Capitalism at the Grass roots: A new business ecosystem emerging?

The "Emerging Market - ala India" story has been around for some time. But the truth is that it is not only restricted to India. Lot of amazing stories are being unfolded in Bolivia, Egypt and Cambodia alike. But may be... just may be..there is a little difference as to how the story of India is playing out. Possible reasons could be the open democratic environment, policies based on a wobbly framework that takes its turns appeasing mass population and corporate lobbies depending on the 'opportunities' present! Reforms, unfriendly to masses, often result in a peculiar sporadic form of defiant activism, which in turn bring about unprecedented optimism. Whatever be the cause or effect, there is something happening at the grass roots that merits attention and deserves a discourse.

After many entrepreneurial and academic stop-starts as 'emerging market' experiments, finally a definite direction is emerging that is effectively pulling masses out of the clutches of poverty, creating opportunities for viable business models and most notably creating unprecedented ambition and optimism among the rural communities!. Recent example is Farmers in western India deciding to put up a protest against corporate land grabbing and start a whole Special Economic Zone by themselves!! One really wonders what will be the determinants of commercial success of these especially when venturing into segments where these communities have no previous knowledge, e.g. manufacturing. But without a doubt, there will be new chapters written in the science of competitiveness.
To sketch out what is happening in the non-urban India, we may very well cite the unimaginable rise in the e-commerce transactions (about 60% in all of India) taking place from the small towns and large rural centers, farmers opting for smart card based insurance, dispensed from rural ATMs and community based trade co-operatives, going all out to woo the buyers in the developed market industries. Are we soon going to see the actual implementation of 'Social stock exchange' famously propounded by Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank? We don't know at this moment, but these movements seem highly poised to capture the opportunity of the moment.
How will these communities become active members of mainstream commerce. What is their credential to stand against the sophisticated global business giants or even the local ones. What mental models and behavioral or attitudinal dispositions towards technology and 'information objects' do these communities manifest in general? Few key observations from the project work rural India, that I have been fortunate to be a part of:

• They exhibit a collective identity that gives them mutual strength and at the same time builds an effective social capital
• Their experiences are day-to-day learning based, not shaped through formal training
• Low on deciphering complex taxonomies but very high on grasping the functional aspect of the knowledge (quick to implement too)
• Cognition in general very distributed, based on physical artifacts and trusted entities (person or object)
  
• Non-literacy is a big barrier, they adopt many ways to circumvent the shortcomings, e.g. appointing the only school going village boy as the cooperative spokesperson!
  
• Tasks are carried out in a highly social manner, not from an individualistic point of view
  See Publication: Understanding and designing for intermediated information tasks in India by Tapan Parikh, J.S.; Kaushik Ghosh

Self Help Technologies – Bane or Boon!!

Today’s demanding business environments are asking for more….more benefits to the customers, more intelligence from mining knowledge repositories, more choices appearing in the custom search result. And the so-called ‘expert systems’ are trying to do just that. Decoding complex user intentions into readable machine language and serving up more and more relevant information. Programs are semantically analyzing ‘entities’, parsing headers and resolving fuzzy relationships to stitch together valuable intelligence that is completely unheard of. Humans never had it so easy. They do not have to sift through piles of data from thousands of sources, what needs attention or intervention is instantly made available through QA modules. Even the number of human resolutions is becoming fewer and more complex in nature, as the easier ones are often bypassed by the constantly learning machine intelligence…But is it all that rosy? Have we arrived at the futuristic age of ‘Artificial Agents’? May be not! The realm of human user’s experience has gone through many changes and not all of them are pleasant! For example, the ‘expert system’ may throw up many unresolved issues (at least in the beginning) that need tedious resolution with no predictable way to structure them. One can not index them in a reasonable order and many issues belong to more than one unique category. Machines still can not determine user states unless explicitly informed. And therefore takes erroneous cues to trigger some unwarranted action. The advantage boomerangs as intrusiveness!

Sengers, Boehner and Gaver suggests that Experience is an interpretation or 'meaning-making' by the users while using complex technical systems with AI capabilities.

Similar possibilities arise from the use of Artificial Intelligence techniques that themselves actively interpret patterns of human activity and generate responses as a function of these interpretations. Such ambient intelligences are able to actively participate in human contexts, not by attempting to completely and formally model the context, but rather by participating in the context as a non-human subject engaged in the shared construction of meaning. Such systems become an "alien presence" which, through its idiosyncratic interpretations and responses, open unusual viewpoints onto everyday human activity, providing opportunities for contemplation. Such systems share commonalities with ambient intelligence, though such work tends to be more concerned with task support than with supporting rich, affective experiences and reflection.
-- 'Experience as Interpretation'. Sengers, Boehner and Gaver

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This 'Alien presence' is expressed through system states and most often uses 'signal detection' and other cultural and contextual factors for co-interpreting meanings. Many times the control of the intelligence or the language of human and system interaction is exposed to the user to manage, e.g. Rule building and inspecting.
Yet users' experiences are by necessity radically subjective, deeply dependent on irreproducibles such as context, mood, and past personal history. And most importantly demands certain deliberation of intent that are almost beyond the rational/logical realm of the system engineering.

'Richard Coyne' defines philosophy of 'Experience' and 'Design of Technology'

This was orginally posted in my other blog, but I though this would be more appropriate here.
Recently I found this book review

Coyne, Richard, Designing Information Technology in the Postmodern Age.

This book examines the design of computer systems from the perspective of several areas of postmodern philosophy. Coyne seeks to investigate and illuminate the role of computer technology in our lives and the processes by which it is created. This book is not a how-to book for computer software design, but a deep critique of the traditional paradigms of computer science. However, along the way the serious designer may find new perspectives which may lead to new modes of interacting with computer technology.

The field of computer science was originally rooted in the analytical and theoretical traditions of rationalism. Schools taught software design as an extension of mathematics and logic. Actual software design, on the other hand, progresses in ways better described by pragmatism, with its concerns on human action, the materiality of the world, and the interaction of the senses. In the first chapter, Coyne examines the pragmatism of Dewey and the pragmatic media studies of McLuhan, and concludes that computer designers would be better served by turning from theory to a concentration on praxis.

Coyne's book then explores the schools of critical theory, hermeneutics, and deconstruction for what each can say about the process of design. Coyne explains each of these schools with clarity and understanding. For instance, the critical theory of Marcuse is seen to describe the way information theory marginalizes the ethical,decontextualizes human experience, and promotes domination. Coyne decides that Marcuse raises serious moral concerns about our helplessness in the face of the spread of computer technology, but because of radical, global reform of his proposed solution it is of little use in guiding the concerned software designer.Throughout the entire discussion is the influence of Heidegger, whose book "Question Concerning Technology" is probably the most influential philosophical critique of technology. Heidegger's theory of the "technological mode of thought" which "enframes" the entire world and reduces all objects and people to a "standing reserve" is compared by Coyne with all the other thinkers, even those like Derrida who reject key elements of Heidegger's theory.

Coyne then moves on to consider cyberspace in light of Heidegger's distinction of being "in" a world versus involvement with the world. He also examines virtual reality technology and contrasts the traditional view of truth as correspondence used by most researchers with Heidegger's view of truth as disclosure. Coyne determines that the important thing about virtual reality is not the ever improving graphical technologies for mirroring reality, but the potential for showing alternate realities which can cause us to reflect on our own real world.

Finally, Coyne turns to the subject of metaphor. Metaphors have been seen by writers such as Lakoff and Johnson as fundamental to human thought. Coyne shows that metaphors can shape how we understand technology, decide what problems need technological solutions, and provide a basis for evaluating technologies. New metaphors provide software designers new way of thinking about the use of computer technology, for instance Apple's famous desktop metaphor, which can lead to new directions in software design.

Coyne concludes his book with a return to pragmatism. He concludes that attention to the practice of computer use combined with the power of metaphors to illuminate new ways of interacting with the technology can guide computer developers much better than analytic problem solving. This book is valuable for showing how recent philosophy can illuminate issues of new technology. It provides not much practical suggestions for designers, but a wealth of new perspectives and ideas which when applied by creative designers could be developed into new ways of interacting with technology.

For other works of Richard Coyne, visit this link Richard Coyne Books

New business models need new kinds of customer experience

"As happened with the web, the business models come later."

the classic example of Clayton Christensen's innovator's dilemma. When HTML came out everybody said "Hey this is so crude, you can't build rich interfaces like you can on a PC - it'll never work". Well it did something that people wanted, it kind of grew more and more popular, became more and more powerful, people figured out ways to extend it, and HTML really took over the world. - Richard MacManus.
Well it’s been a while since those debates about business model or user experiences of the web mark up standards or protocols have been put to rest. It has grown fairly rapidly into the uncharted territories and breached many perception barriers. Social models of cyber culture have been turned into viable businesses and vice versa, new breed of consumers or the ‘prosumers’ have risen, new kinds of demands have been conceived with ever narrowing niches. Large corporations with large investments or smart models have succeeded and failed to sustain over time as their market share have been severely compromised by many unknown players with no traceable address (Napster or Kazza conceding to defeat by mushrooming unknown P2P nodes) or users and consumers getting clever quickly (Google AdSense registering fluffed CPC counts, triggered by rouge ‘mouse-over’ event capturing applications). Even the 'sellable ware' transcended from tangible to abstract (from books & music to search marketing).
So, one may ask, in this rapidly changing landscape of concept selling or micro-niching, how does the beginners get onto the platform and become viable customer, seller or both? Obviously it takes a while before the viral wave catches up.

To be completed...

Social applications on Web 3.0: It's not just the smart web also 'leveraged participation'!!!

I recently came across this quote: "Dial tone is a fabulous metaphor for one of the key principles of Web 2.0, which I've called "the architecture of participation," but which might also simply be described as the design of systems that leverage customer self-service..." - Chris Shiflett

It means something very simple yet very fundamental about the participatory web. The Internet today is buzzing with teeming ‘Social meeting places’ or ‘friend listers’ and 'Mash ups. But if you really think where all this is leading to, stop for a moment and recall what has been the primary reason for adoptions of most new technologies. The main driver behind adoption has always been the end user value that results from a strategic provisioning for leveraged capability.
In a recent company transcript, David Drummond, Chief Legal Officer of Google was heard saying: "Google’s business model has focused on what’s known as the “long tail” of the Internet – the millions of individuals and small businesses that cater to niche interests and markets. We lower the barrier to entry for these small publishers and advertisers, and we match them up with users who are interested in what they have to say or sell." This resonates the same philosophy of 'leveraged participation' in a big way.
The phenomena of ‘Social bookmarking’ and ‘User generated content’ have been a major 'proof of concept' in this direction by leveraging human social activities that requires exchanging, sharing and reuse of information to fulfill personal or common objectives.
Web 3.0 is touted to be a major break through with semantic reasoning capability of the 'smart programs', but to me it is equally important to understand the nature of this 'leveraged participation' through endless shades of human social activities like volunteering, activism, planning, co-authoring or wiki-ing....it is practically a open field for the smart users to define the true essence of the future of our very own web.
What would then be an appropriate and usable experience that can effectively utilize and enhance this 'leveraged participation' on the new and unknown terrain of a highly intricate web that is extremely distributed, amazingly synchronous and astonishingly granular (See how Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0). Experiences will tend to be highly fragmented in this era of 'open architecture' and universal 'plug 'n play'. The challange is to stitch them all together and at the same time provide a seamless continuity with dogged persistence.
You might also like to see the slide show on the Web 3.0: 'Socially Voiced Co-Creation' by Twain Luu, here...