A complexity culture, especially in the design field, has to pass through the dissemination of an aesthetic of complexity too.
Therefore, projects that derive from concepts of complexity, even if just superficially (and so are not complex nor systemic projects) are important for their ability to spread in society an aesthetics of complexity.
This project is an exploration to find a concealed aesthetic by using the pattern formed by the roads of the city which have been growing and evolving randomly through time, thus composing the complex configuration we experience today.
I perceive the city’s patterns as living creatures that I recompose to form an urban image.
This project which started from Seoul where I was born and have grown in, is expanding to other cities all over the world.
Lee Jang Sub
In this project, the complexity is a mere decorative expedient: the shape is Euclidean and two-dimensional, the function limited to pure decoration and the production-distribution-consumption system is extremely conventional. Therefore, it is not a real complex project, but the dissemination of an aesthetic of complexity (and in this case, the complexity of a territory), passes necessarily through such initiatives.
Back from Toshare.it, where I saw some interesting projects and met very interesting persons…
From there, I’d like to suggest you a project that shows how design could get inspiration from complexity. This is maybe the first step a designer could take confronting complexity, and therefore projects like this are not only fascinating but also promising for a new culture of complexity.
It is a simple adaptation of flocking algorithms for a site-specific video projection on an architecture (design-complexity-locality linked altogether?), designed by Turin-based Todo Design design studio.
Next week, on 24th October 2007, I’m going to give a lesson at the Politecnico di Milano, Facoltà del Design, where I am a project expert (or assistant professor, if you prefere) in the Laboratorio di Sintesi Finale P1 course.
Right now I’m working on the presentation, and I think it’s going to be a synthesis of two lessons I gave (as a project expert) in the previous year Laboratorio di Sintesi Finale course Uomo<>Product Design<>Territorio, Academic Year 2006-2007.
Meanwhile, here there are the presentations for the previous two lessons on (in Italian, on slideshare.net).
Unlike a traditional, linear, design process, Open Peer-to-Peer Design is non-linear and characterized by multiple parallell processes because of the large number of agents and their interactions. An Open Peer-to-Peer design process thus provides the basis for developing more parallel projects, an ecosystem of designer agents with a memetic evolution of the projects that are more “suitable” to the community, whose selection will lead to better results.
An Open Peer-to-Peer design process is characterized by openness and sharing of the project (the source code for software) of the platform and of the activities that it allows once provided to the community by the designers. The community will test and modify it several times and in several directions (in the software, compiling the binary code), until a satisfactory version is reached (the stable version of the software) and self-organization is ensured.
The source code of the project (community source code) consists of tools from design services, with the introduction of a description of the reputation levels within the community, the license that governes cooperation and the access to the results, a social network map able to show weaknesses and strengths in the community. The source code is accessible to all participants, who are testing it with increasing level of reality (the platform is gradually built during this phase) reporting to the design community any errors (bugs in software) present. The higher the number of participants, the greater the chance that errors are detected and corrected.
During the design process and at its end, the community will self-organize modifying the project if necessary, as far as possible; it is this ability to self-organize and improve the local conditions that makes the communities alive and interesting.
Participation in this design process is open and equal, but is also governed by two principles: self-selection and reputation, which give place to different levels of participation in the various design phases, according to the possession of knowledge needed in each project phase. The different phases of the design process, therefore, require different levels of participation and therefore commitment and visibility of the participants. These different levels give place to different typical phases (similar to some phases of the community of practice) of the life of the communities: potential, coalescing, stable, self-organization and expansion, decline.
analysis
The project begins with an analysis of the participants, in order to understand the existing and therefore usable resources, limitations, critical points. Through the analysis, the designers begin to know the participants, prefiguring which features the community’s activity could have in the future. The objective of this phase is to define the objectives and the strategy on which the concept of the community’s activity will be build. The analysis, carried out through ethnographic investigation and social networks analysis, will cover the platform, the characteristics of the individual participants if possible, as well as existing activities.
concept
Once the analysis of the participants, of their activities and their social networks is done, a first concept of the community’s activity (and its platform) is developed. The designers then develop an initial version (we might say the 0.0.1 version) of the project of the activity/platform, formalized in the community source code.
parallel co-design / test / setting-up
Once developed, the concept is shown to the participants and collectively discussed. From now begins a phase of co-design of the activity/platform, characterized by steady growth of commitment, energy and visibility by the participants. At this stage, the concept of activity is developed collaboratively to get a functioning project, a “stable” source code (version 1.0).
The participants test the community source code of the community simulating the activity, in order to understand what are the weaknesses, errors (bugs in the community source code). The source code is subjected to a peer-review process, in which both the designers (who observe the simulation) and the participants report errors and the necessary changes. Once a bug is identified the source code is modified and again a testing begins with the new code.
In order to simulate the activity, participants must share the conditions necessary to carry out the activity, represented by the platform. Rules and roles should be developed and adopted, and the artifacts that are not already present will be built or acquired. This means that along with the continuation of the co-design / test process, the platform is implemented and when the project reaches the stable version, the participants can begin the regular activity, strengthening then the sense of community.
Once the co-design / test ends, the project will already be done, there are no phases of production nor execution. As in software, then the source code (the project) gives place to the binary code (the work done by the participants).
self-organization
After the first “stable version” (1.0.0) of the source code is reached, the community will be largely formed: during the simulation / activity new social relationships will have formed. A stable version of the source code means that it can be “compiled” (ie, done) and used by anyone without the possibility of critical errors. At this stage, therefore, the community is able to carry out the activity and self-organize without the contribution of the designer: if his role was that of a facilitator (enabler), now the community is able to act successfully alone.
At this point, ideally, the role of the designer is not needed anymore; however, the community will always need its contribution in the future: the designer has always knowledge and expertise useful to provide support to the community in response to changes in the outside world.
Also, if the community activity is a design one, the desinger’s capabilities make them important in the community, and they will continue to be part of also during the self-organization phase.
These observations represent therefore an initial proposal (1.1) for an Open Peer-to-Peer design guidelines, in a broader process of studying a comprehensive methodology.
Finally, what are the future opportunities and directions for the application and study of these design guidelines?
Once we define the platform, it is possible to comprehend what, effectively, a designer can design for an Open Peer-to-Peer community. It still remains to define how this project plan can be carried out holding account of the complexity of the community. It is necessary to define a design methodology (or at least some guidelines) that can improve the open and peer-to-peer participation of the community and its complexity.
The community is a complex system, and there is the need of a design methodology able to face its complexity without reducing it. As we have seen before, Open Peer-to-Peer organizational forms seem promising in supplying greater probabilities to face complex problems and to elaborate complex artifacts. That happens just thanks to their own intrinsic complexity: the complexity of the project reflects the complexity of the community, and both strengthen each other. Whe we design an activity, the community itself (a complex system) designs a complex project collectively (its own organization and the necessary conditions).
Moreover, a project dedicated to a community must hold on account the characteristics of the context in which it lives, especially the territorial characteristics that become resources once the community realize their importance. This is an ulterior reason for giving it a greater opportunity of direct participation to the design process, as a community can recognize the usable resources better than others. This is therefore a design approach that take advantage of the participation of a potentially elevated number of participants, through a complex process characterized by its specific path (path dependency), oriented to several the levels of interaction: between participants, participants and community, community and another community, communities and institutions, community and society. We should therefore adopt a design approach based on participation, in order to use the knowledge of the participants to getter better results.
We can therefore say that a project directed to an Open Peer-to-Peer community should be itself Open Peer-to-Peer, based on the participation of the community to the design process (open: open to the participation), to whose members is recognized an equal and active role (peer-to-peer: the acknowledgment of other people’s competences and acquaintances). An Open Peer-to-Peer design process therefore becomes a co-design process, where designer and participants collaborate (a collective intelligence) constituting a wider design community.
The designer therefore assumes a specific role in the projects directed to Open Peer-to-Peer communities. Thanks to his/her competences, a designer can supply the instruments of self-organization and the optimal conditions for an activity to take form, assuming a role of an enabler and not of a provider (or supplier of defined solutions). No more a simple supplier of his/her own creativity, but an enabler of distributed creativity. No more a simple design process that produces definitive solutions, but a design process that support communities so that they can develop appropriate solutions to their own needs and characteristics.
We can see that the same shift is happening in the local institutions too, where local government is transforming into governance. A redefinition of the role of the local institution that becomes an enabler of the participation and the coordination between public entities and private and social ones, and not a provider of rules and services1.
A designer can be an enabler naturally, since his/her competences make him/her able to establish connections between customers and enterprises, therefore mediating between different interests. Thanks to his/her abilities to visualize in advance, a designer can at the same time manage multiple and discordant interests, remembering the advantages that derive from a collective collaboration. Moreover, an enabler should supply support to reach the self-organization of the members in the short term, avoiding to render them depending on him/her in the long term. The goal of a designer is therefore the social enabler of the development of communities; the role that Linus Torvalds chose to assume in the development of Linux, avoiding the more traditional one of designer-provider2.
(to be continued)
Notes:
(2004) Vicari Haddock S., La città contemporanea, Il Mulino, Bologna [↩]
In these days I’m finishing the translation of the second part of the Web 2.0 Business/Services notes; meanwhile, I would like to suggest you the reading of an Italian theoretical text (not a guide but the platform over which one can build a guide) for the design of social network services. I am talking about “Elementi Teorici per la Progettazione dei Social Network” (Theoretical elements for Social Networking) by Gianandrea Giacoma and Davide Casali.
The version 1.0, the first one, has been published on the 24th of September 2007, and the pdf file has a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
This text wants to summarize the theoretical sides that lie behind social networking services. It is not a guide but the sum of the theoretical sides that can be used to build a guide or a project. Too many times, in fact, people are interested only in the technological side of social networking services, without considering its social and psychological sides. The other common error is to focus only on the network (as if it were isolated and self-sufficient), but, actually, it is a part of an ecosystem made up of other media, other dynamics, groups and constraints.
I think therefore that this text could be very promising for it tries to consider the nature of complex system of the social network services (which is very interesting as I’m trying to study the complexity of Open P2P Communities and therefore of Web 2.0 services too).
I’m so sorry I don’t have any time to translate it; anyway, here there are some notes taken from it (in Italian):
1. Gli utenti
Questa teoria parte identificando tre tipologie di utenti nell’ambito di siti web che consentono una interazione attiva:
Lettori (Lurkers): sono i fruitori passivi, ovvero coloro che utilizzano i contributi del sito senza apportare alcun contributo. Non per forza si tratta di lettori occasionali, potrebbero essere anche frequentatori abituali.
Autori occasionali: sono persone che oltre a usufruire dei contenuti, hanno talvolta contribuito per integrare o aggiungere qualche informazione o commento.
Autori attivi: sono i maggiori produttori dei contenuti del sito web, partecipano con una frequenza elevata talvolta investendo anche molto tempo.
[...]la teoria dell 1-9-90 che definisce come:
1% degli utenti sono autori attivi,
9% degli utenti sono autori occasionali,
90% degli utenti sono lettori.
[...]all’aumentare della longevità del sito tenderà a farsi sempre più evidente il divario fra produttori attivi e lettori. In particolare modo, all’inizio sarà fondamentale avere una alta percentuale di utenti attivi, mentre pian piano che il sito si evolve tale numero crescerà lentamente (è possibile ipotizzare una crescita lineare, seppure non esistano ancora ricerche in merito) mentre i lettori aumenteranno esponenzialmente (questo tipo di crescita è stata invece più volte rilevata).
È importante sottolineare che non vi è modo di appiattire questo divario[...]
[...] per poter sfruttare i sei gradi di separazione inserendo il fattore umano, è necessario rendere il compito in egual misura molto semplice e molto attraente, dando buone spinte motivazionali in modo che l’interesse non svanisca con il procedere lungo la catena.
2. Le dinamiche
Esistono quindi delle dinamiche che possono essere osservate per tentare di comprendere quali siano gli elementi essenziali al design di un buon social network. Ne abbiamo identificate quattro:
Bisogni Funzionali, ovvero le necessità pratiche che vengono risolte dal servizio.
Inserimento nel Flusso di Attività Giornaliero delle persone, ovvero come il servizio si inserirebbe all’interno delle giornate degli utenti.
Pulsioni Aggreganti, ovvero la dimensione personale della rete sociale, le motivazioni che portano il singolo ad aggregarsi agli altri nello specifico caso del servizio.
Definizione dei Gruppi Sociali, ovvero come vengono gestiti i vari gruppi sociali che sorgeranno spontaneamente e le relazioni del singolo con i gruppi stessi.
2.1 I Bisogni Funzionali
Infatti, il primo e palese servizio di un network (come strumento di gestione, produzione di conoscenze e socializzazione) è quello di svolgere un servizio che soddisfa un bisogno pratico altrimenti non realizzato, se non in parte. Non è raro inoltre che i network facciano emergere bisogni che prima di questi strumenti di knowledge management non venivano nemmeno immaginati. Più semplicemente molte possibilità vengono perse o non si rendono nemmeno visibili, come la possibilità di conoscere persone, eventi, informazioni, conoscenze, progetti, opinioni singole o collettive che possono migliorare la nostra vita professione e personale. Non si tratta soltanto di conoscenza ma di concreta possibilità di interagire e produrre nuove possibilità.
Vi sono quindi degli elementi intrinseci allo sviluppo delle reti sociali che nello specifico spingono gli utenti a dedicare tempo ed energie all’interno di social network. Ecco un elenco dei principali elementi:
Autorevolezza, per esempio il consenso su di un proprio contenuto prodotto e immesso nel network che la comunità ha apprezzato.
Visibilità, la partecipazione ad un network aumenta notevolmente la possibilità che persone con interessi e competenze comuni finiscano sulla tua pagina o su un tuo contenuto.
Incontri, la possibilità di fare nuove conoscenze.
Condivisione di conoscenza, rendere pubbliche le proprie conoscenze (open culture).
Produzione di conoscenza, il seguire la rete di legami tra persone e informazioni facilita la possibilità di trovare nuove conoscenze e idee utili.
Raggiungibilità, facilità di essere individuati con l’incrocio dei dati, delle informazioni e attraverso l’esplicitazione dei sei gradi di separazione.
I bisogni funzionali vanno quindi pensati in due fasi. Inizialmente si procede a pensare al bisogno che viene risolto dal sistema senza considerare dinamiche di network (es. Google Docs è un software per scrivere), in modo che venga risolto. In seconda istanza si procede a collegare la prima parte con una dinamica di rete.
Questo garantisce un corretto bilanciamento fra la parte di progettazione delle funzionalità autonome e di quelle socialmente potenziate in modo che non si corra il rischio di sottovalutarne una delle due
2.2 Il Flusso di Attività Giornaliero
Il modo in cui questo strumento riesce ad inserirsi nel flusso di attività giornaliero di una persona, risulta quindi un elemento cruciale nella progettazione di un social network. Partendo dalla premessa che vi sono dei bisogni funzionali da soddisfare, bisogna anche fare in modo che risulti naturale per le persone inserire questo tipo di strumento all’interno delle giornate.
Identifichiamo quindi quattro indici primari che possono portare una persona a dare priorità ad una attività X:
Motivazione: l’attività X è più importante di ogni altra attività in quel momento e quindi viene fatta.
Leggerezza: l’attività X è talmente facile a farsi che basta un piccolo interesse per rubare qualche istante alle altre attività adiacenti.
Località: l’attività X è più facile da farsi dopo avere fatto l’attività A, perché spazialmente o mentalmente inerente.
Efficacia: l’attività X è più utile a raggiungere lo scopo rispetto ad altre attività (X’, X, X’) che potrebbero realizzarlo.
[...]
Diventa abbastanza intuitivo capire che un ipotetico sito che soddisfi gli stessi identici bisogni più rapidamente di un altro è considerato migliore e che quindi più un sito è utile e trasparente integrandosi nella giornata delle persone in modo non intrusivo, più sarà facilmente adottato dalle persone
[...]
Analizziamo da un punto di vista progettuale i quattro indici primari che abbiamo identificato:
Motivazione: seppure parta da un interesse della persona, si può comunque cercare di motivare la persona che non utilizza ancora il servizio in vari modi. In particolare, in un social network fanno parte della motivazione tutte le dinamiche che stiamo andando a considerare all’interno di questo documento.
Leggerezza: questo indice si traduce quasi direttamente in indicazioni progettuali: il servizio dovrà rispondere prima di tutto a principi di user centered design e usabilità, ma soprattutto si dovrà tentare di avvicinarsi il più possibile alle attivitù che l’utente compie normalmente durante la giornata.
Località: è difficile lavorare sulla località perché di fatto o la persona sta utilizzando il programma, o non lo sta utilizzando. È sfruttabile internamente al servizio, ma difficilmente esternamente.
Efficacia: è conseguenza diretta dei bisogni funzionali ed è quindi uno degli scopi tradizionali: un software che svolge bene il proprio lavoro sarà evidentemente utilizzato più spesso di uno che lo fa meno bene.
2.3 Le Pulsioni aggreganti
È quindi rischioso affidarsi eccessivamente alla motivazione al successo ed è sempre preferibile seguire un percorso bilanciato in quanto:
non è possibile a monte promettere un adeguato equilibrio tra impegno e probabilità di successo;
puntare sulla penetrazione nel flusso è comunque vincente perché non esclude, una volta innescato il network, che emergano spontaneamente funzioni che meglio esprimano un equilibrio tra impegno e probabilità di successo;
si fa sempre in tempo a complicare le dinamiche ma non viceversa;
è sempre meglio progettare un network rispettoso del flusso giornaliero degli utenti e modificare questo vincolo solo in seguito, in base a come evolve il network e a come la comunità usa e premia determinate funzioni e applicazioni.
Non dimentichiamoci che i network sono sistemi complessi e che necessitano di un monitoraggio costante in quanto piccoli fenomeni possono innescare grandi cambiamenti. Per questo è utile avere diversi feedback sulla evoluzione del sistema per identificare segnali deboli espressioni di possibili e importanti cambiamenti da assecondare, in modo da avere un bilanciamento perfetto dei vari indici.
La giusta sinergia tra bisogni funzionali e pulsioni aggreganti è il fulcro del network. Individuare le possibili pulsioni aggreganti è necessario soprattutto per gli autori occasionali e per i lettori (come identificato nella teoria dell’1-9-90) perché contribuiscono a rafforzare le funzionalità e i legami del social network e quindi la sua efficienza.
È molto importate capire che la capacità del network di soddisfare bisogni funzionali prima non raggiungibili o solo in parte non basta a tenere in vita un network. Può sembrare difficile da credere ma il più delle volte, senza un’adeguata progettazione delle pulsioni aggreganti, al più si può innescare un network, ma il difficile (come dimostrano la maggior parte dei network di successo in rete) è quello di persistere, evolvere e seguire un ciclo di vita sufficientemente lungo e una comunità sufficientemente attiva.
I network non funzionano solo grazie alla loro funzione esplicita, ufficiale ma in buona parte grazie alla capacità di indurre e gratificare pulsioni aggreganti penetrando al meglio nel flusso giornaliero degli utenti.
Un elenco che abbiamo individuato di alcune pulsioni aggreganti è:
Competizione: bisogno di imporre se stessi e/o le proprie convinzioni, gusto per la sfida, accumulo di aggressività.
Curiosità: bisogno di conoscenza e controllo, istinto esplorativo.
Appartenenza: bisogno di condivisione e di far parte di una collettività che rafforzi il proprio agire e pensare individuale, che funga anche da rifugio in cui proteggersi.
Narcisismo: bisogno di conferma della propria capacità ed eccellenza, bisogno di approvazione.
Vi sono pulsioni aggreganti di second’ordine nel senso che non tendono ad una meta come gli esempi precedenti ma evitano uno stato o sostituiscono una meta con un’altra:
Evitamento della frustrazione: processi atti ad anticipare ed evitare il prodotto doloroso dato dalla mancata soddisfazione di un bisogno, oppure dalla impossibilità di uscire da una condizione dolorosa.
Sublimazione: sostituzione della meta con un’altra non raggiungibile.
Quindi assoceremo alle pulsioni aggreganti di prim’ordine possibili gruppi di incentivi e non specifiche tecniche di incentivo:
Competizione: con o contro/rappresentazione dello stato della competizione/livelli/riti;
Curiosità: novità/convergenze/imprevisti;
Appartenenza: punti in comune/solidarietà;
Narcisismo: visibilità/fiducia/opportunità.
2.4 Definizione dei Gruppi Sociali
Possiamo quindi definire tre agenti separati che compongono le dinamiche del network:
i singoli utenti
i gruppi di utenti
la comunità nella sua totalità
Ognuno di questi rappresenta un livello diverso di astrazione e quindi diverse dinamiche e tipologie di interazione. In particolare possiamo quindi pensare di integrare lo user centered design con una sorta di group centered design. Si tratta quindi di identificare quali siano i gruppi esistenti (sia in fase di progettazione, sia successivamente in fase di osservazione) e di focalizzare una parte del design intorno alla semplificazione delle loro dinamiche. Solitamente conviene realizzare un sistema semplice per la gestione dei gruppi per poi procedere a raffinarlo con l’evoluzione del sito.
[...]
le dinamiche dei gruppi richiedono uno studio molto attento, soprattutto di psicologia sociale. In termini più pratici possiamo definire tre elementi più sintetici:
Come un utente si inserisce ed interagisce nel gruppo. In altri termini, quali sono i vantaggi pratici e concreti nell’appartenere ad un gruppo. Ad esempio ambienti per discutere ed interagire, rispetto a maggiore visibilità su certi dettagli del profilo o un sistema di comunicazione interno più efficiente.
Come rendere significativo il gruppo ed evitare l’effetto etichetta. Ad esempio in Orkut succedeva abbastanza frequentemente che le persone si iscrivessero a moltissimi gruppi in quanto esistevano “Residenti a Milano”, “Amanti dell’Italia”, “Apprezzatori della Cotoletta”, “Fan di RatMan”, etc. ma che questi alla fine non risultassero più di semplici etichette. Essendo troppo facile appartenere ad un gruppo, si diluiva il significato relazionale e sociale dello stesso.
(a questo punto il file pdf termina, mentre il wiki continua nello sviluppo del documento)
I think the real issue about adoption of open source is that nobody can really ever “design” a complex system. That’s simply not how things work: people aren’t that smart – nobody is. And what open source allows is to not actually “design” things, but let them evolve, through lots of different pressures in the market, and having the end result just continually improve.
And doing so in the open, and allowing all these different entities to cross-pollinate their ideas with each other, and not having arbitrary boundaries with NDA’s and “you cannot look at how we did this”, is just a better way.
I compare it with science and witchcraft (or alchemy). Science may take a few hundred years to figure out how the world works, but it does actually get there, exactly because people can build on each others knowledge, and it evolves over time. In contrast, witchcraft/alchemy may be about smart people, but the knowledge body never “accumulates” anywhere. It might be passed down to an apprentice, but the hiding of information basically means that it can never really become any better than what a single person/company can understand.
And that’s exactly the same issue with open source vs proprietary products. The proprietary people can design something that is smart, but it eventually becomes too complicated for a single entity (even a large company) to really understand and drive, and the company politics and the goals of that company will always limit it.
In contrast, open source works well in a complex environment. Maybe nobody at all understands the big picture, but evolution doesn’t require global understanding, it just requires small local improvements and a open market (”survival of the fittest”).
So I think a lot of companies are slowly starting to adopt more open source, simply because they see these things that work, and they realize that they would have a hard time duplicating it on their own. Do they really buy into my world view? Probably not. But they can see it working for individual projects.
Why Design should learn how to relate to Complexity to understand Sustainability?
Because, according to me, the lack of understanding the unsustainability of society is also a problem of lack of understanding the complexity of the natural, social and economic (complex) systems in which we live. The attempt of reduction (or overappreciation) of Complexity has born with Modernity, that has applied it to the social, natural and territorial systems (leading us towards the unsustainability we face now).
For Rullani1 Modernity (and in special way the great fordist company) generates artificial environments with reduced complexity, that let one control the behaviour of the agents. And a modernity that proceeds reducing the complexity of the human and social dimension has few points of contact with the territory, that is a layered and localized synthesis of history, culture and of relations between men and the ecosystem. In the theory and the practice of the modern economy, the territory has disappeared; artificial spaces with a a reduced complexity for the convenience of calculation have replaced it. A territory without complexity is a territory without quality, one of the many places (or non-places2), accumulations produced by the economic algorithm. If Design is interested about the territory (to improve its quality), it must face this complexity.
This reductionist strategy has been proving, during the years, to be effective only in the short term, having increased instead problems and secondary effects in the long term, especially on the sustainability side. Nowadays, most of the people still to consider sustainability in a reductionist way, searching single practical and technological solutions to single problems, and not systemic solutions for the complexity of the social system.
However, there is an emerging awareness of the importance of facing complexity to attain sustainability, through the reevaluatiion of the local dimension as the specific place of action. The complexity of the society and of the ecosystems in which it resides demand the understanding of the hidden connections at the local and global scale. In order to understand where the economical practices (and therefore also the design practices) are leading us, we must understand the hidden connections between the economic, social and natural systems, and the feedback that they generate between each other. Sustainability, at the local and globl level, has an unavoidable complex dimension.
Our society, our economy, and the ecosystems in which we live (and from which we draw resources) are complex systems that interact between each other; the lack of understanding of their connections (and therefore of their complexity) leads to the lack of understanding of the initiatives that are really necessary for reaching sustainability. In a complex system, the connections between all the elements of the system represent the architecture that supports it and allows is survival. The elimination of a single element can provoke unpredictable effects, eventually leading to the collapse of the entire system (in an ecosystem, for example, all the living beings in it). And therefore the same thing happens also in the social system and the economic system: every action (also the design ones) must be thought without underestimating the complexity and the connections between the elements.
In these connections between social, economic and natural systems, the designer lives and therefore Design acts, and it can perhaps learn from the Open P2P Communities how to manage this variety of elements and directions. The diversity is the main characteristic of the nature and the foundation of the ecological stability, and the Open P2P Communities introduce some suitable practices to valorize the diversity of their own participants, succeeding in the construction of a collective intelligence based on an open and tolerant peer-to-peer learning.
Therefore, it’s possible to study how to modify and apply these community-based organizational forms, as they can be adapted to many situations: their flexibility has made them so widespread. We could use Open P2P organizational forms in order to diffuse questionable activities like military activities,control activities, or activities that, with an increase of their scale, could lead to an increase pollution and the gap between rich and poor (representing an awful future). Or we could use them in order to diffuse sustainable activities from the social, economic and natural point of view.
We can see these organizational forms like a box: they have a shape (the values and practices), but it is the content that give them a sense and a direction. A content that it must be adapted to the shape of the box, but we have seen that it is flexible enough: it is necessary therefore to decide which contents we should use. As this organizational forms are so suitable to manage complexity, it is possible to choose them for complex entities such as the territory and its sustainability, and therefore for a Design directed to this issues.
Design, Locality, Open Source, P2P, Web 2.0… are therefore the center of my research (and of this website), but I’m going to analyze them from the complexity and sustainability point of view. And I’m going to analyze all the cases that are not explicitly related to sustainabilty, as they could be useful in order to understand how to spread sustainable activities.
Then we should know something more about Open P2P Communities and about how Design can be used for them…
(to be continued)
Notes:
(2002) Rullani E., Il distretto industriale come sistema adattativo complesso, in Quadrio Curzio A., Fortis M. (a cura di), complessità e distretti industriali: dinamiche, modelli, casi reali, Il Mulino, Bologna [↩]
Marc Augé, Non-places: Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity, Verso, London & New York 1995 [↩]
Why Design should learn how to relate to Complexity?
Because the communities and the territories where they live are so complex that a design process dedicated to them must understand their complexity, to have greater probabilities of success.
Understanding Complexity, for a designer, means to design in and for Complexity1. Therefore, in and for the complexity of a community and of its territory.
The rconnection between Design and Complexity represents a an interesting field of research, now in its first steps: the Complexity Theories are relatively recent and still there is, in the society (and therefore also in the design community), a mentality nearer the reduction of the complexity, than to its valorisation. I started this blog with the desire to study this connection.
We could spend so much time before we understand how to face the complexity of a community, but fortunately there is a very important consideration that can help us and comes from the phenomenon of the Free Software/Open Source. According to Ko Kuwabara2 the Linux community has succeeded because it can face the complexity without reducing it, through its own intrinsic complexity. The Open P2P organizational forms therefore are potentially suitable to manage complexity.
I will return later on this topic, as it is very important; meanwhile, I suggest you to read Kuwabara’s text. We can learn so many things from the Free Software / Open Source phenomenon, but for me this has been maybe the most important. On one side, it is an ulterior proof of the validity of the Open P2P organizational forms and principles, as they can lead to a promising complexity management. From an other side, they show that the connection between Design and complexity is not so distant, if Design will learn to relate to complexity from the Open P2P communities.
How could I get together Design and Open P2P Communities, remembering their complexity? Well, in a few words, the Open P2P Communities are characterized by one main activity. Luckily, an activity can be considered with a systemic view through the Activity Theory, that has been connected to Service Design by Daniela Sangiorgi. Here you can find an article: (link to the file, 744 Kb, in Italian). I will explain better this connection later on, for the moment you can find everything inside my thesis(direct link to the file, 20 Mb, in Italian).
The need for a complexity approach in design, is not necessary only for communities or territories, but it is favorable for every project. Every product has connections with the social dimension (who designs it, produces it, sells it, distributes it, uses it) and the local dimension (where these persons act and from where they get the resources needed) throughout its life cycle. Understanding these hidden connections can lead to design (products, communication artifacts, services, strategies) with greater probabilities of sustainability and commercial success.
For this reason I think that the connection between Design and Complexity is so important!
The realization of the Complexity dimension is not only useful for the Design process, but also in the understanding of the Sustainability issues…
(to be continued)
Notes:
Silvia Pizzocaro, Design e complessità, in AA.VV., Design multiverso, Poli.design, Milano 2004 [↩]
Massimo Menichinelli:
Hi Jorge,
thank you very much for your comment! It will be a pleasure to collaborate, I hope openp2pdesign.org will be helpful for ...
JT:
Hi, Massimo
I've been keeping an eye on this interesting project for months, waiting for the best moment for me to jump in and start...
OPEN SOURCE - Pearltrees:
[...] Open P2P Design Workshop: Singapore 2009 The core idea of Open P2P Design is that an Open Source community is not only the publi...
