emerging scenario. active well-being and distributed economies Ezio Manzini INDACO, Politecnico di Milano

background issues.

creative communities.

people who, in their everyday life, invent and realize new forms of organization to solve a problem or to open new opportunities.

creative communities: are they marginal groups or promising expressions of a possible future?

creative communities perspectives: they have to be seen in the framework of the on- going big change and of concourring socio-technical innovatons.

visions of possible future.

the on-going big change ( and small creative communities )

the on-going big change individualisation … environmental pressure … connectivity …

… the growing individualization is melting the traditional forms of organization: new social networks will appear (and are appearing).

… the environmental pressure is changing people’s perceptions and economics: new ways of thinking and new ways of doing will appear (and are appearing).

… the increased connectivity is producing a favorable technological habitat for social innovation: new forms of organization, new ways of doing will appear (and are appearing).

a more “favorable habitat” of a new wave of social innovations?

other socio-technical innovations ( possible convergences )

> cosmopolitan localism > distributed systems > collaborative networks

possible convergences. emerging ideas of locality, well- being and production

cosmopolitan localism

emerging forms of localizations…

valorization of local typical products. the production of high quality highly localized products, in particular food; the success of the Slow Food Association

R&D New Products Domestic & International Markets Resin Established Products A new Brand “mastiha shop” Mastic Tree Source: Distributed Economies Laboratories

new producer-consumer networks. networks that permit a direct relationship between consumers and between producers and consumers.

urban people linked with groups of farmers, for products and help

distributed systems

forms of system architectures

individual people and social organizations are more and more inter-connected and a new form of society appears: the network society.

in the network society small will not be small and local is not local!

in the network society, the small is (or can be) a local knot of a global web. And the “local” is a locally based cosmopolitan community, i.e. a community of people embedded in a place, but open and connected with other communities/places.

on on-going phenomenon: from distributed computing to distributed power generation.

connected computers and connected local energy systems (co-generation and renewable energies plants) as a new possible infrastructure …

from distributed computing and distributed power generation, to distributed production.

a production systems organized as networks of small scale, flexible, highly context-related units. ( Distributed Economies Laboratories)

distributed production advantages…

light, lean and adaptable systems, as distributed production and services, low transport intensive products and services, local and seasonal food

better use of existing resources, as collective use of renewable energies, higher recycling possibilities, better control on waste generation and management

direct producers-consumer links as de-intermediation of the distribution system, more power on the consumers’ and local producers’ sides

a new generation of localizable technologies…

mobile bio-energy plants Source: Distributed Economies Laboratories

a new generation of local connected, power generation plants…

Conventional Energy Systems National Boundary Regional Boundary Transmission Distribution Source: Distributed Economies Laboratories

Industrial waste MSW Forestry $ $ $ $ $ Bioenergy Systems in Sweden & Finland Source: Distributed Economies Laboratories

collaborative networks

trading goods and services EBay 120 millions people registered. developing free software Linux registered developers. new ways of conceiving games The Sims thousands of users contribute to the contents. mass developed astronomic research hundred of thousands of dedicated amateurs are involved. the overwhelming success of the Wikipedia project. the rise of the open-welfare concept …

end-users applications as blogs, podcast, wikis, social networking websites, search engines, auction websites and peer-to-peer services. considered as a whole these applications are called social computing or web 2.0,

co-creation models: mass peer-to-peer organizations. Large scale, highly distributed systems which combine many players to carry out complex tasks … without requiring burdensome, top-down hierarchical organization … (RED, Design Council, UK)

co-creation of new forms of organization (that permit a sustainable use of local resources) and of new forms of social knowledge (from Free software, to Creative Commons and Wikipedia) …

… and creative communities.

no radical innovation towards sustainability without these active and creative people …

creative communities are the drivers of all the other drivers!

which vision might keep together these different events?

scenario of the multi-local society.

vision

a society as horizontal integration of a multiplicity of places/communities …

new sense of place

a stronger link with places and local communities as a potential driver for localized sustainable systems …

in this scenario the local is not local!

active well-being

a more active and participative contribution to the well-being realization …

in this scenario people are well-being promoters and not only consumers!

distributed economies

search for flexibility. industrial districts. industrial symbiosis. changes in consumers attitudes and behaviors. new producer- consumers relationships. new forms of localized, cooperative organization. distributed generation of energy. economy of scale. economy of the net…

economy where diverses range of local activities are organized in the form of the small units that are synergistically connected with each other ( Distributed Economies Laboratories)

drivers (of the multi-local society and of its distributed economies).

risk management. decentralised systems are, for their same nature, more robust than the centralised ones

techno-economic drivers. flexibility and adaptability to different contexts and to changing demands; reduction of waste and transport intensity.

socio-cultural drivers. traceability of the products as visibility on the production processes.

social and environmental motivations. bottom-up control on technical systems; valorisation of local resources, consolidation of local economies and social fabric.

the “base of the pyramid” issue. networked systems can help in answering to the need/opportunity of developing businesses with the poorest layers of the world society.

design implications.

design for new scenarios.

visions and scenarios

visions: images that can drive actions

shared visions: socially built images that can drive converging actions

where do shared visions come from? a social conversation that links and compares different materials and individual visions

vision makers writers, painters, film makers, architects and designers

designers as vision makers? to generate visions of possible worlds

possible worlds visions that have to be possible, acceptable and discussable

scenario building > vision/s > motivations/assessments > proposals/strategies

THANKS!