[governance] Are Techies from Venus and Non-techies from Mars :)

[michael gurstein]

Thanks McTim for reminding us of this document which was very influential in
its time and is still interesting.

I'ld forgotten about their very interesting and creative refiguring of the
term "markets".  I think in literary analysis terminology that's called a
"synechdoche"-- which according to that source of all wisdom and
understanding Wikipedia, means "simultaneous understanding"-- "a figure of
speech in which a term for a part of something is used to refer to the whole
of something, or vice-versa."

Now re-reading this with fresh eyes after 15 years or so... It's hard to
quite pin down what they mean by "markets" but I think the closest is #39
"The community of discourse is the market."--where they seem to indicate
that they are using "market" as a synonym for "community"... (this seems to
be close to the way in which Anthropologists usually use the term "markets"
and about as far from how classical/conventional Economists use the of term
as it is possible to be).

If one re-reads the Manifesto and systematically substitutes the term
"community" for "market/markets" you come perilously close to turning this
into a Community Informatics manifesto and one which I would of course,
strongly agree!

Thanks again for this,

M

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
Executive Director: Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development
and Training (CCIRDT)
Vancouver, BC CANADA

tel/fax: +1-604-602-0624
email: gurstein at gmail.com
web: http://communityinformatics.net
blog: http://gurstein.wordpress.com
twitter: #michaelgurstein


-----Original Message-----
From: McTim [mailto:dogwallah at gmail.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 5:53 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Subject: Re: [governance] Are Techies from Venus and Non-techies from Mars
:)

Here is an interesting use of the word "markets" in a communications
"Manifesto"

http://www.cluetrain.com/

rgds,

McTim

On Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 4:22 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>
wrote:
> In the course of some private discussions with techie colleagues 
> concerning my comments on RFC 6852  it fairly quickly became clear 
> that we were using the terminology around "competition"and 
> "collaboration" in quite different--in fact, diametrically opposite, ways.
>
> For me "competition" evokes market based relationships and in fact, in 
> most policy discourses "competition" is generally used as a code word 
> for the pursuit of private interests and "free markets" a la the 
> Washington Consensus actively promoting the opening up of telecom 
> markets globally (as Milton quite correctly, if disparagingly, 
> understood in his reply to my original comments).  Similarly for me 
> "collaboration" refers to the joint puruit of common goals (as for 
> example, social collaboration in support of the public interest, or 
> p2p relationships, social solidarity and so on) and in a policy 
> context would be appropriate to interpose as a balance to a position
supporting "competition".
>
> For my tech colleagues the understanding, at least according to two 
> non-communicating tech folks was that "competition" is seen as being 
> the means by which to "limit the power of otherwise overly powerful 
> corporations and cartels". While on the other hand "collaboration" 
> needs to be controlled "otherwise it will lead to the formation of 
> harmful cartels".  (While these latter uses of the terms are clearly 
> correct they would never have occurred to me, at least, as being 
> primary definitions that might be used in a document such as RFC 
> 6852.)
>
> (As an aside, I'm wondering whether at least some of the disputes that 
> have been recurrent themes of the IGC discussions might not have 
> similar origins in rather profound domain centric mutual 
> misunderstandings as to the use of quite common terms.)
>
> M
>
>
>
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