The Ed Techie

On economy as metaphor

Stephen Downes takes me to task over the reciprocity economy, stating that

"One thing people tend to get wrong about networks is to interpret them as some sort of economy or value proposition... I think this metaphor is really misleading. As I write in the comments, "It's not about reciprocity. It's about sharing. Completely different concept."

I'll defend the post against these counter-arguments in a couple of ways. Firstly by talking about the nature of metaphor and secondly by exploring the role of sharing.

I knew Stephen, being the lovable old socialist he is, wouldn't like an economy metaphor. But we don't have to like, or take all of the elements of a metaphor, in order for it to be useful. Metaphor is a form of mapping across domains, from a source domain (in this case economy) to a target domain (in this case PLNs), with the intention that the source domain will help us understand the target domain better. Of course, no metaphor is perfect, indeed can not be, otherwise it would be the target domain. So we should only map across certain elements.

Viewing something as an economy has some potential benefits, but we must always be careful not to extend the metaphor too far. For example, we can view nature as operating some form of economic principles (indeed Malthusian economics helped Darwin formulate the theory of evolution), but that doesn't mean we extend the principles of intentionality from the agents - we don't anthropomorphise animals and plants as selling and exchanging goods.

So when I said we could view PLNs as a form of reciprocity economy, I was suggesting that we build up a sense of identity capital, and that reciprocity is the 'currency' through which exchange is realised. I didn't mean to suggest that, for example, we set out to utilise our personal network for monetary gain. In this respect I think the metaphor needs flushing out, but I think Stephen's argument that I interpret a network solely as a value proposition is simplifying it.

Secondly, Stephen said in the comments and in the post that it is about sharing, which is a completely different concept. I'm not convinced they are as widely separated as he suggests. I tried to make it clear that I was proposing a more subtle form of reciprocity - it is far beyond a simple 'I'll do something for you if you do something for me' kind of exchange. And I was talking about the manner in which one develops a personal network, which adds value to your life. This, it seems to me, goes beyond merely sharing. I admit that sharing is the base, the sine qua non, of your network, since if no-one shares then you cannot even begin to establish a network. But, when that network becomes meaningful is when you form relationships, and have exchanges. It is when an element of reciprocity is added over the blanket sharing that the network attains a more significant role in your life.

Sharing is to reciprocity as gold-mining is to jewellery making - the latter cannot exist without the former but it is the latter which adds real value and interpretation.

But ultimately metaphors come down to choice - they aren't really right or wrong. Often it is by arguing around the metaphor itself that we come to understand the target domain better. Some people will find the reciprocity economy useful, others not. I'm still not sure myself how useful it is, but for the moment I think it's worth kicking the tyres (to use another metaphor).

The Reciprocal Times

Following on from the previous post about The Reciprocity Economy, I am going to try another of my rarely successful experiments. This time I want to test whether Twitter can act as an easy aggregator for examples of the reciprocity economy in action.

So, I've set up a Twitter account: @reciprocaltimes (see, it's like the Financial Times for the reciprocity economy?).  I will use it to tweet examples of when I encounter the reciprocity economy in action. But also, by sending a reply to @reciprocaltimes you, yes YOU, can also help collate them.

We can then analyse them and see if there are any common themes and if the reciprocity economy concept has any value in considering online interactions.

I'm in danger of compounding experimental variables here - I am both testing whether the theory has any merit, and also whether twitter is a useful collation method, so a failure won't tell me which one is wrong necessarily. To overcome this I have set my success criteria as low as  I can: ten replies from someone. Go on, make me a sucess.

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The reciprocity economy

<image Reciprocal roof decking by Ziggy Fresh http://www.flickr.com/photos/smallape/2943537392/>

In my talk on digital literacies I mentioned a 'reciprocity economy', and just wanted to expand on the idea. We are accustomed to the idea of the attention economy - it's getting eyeballs that counts online. As each person develops their PLN online it seems to me that it's not attention that is significant, but establishing reciprocity.

I have come to believe that your personal learning network (it probably doesn't need the 'learning', it's just your personal network) is increasingly the most valuable asset you will have. And that's valuable as in 'adds value to your life', not economic value. It will help you with work, socialising, personal life, interests, hobbies, entertainment.

To deploy probably the most over-used analogy around, it's like a garden - you've got to sow, tend and weed it to get value from it. But it's more of a country garden, a bit organic and unplanned rather than the highly structured garden. It takes time and effort and you have to give something of yourself to it.

Think about how your PLN is constructed. It probably centres around twitter, a blog, your blog reader, delicious, Flickr, a few wikis, and maybe some other tools where you follow people (eg Slideshare). There will be different types of reciprocity in this, for example most of the people whose blogs I read also read mine.  Similarly in twitter, I tend to follow people if they follow me. This is fairly standard reciprocity - do unto others as they do unto you.

But can we extend the notion of reciprocity? Continuing with the examples of blogs and twitter, I will give you my continued readership if you give me interesting and regular updates. We can then build on this notion of reciprocal, but not identical, activity for more subtle interactions, let's call it shifted reciprocity. I can put out a lazyweb request on Twitter if I have either responded previously to such requests (standard reciprocity) OR I have given enough of myself to twitter, such that people feel well disposed towards me (shifted reciprocity).

If you're still with me and have accepted the proposal that your PLN is significant and reciprocity underpins it, then we can begin to think of an economy of reciprocity. This isn't something we make hard calculations about, it is probably what we do in most social relations all the time at a subconscious level. In this economy, the more you give online that is of value to those in your network then the more 'credit' you establish.

This allows us to see that, obviously, spamming is bad - you are not establishing a reciprocal relationship. But also if we look at, for instance, Sarah's list of following behaviour in Twitter, we can see that most of them relate to establishing reciprocity. If someone doesn't have a profile, or doesn't update then their reciprocal currency is diminished. It also helps us frame our behaviour in any new tool, for instance setting up auto-follows and direct messages in Twitter is devaluing the reciprocal nature of following - I know you'll follow me back if I follow you, but that means that decision isn't based on any assessment of my value to your network. Therefore we're unlikely to have much reciprocal value to each other.

It seems to me that what we're discovering is that like any economy (and economy doesn't have to mean money, natural selection arises because of nature's economy) establishing any 'wealth' requires effort, time or innovation. How this economy sits alongside the other, fiscal (broken) one will be a key question for social media.