Collaborability is social counterpart of economic term “externalities”

One of the mechanisms for (implicit) collaboration is standardisation. As posted before, standardisation is an underrated but very effective manner of human collaboration.

Standards are used by multiple parties to effectively collaborate, without the need to discuss the terms and conditions and all other technicalities involved between them again and again. Standards have a formal part though. ISO/IEC Guide 2:1996, definition 3.2 defines a standard as:

‘A document established by consensus and approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use, rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or their results, aimed at the achievement of the optimum degree of order in a given context’.

So while a standard is a formal agreement, in its daily use it is commonly used unilaterally, even unconsciously most of the time. Parties adhere to standards even without realising they are, by obeying to standards, creating an environment that all others can easily link to, even parties that they will never do business with directly or even know of their existence. This network effect that has a direct effect on the ability for all to collaborate will be referred to as “collaborability”. Standards are contributing to the fabric of collaborability.

Collaborability is the social counterpart of the economic term “externalities”. (NB In economics, an externality is a cost or benefit which results from an activity or transaction and which affects an otherwise uninvolved party who did not choose to incur that cost or benefit.) Collaborability creates the circumstances for parties to collaborate which can result in activity or transaction and which affects the involved party/parties who do not have to incur the cost it would otherwise have had to spend.

The social – and economic – value of collaborability is huge but is totally unaccounted for in our economic models. How should we value the social and economic value of the meter as a standard for example? NB Collaborability and its social and economic implications will be investigated further at Red Planet Dust.