﻿Digital commons foster democratic processes and values beyond mere economic gain.
Cooperatives managed by digital workers, Open source software respectful of people
privacy, platforms allowing exchanges among peers… these are all examples of digital commons.
Despite digital commons provide a lot of benefits, most of them
are way less known than alternatives produced through capitalistic dynamics.
There are two main strategies to support digital commons spread.
The first one is deeply engaging with a group to co-design a new digital tool fitting the
specific needs of that population. This strategy usually is deeply focused on one single tool.
The other strategy is advocating for digital commons, presenting tools that already exist. In
this case, there is not a strong engagement with the group and the presented tools are predefined.
Our project presents some novelties with respect to both of these strategies.
On one side, we rely exclusively on the digital commons that already exist.
But instead of promoting a predefined set, we engaged with a group of participants to select
the digital commons that are most likely to appreciate.
To this end, we relied on the concept of Artifact Ecology.
Our use of AEs is a novelty. In fact, we used them as an action research
tool, and we used them to understand participants’ interests and values.
We structured a process that can be divided into three phases.
In the first phase, we gather information on the artifacts that participants currently use,
and on their interests and values.
In the second phase, we use this information to select digital commons that can be useful to them.
In the third phase, we present the digital commons to the group.
The whole process is carried on in collaboration with Equilibrio (plenty of
details in the paper). The group is very inclusive and all the activities are open to the public,
so we had to consider the possibility of a heterogeneous audience.
Let's get some more detail on the process.
Phase one aims at engaging participants in building their artifact ecologies.
It is composed of two separate activities: "Artifact Chat" and "Puzzle Workshop".
"Artifact chat" is a group chat we used to send prompts to participants.
In the paper, we give more detail on this activity and we explain why we organized
it instead of interviewing people. In Artifact Chat we asked simple questions such as
“what objects did you enjoyed using, today”, or “what artifacts were you using when this
message arrived?”. Participants replied with text or pictures.
Then, we transformed their answers into tangible tiles that we categorize into 4 categories:
software, hardware, not connected, and interest and values.
For each category, we also created blank tiles to allow further personalization.
We used these tiles to build "Puzzle Workshop", a face-to-face activity in three steps.
First, we asked people to complete their personal ecologies, connecting artifacts
to interests and values, and spatially hierarchizing the tiles.
Then we asked them to select the interests and values most important to them.
These tiles were shared with the group and clustered.
Finally, we asked them to create collective artifacts ecologies around these clusters.
In the second phase of the process, we analyzed the collective artifact ecologies.
We focused in particular on the shared interests and values. (more details in the paper)
Then, we matched the results with a list of digital commons that we prepared beforehand.
We prepared this list taking into consideration that commoning practices
can be embedded in the artifact itself, such as in open-source software.
Or can be enabled by the artifact, for example by a platform like Couchsurfing.
Through this matching process, we selected 7 digital commons to present in phase three.
In the third phase, we went back to participants, proposing
"Digital commons workshop", that can be divided into three separate activity.
First, we briefly presented our analysis and decisional process.
Then, we presented the 7 digital commons and discussed them with participants.
Second, we invited participants to install the tools we proposed,
offering technical support in case of need.
Third, we created a Telegram group,
to keep the conversation open and to provide additional support.
The results of the process were rather positive. Most of the 10 participants
installed most of the tools. Moreover, they contacted us after the workshop to ask
for other tools both for individual use and for implement Equilibrio collective projects.
After the process, we performed an evaluation interview with Equilibrio founders,
which is discussed in detail in the paper. Based on our observation and their feedback
we develop five tactics to support the adoption of off-the-shelf digital commons.
The first is to foster participant self-reflection. P2 stressed the importance
of working on the artifact ecologies of the group, as they worked as a “GPS” for the community.
The second tactic is to propose tools participants are likely to appreciate
The third is to target participants as a group so that people can motivate
each other and collaborate through the new tools.
Fourth strategy: problematize the mainstream dupes but immediately propose a solution. P1 appreciated
we asked to take action immediately, rather than taking notes and eventually forget.
Fifth: tailor the activities to participants' skills. For example,
in our case, keeping the hands-on activity really basic allowed us to engage also participants
that were not that tech-savvy.
Finally, thanks for your attention, I hope to meet you at the conference.