double your money” when invited. This motivation interfaces directly with the internal culture of the co-creation of value. It is not an understatement to restate: this engagement is very important indeed. Even for those who are approaching the entity without interest in money, they may find the boundary offensive, and such an attitude could prejudice their awareness and contribution, blinding them to the opportunity to manifest social value.

Depending on the context, the filter contains the following elements. Ideally, there will be a regular cycle of up to ten people. These are conducted by “experts”, people who have self-selected to lead the processes, invited to do so by other members of the entity. The role of the person conducting the filter is very important, because they have the ability to spot “talent” and provide personal recommendations to other members directly. I need to know if particular people turn up, those with a fine sensitivity of mind, and are willing to play, capable of improvising given challenging circumstances.

The filtering process is self-selecting. There is no judgement made by anyone, and it is not compulsory. It is about self-determination. But this is less to do with willfulness and individual efforts which give rise to ego and competition, and more to do with open-mindedness and collective effort which give rise to community and collaboration.

Although the diagram shows an arrow entering the entity, if the filtering works, the entity will grow into the social world of the individual. It is less about people joining, learning what the rules are etc within the “group”. If conducted well, people will feel listened to and valuable, and thus the entity will have grown into the social space of the individual. The community will have grown. And even the notion of “invitation” may be reversed, and it is the new person who is inviting everyone within the entity into their lives, to help them out with work issues and their local community.

(from original eco^2 document)

following the money — and leakages!

Although we are employing new financial protocols and shifting from money-production to value co-creation, there may be some value in examining what the current moneyflows are with our tradition system of exchange and taxation. We have a simple algorithm to track subjective enumeration, whereas in the current system our money is distributed in a complex network of exchange including governmental taxation. So, how do we go about tracking where the money goes? Let’s follow the money!

Let us track how money moves based on some simple items:

  • apple (natural things which grow in the uk)
  • banana (natural things which grow somewhere else in the world)
  • wooden toy (made in the uk)
  • electronic gadget (made somewhere else in the world)
  • beer (made and distributed throughout the uk)
  • petrol (imported from outwith the uk)
  • laptop (manufactured and bought from another country)

So, the first six items are bought and sold in this country, whereas the last is bought from a trader outwith the uk.

Some generic questions which may guide us in determining where our money goes:

  • how much goes to the company?
    • how much to the employees?
    • how much for logistics?
    • how much for buildings and shops?
    • how much goes to owners as profit dividend?
  • how much goes on tax?

apple (natural local produce)

A bag of apples from tesco cost anywhere from 21p per apple to 30p.

How is this money distributed? If Tesco gets 21p of my money for an apple, who gets this money? I’d like to think that the check-out person and the shelf-stacker got some, and the people who transported the apple to the shop do too. There may be intermediary markets, but let us consider that tesco has a direct relationship to the farmer — how much do they get for the apple? And in terms of the farming, how much goes to the farmer, and how much to the farm-hands who harvested the apples, and indeed, how much goes to the people who sowed the seed in the first place? Then there’s the tax — what are the tax points? Each employee is taxed, the transportation is taxed, are there any points for VAT? And this apple may benefit from government subsidies, and may even benefit the owners of tesco in terms of “profit”.

We can not get into such extreme detail, but it would be instructional to get as much of a system answer as we can. After all, it would be nice to know how everyone is remunerated in the supply chain from the apple tree to the specific apple going into your mouth. We are particularly interested in seeing how money flows between individuals and organisations and between organisations. We are interested in noticing if there is such a thing as “leakage of moneyflow”, such as we find in water loss between the reservoir and our taps (which incidentally ranges from 10% for efficient cities to 50% in poorer countries or those countries with aging infrastructures).

These questions are beyond our remit here. This is our first iteration. We need ball-park figures. Looking at Tesco’s Annual Report 2011 and 2012), we can gather some simple figures:

  • in 2011, revenue per fulltime equivalent employee in the UK was £200k
  • in 2011, profit per fulltime equivalent employee in the UK was £15k
  • in 2011, (corporate?) tax was £0.9b
  • in 2011, actual fulltime equivalent employee wages and salary globally was £15k

(A passing note: the accounts are static. Wouldn’t it be more useful to have a live, dynamic database, and one could query specifics? For example, I had to calculate the last stat myself based on the numbers in the reports. Accounts should be a searchable and dynamic system — and this is exactly what we will have with an ecological economics system. It is as feasible as the trick that Google has performed, conducting a “live” (or daily at least) search of the internet. We have the opportunity of replacing our out-dated static financial account, with so much static corporate structure, with a dynamic con-current event, and any query is a live instant. We are replacing static complexity of corporate structure with a dynamic p2p complexity.)

A basic way of interpreting the numbers is that out of the network of people who comprise Tesco, say 200,000 fulltime-equivalents in the UK, each person helps generate a revenue of £200k, thus generating the full revenue of £40b for the network in 2011 in the UK. In the current system, salaries range from £15k to £15m for the executives (there are pages of stats on the remuneration of directors and executives and it is not entirely clear what they earn in sum), which derives a financial gearing ration of 1:1000. But there is a problem in how this money is distributed which can be shown through a simple game.

You have a cake, and you give it to two children equally. How do they do it?

The answer is, as you probably know, the person who cuts it is not the person who chooses which slice they get. The chances are, the person who cuts it will then cut it as fairly as they can.

Of course, this reality-experience can get more complicated when we increase the number of participants beyond two, opening up potential politics — but what we are looking at here is a system which encourages fairness. And in terms of Tesco and most companies, the individuals who are deciding on who gets what slice are the individuals who are cutting up the cake — they cut the cake and get first pick of the slices. And even the board of advisors brought in to regulate this process are mostly executives from other companies. We have a kind of “executive aristocracy”. Fairness will never evolve from this set up.

This is not to say that we want a complete equality in the distribution of revenue. After all, some people are making decisions that are resulting in massive gains for the company, deciding on the location of a new store, for example, down to, deciding what items are packed in what shelves. So, it is reasonable for some individuals to be remunerated higher for their efforts, insight, genius even. But wouldn’t it make more sense for this to be evaluated by people, and not by position? I wouldn’t mind knowing that someone attracts £15m because their decision led to all of us benefiting by billions. Such individuals would be the distributed executive.

So, ecological economics enables this. Not only in terms of the choices people make about who they invite (using mttp, the equivalent of a secure income), but also how they evaluate one another’s engagement (using sea, the distribution of profit).

A final observation, the amount of organisational complexity of Tesco is extraordinary. I read once that supermarkets were one of the modern wonders of the world for its sheer complexity. P2p networks based on technology provided by the internet (which is simply an application of Tim Berners-Lee’s http), promises an equivalent complexity and richness without the artificial complexity of proxies such as “companies”. One concern that comes to mind, however, is ownership, or what companies’ term assets. Can such a rich networked complexity occur from individuals “owning” specific trucks or even “isles” of the supermarket in the same way we have gardeners of wikipedia pages? I do not think we are currently capable of this scale of social self-organisation, no matter what the expert pundits say. We need to learn how to trust one another, to be able to engage in consensus dynamics, otherwise any hope of large scale p2p networks will collapse under its own inefficiencies.

bananas and other produce/products

It will not serve us to examine the other produce as we originally set out. We are not in a position to track the chain of supply for any item, apple, banana or computer. Can we even answer what happens to the money for a 21p apple? From the crudest interpretation, the apple represents the revenue of Tesco, which means that 1.5p goes to the checkout person (as a representative of all employees), 1.5p goes to the owner, and the remaining 18p goes… somewhere else? We can say transport, property etc etc, but if we were to examine the costs for this, eg the cost of a new truck, we would simply see that money would be going to the people who made them. Like the question about the world and turtles, the economics world is held up by employees, and it has employees all the way down.

Petrol does remain interesting. Even a cursory look at fuel costs, we can see that the situation is rather extreme. I just paid 135.9p per litre, of which about 49p goes to the fuel importer and 5p to the garage you buy it from, and a massive 82p goes to the government as duty tax as well as the recent addition of VAT of around 23p. Astounding. Terrifying.

A milestone for ecological economics will be to apply the protocols to mapping petrol costs. Although the government is getting an astounding amount of money from drivers, they are in effect subsidising a huge number of businesses by maintaining the road infrastructure. But even then, I don’t think that justifies such a large cut of people’s hard-earned cash.

experiments in virtual communication

I have been playing with different formats to explain what ecological economics is about. Here’s the latest:

You get to hear the speaker, in this case Michael, as well as read my response. It seems to be similar in format to jaxing, where we align as listeners. Something like this exists during live conferences, where people have muted conversation on twitter for example.

Along similar lines, I have been experimenting with capturing live writing, as well as being sensitive to the live reader, for example:

Other experiments have involved producing slideshows, eg:

 

After an interesting conversation with the rather remarkable Tudor Tarlev, I am encouraged to produce explanations for different people. A few slides, a short video. For graduates, fathers, financial experts, and so on.

serendipitous alignment?

Having met Alan Raynor through Leon (who wrote this post) on an email engagement only a few days ago, and getting a fortuitous recommendation from John Wood of Metadesign to learn about Alan’s Inclusionality theories, Alan kindly shared his ideas on relativity which, as far as I can tell, is an attempt to include consciousness in the frame of reference.

an aside on alan’s article on “place-time”

As I write this, I have got as far as reading Newton’s famous equation, which Alan uses as a natural culmination of Parmenides’s discrete world view:

F = ma

This time when I came across it, my mind simply translated this to terms of money rates as defined by mttp. That is, acceleration, rate of change of distance over a duration, as rate of change of money over a duration, for example, £100-day per week. Think of a bundle of people who are engaged with these different rates of moneyflow, multiply them by the number of people, and you get some notion of the force of a social movement. A relatively simple translation we might be able to mathematise were we to be conducting such experiments.

(Why movement? Because my mind has just got off the back of engaging Indy with respect to Jeremy’s work with Purpose.com, who happens to be co-founder of avaaz. This video is a rather good example of the level of self-disclosure required for our new global “leaders”.)

Of course, the math of real cases is more complex than F=ma, and so is one where eg 50 people were working at different rates. F, in this case, would still give some idea of the “force” or “momentuum” of the movement. So far, the momentuum for ecological economics is around £10-hour per week, and it ends in a season. That’s barely a pulse. We were almost close to £100-day per week for a season, which starts to become reasonable, and ideally, and healthy, when it is five £100-day’s per week — for one individual.

And this is to talk about money. If we shift to subjective enumeration, where people are giving values for each other’s contributions, what kind of calculations can we derive regarding the “force” or “health” of a movement? Will increases and decreases of subjective enumeration derive patterns that we can study with standard mathematical tools? Will new laws emerge that capture how realistic a movement (or a project) is, the required “energy” to manifest results? Undoubtedly, in my mind.

(John, as you can see from his metadesign article based on our event, has been considering the required parameters for synergy to occur, but I feel he is jumping the gun slightly. I need to have more obvious palpable results, like the results that Jeremy has produced. Or, more like action cycles that derive some numbers in terms of moneyflow and subjective enumeration. That is, I would rather base analysis on what works, John having conducted many more social experiments with adults than myself. Nevertheless, may I make my customary call to ensure we have moneyflow while we examine these equations, rather than attempt to derive them sui generis.)

concluding alan’s article

I have now finished reading the article, and it ends with with a rather loud statement:

Space is an intangible presence, with qualities vital to the very possibility of cosmic evolution. SPACE HAS
INFLUENCE, which INDUCES ENERGETIC FORM INTO CIRCULATORY FLOW.

I am looking forward to reading Alan’s rather longer paper written with others, where I hope there are attempts to mathematise his thinking. I expect to find some material which relates to what I have dubbed XQ, observations on how math needs to change to capture the kind of thinking he is demonstrating.

And just in case anyone reading this thinks this is all pie-in-the-sky thinking, Alan has conducted courses at Bath University where the effects on his students have been quite remarkable; here’s a video of some “results”. That is, his engagement with real people is the proof of his thinking, much like my experience with kids has influenced my thinking. It is grounded in inter-subjective reality.

real world application?

The application of this thinking may prove to be substantial in terms of global movements, ala Jeremy’s Avaaz organisation, but I am personally interested in getting proof of process not only in classes (something we have achieved already), but in business. I am specifically interested in getting proof at the bleeding edge of business, in sales, marketing and advertising. I have met with some remarkable people, like Ken Dixon from Newhaven Agency, and if we get proof there, not only will we unlock a source of moneyflow from companies, we will provide companies with a new business methodology which will greatly accelerate all the good work being conducted by theorists, educationalists, entrepreneurs, environmentalists, and everyone attempting to avert the very real ecological disaster we are facing.

If I had a wish in my life, right now I’d use it. I wish that all the players mentioned in this post aligned sufficiently strongly to be able to… if we were mountain climbing, it would be putting in the effort to reach the next camp, higher than any of us have so far been. A stable point which may enable others to reach without too much difficulty. A vantage point that allows a clearer view of the terrain around, the socio-economic and historical-political position we are in. And a point from which we may progress onwards. It is as if this point is the first above the cloud-line. What might this mean in the real world? An algorithm? An operational model which enables a group of people to achieve something remarkable, the first manifestation of the “confluence model”? I do not know. This is what my wish might be.