A New Dawn: The Economics of Global Mass Collaboration in Real-Time (Part Two)

Spreading 21st Century Fire 

This 21st century fire will banish the darkness caused by skyrocketing oil, dwindling food, global warming, and financial crisis.  Open sourcing will reinvent what and how we do things – from toothpaste to media - and deliver solutions. 

Is it all about altruism? Not likely. Human nature will seek compensation, which can come as monetary. Innocentive.com, allies with companies (like Boeing and DuPont) and Governments, offering up to US$1 million – through the Internet - for solutions ranging from waterless latrines for Africa, to solar-powered anti-malaria devices.  

Consider the billions in revenue if Filipino inventors of the fluorescent bulb (Floro), the anti-bacterial Erythromycin (Aguilar), or the Lunar Rover's conceptualizer (San Juan), had spread out their discovery, wiki-style, instead of having to sell out to large corporations. 

The second compensation is what Andy Warhol called “15 minutes of fame.”  Open-sourcing and the Internet have marginalized elitist media, like network TV, because now anyone can make a show, or song, and get it noticed, and hosted. National Geographic features worthy contributions on their website. Frankly, interconnectivity has sped up information flow such that by the time a newspaper story or CNN clip - on say, Typhoon Frank – is circulated, half the world has already learned about it on Google, email, YouTube, or someone's blog.    
 
Double - Edged  

Open sourcing narrows the producer – consumer gap, evolving the “prosumer.”  By collaborating directly, producer and consumer create a product “by the people, for the people.” Companies like Procter & Gamble, are consequently able to halve their US$1.5 billion R&D expense. 

Even Banks' traditional loan packaging is changing. “Personal Lenders,” using the Internet, now auction off low interest credit, at 1.3% per month; secured by varying degrees of collateral (often, none).  This can be done because these entities do not incur, nor pass on, onerous operating costs - like manager's salaries, advertising, or rents - that traditional banks bear.   

These illustrates how collective collaboration changes things (as any outsourcing is meant to do). Even social networks, like Facebook, and MySpace, are connecting businesses and marketing products, virtually cost-free.   

All contribute an anti-inflationary benefit. 

The dark side, seen in Commodity Futures movements, is ironically caused by real-time information, which exacerbates trader speculation. Even the Saudi Oil Ministry acknowledges that oil prices are driven by speculation on a scarce product; what they don't say is that the dynamic market movements present huge revenue potentials for their petrodollars. 
 
Wiki-ed Problems 

Open source can inform the world that we want to reduce our oil dependence, offering a prize, say US$25,000, for the most cost-effective renewable energy alternative, from indigenous Philippine Geothermal, to wind or solar; or even a supplier of safer, cutting–edge, hybrid Nuclear technology found in the US or Europe.  Open source collaboration can advance something brilliant, like Germany's rethink on nuclear fission, developing “pebble bed modular reactors.”  

In agriculture, another US$25,000 can be offered for a low cost, efficient water-drip system, or to  retired foreign venture capitalists who will grow and market exotically differentiated products, like mangosteen, providing the world market a reliable, constant supply, at stable prices; like New Zealand's Kiwifruit, or Australia's Macadamia nut.  

In directly addressing poverty. The National Government could give a 10%-12% service fee to individuals, who provide access (and ensure the program's integrity) to Philanthropic Foundations of the world's Bill Gateses and Warren Buffets, for scholarships to deserving Filipino children (which censuses place at 16% of 12 million youth aged 6 to 24 - in the income stratum's lowest 40%). 

Nordic and Middle Eastern micro-lending Program Funds allocated for Developing Countries (like the Nordic Development Fund, and the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organizations or AGFUND)  can be accessed by Philippine NGOs. Acquired wholesale, it can be relent to barrios at retail, following the Grameen micro-lending style (which seems to work, recovering 98.35% of the  US$6.5 billion in micro loans distributed in recent years). 

Ultimately, open source will see the dawn of the Omega era: a major evolutionary step in man's future.  It could start simply with linking seeker and solution. We only need to look. The possibilities are limitless. 

Reactions?  editor@bworld.com.ph; entreprenomics@gmail.com