TrustRaising
and Transformation
Tom
Munnecke, Tom@Givingspace.org, 878-756-4218
Global Transformation
- Self-organizing, self-propagating self-empowerment…what is
the “self”?
- Power hierarchies vs. energy eruptions
- How to exploit “order for free” of loosely coupled
autonomous entities
Growth Paths of Systems
Pigeonhole Paradigm àIntegration
CrunchàAssociative Avalanche
The Transactional Fallacy
Difficult to recover the transformational view—smoke tobacco
and get lung cancer
We need to invert the transformational view.
Tim Berners-Lee, Creator of the Web
It was a “space” in which information could exist. He created an empty space. Difficult for people to see the value of
creating the empty space. The more
people that participate the bigger the space gets, like Ebay. Decentralized autocatalytic growth.
Mark: Why would people start using it in the first
place? People had been uploading
documents—anonymous ftp. Http was able
to take over by leveraging ftp. What
phenomenon can be leveraged?
Jan: The browser consolidated what people did in conjunction
with ftp. I do not see what Mark is
doing as ecommerce, but rather as eidentity.
Evoluion of the Web
Simple Initial Conditions
Created another space of another space
Yahoo, Excite, e-Bay, network effect
Fitness function is consumer attention.
What Tim didn’t do
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Assign web site numbers
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Assemble panels of experts to organize
the web
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Create a master web administrator to
control the web
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Define pigeonholes to categorize the
right way to structure information
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Givingspace is creating the space for
the network effect.
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They have become trustworthy.
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Try to solve all problems with the
initial conditions
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Control the evolution of the web
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Succumb to proprietary forces and
closed systems
Good enough and adaptive, but not perfect.
What are the simplest conditions for Giving Space?
Can we generalize the web experience to other
transformations?
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What are the simplest initial
conditions?
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What drives its evolution?
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What are the constraints?
Evolution of GivingSpace
Fitness Function is transformational energy.
Trust is a Constraint.
Trustraising--Here is an idea and lets generate solutions.
Timeline of a Commons
Window of Opporunity when
We are in the window of opportunity for GivingSpace.
Focus on IT in Philanthropy Today
Donor Pool (Fundraising) à
Recipient Pool (Program Activities)
Fundraising is focus of Internet activities today.
Trust regenerates Donor pool that’s when you get the
catalytic effect.
GivingSpace allows direct interaction with recipients.
Donor is a dirty word.
Someone who has money.
Recipient—Someone who needs money.
Instead use the neighbor and community model. People help each other not because they
like them, but rather because its for the common good.
Donors as socially responsible investors.
Mark- Leverage the transactional analysis. Let’s start with people we want to help and
how helping starts in their communities.
Help was a dynamic and interpersonal contact. Feeling of responsibility for the person who
was helping. How do we take the dynamic
of generosity in the third world to the first world?
Trust points for doing that.
If anyone has a better picture to draw?
Jan--Intention is to be recipient centric rather than donor
centric. Complimentary currency. FILO- Love of Man/Women
Sigfried--Best image was one of a village. Virtual neighbor. Central element—that there is a place that
people care about. There is something
beyond community.
Scale in Health
Evolution of the Species
Nation
Community
Family
Person
Organ
Cell
Gene
Intrinsics of Giving Space
Trust
Meaningful
Autonomy
Finding where virtue is afoot
Perverse Incentives
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Metrics clash with vision
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Problem solving “society to prevent
pink elephant thinking”
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Generative solutions don’t have
metrics, “can what counts be counted?”
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Industry driven by perverse incentives
cannot reform itself from within.
WEP program in
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Aids focus is more problem focused.
Some terms
Autocatalytic Space: void enlarges as space fills
Malgnosis: Understanding a system by it failures
Benegnosis: Understanding a system by its strengths
Victimgenesis: creating victims in order to have a problem
to solve
Creating a path
Unhelpful
Help
David
Goal of Autonomy-Respecting Help
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Autonomy-respecting form of
assistance=”Helping people help themselves.”
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Helper-Doer relationship
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Assisted self-help
Social Engineering
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help as social engineer
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helper supplies motivation to follow
plan
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doers plan and motivation overridden
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Alternative to social engineering
Helpers need to find
projects where doers are own-motivated independent of aid
Don’t: Don’t Override Self-help capacity
Mental Imagery of social engineers
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Expert makes surgical intervention
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Operation successful
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Patient ‘s health self-enforcing
thereafter
But this is exception, not the rule.
Institutional reform more like an iceberg:
Above water: pass law
Below water: behavior change in many people
What’s Wrong with Engineering People?
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Action = behavior + motivation
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Genuine reform project = project + own
motivation
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Aid-seeking project
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Therefore genuine projects must be
found, not created for aid.
Alternative Indirect Approach to $-Aid
The best help is indirect help. John Dewey
Continuation of reverse incentives
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Charity corrupts, long-term charity
corrupts long term
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Major problem in today development
industry is charitable reflief packaged as development assistance
Don’t Undercut Self-Help Capacity
-Mental Imagery of Gap filling Aid
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Genuine project afoot but has resource
gap
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Money-based agency appears to fill gap
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And thus helps people help themselves
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But this is exception, not rule.
- Money should not be leading edge of help.
- Money will not buy virtue and may lead to moral hazard
- Offer of money aid creates aid seeking projects.
- Moral hazard-Aid undercuts self-help incentive
Example of Social Funds
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Social funds are special clean
technocratic agencies outside sectorial ministries
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Funded by hard currency loans and donor
funds.
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Bypasses regional and local governments
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Makes grants to communities to fund
local infrastructure projects or other accepted community projects.
Social Funds Controversy
- Bypass corrupt local gov. -
Central gov. largess
- Bottom up demand driven -
Top down paternalism—no capacity building
- Impact evaluation of $ with - Impact ignores costs+has phoney counterfactual
Counterfactual of No $
Scylla and Charybdis of Development Assistance
Scylla=Enlightened impulse to do social engineering (mostly
economists)
Charybdis=Benevolent impulse to do charitable relief
Avoid the two extremes
First
Do: Start from Where the Doers Are.
-Bolshevik impulse: wipe slate clean
-Alternative: Better to evolve from where doers are.
-Dev. professional helpers view of problems
-Alternative: Dewey learner-centered,
Third
Do: Above All Else, Respect Autonomy of Doers.
Hirschman
As Alternative Indirect Approach
- Social
- Alternative: Unbalanced growth driven by endogenous linkages and pressures.
- Rage to Conclude vs. Social Learning process
- Comprehensive approach
- Helper as Reformmonger:
- Find where virtue is afoot on its own.
- Supply advice and aid to modestly help without overriding
or undercutting endogenous connections and forces.
- Helper-Doer autocatalytic processes=positive self-reinforcing trust building.
- Doer-Doer autocatalytic processes=Development activities
that “spread like fire.”
- Where virtue is best afoot = entry points for doer-doer
autocatalytic processes, where a little help at right time and place can lead
to big changes.
- Direct approach unhelpful
- Indirect approach more helpful
Cannot engineer autonomous transformation
Aid tends to undercut capacity development
Find where virtue is afoot in small autocatalytic
entry-points
Provide background aid to strengthen and catalyze virtue
Focus throughout on doers in the driver’s seat.
- Anticipation and resiliency
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- Private individuals depended on others to do charity,
which used to be much more personal
- In the context of 9/11, Transparent Society, the Age of
Amateurs, may return to the sovereign power of individuals to help
- Taking of initiative, not measured by any tests
- Pyramid vs. Diamond—our flag should feature a diamond
- First in our history where the well off out number the
poor
- People at top are mostly self made
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs—other priorities also
important
- 15 trillion dollars—what the boomers are going to
inheriting over the next 10 years
- Investment horizon—how can we apply excess capital—most
corporations and governments control capital
- Corporations show great agility in terms of consumers
- Some way to entice the super wealthy to take on large
projects
- Eye of the Needle foundation—catalog of possible projects,
Caltech, main product would be explore the potential of investments
- One characteristic of rich--Ability to operate from whims,
great many millionaires now
- Particular prescription does not matter that much, empower
individuals as all levels. Empower
individuals at the top of the diamond.
Use capital to change the world.
Questions
In the age of the amateurs, what is the role of NGOs? We are going to need professionals more than ever.
Chief Science Officer, BIOS
- Premise in Giving Space
- A software tool that would alert agencies to interact with
them.
- Java objects in Java language
- Java object that represents a engine and another a piston
block
- technological complementarity
- require a description of activity of each organization
- a search engine with the descriptions
- get it on the web
- semi automated on the web
- are there lots of complementarities?
- Throw money at problems is the last thing Giving Space
should do
- Economic growth—diversity of ways of earning a living has
exploded
- interlinked cottage industries—trust virtue direction
- Basic model to operate in
- Very simple, no more than 3
- An issue of control, control has to be vested in the giver
- Reduce friction as much as possible
- Other infrastructure costs occur
- There has to be a mechanism for feedback from the receiver
of the gift to the giver—helps create the autocatalytic process. That person also talks to others about what
happened.
- Concept of self organizing—as more people talk about
it. More and more people want to join
in.
- Issue of cascade
- Idea of compelementary currency can be built in on a
secondary or tertiary level
- Reward givers for their action
Question—Tension between control and trust
Question—What if the control was with the recipient instead
of the giver?
Conceptual overviews
Three types of participants
Need—People who are taking the initiative and who have needs
Social Entrepreneurs
Service Providers
Social Investors
http://www.developmentspace.com\beta\Index.htm
1.Anyone can initiate a plan
2. Create a plan (develop a business plan), Next someone
needs to be authenticated
3. Refine the plan
4. Make the Deal, Social Investor and Social Entrepreneur
sign contractual agreements
5. Implementationa Stage
Greenstar see end result, and people say please come and see
us.
Social Entrepreneur
Time frame—Initiate your project
Authenticate
Develop a business plan
Message board
Seek Services
Advise this Project
Find an Advisor
Search engine
Tension between the Service provider and those seeking
services
Amazon/Ebay present
Elance.com
Potential for network effect
Application provider
Backbone is xml
Voice and pda access (Greenstar.org also has tools for
voice/pda access)
- Working in collaboration with Ashoka
- Project should get at least 85 % before it gets forward.
- Authentication network would have to be increased if a lot
of people to participate
Indebted to Mark Miller
Approach is to understand islands of elegant perfection to
create continent of usefulness
Honor existing conditions, provide framework and synthesize
Trust is not binary, but a scale – just like giving
Trust, like power and love, are understood by all, but with
no common definition
Models of trust
Electronic trust is different than physical world.
Close-knit interaction (based on intorductions and
investment of social capital)
Review and rating by group like ebay
Institutional and Boundary trust, not real but acted upon as
if they were. Separation of roles is
created by institutions
Iterated Transactions – not in person, but come to trust
through common doing
Contract w/informal group, not formal institution
Trust has 3 components: authentication (electronic),
reputation, accountability
World is messier than a simple model
Scale of trust and security is factor of all three
Authentication level depends on damage done if abused
Mark Miller’s work shows you should base new system on the
individual, not URL or org as it creates colonies on the web
Reputaion is dependent on authentication or other atributes
like integrity
Accountability can compensate for less authentication and
reputation. Remedy for failed transaction. Like rules of law
Techies misunderstand that trust is an emergent
property. Trust and security is NOT a
technical problem
Trusted 3rd parties essential
The Brownian Motion Notion: lots of info going both ways
will bring order from chaos
Generative space, the more partcipate the bigger it gets
Create the NGO network effect through cataylsts or brokers
that generate trust then move on and not manage the resulting relationship
Stories: VISA, random audit, problem org if not fixed goes
to a higher level
Call to action
Tutorial on trust a electronic medium
Recommended practice guide
Creation or aggreagtion of standards (like xml)
Creation of working groups
Discussion
Distinction between personal trust and impersonal
trust. Personal is not scalable.
Before reputation mech on ebay, people had to trust each
other individual. Now you can trust ebay
itself to have create a good reputation system.
To recognize that trust is scarce, orgs can create aggregated trust
Trust can be built through personal reciprocity (like
neighbors) but also through formal trust.
How can trust be created when returns are social? Through accountability. As internet allows edge communications
Where do risk-models come in? Mark: Risk perspective impt for trust. Mediated scalable trust enables 2 parties to
deal as if they trusted each other with 3rd party taken on the risk
of trust being broken.
Creating value through communications
Inspired by comparing DeSoto and Fukiyama’s book on Trust
Internet constraints of geography have disappeared from
electronic goods and services – can goods and services in the informal economy
be transferred into electronic
Michael Litz, PML and standards
Challenge in past attempts at standards is the seemingly
contradiction between need to keep things simple to ease adoption yet have a
transparent governance structure for credibility.
Current XML initiatives often driven by data-entry, not by
functionality
Analagous to building a speech community, based on solutions
approach.
LDDX – issue of the tech platform
OPX – issue of governance/credibility and trust, problem in
adoption
IDML – issue of institutional “rigging”, time needed and
complexity of resulting standard
Paths
Stealth plan
NetDeva: adoption is critical and do it community by
community. Institutions are not part of
the equation.
PML or GiveTalk, bi-directional, philos as complementary
currency.
Keeping it simple.
Premature articulation:
Complemenatry currency- airline frequent flyer miles. First just for 1 airline, then fungible (Exchangable)
between airlines, now airline miles can be used for other things. Philos.
Loving money -> alternative currency used for caregivers in
Why would people participate in GivingSpace? Buddy system is to increase participation
through learning, not for gain.
Miles: lots to follow
up on. Build tools for grantmakers to
collaborate. Thinking where these
relationships can go beyond the networks in which to operate. Interested in leveraging the current
infrastructure.
David: Amazed at how it has come together. Interested in the scalability of trust can
develop and how authenticators can provide increased trust. Qualitative assessments are also going to be
needed to spur efficiency and effectiveness or do we even need such
assessments. Can be used to learn.
Joined by: Sarah Newhall, President, PACT.
Usha Ta, PACT
Marsha O’Dell,
Tool of appreciation, rather than problem statement
GivingSpace is focused on amplifying generosity. The goal is seek simplest approach and grow
into a better space.
Agenda:
Reactions to yesterday
PACT presentation
Givetalk: start
w/speech community. Let community design
their own pigeonholes. With no central
authority. Shared meaning will naturally
arise.
Active – combination
Not static list of standards
Community-seeking and enhancing
Not language for integration between big players
Able to discuss where appreciative view (virtue) exists
Can help “count what counts” outside of transactional
evaluation
Able to express point of view of Doers, Helpers, Trustees
and Patterns
Integral part of trust raising
A GiveTalk Ensemble is a collection to work towards
transformation
A GiveTalk Channel is the communications facility to support
such an ensemble (CDF)
GiveTalk
Meaningful opportunities to give
Trust relationships/ratings/reputations
Helpers
Doers
Trustees
Patterns of
giving
Transformational energy/feedback
Ensemble/channel management
Appreciate Ontologies/taxonomies (not list of problems)
GiveTalk Tech:
XML
Appreciative ontology
Trust
Philo as optional currency
Extensible
Scalable
Open systems approach
Licensing
Standardization
Requirements
Base language English
International alphabet
Translators
Metadata in English
Topic Maps/XTM indexing
Bi-directional
Asynchronous/synchronous links
Low quality links
Multimedia
Siegfried (NABU):
Total income of all NGOs I $1B. Too
little to make a real difference on major problems. NGOs spend their time raising money. How can one shift out of this cycle.
Example of NABU’s work w/stakeholders.
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Created a vision and go to people
in-country (5% of time)
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Finding the right place to try the
pilot program (15%)
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Bringing the stakeholders together and
educating everyone on effort (80%)
People realigned according to a fitness function of
enlightened self-interest and pride in what they were trying to do. Big
success.
Huge resource is energy but is still untapped by govts,
corporations and ngos. Nabu or neighbor
is designed to virtually tap into that energy and their affinity to specific
places. Givingspace should operate at a
huge scale (100M people)
4 elements:
A real place. Map of
the world. Create credible local agenda.
Community – a group of people feeling challenged to do
something to help a place.
Story – participants need to see how things are evolving and
it must be communicated to the media
Self-organizing – not create a big org to do it
Need to be careful about jargon, in development and
givingspace
Project: work w/local orgs and women. 6000 econ groups. In 1997 launched w/USAID. Illiterate women wanted to raise their
family income so project is designed to link literacy to higher income. In 1994 project PACT provided everything
needed for free. Drop out rate of 25%.
Not so in new program where women must pay an interest fee and books, lanterns,
stationary, or even teachers. 125
thousand women organized. Come together
to learn to read, pay for it, then save. Interest goes into fund for it to fund
micro enterprises within 6000 groups.
Assumption was that if donors didn’t contribute funds to
support activity it would not happen.
Not so. Designed as an appreciate
inquiry with the community. Previous
approaches focused on problem however it takes a long time and mostly done by
men. Another issue was that energy in
group was draining away as people became discouraged when mapping the problems
of their community. Also usually had an
expectation of gift.
Instead asked them when they have you felt successful,
powerful or excited in your life? They felt that way after they had done
something, not when they had been given something. Now 100,000 have learned to read, created
funds totaling $2M, and $10M a year of business activity. Loan rates usually set @2% per month with women
being the bankers. Financial planning
tools were built into the literacy program.
Dropout rate is virtually 0%.
Another 2000 groups have spontaneously started by women who
could not find space in existing groups but were trained by those in groups to
start their own. Asked poor women whom
they could help among those even more less fortunate than them. Women have also activated to improve
community life. Starting to address
social issues such as prostitution and trafficking in women.
How do you give in a way that doesn’t deprive people of the
joy of accomplishment? Program has been
cancelled by USAID despite awards because impact does not show up on the
balance books.
The ultimate resource is the social network. Problem is that program generated processes
and not measurable outcomes (or stuff being given out).
Transformational energy is a recycling of virtue. Distributed stakeholdership.
Money is convenient.
However throwing money or just contributing might not be
transformative. See what givingspace
would be without money. Dev. World tends
to think that we have the answers. If poorer
countries followed our advice they would have our problems! We learn as much as teach so givingspace
could be that meeting point. For
givingspace to be digital leaves out so many who couldn’t connect. Leverage both electronic and human networks.
Transformation
Strength and coping skills everywhere so answer pre-exists
Our words and the actions we expect from our words will not
lead to expected actions
We really do not know how to intervene
What is the nature of our involvement? How is the medium going to change people?
Respecting the autonomy yes but relationship between
individual and community autonomy needs to be explored
Evaluation also key but you might not as understand outsider
how it is a value to the community.
Transformation must be mutually enhancing. Transformation can be through being,
belonging, belief, and benevolence (out of gratitude a willingness to give)
GivingWay as impt as GivingSpace.
Portability of trust relationships is key. Creating a way to
learn what are the emergent properties of language.
Siegfried defines a community as a social group that
sustains purposeful action over time for shared aims. Males focus is to fix it, females usually try
to look at the “real” problem and pool resources to solve problem. We think of solutions as coming from
institutions or individuals but instead solutions come from actions and moral
input.
Choices by citizens and consumers made in North have
profound effects on southern peoples.
What is specifically different about GivingSpace compared to
other physical and virtual spaces.
To do:
Instance of using
Meeting in May in
Jan to work on trust and community technology. Tech group.
GivingSpace as a consortium.
Impressions of conference
Suggestions of how can it be done better
Next steps
Trust network issue
Platforms and common language
Proper approaches to development
How both giving and receiving can be transformative
The system designed must be unique to be adopted
The feeling of mutual trust in the room
The network effect among participants
Articulation of what we felt to be true
Using software/ICT to make it easier to create social
networks
Emergent paradigm of development
Need for a givingspace newsletter that tracks developments
in the conservation
Groupware might be needed
misfitspace.
Bigmindmedia will be used to discuss.
SantaFe Philanthropy conference – have to a science angle to
trust networks. Theory of philanthropy.
Limited to 30 people.