Person interviewed: Johnnie Moore

Interviewer: FAR

Date of interview: 03/03/ 2009

Interview title: Thesis Research: Brave New Collaboration Towards a Sustainable Future

Program or publication: n/a

Broadcaster/publisher: n/a

Moore, Johnnie. 2009. "Thesis Research: Brave New Collaboration Towards a Sustainable Future"
Interview by Fei Rong, Alice-Marie Archer, Rebecca Petzel. 03 March.

The story of We20“We20 started when 20 people at a conference got together to talk about the state of the
worlds economy. It wasn't on the agenda of the conference. It was what we wanted to talk about. We realised
that we didn't necessarily agree on very much other than that something needed to be done, but we were
willing to listen to the diversity in the room and appreciate that none of us had the wisdom on our own. The
conversation itself was a very satisfying one...quite an unusual one for what was possible – it didn't just
descend into a shouting match where people were trying to asert their version of the truth over another. We
realised that we were collectively struggling to figure out the solution. Really all that happened was we did
another one of those conversations and the idea come that this was quite a good idea – why don't we
encourage people to do more of these...lets just see if ordinary people can get together with other ordinary
people - and we're all ordinary people now – and lets just talk about this. And just the talking and being able
to realise – oh I'm not the only one who's worried about this. I'm not the only one who finds this baffling, I'm
not the only one who's angry about this...is a very powerful humanising force. If all it does is allow a few
people to get together and realise they're not alone in feeling baffles and concerned and angry, well thats a
good thing... that might contribute towards us working out a better economic system... and it’s better than
watching telly and feeling frustrated at the inadequecy of our so-called leaders”. (Moore. 2009. 35.44)

On how the key seems to be in starting small: The key is in maximizing the use of really simple tools. "I
can understand people looking at twitter and thinking what on earth is the point of that? But I do consider it
a collaboration tool as it allows people to make little small offers from which things start to grow." (Moore.
2009. 26:00). The simple exchange of tweets has paved the way for projects to begin

On how the key seems to be in starting small: "Good enough technology is what all these things have in
common - they're very far from perfect, but they're good enough to generate a critical mass of participation."
(Moore. 2009. 28:00). "What seems to work less well in my experience are things where there's more
architecture in place and people struggle to understand them" (Moore. 2009. 28:21)

3.1.3.3 Intellectual Property & Ownership of Ideas

"What we have is a system of law around copyright that made sense for the technology of 100 years ago,
where it was expensive to make records for example...the publisher had to recover the costs...that's a model
that's not so appropriate for a world where technology makes publishing incredible cheap. The existing
system defects are so huge...it’s almost unenforcible...technology has trumped the law in effect." (Moore,
2009, 17:60) Alice: on how the legal system around IP doesn't reflect today's technology

According to Johnie Moore, we are in a phase shift, "we're entering a transition. We're going to see some
new things emerge of which creative commons may be a part. I tend to look at it: what's my part of the
puzzel? How do I look on my own intellectual property? What probably is emerging is that people who want
to play on a more liberal playing field are creating a system of our own. If you follow what creative commons
have done, they're working within the existing structures to create these common areas where we decide to
share and share alike, and I have a feeling thats the way things are going to go". (Moore, 2009, 20:00)
Moore however doesn't have all the answers, and suggests that how businesses could make a similar
transition is one of the "unknowns of our time". Alice: On the transition away from traditional copyright
systems towards ...something else via creative commons

3.1.3.4 Architecture of Participation

“it’s the model that most excites me because they are self-organized. Not like someone in the centre has
orchestrated them. They emerge from a series of little conversations. I imagine they started with two people
meeting and saying I'm angry, your angry, lets do something about it and it grew from there. It’s probably
like songs at football matches. No one know who starts them, but eventually a third of the stadium is singing
them. But nobody's been handing out the lyrics.” (Moore, 2009, 4219) Alice: on how small
communications can lead to bigger things – self-organised and decentralised.

3.1.3.5 Motivation for Collaboration

3.1.3.6 Societal Impacts of the Internet

Alice: I'm not certain this fits here... But I think it’s a good clip on how conversation is what is an
emerging trend – small interactions that lead to bigger things... “It’s an emergent phenomenon. It’s just
people talking to each other. If there is to be a peaceful solution to all these huge problems that we face then
civilized conversation has got to be part of it, so lets start now.” (Moore. 2009. 37:30)

Alice: on how COIN's are impacting on government“The central government is becoming more sensitive
to these online organizings”(Moore. 2009. 39.23)

Alice: on how COIN's are impacting on government“Some interesting things have been happening. Little
small flurries...a few weeks ago in Britain the Members of Parliament were going to pass some new rules...to
give them some more secrecy or they would say privacy... about the nature of how they claimed their
expenses... they basically wanted to cover up their expenses and not be subject to quite so much public
scrutiny and they were all set to vote that in then someone started a facebook group saying no we're angry
about it and it got quite a large amount of public participation and protest and ...the MP's backed down and
at least postponed that decision”(Moore. 2009. 38:12)

Alice: How COINs are increasing transparency, and how COINs organise themselves:“A few weeks ago
Lord Carter wrote a report about the future of the web... although I think he was saying it’s more about
infrastructure than anything else, and quite a lot of people thought that it wasn't a very good report and
noticed that somewhat ironically that the only reference in the report to feedback was on page 76 where they
said 'we welcome participation. In order to know how to participate, send an email here'. A very ironic
failure to use web to create engagement about the report. But it didn't really matter because somebody else
just grabbed the report put the whole thing online verbatim in a wiki at writetoreply
[http://writetoreply.org/digitalbritain/] and said 'here you are, here's the report we'll participate here'. So the
participation organised itself” (Moore 2009 29:27)

3.2 Vision COINs in a Sustainable Society

Alice: Johnie Moore made some statements that we could add to our vision: “Making it possible for
people to connect with kindred spirits, wherever they are in the world... I think it makes it possible for more
of us to get the satisfaction of make meaning together through conversations – literally face to face, or on
skype or through blogs, twitter all those tools. Maybe we'll get more satisfaction out of creating meaning that
way then going out and consuming loads of things. That seems to me the key to sustainability – we have to
get off this whole anglo-saxon - western model of finding meaning through consumption”. (Moore. 2009.
33:35)

Alice: Johnie Moore made some statements that we could add to our vision: I think the interesting stuff
thats going to happen in the future that may save us will be self-organised and it won't come from central
government and it will have fewer explicit rules and a greater awareness of what works in practice. (Moore.
2009. 35:10)

3.3 Barriers to Sustainable COINs

3.3.1 Technological Factors

3.3.2 Economic Factors

3.3.3 Intellectual Property Concerns

"What we have is a system of law around copyright that made sense for the technology of 100 years ago,
where it was expensive to make records for example...the publisher had to recover the costs...that's a model
that's not so appropriate for a world where technology makes publishing incredible cheap. The existing
system defects are so huge...it’s almost unenforcible...technology has trumped the law in effect." (Moore,
2009, 17:60) Alice: on how the legal system around IP doesn't reflect today's technology

3.3.4 Sociological Factors

3.3.4.1 Leadership Factors

Johnie Moore:" Because we when we get to fixed on what we think the goal of the group is we become blind
to the importance of relationship, then we start to loose the trust... If a group is gettting bullied into getting
on with it and getting to the outcome..whats also then happening is, people are getting interrupted, people's
contributions are being dismissed because somehow they're being seen by one person as not relevant to the
goal. Then you start to undermine the fabric of the group, and although you might appear to be getting back
on task, you might have killed off quite alot of the creative spirit. Creativity doesn't run on a schedule and
isn't linear." (Moore, 2009, 12:37) Alice: On disregarding the importance of relationships and openness
for trust:

"We're still very keen to make people into heroic leaders, and then sometimes pull them down. We're recently
now having a go at all these rich bankers who've made all these foolish decisions, and rightly so in a way,
but it’s interesting that we all collectively bought in on some level or other..".(Moore, 2009, 25:00) Alice: On
the use of 'heroic leadership':

Johnie Moore: "There are all sorts of signals we give each other physically, that you only get when you're
actually in a room with someone" (Moore, 2009, 6:01)Alice: on the loss of Presence:

Johnie Moore explains that "quite important emotional information which gets stripped out in purely typing".
Your presence - the tone of your voice and the meaning you convey with your body-language is lost in typed
correspondences. (Moore, 2009, 4:44) Alice: on the loss of Presence:

3.3.5 COIN Structural Factors

Alice: on keeping it simple:"What seems to work less well in my experience are things where there's more
architecture in place and people struggle to understand them" (Moore. 2009. 28:21)

Alice: on keeping it simple:"Stuff thats not very intuitive is really a barrier to collaboration" it depends on
the audience. "If it’s me and my friend james, googledocs are a fine way for us collaborate because we both
know how to do it. If we bring in a third person in who’s not familiar with googledocs, It’s probably not such
a good way to collaborate because they go in saying... I don't understand I won't bother" It’s easy to exclude
people by showing them a technology they haven't got the hang of yet.

Alice: on keeping it simple:"Pitch the technology so that it’s easy for the least technologically advantaged
people that you need to address to take part... Simple is good and then if people within your group want to do
more sophisticated things well that's fine for those who want to play, as long as you bear in mind that not
everyone is going to be taking part in that." (Moore. 2009. 17:00)

3.4 How are COINs strategic for Sustainabilty?

“Making it possible for people to connect with kindred spirits, wherever they are in the world... I think it
makes it possible for more of us to get the satisfaction of make meaning together through conversations –
literally face to face, or on skype or through blogs, twitter all those tools. Maybe we'll get more satisfaction
out of creating meaning that way then going out and consuming loads of things. That seems to me the key to
sustainability – we have to get off this whole anglo-saxon - western model of finding meaning through
consumption”. (Moore. 2009. 33:35)

---------------------------------------------------------

3.4.1 How can we know when web-based collaboration is appropriate or Not?

3.4.1.1 Use e-collaboration for communicating between far flung participants:

Johnie Moore explains that for him the web is a really usefull resource for "background maintenance of my
practice, exchanging ideas, chewing over issues with friends", especially where distance is an issue. "Some
of my intellectual collaborators are very far flung" (Moore, 2009, 3:27) "the whole relationship is sustained
online... web-based collaboration is very appropriate for when people are a long way away".

3.4.1.2 Use e-collaboration for maintaining relationships alongside of face to face encounters

3.4.1.3 Don't only use e-collaboration when face to face communication is easily and sustainably
available to you

Johnie Moore: "There are all sorts of signals we give each other physically, that you only get when you're
actually in a room with someone" (Moore, 2009, 6:01)

3.4.1.3 Use e-collaboration to maximise face to face time and get the most from your participants

Johnie Moore told us how in a traditional conference or event "only a very small number of people get to talk
and everyone else is expected just to listen, and if their lucky, ask a question or two at the end..." This doesn't
take advantage of all the wisdom in that room, nor is it participatory - no collaboration occurs, and the seeds
of collaboration are typically sown via networking between sessions. "Live events haven't really caught up
with the fact that we now have all this fabulous technology for our online collaboration, so what we should
do live should actually be quite different.... I think the web is a better place for people to write 20 minutes
worth of downloadable stuff in a keynote so that people can read that at their leisure, and process it in their
own way and send their tweets to each other... When we're live we should be doing the things we can't do
online asynchronously... Fold our laptops down a little bit and actually engage with each other" (Moore,
2009, 6:55)

3.4.2 How can collaboration be designed to incentivise participation and break down barriers; i.e. what
governance structures work best for collaborative projects in your experience?

3.4.2.1. Use audio over typing for real-time conversations

Johnie Moore explains that "quite important emotional information which gets stripped out in purely typing".
Your presence - the tone of your voice and the meaning you convey with your body-language is lost in typed
correspondences. As a solution to this presence-less mode of communication he offers that "Skype in
particular allows us to actually talk which adds a whole different quality to the conversation, compared to
doing something merely by writing words through Twitter or Blogging. You actually can feel the person's
presence...the pauses in my speech...". (Moore, 2009, 4:44)

3.4.2.2. Don't be afraid to use emoticons

Johnie Moore: "In emails we often use those things called emoticons...smiley faces and things like that...little
acknowledgments that the tone of voice gets lost in written words and we use those to compensate... whereas
in a voice conversation you can pick that up: the hesitances, you know when I'm being ironic.... in an email I
probably have to signal it to you... I'm laughing now lol " (Moore, 2009, 5:14)

Johnie Moore: (Moore, 2009, 4:44)

3.4.2.3 Don't use 'heroes'

"We're still very keen to make people into heroic leaders, and then sometimes pull them down. We're recently
now having a go at all these rich bankers who've made all these foolish decisions, and rightly so in a way,
but it’s interesting that we all collectively bought in on some level or other..". He advocates rather: "all
recognizing we've all got a part to play in this, and then each individually doing the best we can to be a good
participant".(Moore, 2009, 25:00)

3.4.3 What is the role of motivation, vision and trust in successful collaboration - and what kind of leadership
is needed

3.4.3.1 Leadership for collaborative innovation:

3.4.3.1.1 Hold the space for non-linear processing

Johnie Moore "Leadership is more about helping a group to hold the space so that every contribution is
heard and that theres lots of room for non-linear processing to happen ". (Moore, 2009, 12:10)

3.4.3.1.1 Value relationships as important for trust

Johnie Moore:" Because we when we get to fixed on what we think the goal of the group is we become blind
to the importance of relationship, then we start to loose the trust... If a group is gettting bullied into getting
on with it and getting to the outcome..whats also then happening is, people are getting interrupted, people's
contributions are being dismissed because somehow they're being seen by one person as not relevant to the
goal. Then you start to undermine the fabric of the group, and although you might appear to be getting back
on task, you might have killed off quite alot of the creative spirit. Creativity doesn't run on a schedule and
isn't linear." (Moore, 2009, 12:37)
 3.4.3.1.2 Be the change you want to see in the world

Being open as the facilitator of a collaborative process "that's the best signal you can give to other people to
do the same". (Moore, 2009, 21:10).
With the increase in uptake of share and share alike licenses, many are opting only to share with those
offering a similar degree of openness as themselves. As Johnie Moore explains: "I don't often link in my blog
for example to newspaper articles that are behind firewalls or paywalls... I'm much more likely to link to
people who are open in their sharing" (Moore, 2009, 19:30)

3.4.3.1.3 Foster Diverse opinions: Yes... And

Moore had some advice on how to lead by example to support diversity. He explains that we can "set a tone
that embraces diverse opinions... a practiced invitation to a way of being in the world" and that even if we
disagree, or are challenged by someone's opinion that in listening and being open to it, we encourage other to
do the same. This can be reflected also in text-based communication, for example on a blog being willing to
take comments will foster a space for openness. (Moore, 2009, 21:10).

3.4.3.1.4 Leadership by conscious participation

To encourage the collaborative process, according to Moore, any 'leadership' should be of the "conscious
participation" variety "rather than the all seeing all knowing heroic model of leadership" He recommends
we "try to be the best participant that you can be" (Moore, 2009, 23:50).

3.4.6 What is the best legal structure to encourage openess? Are the commons always the answer? Do we
have the legal structures available today to deal with international, web-based collaboration on a grand scale?

"What we have is a system of law around copyright that made sense for the technology of 100 years ago,
where it was expensive to make records for example...the publisher had to recover the costs...that's a model
that's not so appropriate for a world where technology makes publishing incredible cheap. The existing
system defects are so huge...it’s almost unenforcible...technology has trumped the law in effect." (Moore,
2009, 17:60)

I've gone for the most liberal creative commons license I can: Help yourself, but attribute me if you use it."
(Moore, 2009, 18:00)

According to Johnie Moore, we are in a phase shift, "we're entering a transition. We're going to see some
new things emerge of which creative commons may be a part. I tend to look at it: what's my part of the
puzzle? How do I look on my own intellectual property? What probably is emerging is that people who want
to play on a more liberal playing field are creating a system of our own. If you follow what creative commons
have done, they're working within the existing structures to create these common areas where we decide to
share and share alike, and I have a feeling thats the way things are going to go". (Moore, 2009, 20:00)
Moore however doesn't have all the answers, and suggests that how businesses could make a similar
transition is one of the "unknowns of our time".

3.4.7 What does your ideal e-collaboration tool look like? Do you have any favorite collaboration tools that
exist? How can we overcome the limitations of current collaboration technology?

The key is in maximizing the use of really simple tools : "I can understand people looking at twitter and
thinking what on earth is the point of that? But I do consider it a collaboration tool as it allows people to
make little small offers from which things start to grow." (Moore. 2009. 26:00). The simple exchange of
tweets has paved the way for projects to begin .
"Good enough technology is what all these things have in common - they're very far from perfect, but they're
good enough to generate a critical mass of participation." (Moore. 2009. 28:00). "What seems to work less
well in my experience are things where there's more architecture in place and people struggle to understand
them" (Moore. 2009. 28:21)

Be sensitive to the technological sophistication of the people you want to collaborate with.

"Stuff that’s not very intuitive is really a barrier to collaboration" it depends on the audience. "If it’s me and
my friend james, googledocs are a fine way for us collaborate because we both know how to do it. If we
bring in a third person in whose not familiar with googledocs, it’s probably not such a good way to
collaborate because they go in saying... I don't understand I won't bother" It’s easy to exclude people by
showing them a technology they haven't got the hang of yet.

"Pitch the technology so that it’s easy for the least technologically advantaged people that you need to
address to take part... Simple is good and then if people within your group want to do more sophisticated
things well that's fine for those who want to play, as long as you bear in mind that not everyone is going to
be taking part in that." (Moore. 2009. 17:00)

Use cheap tools that allow ideas to emerge

There is an argument for not spending much money on start-up projects, as Moore explains, "There have
been lots of quite grand failures by big organizations spending millions on very clever technology and
getting it wrong... Stuff that uses simple cheap tools that allows stuff to emerge is really good, blogs, twitter
feeds, using hash tags using rss feeds - these simple syndicating methods that don't cost anything are really
good... Wise words then from Moore who goes on to say: Getting some consultancy to design you a beautiful
bespoke system is probably a mistake" (Moore. 2009. 30:30)

3.4.8 How do you see the future of e-collaboration? Do you think the web is the best tool to facilitate
collaborative innovation for sustainability? Do we need something else? What real world mechanisms do you
forsee necessary, running in parallel / supporting e-collaboration?

“I’m concerned the state of the world is pretty serious and we may have some fundamental economic
problems just in getting the basic needs of human life met in the not too distant future. I hope we're not being
too glib in assuming that it will be possible for decent numbers of us to actually be on line in a generation's
time. I think we're running into some serious resource crisis. Assuming we can figure that out... find ways to
create the energy for everyone in society to have access to the internet...”(Moore, 2009, 31:58)

“it makes it easier for people to create these peer to peer networks to share ideas and resources and self-
organize better. It makes it possible for local economies to become more sophisticated at meeting their needs
and not requiring so much control from the centre, which I think will allow them to become more resilient”
(Moore. 2009. 32:35)

“creating resilient networks is quite important”(Moore. 2009. 32:53)

“Making it possible for people to connect with kindred spirits, wherever they are in the world... I think it
makes it possible for more of us to get the satisfaction of make meaning together through conversations –
literally face to face, or on skype or through blogs, twitter all those tools. Maybe we'll get more satisfaction
out of creating meaning that way then going out and consuming loads of things. That seems to me the key to
sustainability – we have to get off this whole anglo-saxon - western model of finding meaning through
consumption”. (Moore. 2009. 33:35)

I think the interesting stuff thats going to happen in the future that may save us will be self-organised and it
won't come from central government and it will have fewer explicit rules and a greater awareness of what
works in practice. (Moore. 2009. 35:10)

We20 started when 20 people at a conference got together to talk about the state of the worlds economy. It
wasn't on the agenda of the conference. It was what we wanted to talk about. We realized that we didn't
necessarily agree on very much other than that something needed to be done, but we were willing to listen to
the diversity in the room and appreciate that none of us had the wisdom on our own. The conversation itself
was a very satisfying one...quite an unusual one for what was possible – it didn't just descend into a shouting
match where people were trying to asert their version of the truth over another. We realized that we were
collectively struggling to figure out the solution. Really all that happened was we did another one of those
conversations and the idea come that this was quite a good idea – why don't we encourage people to do more
of these...lets just see if ordinary people can get together with other ordinary people - and we're all ordinary
people now – and lets just talk about this. And just the talking and being able to realize – oh I'm not the only
one who's worried about this. I'm not the only one who finds this baffling, I'm not the only one who's angry
about this...is a very powerful humanizing force. If all it does is allow a few people to get together and
realize they're not alone in feeling baffles and concerned and angry, well thats a good thing... that might
contribute towards us working out a better economic system... and it’s better than watching telly and feeling
frustrated at the inadequacy of our so-called leaders. (Moore. 2009. 35.44)

“It’s an emergent phenomenon. It’s just people talking to each other. If there is to be a peaceful solution to all
these huge problems that we face then civilized conversation has got to be part of it, so lets start now.”
(Moore. 2009. 37:30)

“Some interesting things have been happening. Little small flurries...a few weeks ago in Britain the Members
of Parliament were going to pass some new rules...to give them some more secrecy or they would say
privacy... about the nature of how they claimed their expenses... they basically wanted to cover up their
expenses and not be subject to quite so much public scrutiny and they were all set to vote that in then
someone started a facebook group saying no we're angry about it and it got quite a large amount of public
participation and protest and ...the MP's backed down and at least postponed that decision”(38:12)

“The central government is becoming more sensitive to these online organizings”(39.23)

“A few weeks ago Lord Carter wrote a report about the future of the web... although I think he was saying it’s
more about infrastructure than anything else, and quite a lot of people thought that it wasn't a very good
report and noticed that somewhat ironically that the only reference in the report to feedback was on page 76
where they said 'we welcome participation. In order to know how to participate, send an email here'. A very
ironic failure to use web to create engagement about the report. But it didn't really matter because somebody
else just grabbed the report put the whole thing online verbatim in a wiki at Right to Reply and said 'here you
are, here's the report we'll participate here'. So the participation organized itself” (Moore 2009 29:27)

“The model that most excites me because they are self-organized. Not like someone in the centre has
orchestrated them they emerge from a series of little conversations. I imagine they started with two people
meeting and saying I'm angry, your angry, lets do something about it and it grew from there. It’s probably
like songs at football matches. No one know who starts them, but eventually a third of the stadium is singin
them. But nobody's been handing out the lyrics.” (Moore, 2009, 4219)