With @Silvia sharing it a while ago we were bouncing back and forth the idea of an OSCEdays Shop. In the BoST call on Feb 6, 2017 we had some break through ideas for it. So it was time for a new topic.
#WHY?
Gives credibility to our mission. It is not just philosophy. It is real products.
We can help the projects behind the products with visibility.
The products can help local events to get stared with some real practical OSCE hands on action - for example when the products are kitts.
In the longer run it could turn into an income stream for OSCEdays.
#HOW?
Setting up a whole e-commerce website and deliver products is of course a lot of work. But we don’t have to do it ourselves. The projects with products usually have their own shops - maybe it is just an Etsy page but still… So the first iteration of the shop is just a website linking to the shops of the products. This is also very much what OSCEdays is about: decentralisation and helping others with context and visibility.
#PRODUCTS?
The main question is… what products to put on the website? The products must be aligned to the OSCEdays Mission Statement: So they need to be Open Source and Circular … or at least support circularity? … If the Shop works at some point we need to have a clear set of criteria how you get in.
But for now: Let’s start with a list. Pls. everybody share the products/projects to sell.
Mifactori is creating right now a little toy-kit with hacked modular toys. It will be on Etsy at some point.
IFixit kitts, of course!
Modular Clothing: … Post Coture Collective … (are they circular enough)?
Consulting? Is consulting a product or does it need to be a physical product?
Books? Are books - another way to just talk about things - a product for the Shop?
… pls add
Sketch for a banner text to put on top of the Shop-Page
This page just collects links to Open Source Circular products you can buy in the shops of the projects. We don’t make any money with it – we just guide you to the projects. | Have an OSCE product to display here? Pls. let us know.
call it osce-shop , no days, it’s year round if we do it.
I think we can give items a rating on the two sides, take them on as soon as they have the right intentions and be transparent:
this is pretty circular but it could be more open source, or: this is really open source but it could be more circular OR this is really neat on OS and circularity but it still needs an OS business model/ more modularity/ interlinking with other cycles…
in the long run I could also imagine giving stars or doing a yearly highlight event on the best practise/ best in class products… (just phantasy I know, but dreams are what makes people move)
Is good to think of more as a platform than a shop. Say for instance that OSCE helps event organizers or local entrepeneurs, to select the resources needed to run their event, including budget needs based on event needs.
But also to make more long lasting local initiatives. In this context makes a lot of sense to have a portfolio of products that are affordable for an event making. The output can also be commercialized, but is very difficult to have commercial products as a result of an OSCE event. Perhaps an OSCE local community can do something like that.
OSCE as a platform can connect sponsors with local events, and longer lasting initiatives. Similar to what airbnb or Uber does, we could have a service where local actors are connected dynamically and responsively. This is feasible using APIs and current technology. Imagine you could create for instance an OSCE community profile and customize sponsorship, products and projects, or local actors. We can facilitate that process, since people don’t know exactly what to do, but they have initiative and will to do something.
This are just some thoughts but we discussed last meeting that there are many nice products already outthere, the big gap is that they are not related or presented in a common place…
Since this is a very important topic it would be nice to open a small sub-project to prepare for it. We can even use the protocol for impact that IDEO made in circularguide, is a good start.
I consider that different products that can be developed based on the actions seen are:
adaptable appliances (lamps, radios, etc.)
toys
kits for teaching what is open source
circular economy games
open source furniture
kits for construction / assembly (basic module elements that allow to adapt materials or other pieces to create the desired products)
Today I told a friend and he commented that it is a very good idea, but he would like to know how to participate in this. Is a kind of donation of the idea to OSCED to be sold? If he does not want to win anything, could he at least say that the product was designed by him?
I think it’s good idea and can help get OSCE designs out in the world but fundamentally and from a whole system perspective, I would say it’s not going to be an out-the-box model for disruptive change because any kind of global webshop is based on the premise of wealth concentration. That is, if one person comes up with a fantastic OSCE Design and advertises it for sale on the OSCE Shop, and a million people want it from all over the world. What does that do? Certainly it gets the OSCE designs out there, which is a great thing. But it’s still entrapped in the old wealth concentrating paradigm so it sends all the capital to one innovator. It also supports the global supply chains, with all the high carbon and resource consuming global shipping. If we are going to get out of this paradigm, we have to start somewhere. If we start off with it right off the bat and it becomes successful, then we are going to have to break away from it later on when we realize that it is intrinsically part of the problem.
The model that we have been developing at SRG is based on Jose Ramos / Michel Bauwen’s idea of Cosmo-localization of “know global, fabricate local”. Open Source designs reach their full potential for equalizing wealth by sharing on the web so that any local producer can take the design and manufacture with it. Then instead of a million people buying from one supplier on OSCE Shop, we might have 10,000 producers around the globe using the same design and manufacturing the product locally. This avoids the global supply chain which is inherently polluting and localizes production for the benefit of 10,000 commuity producers. Of course there are tradeoffs because to now we are talking about 10,000 local plants instead of one big central plant. But if the plants themselves are small scale and are designed for circular manufacturing and supply chains, then the impact can be the same. Pervasive 3D printing technology is a perfect example of the “know global, fabricate local” philosophy. But many things can be done this way.
Of course there are other factors involved as well. In developing countries there may not be the resources or supply chains to make it easy to produce locally. I’m just speaking generally.
This is what I intend to do with all the tech that I design and produce here. I plan to make all the OSCE designs available to everyone but I’m going to open a local manufacturing facility that is part of the innovation community I am building in Cape Town and I won’t ship product outside of Cape Town. If there is demand for it outside of Cape Town, then I will gladly share design expertise to help someone ramp up local circular manufacturing where they are. Somebody has to take the risk though. That risk is minimized if they already have the knowledge that it succeeded in my local market. I intend to do this across South Africa and Africa as well. The strategy is to work with young African university graduates who come from marginalized communities and help shape them into the local economy champion in their community. We help them set up manufacturing cooperatives in their community and they then produce all these technologies locally in their own community and for their own community. For Africa at least, that is the most disruptive and fastest way we can think of to create significant large scale and disruptive economic (and ecological) change in a short time. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work elsewhere too.
I am just sharing so that we all realize the bigger picture before we make any decisions. As long as we are well informed, we will make the best decision.
I partially but fundamentally agree with Gien. I insist on the concept of platform to incubate local “startups”, they can be from punctual initiatives to long lasting communities. Lars made a tutorial on platforms, claiming is a key pillar of the new economy, we should really think about selecting what type of economic relations we want to establish with the community.
A web-shop is not the goal, neither commercializing OSCE designs, the goal is to facilitate people in developing new sustainable ways of satisfying their needs. For that they need infrastructure, means of production, resources and knowledge. The revolution is not on products, but on how to make them differently (new production paradigms basically), and also how to connect the people that can potentially do that everywhere.
We can have a platform to facilitate the acquisition of means of production, the connection with emergent initiatives that are really revolutionizing how products are made We could also facilitate the scaling up of local initiatives and building a network with platform technologies (Uber, Airbnb, etc). I haven’t seen a Commons oriented platform yet, it’s about to come.
This is a serious debate, don’t rush with it. I think once we are defining our economic model we are taking a big strategic step.
I think it is good and necessary to have a general philosophical debate about it. But more important we need examples. Real products we can put into the shop right away. From the shelf.
Then let’s unpack the philosophy on top of reality
Let’s post examples!
Let me start:
##Open Desk
Some of the Open Desk products are truly Open Source (no NC clause) – and since they are made from wood they should count as circular, right? (I don’t know about the material - are there a lot of problematic glues in it?)
##Zero Waste Shop
We have a Zero Waste Shop in Berlin. I have never been there. Maybe there is something to find.
