Just thinking out loud
Hey @alberto i was just thinking out loud, letting know also that if you needed some readers about the subject i’m willing to participate because i will into that kind of thematics this year 
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At the moment doing my research in Dutch, but will try to switch
here is my first storify on what i found: https://storify.com/YannickHuisVDH/post-democratie-1-van-resolutie-naar-studie#publicize
will publicize another one today, but in english then 
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geen probleem!
Dat valt mee. Ik ga mijn nederlands oefenen.
Thanks for the insight about your post-democratic approach. I find it very useful in the debate about future healthcare policies.
Paper contribution
Hi @Yannick
within one week we should get to a final draft of the abstract.
Would you like to contribute? The field of the Political Forms and Movements in the Digital Era should be of interest for you as far as i have understood.
Timing doesn’t work out
Hey @federico_monaco it will not be possible to contribute because timing is not right at the moment. Hope to help next time.
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timing
Hi @Yannick
in case you would like to be part of the authors, february 28th is only the deadline for the abstract (you could provide a reference about open democracy for instance, that would be enough for now).
You could certainly contribute to the paper in the coming months (deadline June 10th, 2017) with a paragraph about open democracy to fit to the abstract and the call, which i think be very tuned to your field of research.
In case you agree we can still count you in.
If you need more information we can have a videocall in the coming days.
Tot zo
suggestion@
@Alberto, I agree with your proposal. If @Federico_Monaco agrees too, we can start to discuss. What could the next step be?
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I guess
Set up a Skype/Hangout and exchange ideas about where to go. One thing that you will decide in the call is who is going to do what towards submission. For example, one way would be to open a Google Doc and use it to write the abstract. In my experience it is best when someone takes the lead to be the main writer, while others can make edits and comments.
If the abstract is accepted, then we’ll act accordingly.
Question to @Federico_Monaco : is the journal Open Access?
is it Open Access?
@Alberto i agree on what you say. Google doc fiat!
yes, is OA http://reset.revues.org/?page=informations
Happy to contribute
Agree with @Noemi and @melancon that the second track is most promising. I’ve got a lot on my plate until January 20, but after that I will be free to contribute more fully. An abstract of 500 words by end of Feb is definitely manageable.
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suggestion@
Hi @Noemi, and all, this is a first contribution moving from your proposal.
But a premise is needed: I am interested to participate to the making of this paper, and if useful, I can take some responsibilities in it. But, given that my background is not ethnography as you and @melancon asked (but it is design theory and practice), and given that my presence and role in, and knowledge of, Opencare is marginal, I don’t know if it is possible for me to propose myself as team leader or co-leader.
Given that, and starting form practicalities and moving to contens:
1. Roadmap. Given that the deadline is at the end of February and that we have to write only a 500 words abstract, I think that we can spend 2 weeks for a conversation, via mail and, at a given point via skype, aiming to clarify what we want to do and who is going to really contribute to the writing.
2. Track and theme. @Noemi proposed to go for the “Doing together” track, and “to use the preliminary data we have to say something about how collective capacity can be sustained, indeed with a vehicle like opencare and digital networks”. @melancon openly agreed with Noemi. I agree with Noemi too and my present contribution intends to move in this same direction.
3. My way of dealing with this theme. In my understanding and moving from my background, the question “how collective capacity -in the field of care- can be sustained” can be situated in a thread of studies and experiences grounded on the three notions: infrastructuring and designing coalitions. I don’t know if you are familiar with these terms (the space of knowledge is so large!), in any case, shortly:
- Infrastructuring is a term introduced by Leigh Star* and taken up by Pelle Ehn and his school in Malmö University” ** it refers to a process of open collaborative design, aiming at creating an environment in which new matters of concern may emerge, designing coalitions may be started and specific projects may be enhanced.
* S. L. Star and K. Ruhleder, “Steps toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design and Access for Large Information Spaces,” Information System Research 7 (1996), 111–134; S. L. Star and G. C. Bowker, “How to Infrastructure,” in L. A. Lievrouw and S. L. Livingstone, eds., The Handbook of New Media (London: Sage, 2006).
- Pelle Ehn, “Participation in Design Things,” Participatory Design Conference Proceedings, 30 September–4 October 2008, Bloomington, Indiana.
- Designing coalitions: networks whose members collaborate to achieve shared results***. They aggregate around a matter of concern, and promote and enhance coherent design initiatives. Coalition actors come together with the potential to articulate, negotiate and collaborate (or not) in address to issues of concern to them. *** Ezio Manzini, design when everybody designs, MIT press 2015
- NB.Bruno Latour and then others, use the term Thing ****. I prefer to refer to the notion of ‘designing coalitions’ for reasons that are discussable, but that are to long to be explained in these initial notes). **** Pelle Ehn, Thomas Binder, Per Linde et al, What is the object of design? (2012)
It comes that the infrastructuring activity can be seen as an open-ended ‘horizontal’ project, where different coalitions that aggregate around specific matters of concern may start and enhance a diversity of specific ‘vertical’ projects. (in realty, things are more complex than this, but, for the moment, let’s keep it simple, adopting this dualistic, horizontal/vertical, duality).
Using this background and this language, the original Noemi’s question, “how can collective capacity be sustained?”, could become, and be articulated in, something like that:
- How, up to now, the infrastructuring activity done by OpenCare succeeded in creating a favourable environment where different matters of concern have had the possibility to emerge, designing coalitions to be created and specific vertical’ projects to be started and enhanced?
- Which are the lectures we can learn from what has been done until now? How could limits be overcome? How could opportunities be better understood? How this experience could be improved and relicated in different contexts, and in realtion to different themes?
To answer these general questions, some first steps should be done, considering and analysing the nature of both the Opencare’s infrastructuring activity and the specific conversations and activities that happened thanks it.
- Opnecare’s infrastructuring activity: what has been done to start the process and to day-by-day manage it? Which are the affordances embedded in it?... etc.
- Conversations and activities which matters of concern emerged? Which designing coalitions have been formed? Which projects have been started?
3. My personal interest in this theme. One of the topic I am presently working on relates to the design contribution to (1) “the politics of everyday” and, consequently, to (2) a democracy where individual and collaborative projects of life can exist and thrive.
Given that, I think that me motivation of my interest on if and how an infrastructuring activity as the Opencare one can become a favorable environment for different kinds of projects, is self-evident.
Of course, this motivation would be the core of the paper if I had to do it alone. I am curious to read what are you yours. And to start a conversation on them …
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My early thoughts
Thanks @Ezio_Manzini for the initial ideas,
I read the first paper you recommended on infrastructure (couldn’t find the other ones) and I liked the approach of infrastructure as defining work relationships… Let’s see if during the next weeks we can find more recent/ suited frameworks to use? I would especially look for something that incorporates the social infrastructure - the open community building part which is definitory in opencare.
It is in your second part “Which are the lectures we can learn from what has been done until now?” where I see various steps to analyse deeper the opencare early results and future impact. How do we break down this idea of collective capacity, from a network perspective…?
- using ethnographic data: start from the (shared) meanings that members attach to taking action of sorts - conceptualizations of collaboration, community, resources, "working together" and other relevant codes etc. How they see the benefits of being part of a network and so on.. I think this could be the departing argument for more coordinated actions needed, independent of the opencare initial premise and strict project life.
- show examples of opencare team designed actions - openandchange, PopUp Village and others
- show examples of non-team/ member led actions - people hook up and start working together in or outside the opencare formalized community
To me, this distinction between team/non-team, as blurred as it can be is needed when looking at capacity, it explains the different resources, incentives that are in the network…
I am not sure we can put design lenses on all examples above… but I am far from an expert. Maybe a section led by Ezio can be constructed as a series of deeper reflections for overcoming limits and better fostering opportunities in a number of very concrete cases of collaboration?
…reading now.
Dear @Ezio_Manzini
your post is definitely already well structured and concrete. I answered to different posts in this thread about some ideas and proposals.
My background is STS (Science, Technology & Society). I’m already confident with scholars such as Star, Bowker and user and infrastructure studies. Mainly i’m researching how users (especially professionals) may adopt the web as a learning infrastructure …(not so much still). So my problem and goal is to explain to professionals what patients, makers and laypeople do by the web about care. That’s it.
early thoughts
Hi @Noemi, in general terms I agree with your early thoughts!
Of course, being for me the beginning of a conversation, some points are still not very clear, sorry for that… Given that, here I am with some feedbacks, questions and proposals.
1. The concepts and language I proposed in my previous mail (based on the notions of infrastructuring, matters of concern and designing coalitions) represent my present vocabulary. But of course, I will be more than happy to find a new and, may be, more appropriate language …
2. You write: “How do we break down this idea of collective capacity, from a network perspective…?” and you indicates different possibilities:
- “using ethnographic data: start from the (shared) meanings that members attach to taking action. …” this is a very interesting research and we should do it. My question is: do we have enough information to do it? Or: have we the possibility to collect these information in the next months?
- “show examples of opencare actions” done by the team members or by other non-team actors. Yes, of course. My question is: I imagine you mean examples of “actions” that happened/are happening thanks to the existence of Opencare: correct? How many of these actions do we have until now? (what Pop-up villages are?)
All this is correct and should be done. But, in my view, to choose the criteria to be used to analyze whatever complex issue (in our case the “collective capacity” Opencare is collaborating to produce) requires to indicate the goal (what we want to get with this specific research) and the methodology (how we can get that goal).
Probably these points have been presented in Opencare research program, and therefore are crystal clear for you. But I think it would be wise to indicate them, considering also that now we are not discussing the whole research, but a specific paper to be done in the next few months. What do you think?
3. Regarding the discussion on the issue of distinguishing, or not, between team/non-team examples, I think we can consider that distinction. But I would propose some other criteria too (utilizing the model I proposed in my previous mail).
For me, Opencare is a prototype of an “open care infrastructure” and what we want to do is to verify, and discuss, if and how it works. That is, to verify the number and quality of the matters of concern that, thanks to it, have emerged. And, therefore, the goal-oriented conversations andt he designing coalitions that have been created.
If you would agree, it comes that the first distinction to be done is between (1) the actions done by who (mainly) work in the open-ended project of infrastructuring, and (2) the ones done by who promotes/is involved in goal-oriented conversations.
On this basis, we should analyze:
- in relation to (1), the infrastructuring activity components
- in relation to (2), the number and quality of the actions (i.e.: matters-of-concerns, goal-oriented conversations; designing coalitions that have been generated.
If we have the energy and the time to do it, both (1) and (2) should be analyzed also with ethnographic tools, as you propose.
Other criteria that should be defined and used should be related to:
- the system openness (considering to the Opencare open nature)
- the role of digital technologies (considering the specificity of this call for paper)
- the political implications (that could be our team’s special touch)
I think that these are crucial points: the ones that could make the difference between our paper and the others …
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some ideas for the paper …
Hi @Federico Monaco, nice to meet you!
@Federico Monaco, @Noemi and all,
Another small, personal contribution. Up to you to decide if and how it coldl be pertinent with what the whole team intends to do.
Premise
In the OpenCare program is written: “OpenCare prototypes a community-driven model of addressing social and health care, and explore its implications at scale” and then: “OpenCare orchestrates an open-to-all, community-driven process for addressing care issues, recruiting its participants from existing communities innovating at the edge of society “
If this is the OpenCare definition and main goal, what we have to do is to answer two questions:
(1) what could be this paper specific (and viable) goal? (considering that the paper is written at half of the OpenCare journey)
(2) in which this paper specific goal is coherent with the RESET call-for-paper? (and, in particular, with the thread “Mobilizations in the era of “doing together” and the commons” ?)
Paper goals
(1) To offer a qualitative outline of the care issues that the OpenCare existence has, until now, generated. In particular, the focus is on different kinds of collaborative actions (as, for instance: to conversations aiming at exchanging and/or elaborating information; developing non-material projects; developing and enhancing projects requiring presence in physical space).
(2) To prove that these (open)care-related activities are, or could be seen as, part of the “collaborative culture” the call-for-papers refers to. In particular, their existence, and the our reflections on them, we will some meaningful answers to questions as: “How are these digital commons defined by the actors themselves? To what extent are the public/private borders recomposed? What kind of values do they carry?” (RESTET, Call-for-paper, 2016)
Paper methodology
In the framework of the whole OpenCare research methodology, the specifc steps to be done to write this specific paper we could be:
- To observe what kinds of conversations until now took place in the OpenCare framework.
- To discuss and define criteria to identify different typologies.
- To choose one or more cases for each typology of conversation
- To discuss and define qualitative criteria to better understand each observed conversation (and, in particular, the ones who shifted from digital to physical space)
- To analyze and discuss the whole results, aiming at answering the call-for-papers-thread 2 questions.
- To make some final remarks in relation to the whole call-for-papers intentions. That is, the relevance of what we observed in the discussion on “Political Forms and Movements in the Digital Era”
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examples of collaborative actions
Very useful ideas, Ezio and the rest…!
I see from our exchange that we agree that we need to look at the data we have so far and structure, analyze or parse it for collaborative actions. I doubt we will be able to collect new data points just for the purpose of this paper.
I’m lacking expertise on how to superimpose a typology for conversations - in the first steps you mention. I will leave this to you and Federico to lead… and I could try to support it by detailing my observations on the actions emerging as we speak (Point 1).
Ezio: My question is: I imagine you mean examples of “actions” that happened/are happening thanks to the existence of Opencare: correct? How many of these actions do we have until now? (what Pop-up villages are?). Correct! I don’t know how many actions we have because I don’t know what constitutes action - clearly the strongest is OpenandChange, the collective application. The Pop Up Care Village is a concept for the opencare final project event and many conversations these months will be encouraging community members and openandchange partners to co-create it, so this is something we can expect to grow. I will give you more examples on ongoing community collaborations:
- Belgian traumatologist goes on a tour in refugee camps in Greece to offer free treatment to anyone who needs them.
- British volunteer in refugee camps takes on artistic residency at an Armenian cultural center, as facilitated by another opencare member in Armenia.
- Community members at a bioengineering lab in Ghent, Belgium connect with OpenInsulin to share the work of developing an open source method for producing proinsulin.
- American intentional community with a health care program offers to host the developer of a peer-to-peer emergency response service.
- Italian community member considers setting up an opencare spinoff.
There might be more, I would need to look deeper. What do you think? We have more or less detailed threads for each. But anyhow they are early in their lives, many might not lead to concrete collective actions. Which is why typologies might not make a whole lot of sense. What does make more sense, in my opinion, is looking at their quality.
Which brings me to Objective 2) - why this is collaborative culture and how it manifests itself: I imagined we would rely on ethnographic codes to describe in detail the participants and how those conversations unfold. The data we have about specific projects shows collaborative culture is (to some extent, or we can hypothhesize this) ingrained in the participants values or worldviews - even before they engage in opencare, someone solving a health problem in community already has some experience of collaboration, connecting with others. So self-selection to participate in a project that is about sharing and collaboration is part of what makes possible action. Also, shared interests is another - we see this in the network of co-occurences, how new meanings are discovered together, much more so than individually. This can go on, but I have a feeling it’s too early.
My point is: keep in mind that we have more data on the conditions for collaboration and creating opportunities than about the actual life of the collaborations (with the exception of openandchange!).
In short, yes to the structure, in so far as we keep certain flexibility with regard to points 1-4?
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standing by
Hi everybody,
i’m following the conversation and reading with the proper attention all the comments, precious food for thought. I just need some time to focus on and come back to you with some tuned ideas.