Loomio
Sun 9 Nov 2014 1:44PM

Conversation for action

BH Bob Haugen Public Seen by 259

This is the human-level protocol for coming to an agreement to do something between independent agents and then doing it. Here is an example of part of the possible conversation between a customer and a supplier:
http://conversationsforaction.com/cfa-playground

Conversations for action can apply to a lot more than customer-supplier conversations.
Helene Finidori's version
Another overview

This discussion spun off a request from @ahdinosaur here. I'll start with some references about CfA for customer-supplier-type situations in a comment below.

The goal of this discussion is to satisfy Mikey's request, 'would it be possible for you to document the CfA protocol through descriptions of message-passing (e.g. “at this stage of the conversation, here are the possible messages to send and the respective next stages”)?'

BH

Bob Haugen Sun 9 Nov 2014 3:10PM

This is just more intro and some history, focusing on customer-supplier CfAs.

Conversations for action are easy if they are conducted by humans face-to-face, or audio, or mail. They get more cranky if you want to automate them even a little. Now you need computerized social objects. And now standards raise their hands, as in, "we need to create a standard".

There are at least 14 competing standards for customer-supplier interactions, starting with [EDI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_data_interchange}.

Fred van Blommestein, who had a lot of experience with EDI, explains why this was difficult in the Problem Statement chapter of his PhD thesis. Tl;dr: "currently the establishing of an EDI connection or other structured data exchange between computer systems needs high investments and time consuming involvement of IT personnel". And, I might add, usually lawyers.

But the basic human-level protocol of customer-supplier interactions is fairly simple and has been codified in commercial law since the 1800's: Offer and Acceptance.

The term Conversation for Action comes from the Cybersyn project in Chile during the late Allende administration. It is a more structured computerized protocol for agreements between independent agents (Cybersyn did not want a command-and-control economy). Fernando Flores of the Cybersyn project came to the US after getting out of prison in Chile, and started several companies based on that idea, including Action Technologies which appears to be still alive. The CfA playground linked to the discussion description above shows a simple version of Flores' ideas.

Here's another from ebXML, one of the many "standards".

Here's a more detailed version that is closer to what Mikey might want: Speech Acts and REA. I'll attach a diagram from that one.

Fred's thesis (cited above) provides a lot more elaborate version, also using speech acts.

And the ISO Economic and Accounting Ontology provides a simpler but longer version, including the stages of "planning, identification, negotiation, actualization and post-actualization". I'll try to combine ideas from all of the above in a possible message flow. (But not today, we got a mouse in the root cellar...)

CS

Caroline Smalley Sun 9 Nov 2014 9:18PM

We need conversations that lead to meaningful action. This will allow them to evolve simply in a way that makes sense. As shared, CM (the-cm.com) now focused on developing 'The Great Debate' in making this so. Will take form of an MSC (multi-stake co-op), Michel Bauwens will be on the board. First sponsor in. Will be looking for more. We'll manage stakeholder budget through Cobudget tools. Friends in BC talking about building a map that will help to connect work of stake holders (i.e. cobudgeted items).

M

Mikey Mon 10 Nov 2014 6:36AM

@bobhaugen wow, this is awesome so far! i'm excited to see what you come up with next. :)

O

OrsanS Mon 10 Nov 2014 8:29AM

Hi all, I did mention to Bob and Lynn some days ago about the projects I involve: with Frank Kashner, and others it is says-us.net (a platform for self-expression-empowerment-organizing-action). If this platform is built well and working, integrated to other projects we work on like GNUnion (global networked labour union) and fair.coop (open earth coop), we might have an early image of radically different and healthy worlds being built in more concrete. That would generate the hope we need to pursue and change the current course of things. I believe what we were lacking so far has been what you guys have been working on here.

CS

Caroline Smalley Mon 10 Nov 2014 8:55PM

@bobhaugen I'll reach out to Helene. Curious as to where she's at re: developing ideas, and wondering if we can collaborate. We've connected before through a Knights Challenge application...

BH

Bob Haugen Tue 11 Nov 2014 7:05PM

@ahdinosaur - status report: I'm studying Fred's thesis again, because he gets deep in to the weeds, and I want to load that view into my mind before writing anything. But I had a short email interaction with him and he thinks the thesis is probably a 'bridge too far' for implementation.

EW

Edward West Wed 12 Nov 2014 3:22AM

Hey friends-- I'm new here and not privy to a lot of the things you guys have done and talked about before.

I'm a new Enspiral contributor, working on the project "Hylo." www.hylo.com

The project we're building has been built with a cognizance of the "conversations for action framework" and seeing these things discussed here was interesting!

I'm looking forward to meeting you that will be attending the retreat this year.

Perhaps there are ways to find to support these initiatives together-- I've been envisioning a flow that goes from conversations-for-action and resource discovery to Cobudget and Loomio.

Blessings,
Edward

BH

Bob Haugen Wed 12 Nov 2014 11:53AM

@edwardwest - cool! I just signed up for Hylo using an invitation code I got awhile ago from @derekrazo .

Would be good to see an OpenApps Ecosystem community out there, if that makes sense in Hylo (which I do not understand yet).

I promised @ahdinosaur that I would do a first draft of a message interaction pattern for CfA by the end of this week, but maybe you already got one? Would be good to compare notes.

O

OrsanS Wed 12 Nov 2014 12:53PM

In case I can get an invitation code :) from you Bob, would be lovely to have a chance to explore it for using it with Says-us, gnunion, and fair.coop ( http://fair.coop ) communities..

o.

BH

Bob Haugen Wed 12 Nov 2014 12:56PM

@edwardwest - how about an OpenApps Ecosystem community on hylo? If I pass on the invite code I got from Derek, @orsans will end up in Oakland (where I ended up, which is ok to explore Hylo, but not to actually use it in any real way).

P.S. Edward, were you familiar with Netention? So far, Hylo reminds me somewhat of something-like-Netention wanting to cross over into something-like-ovn.

Load More