• An economy of contribution is an economy where actors contribute without having necessary a measurable counterpart (e.g. money, product). This model is radically different from an economy of exchange and must be taken into account when the externalities underlying an industry become central to its process. In this context, the function of companies is to capture positive externalities.
• An organisation is at the cornerstone of three axes:
  • Patrimony: the former ‘inner’ single reference for a company: legitimacy, expertise, employees…
  • Employability: capacity to inscribe its products and usages in shared values. Employability is related to economical theories of ecosystems in which an organisation is seen as a part of a system, either parasitic or in symbiosis.
  • Interactivity: capacity to adapt to the needs of individuals and communities who will in return support the activities of the organisation. With the rise of social media, brands want to be seen more and more as Customer to Customer ‘CtoC’, like if they were initiated by customers and driven by them.

• Classical system theory, basically maths.
• Computerization and simulation using models.
• Compartment theory: “the system consists in subunits with certain boundary conditions between which transport process takes place”.
• Set theory, which studies general formal properties of systems.
• Graph theory concerned with topological space.
• Net theory, a generalisation of sequences (http://en.allexperts.com/e/n/ne/net_(mathematics).htm).
• Cybernetics: “A theory of control systems based on communication (transfer of information) between system and environment and within the system, and control (feedback) of the system’s function in regard to environment.”
• Information theory “is based on the concept of information, defined by an expression isomorphic to negative entropy of thermodynamics”.
• Theory of automata (i.e. abstract machine – Turing machine 1936).
• Game theory which studies systems animated by rational players.
• Decision theory: maths about choices over alternatives.
• Queuing theory: optimization of arrangements under conditions of crowding.

• that stand up the experience of reality
• that everybody sees
• that resist being pushed
• that are not affected by how you think about them
• …

Read in “Thought as a System” by David Bohm – 1992.

Thanks to the team of the Philosophy Now magazine for having kindly accepted to publish my paper and for their extremely professional proofreading!

Mozart: a talent detected in his early childhood

I attended few weeks ago a seminar organised by the Philosophy and Management association in Brussels. It was all about talent, and how the way artists work and manage their career can be a source of inspiration for talent management within business organisations. Pierre-Michel Menger, French philosopher and research director for the CNRS, presented some of his researches in the sociology of work and art. The expertise of Pierre-Michel Menger in both fields led him to very interesting observations.

He first discerned two types of work:

• the ‘labour’: an effort, constraint with a predictable outcome
• the work as a discovery of yourself, the masterpiece of your life. Success in this type of work is more a derivative, not a predefined goal. It is unpredictable.

The later work is influenced by philosophies from the 19th century emphasising the infinite depth of consciousness and the infinite possibilities opened to us. Because of it’s unpredictability, it is a type of work that involves a lot of risks. The prestige and satisfaction you get from the realisation of a masterpiece is immense, but the risk to fail is in equal proportions. Artists are facing this risk in a hyper competitive environment. Differences in revenues between artists is huge, the small number of successful artists take most of the resources, leaving a small portion of revenues to the vast majority. If you look at just the financial situation of an artist, choosing such a career might look like a bad evaluation of the risks. But it doesn’t take into account the non-monetary value of a potential huge gratification, a relative autonomy and the diversity of the tasks involved in the job.

What influences the likelihood to become a successful artist (at least in the narrow sense of social recognition and monetary compensation) is not clear. There is something about artists that cannot be measured, cannot be put in an equation. It is not enough to make studies, work hard and accumulate experiences. You need to have ‘talent’. The same applies to business. Sure, you can find people able to perform a task by looking at their past experiences and by using rational criteria. But how can you detect the collaborators who will go far beyond, surprise you and develop considerably within the company. How can you make sure to invest more in these people and less in the others? McKinsey invented a marketing term to describe the 10% of your employees who will bring the most to the company: ‘talents’. Talent management is controversial and relates to the many meanings of the word ‘talent’.  Pierre-Michel Menger proposes to define talents as people you cannot isolate using predefined criteria or reading their CV. It helps to stick to this definition and to not take into account all the other meanings and judgements that the word ‘talent’ implies. He argues that the only way to detect talents is to compare them between each others. This is why competitions and awards in the art world are so frequent. The jury don’t know themselves what they are looking for, and the outcome is unpredictable.  It is after comparing the contestants that they can see who has a little something more, a higher potential. This is also why I think you start to see more and more contests and game-like workshops in business (hack day for developers, unconferences, Dragon’s Den kind of internal events), to detect talents you could not screen using a formal HR equation.

I think that this approach raises many ethical dilemma.

• On one hand, I want people to judge me on rational criteria that I can understand and act on. It is a system that protects all of us against arbitrary decisions and favouritism. On the other hand, I also want to be judged for who I am and for my talents, independently of any predefined list of criteria.
• Whatever your boss says, it is reassuring to know that he doesn’t judge you but only your work and your performances. With the concept of ‘talent’, suddenly your boss wants to know what you do in your spare time and wants you to reveal yourself, so that he can detect the ‘talent’. It is a much more personal relation. It surely benefits some people, but not necessary everyone. The opposite leads to the same problem but the other way around. You might have a quality that you know could help your career, but an employer looking only at short term figures and performances might not realise it.
• Is it right to invest more in the 10% of ‘talents’ in your company instead of using that money to raise the general level of expertise of the team? To use an example from Pierre-Michel Menger, if a talented researcher wins an award for a paper he wrote, his reputation will get a boost which will convert probably to a higher salary. But the paper he wrote is most likely based on data that ‘average’ workers collected. Is is fair? On the other hand, if there is no incentive for researchers to excel and be noticed, people will stagnate and become demotivated.
• Even small differences between people of the same level in a specific field, like music composition, can generate disproportionate inequalities. If more is invested to a young ‘talent’ who is a little better than the other children of his class, he will quickly gain more experiences and have more chances to explore his talent. He will then have a reputation, which will encourage people who don’t have time or the knowledge in music composition to hire him instead of someone else, which will give him even more experience, and so on. The ‘talented’ person might truly be exceptional, but was it because of his initial tiny competitive advantage or because of the investment from the community? Does it make a difference? Maybe humans are like bees and need an arbitrary hierarchy for their society to work. (Simply accepting this image of the bees is way too sympathetic with established power though.)
• As it has been pointed during the workshop, talent belongs to the category of work that is unpredictable and can be asserted for sure only a posteriori. Is it legitimate to try detecting talents beforehand? This argument is interesting but theoretical.  Of course, people will always try to detect talents, it happens since the beginning of humanity. And even if it is an inexact science, it probably lead to better results for the community than not trying to support its future ‘talents’. Even if it is not always fair for people.

How to resolve the dilemma depends on your vision of society. If you believe that there is a real opportunity for people from all backgrounds to display their talents, then selecting talents by comparing people between each other on non measurable criteria is legitimate. If on the other hand, you perceive the world as being a constant exploitation of the masses by few people in power, every privilege not based on measurable merit is a potential discrimination. Both extremes are false, the world needs both talented artists and hard workers. I personally believe that the key to resolve the dilemma is to offer multiple ways to succeed, in many different ways, with the help of many different groups of people. Diversity lowers the probability of generating systematic discriminations and enables many understandings of what talent means.

If you are preparing an award or competition in your organisation, you need to understand why you the feel the need to do so. If it is at least partially to detect talents, I hope that the points above will help you design the process in accordance to your values and goals. Don’t simply replicate what has already been done, enable participants to show their talents from a difference angle, the winners might not be the ones you expected.

-  -  -  -

Pain-free animals could take suffering out of farming, NewScientist

-  -  -  -

Our daily bread documentary.

Welcome to the world of industrial food production and high-tech farming!

-  -  -  -

Is this post about art, innovation, governance or philosophy? I let you decide…

The Paris freedom fest will take a libertarian view at themes such as “Business cycle theories: capitalism versus interventionism” [Olga Peniaz], “The ethics and economics of tax heavens” [Guillaume Vuillemey], “Towards a New Theory of the State; what comes after welfare” [James Panton]. The Philo and Management 2009 – 2010 seminars seem more neutral and will investigate “What will be the management of the post-capitalistic society?” through questions such as “Competition: only motor for efficiency and wealth?”, “Is democracy in a business environment possible?” (speakers including Pierre Gurdjian, Pierre Dardot and Isabelle Ferreras).

Having spoken to the two organisers, I have no doubt about their genuine approach and their commitment to achieve something new. Is it a broader movement? Is it time for some serious reflection?

Entretien avec Pierre Dardot et Christian Laval 1 (video in French):

The Tour Eiffel from the World's Fair of 1900

I’ve read recently the excellent book from Jay Winter “Dreams of Peace and Freedom – Utopian Moments in the 20^th Century“. It is part of my curatorial homework for the exhibition “Living the Dream of Modernity” that I’m preparing to launch very soon. Here is a summary.

Mr. Winter understands utopia as a discourse in two contradictory parts. An utopia is an ideal in complete discontinuity with the reality. But the ideal can only be expressed with what is known. Thus, the utopia necessary tells about the historical context of its authors. “Utopia is a fantasy about the limits of the possible, a staging of what we take for granted, what is left unsaid about our current social conventions and political cultures. Those who expose these silences, often playfully, begin to disturb the contradictions in the way we live.” [Louis Marin, Utopiques]

The book focuses on the loosely defined ‘minor utopias’, the utopias that have not been the cause of major wars and cruelty, e.g. 20^th century totalitarian regimes.

Jay Winter identifies  the following utopias:

-          Visions of Peace in 1900. Throughout the world, many groups declared their commitment to the idea that war could be eradicated. 3 examples:

o   Albert Kahn created the “Archives of the Planet”, films and photographs from many parts of the world, to help people “see that their interests should be directed towards the benefit of humanity as a whole. For this they need more than abstract knowledge, but contact with the world. This contact will show the variety of experience and contradict simple formula about the world”

o   The world’s fair of 1900 in Paris, based on the idea that war would be unnecessary in a world based on international commerce.

o   Jean Jaurès and socialist pacifism took the opposite direction, peace was impossible under a system defending property and privilege. A system of states resting on class inequalities would necessary clash.

All those visions were unlikely to materialize, “because the men and women who framed them could not evade who they were: European citizens of an imperial system controlling the globe, a system about to detonate the most devastating war in history”.

-          Perpetual Peace in 1919. After the first World War, long-lasting peace was still the primordial goal. The conviction was that self-determination would put this time a definitive end to war. Self-determination is the capability for “people to determine their political future in their own territory. Take away the imperial element in international affairs, and armed conflict would simply be unnecessary”. It was in the agenda of the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 but was still the prerogative of the imperial countries. You cannot be imperial and democratic at the same time.

-          The illuminations of 1937. The hope of the Paris world’s fair of 1937 was that science and technology would make humanity progress cooperatively. Democratizing light and electricity was the perfect symbolic: a materialization of the 18^th century enlightenment. Meanwhile, science was playing a central role in the military preparation of the second World War.  The fair was in fact a desperate invocation, signs of its fate are greatly detailed in the book.

-          The work of René Cassin on the Declaration of Human Rights, in the middle of the second World War, seems like a paradox. “But utopias have the tendency to appear at the worst times, when they are the least likely to be realized”. The declaration was motivated by the believe that peace could be secured only if it was based on a set of international commitments on human rights. States respecting the rights of their citizen would not be willing to go to war so easily.

-          Liberation of the 1968. Jay Winter describes a shift in this period during which the ideal of individual freedom takes over the one of collective independence (e.g. states, trade unions). He describes the liberation theology school funded by Gustavo Gutiérrez as well as the student revolts in Paris and Berlin. Came from those movements the notion of ‘autogestion’, people can solve their problems without national governments (e.g. life in small communities, humanitarian organizations such as Medecins sans frontieres). A chapter is also dedicated to the Prague Spring and the theatre of Vaclav Havel.

-          Global citizenship in 1992. “Global citizens are emerging out of an array of transnational social forces animated by environmental concerns, human rights, hostility to patriarchy, and a vision of human community based on the unity of diverse cultures seeking an end to poverty, oppression, humiliation, and collective violence.” [Richard Falk] Even though the importance of this movement is undeniable, most of international institutions are still the result of cooperation between nations, far from being bypassed.

The book was very useful to read. It helps having a minimum of historical context on utopias and to understand how come such obvious things such as international corporations, Human rights, the European Union and Greenpeace exist.

Jay Winter manages to stay very detailed and neutral when describing the utopias and why they were biased, while still being an advocate of them. All the utopias described above played an important role in history and how we perceive the world today. They are the result of individuals still being able to envision a world beyond the injustices and atrocities of their times. Without them, no progress would have been possible.

• “Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”

Somehow dubious video from the creator of the name ‘crowdsourcing’

• “Corporate Social Responsibility is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honouring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.”

CSR could be the way for big corporations to find a soul again after the economical black hole of the last months, and the revelation of their poor records on ethics.

• Corporate social responsibility is vital for business survival
• The Oxymoron of ‘Business Ethics’ Proves Its Worth
• Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): Simply Good Business?

Crowdsourcing relies on the principle that good business happens when the customer is listened. In fact, so much listened that he takes an active part in the company’s activity.

• Travel company invites clients on planning trips
• Is Crowdsourcing a Fad or a Foundational Element?

My argument is that those two trends go in two opposite directions on ethics. CSR is based on the assumption that corporations play a leading role in ethics, that they are the motor of new ethical practices. A corporate has a social responsibility which might be linked or not to the priorities of its customers. It is the responsibility of the management to drive an ethical business, not of the customers.

On the other hand, crowdsourcing could be seen as the last step to empty corporations of their substance. A corporation should be focused on its customers, so much focused it could maybe not have any other goals, any vision than to satisfy the needs of the market. The ethics of a corporation would then strictly be the ethics of its customers, nothing more, nothing less.

How much are those two trends concealable? Who should be responsible for business ethics, the customers or the management?

The World Mobile Congress

I was at the World Mobile Congress last week and I wondered, what are the key players in the mobile? Not that I don’t know already this industry, it is my day job. The most wealthy companies are for sure the network operators and the mobile manufacturers (e.g. Vodafone, Nokia). The ones getting the most attention from journalists are Apple, Google for example. But what about the customer, what is the most important part for him? And will it always be the same or does it change with the maturity of the industry?

Here are the categories that I identified at the congress, with illustrations from other industries:

-          Networks / Distributors: mobile operators such as Orange, Vodafone, Telefonica or T-Mobile. In the transport industry, networks are for example highways and rails. In the movie industry, they are the cinema chains like UGC. Without them, nothing is possible. They are the backbone of the industry in that respect.

-          Manufacturers: Nokia, HTC, Samsung, BlackBerry and others. The main manufacturers in the transport industry are car manufacturers. It is what the customer has physically in his hand, the most concrete part of the all thing. I also put in this category the technologists such as Gemalto, Intel or Goodyear.

-          Content providers: MSN, The Weather Channel or the New York Times. In the transport industry, maybe the radio you listen in your car. In Cinema, definitely the films. This category plays a central role in media related activities.

-          Service providers / applications: Nokia maps, Google mail, Twitter or Apple store. In the transport industry, timetables, in-flight first class services for example. In the cinema, maybe online movie ratings or the possibility to buy food before a movie.

-          Advertisers: If no one tells people that something is out there, it won’t be used by anyone. In that sense, communicators are central to any industry.

-          Countries and universities: Countries with their legal frameworks, education systems and structures for innovation can be viewed as important players. They enable an industry in the first place.

I did this rough classification very quickly and should put more thought in it, but you get the idea. Each of those categories could be considered as the central part of the industry. Actually, each actor of an industry is convinced he is the centre, as the industry could not live without him. What is required to classify the categories by importance is a set of values, for example:

-          If money is the value, the networks or manufacturers are at the core of the mobile industry

-          If innovation is the value, service providers are maybe at the core of the mobile industry

-          If information is the value, content providers win

So, at the end of the day, what you consider being the core of an industry depends of your values ,and there are no correct or bad answers. My next question is then, what are the values of let’s say the journalists, which in a way represent the preoccupations of people. Journalists at the World Mobile Congress were typically tech journalists or business journalists. I didn’t see any political / society journalists nor any art critics for example. Not necessary because there was nothing to say in those areas (impact of mobile in social activities, privacy protection, flash mobs,…) but because, today, people don’t think this is central in the way they use their mobile. I just wanted to highlight this observation to prove that things can always be different.

What is your opinion, what should be the corner stone of an industry?