An Insane Flowering of Value
...is how Doc Searls & Doctor
Weinberger described the Internet effect
when they launched
worldofends.com this morning. The 10 points
they have put together is like the Internet they describe—so
obvious you say "Well, duh". There is no surer sign of brilliance than describing
what's obvious but which has not yet been said. The actual phrase is:
Take the value out of the center and you enable an insane
flowering of value among the connected end points.
WoE be to the managers who don't hear
their message. Our little design study is focused on a fertilizer
to help flowers bloom wherever seeds find a crack in the pavement.
I'm going to be crass here and leap onto the giant shoulders of WoE to get
at what Xpertweb is about. Surprisingly, I didn't really "get" Xpertweb
until this morning.
1. Xpertweb isn't complicated
You sell me something. I look it over and rate your work. Then I pay you.
We both keep track of what happened so others can learn from our exchange.
Think of Xpertweb as medium of exchange.
2. Xpertweb isn't a thing. It's an agreement
The agreement is that each of us will record particular facts about our exchanges
and place identical records on our own web sites. When both our sites agree
on the facts, they're considered valid facts. If not, they're suspect. The
facts
are
in plain
site, no one (nor Google) needs permission to see the record of any
exchange.
3. Xpertweb is stupid
There's no one behind the Xpertweb curtain and no curtain, because the Internet
lets you have agreements without enforcers. There's no central server, no Xpertweb
Inc.,
no central greedpoint. When two parties identically publish their exchange
according to the Xpertweb agreement, that's an Xpertweb transaction. If they
don't, it's not.
4. Adding value to Xpertweb would lower its value
You could build a company around the Xpertweb protocols using a central server
and accounting and it would be great for a while. But eventually the wheels
would fall off the wagon, as described in the HumanTech
parable.
5. All of Xpertweb's value grows along its edges
Xpertweb is as hollow as the Internet. If you can't find an ISP, Xpertweb
can't help you since there is no Xpertweb. It's just an agreement. Out on the
edge of the Xpertweb agreement are its current users, each of whom has agreed
to set up others with the tools they'll need to understand and conform to
the Xpertweb agreement. When they do, the edge moves out a bit.
6. Money moves to the suburbs
...because there's no downtown for it to get stuck in. VISA is as
hollow a company as there is, and it moves more money than any "real" company.
If they re-coded their software as a web application and let each of their
member banks host mirrored records of transactions, it would be even more
hollow, and no one would have to pay processing fees. That's how Xpertweb works.
(OK, will work)
7. The end of capitalism? Nah, capitalizing on the ends
Our current model, managerial capitalism, depends on complex, proprietary
accounting to maintain the franchise that management has acquired without asking.
Every public transaction eliminates an otherwise private one. In a world of
$400 CPUs, broadband and specialized skills, the ends are where all the talent
is and where the work gets done (most Cisco products are never touched by a
Cisco employee). Those ends are about to be equipped with the one thing that
managerial capitalism has
that
no one
else
does—a way
to
keep
track of who does what for whom and what they get as a result.
Accounting
systems can now be inter-networked—distributed rather
than concentrated. Squint at smokestack industry and all you see is vaporstacks.
8. The three virtues of the Xpertweb agreement:
- a. No one owns it
- You can't own an agreement. It lives at the intersection of your promises.
- b. Everyone can use it
- Like the web, you'll need some code and a little training, but that's what
Mentors are for.
- c. Anyone can improve it
- Don't like the rev 1.0 PHP business forms? Roll your own in Fortran. Only
the schema matters.
9. If Xpertweb is so simple, why is it so hard to explain?
Everything's difficult until you "get it." Then it gets simple. What's easier
than finding an ATM on a website and driving over there for cash? Explain
that to your great grandfather.
10. Some accounting systems we can abandon already
Companies are talent brokers. Their accounting/disbursement systems are the
only lock-in keeping companies between customers and talent. Employees go to
work
for accounting
systems,
not management,
but management
doesn't
see it
that way. When we all share the records, we'll do things for each other today
with confidence we'll get paid tomorrow. And that's the definition of an accounting/disbursement
system.
9:54:52 AM 
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