Collaborative Economics: The University and a New Industrial Age

Collaborative Economics: The University and a New Industrial Age

Written by Gabriel Conners

One of the greatest challenges of our time is empowering lesser developed regions to effectively engage with more advanced economies.

The Co-Creative Industrial Revolution holds the key. It is a shift from top-down, hierarchical processes towards grassroots, distributed-yet-highly-connected systems. Examples of this revolution can be found in 3-D printing combined with open-source architecture, as well as a city-wide smart grid tethering small rooftop wind turbines.

Through aggregating the potential of capital across a given region, the revolution drives economic self sufficiency and empowers creative desires of individuals and communities. From media and arts to energy and entrepreneurship, the individual holds an unprecedented capacity to produce as the economic function of production is decentralized.

There is no revolution without connection.

This democratic shift is layered over new communication systems which connect market players in ways that permit massive amounts of micro-exchanges. What emerges is collaborative economics, wherein wealth results from social relevance and cooperation. A reflection on the work of social scientists Granovetter, Ostrom, and Putnam regarding social capital highlights the idea that power in the collaborative economy is derived from meaningful relationships.

I chose to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology because it is a technology-research school positioned between low socioeconomic communities and the thriving urban core of Chicago. Illinois Tech is a gateway, strategically positioned and equipped to catalyze a revolution in regional economic innovation. In this new social era, our success as engagers, students, employees, and institutions will be determined by the relevant human connections we build. As a technology institute, Illinois Tech is tasked with engineering the design of communities and their infrastructure, from sewage systems to skyscrapers and power plants to data infrastructure for smart-grids. Here is an institution which holds the assets needed to drive a Co-Creative Industrial Revolution in Chicago.

Before changing the world, one must change theirself.

Illinois Tech, as most institutions of higher education, faces the ever pressing challenge of evolving to become more than a place of learning, but a critical asset of social relevance.  According to findings by the Education Advisory Board, traditional students make college choices based primarily on reputation. Today is an age where the cost of university is rising while distributed, non-traditional education is increasingly available and more legitimate with each new compelling education startup.The student must be nurtured in new ways, just as the institution must serve society in new ways. The rising generations are demanding social responsibility from the powerbrokers in society.

All of these conditions, taken in sum, are favorable for higher education. The university now has the socially permissible opportunity to adopt a process of continual redesign. Our institutions now must step beyond the 20th century meaning of meeting the needs of society, to evolve away from serving as a cog which bridges 20 year olds into the opportunities of the workforce.

The collaborative economy is a far step beyond the linear production economy of yester-century. The behavior of our interactions and the nature of our work will need to be modeled more and more by quantum formulas. While my notions of models are conjecture, the logic informing them comes from the authority of what I have witnessed: the means of production are growing into the hands of the people and the people, as a distributed body, are twisting the once straight lines of profit and power, confounding hierarchies by sheer strength of numbers. With more mature tools of organizing and communicating, what greater disruption from the status quo will We The People author?

The Co-Creative Industrial Revolution is a messy one. Left unchecked, we will invent and revolt and revise the world in ways that will likely miss out on the wisdom of the generations that came before us. The thirst for renewal, justice, and innovation is an energy in today’s youth as visceral as the Grim Reaper’s thirst for blood. The generation rises which is coming for its voice, its power, its right to be, to express, and to not be silenced. It’s a beautiful thing, though there exists a certain arrogance and naivete in youth that will be reflected through our dawning wave of restless innovation.

We are always breaking from the patterns of the old. It is how we adapt to changing conditions and come to know the life in new and fascinating ways. However important it is to not be held bound by tradition for tradition’s sake, it is just as important to be raised up under the advice of those who came before us. History often repeats itself because we fail to reflect on the past, as we are in such haste for the future.

It then becomes a social responsibility to encourage, instruct, and establish great opportunities for creative exploration of and expression by the youth. Who should bear this responsibility? Be there no mistake, the responsibility of investing into the future in meaningful and sustainable ways in a shared mission. No-one is exempt from the demand to support those who come after you. Allow me, now, to single out the university’s ethical mandate to show others how we must move forward in the collaborative economy.

The Shift

The mind is our most powerful tool next to the heart; both must be considered as we progress.

The mind is capable of magnificent transformations, as well as tremendous feats of fixation. The transition to college life is a unique life-event. Often shrouded in hyped expectations of the reality that is university living, first-year students undergo a bend in character definition and lifestyle change that rivals tragedies, marriage, and commitment to living on the international space station. The opportunity to expand the reaches of what a person deems possible is perhaps never so richly available as it is during the first few months of life at college. This transitionary time will significantly define how fixated a person becomes in their thinking or how open they are to reinventing the boundaries of their reality.

Institutions of higher learning can heed the call of adapting to the Co-Creative Industrial Revolution by establishing atmospheres for their students to grow as experts of co-creation. In these spaces, both literal and metaphorical, students will come to understand themselves and their deeper motivations, as they will also learn how to understand and trust their peers through shared exploration. This piece is critical to maximizing the social and economic strength of our emerging economy, as exchanges and interactions will increasingly rely on the quality of peer trust and reputation. With stronger social bonds brought through shared understanding, peers will know how to lead with greater confidence through the adversity of the unknown and will be able to draw on their unique strengths to conquer fears and achieve what Nick Udall and the Now Here team terms as “collective breakthrough.”

A conscious atmosphere permissive of such creative exploration will equip students to deliver collaborative innovations while under the umbrella of the university, thus providing attractive reputations for the institution and a place of safety and wisdom for the students. This creative culture cannot be contained; it must reach beyond the walls of the institution to involve the surrounding community. This is simply an extension of the “anchor institution” ethic that demands large organizations to serve as social and economic growth engines with their locality. The stories of social relevance will emerge as colleges and universities make committed efforts to bring together members of the surrounding community, students, faculty, and staff to work together and share the learning and production capital of the institution. The focus at the onset must be on creating space for relationships, encouraging students and community alike to explore and understand each other and, as trust is developed, they will evolve into co-creation.

Shifting culture is no simple task, but as we consider the future of our economy, we see that a culture ready to embrace and dance with the Co-Creative Industrial Revolution will deliver the most sustainable outcomes.

Power and wealth in the collaborative economy is derived from meaningful relationships. (so long as these relationships are capable of being translated over new and emerging communications networks and holding that those connected networks are integrated with and provide access to the means of production.) That is, these tools must have meaning for people or they must help people find meaning, people must have access to these tools, and people must know how to use them.

Of course, these postulations mean nothing unless the logic is tested and, if it demonstrates merit, implemented in the domains of public and private programs and policy.