Difference between revisions of "Michael's Projects"

I'm [[User:Michael|Michael Slattery]]. Below is a brief description of some of the projects I've been working on - or would like to work on.

==Convivial Tools==

I created my [http://conviviality.ouvaton.org first website] in order to promote the ideas of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Illich Ivan Illich] about what he called [[Convivial Tools]].

The underlying theme of all of Illich's work is how to give back to the average citizen some part of the control over knowledge and technology which is exercized by specialized elites. Illich was a precursor of the personal computing revolution and of the Internet. His book Tools for Conviviality directly influenced [http://conviviality.ouvaton.org/article.php3?id_article=39 Lee Felsenstein], whose key role in the invention of the personal computer is little recognized today.

 

More broadly, I wanted to explore the extent to which [http://conviviality.ouvaton.org/article.php3?id_article=20 idea systems] and [http://conviviality.ouvaton.org/article.php3?id_article=21 social systems]can be considered "tools," and how they could be made more "convivial" in Illich's sense.

 

However, my projects in the field of Convivial Tools got bogged down in the details of fleshing out the several websites that I created on the subject. My attention is now focused instead on the exploration of Internet as a tool. As a friend observed recently, I've beeb diverted from my project of making reparable washing machines to a project of making easily reparable machines for the processing of information flows.

 

==Cooperative Social Network==

Most of my websites are hosted on [http://www.ouvaton.coop Ouvaton], which is a French web-hosting cooperative.

 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative Cooperatives] are a viable economic alternative to less democratic forms of enterprise. While the Internet abounds in examples of cooperative endeavors, from wikis to open source software, economic cooperatives are rarely found in the field of high-tech. The cooperative form may seem poorly adapted to high-risk endeavors at the forefront of technological innovation - but how often has it actually been tried?

 

The idea would be to create a [[Cooperative Social Network]], similar to social networks such as Facebook or Friendfeed, but structured as a coop. The coop form could be developed on two levels:

 

 

Illich's vision of Convivial Tools could also be developed in the realm of customer service. The application of his ideas to commercial relationships implies [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2008_June_30/ai_n27874517 customer empowerment], which is a growing trend in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management Customer Relationship Management] (CRM).

One approach to customer empowerment, advocated notably by [[Doc Searls]], is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_Relationship_Management Vendor Relationship Management] (VRM), which aims to equip customers to be independent leaders rather than captive followers in their relationships with vendors. But VRM focuses on increasing the customer's power with respect to the vendors, rather than looking at how the vendor or service provider relates to the customers.

From the vendor's point of view, commercial constraints always intervene to limit the amount of service one can offer customers. For example, after-sales service is a cost which companies inevitably seek to reduce. Thus telephone assistance is often a paying service, or is delocalized to overseas [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center call centers], or is replaced by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IVR Interactive Voice Response] (IVR). How can we imagine a limitless improvement in customer service in the face of real-life economic constraints? We have to go outside of the box of commercial logic with the help of an abstract concept, an ideal, which I call [[Total Customer Service]].

The ideal of unlimited customer service is inherent in the marketing of a Convivial Tool. To design a household appliance that its owner can easily repair, you must also design the whole after-sales cycle: long-term availability of spare parts, usable documentation, online assistance and so on. The better and more complete such a design, the closer one gets to Total Customer Service. But this approach tends to conflict with the commercial interests of the vendor. As the effective life of appliances increases, the sale of new models declines, and as customers become able to repair everything themselves, the need for paying maintenance services disappears. In the long run you might even help the consumer to make his own tool, thus cutting the vendor entirely out the process.

The Convivial Tool or Service seeks to make the user autonomous, while traditional marketing seeks to make the user dependent. One way to resolve this conflict would be to organise the vendor as a consumer's cooperative (see above), in which case the vendor becomes dependent on the consumers. But another approach would be to develop rational marketing strategies based on pushing customer service as far as possible.

To understand Total Customer Service you have to drop economic rationality and aim to save the world, rather than to make a profit. But the closer you can get to this concept, the more you will be serving the interests of your customers. It is therefore the most powerful driver towards true customer service. The weakness of such a drive probably explains why Sarah Lacy found most of the 2009 TechCrunch start-ups [http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/17/memo-to-start-ups-you%E2%80%99re-supposed-to-be-changing-the-world-remember boring]. Note also that the winner was [http://www.crunchbase.com/company/citysourced CitySourced], a start-up with a social purpose.