By Janus Boye
Helle Jensen in action at the Boye 20 Aarhus conference
There is nothing better than shared purpose, shared values and value created for all involved. But how does that actually work? You have probably heard of community gardens, co-ops and other community-based initiatives where people come together, put in an effort and everyone gets an output. But how can that work digitally? Does it even work?
When everything we build digitally has some sort of commercial angle or way to create more value for the organisation building it, is it then true commoning? Or is commoning in the digital world quickly on its way to becoming the next greenwashing fad?
Helle Jensen is Experience Director at digital agency Valtech and in a recent member conference call, she shared examples of good, bad and unexpected angles on commoning in a digital context. You might be a part of it already without even knowing it. Helle discussed whether commercial commoning is actually commoning or just a fancy loyalty scheme and if psychological commoning is a trick or a treat.
She did not share a fail-safe recipe for working with commoning in your next digital project, but useful insights on getting better at trying to work consciously with it and inspiration to further explore what it could mean for you and the projects you work on. Below are my notes from the call and towards the end you can also find the slides and a recording of the talk.
What is commoning really?
Helle opened by talking about what she described as naive idealistic sharing and shared this non-academic definition of commoning:
“Community-ish where you put in resources and get stuff out of it”
She then asked us whether Wikipedia might be the original digital commoning? Clearly, Wikipedia is about sharing resources.
On the other hand, she described Airbnb as the illusion of digital commoning. In her words, Airbnb is more online marketplace and big business than commoning, but Airbnb does try to spread the good vibes by talking about home-sharing, discovering the outdoors and unique activities with local experts. According to Helle, Airbnb is more the infamous sharing economy, which doesn’t have a level relationship unlike commoning.
In Helle’s view, another difference between commoning and sharing economy, is that communing creates an outcome, an actual deliverable, while the sharing economy is people sharing things that remain unchanged.
Helle Jensen hosted a session on “CX strategy - bottom up!” at the Boye 20 Aarhus conference
She also asked about open source software and left it unanswered whether commercial open source like Umbraco could be considered communing. Clearly, open source fits the bill, but what about those many open source projects that are driven by commercial entities?
Commoning - an emerging concept within digital design
As a part of her presentation, she also shared a few useful examples of how commoning can be used in a digital context:
Blood donation: By sending an old-fashioned text once the pint of blood has been used. This has been done in Sweden for over a decade and was also introduced in Denmark a few years ago
Buying your clothes responsibly: The Knotty Ones makes knitwear pieces and not only encourages less shopping but also supports stay-at-home moms in rural areas of Lithuania, who often struggle to support their children.
COVID19 contact tracing app: These exist in various shapes and forms around the world, but by downloading and activating the app, you put in some resources and everybody gets something out of it
OpenStreetMap: A collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Registration is required to make edits, similar to Wikipedia, but you can view the map free of charge.
What if commoning could be used to flip the usual loyalty concept?
In closing, Helle asked the interesting 'what if’ question:
Could commoning potentially be used to turn the usual loyalty concept on its head: The more loyal you are, the more others benefit?
An example could be, the more you shop at Zalando or the more you fly with Lufthansa, the more you can give to good causes?
Still, this wouldn’t have the level relationship as with the open source projects, but it could possibly act as a new driver for both marketing and revenue.
Learn more about commoning
The slides from the talk were highly visual and you can download them here (PDF).
You can also lean back and enjoy the entire 27-minute recording below.