Networks to create a world without waste

Smart is what the network makes us. Individually we are each just different shades of dumb

via +David Amerland

I have a vision of the future, and within that vision is a world where there is no waste. No wasted materials, no wasted lives, no acceptance of a world of detritus upon which the good and the great clamber.

I see a world where everything is valued in its own way, where we work to make things better.

I see materials closely coupled with reprocessors and reusers, wastes becoming byproducts for reincorporation into the world. In this sense there is no waste. Only byproducts.

Getting to this world is a leap. It is a leap over the gross simplification of a few big players believing that they can optimise the market, and instead the elegant simplification of many small players swarming around data.

In this world, connection is king. It is connecting reprocessors with byproducts. Manufacturers with ideas. Analogies with innovators. Never letting a waste arise for want of new perspectives, information, examples.

Swirling around all of this connection must be a continued stream of data. Not the sort of data that is aggregated to strip out all usefulness, but fine grained data. Detailed in time, space, quality. The sort of data that lets you navigate, swarm, evolve. The sort of continued stream of quality data that lets the whole ecosystem of products and byproducts thrive.

Tributary at headwaters of Murray River. Source: Adam Johnson

Garbologie's role in this

In my initial thinking around Garbologie, I had envisaged a vast, loosely integrated company that ties in a vast array of micro businesses. It would be less a company and more a swarm, but a swarm under the Garbologie umbrella. The Garbologie umbrella was partially my own ego, but I also felt it important to have a consistent vision and values across the company.

On further reading, reflection and several pivots in the Garbologie business plan, I'm being taken away from this grand vision. At least, for now.

Instead of a single company, I'm now seeing a single network. Rather than trying to do everything, I think Garbologie needs to help others so that we can all do it together (as I wrote in the post The Network Effect: 1+1=3 by +Paul Simbeck-Hampson).

This is less a centrally oriented swarm than a set of reciprocal relations driven both by mutual interest and a gift economy.

I am comfortable with this shift because I now believe that the vision and values propagate across the network. They are precisely what create the value for the network in the first place. The vision is secure because it is the glue that enable the network to exist.

Such a move would be a radical step forward, especially in a waste world that is characterised by mutual distrust and cut-throat business practices. Where regulators will be used as cat's paws to shut down competitors, usually over fabricated fears. Where there is a race to the bottom and no accountability.

A move like this can't be propagated across the whole of the industry, in large part because of the distrust. Instead it needs to develop from a trusted core. A core group of participants who have demonstrated their ability to function within the network by their gifts to the network.

A core built on a gift economy, mutually strengthening the other participants by sharing information, supporting others, generating a type of resilience in continued flux, a homeostasis.

Social media

The model I describe looks a lot like what is written about social media. Indeed, social media's economy of connection, of gifts, of shared expertise and knowledge is a big part of my thinking. My thinking is perhaps an extension of social media from connecting people and their ideas, and enabling those connections to become firm enough for materials to pass along them.

A simple example. Imagine a world where a factory produces waste that, with a little processing, could become a byproduct. Invariably that doesn't happen. The space, time, quantity, quality data that might make the business work is swamped in aggregate. The process is stripped back to reduce the byproduct value. The wastes are mixed to dissipate value. The driver becomes cost reduction and the materials go to landfill.

This is the mainstream media as applied to materials. Where MSM looks to maximise broadcast volume, waste looks to minimise cost.

But, and here's the change. Create a world where connection is possible, where data is freely shared, where people come together to solve problems, where there is a natural gravitation to good information, and things start to shift. You might see waste streams targeted and measured with wirelessly transmitting sensors to understand how byproducts might integrate with other manufacturers. You might see processes modified so that widget making is a bit more expensive, but wastes are turned into byproducts with value. You might see wastes separated to maximise value. The driver, then, becomes maximising value and a new order emerges.

This is the social media model as applied to materials. Where social media looks to create nodes of value at every point through a network, byproduct management looks to maximise value.

Making the shift

Making this shift has been quite a difficult mental exercise for me. It has meant letting go of my delusions of control. Accepting that I will need to work with others. That Garbologie cannot run all of these projects.

In a sense that shift has been forced on me. Investors have proven harder to find than it at first seemed. A site to realise the grand vision has been difficult to obtain. And just holding the entire vision in my head has proven to be taxing.

So I've let it go, and decided to go with the flow. Rather than seeking a large base with many directions for growth, Garbologie will instead build from a small base of its own processing (dismantling mattresses), and develop connections to grow with others. I have been very protective of my ethics and the quality of the relationships I build for this very purpose.

Jetty on Glenelg River. Source: Adam Johnson

Of course, the question arises - why run any operations? They are troublesome, do not scale easily and distract from what could be a pure play knowledge operation. Why contaminate the bits with atoms (to paraphrase +kevin jones elsewhere)?

I think it is important to run some operations. You give advice from a grounded base. You can experiment. You can not just tell people what a waste solution might be, but you can test it. You build trust in a world where shitty consultants are everywhere. And, ultimately, you demonstrate that simple steps can be taken.

First steps

From here, the plan is to find a small warehouse and start to play with building up a mattress dismantling business. Streamlining it so that it is a pleasure to work in. Finding homes for all the byproducts. Adding value to people and things. Plans for Tip/Shop and Glass will be set to one side for a few months while this single operation gets going.

At the same time, the plan is to work with a small group of trusted operators and help them to build their businesses. I will probably be involved in those operations too, but less directly. The idea is to live the vision of a world without waste. To use knowledge gleaned from across the social media network to further our mutual learning.

That knowledge won't be constrained to the trusted network. It will be scattered to the winds for anybody to use. Scattered it forms new knowledge. Will competitors access the knowledge? Sure, and the knowledge is good, but the network is great. Good knowledge channeled through a great network makes the network incredibly strong, immensely valuable. It makes competitors irrelevant, and institutional innovation becomes core.

And I, for the first time in a long time, again have a clear vision of where Garbologie is headed. Not just the light way off in the distance, that has never flagged, but a few steps off into the scrub to get there.