OVNs and expenses

Understanding is key. So, I'm checking to see if mine is correct: The formula appears to be based on a percentage of commercial activity as brokered by CAKE, SENSORICA's custodian and representative in contract negotiations with prospective customers, clients, and sponsors on behalf of SENSORICA members. True or no? This is important because outside organizations that want to contract with SENSORICA members for their services need to know which agency they contact. I take it that would be CAKE. And if it is, spurring more commercial activity would be a function of CAKE's marketing and sales function, knowing whom to contact in CAKE and the process to follow in order to explore opportunities and options would be critical. If this makes sense, perhaps CAKE needs a special allocation percentage to gear up its marketing and sales and thereby increase commercial activity.

@stevebosserman In Sensorica land at the moment, there are 2 types of legal interfaces where money can come in: custodians (CAKE is taking in payment for non-profit-ish efforts like PV Char, where the University's role is termed "fiscal sponsor"), and the exchange firms, which are for-profit and handle the more standard commercial sales (like BDan for 3D printer related sales, where the external entity's role is termed "customer").

Thanks for the clarification, @lynnfoster. So do the exchange firms, like GreenSense and BDan, impose an "infrastructure tax" as a percent of sales to help cover essentials? In other words, it's not just CAKE's percentage of sponsored projects that goes to cover core expenses, there's also a similar percentage from exchange firm transactions? If this is correct, should those percentages necessarily be the same?

A somewhat related question: would the percentage for SENSORICA consulting services rendered to a non-profit institution, agency, NGO, etc. about how to setup and maintain an OVN "instance" be the same as to entities in for-profit business ecosystems or clusters of community-based organizations? Seems like it might be useful to have weighted factors in the equation depending on the customer / client / sponsor served - just thinking outloud...

@stevebosserman Thus far, all income from products and services has been treated the same: 5% to Sensorica, irrespective of custodian vs exchange firm source. (I don't know who was involved in the decision and what discussion took place; and I don't know the answer to your second question. Just reporting from the current situation as I understand it.)

So the lab costs are around 1200, and then there is the hosting and domains... add another hundred? At 5% that is 26k in needed revenue, monthly, to generate the coverage needed for the lab and network expenses.

If it were increased to 10%, it would be 13k, which is still beyond where we are in affiliate generated revenue. I think it is relevant in this thread to mention the importance of fostering affiliate generated revenue, as that is the true proof of the model. @fabioballi

I would advocate to set the percentage higher at the moment though, perhaps 15%. I think that sensoricans are believers in the next economy, and would vote with their dollar to support it. Alternatively, perhaps there could be a 'sliding scale' culture put forward, 10-20% or even more, whereby affiliates could choose to give a higher percentage if they wanted to, and the percentage over the minimum could be held as fluid equity. I know I would choose to give more to support the network, because I believe in its potential.

5% has been applied across the board. This practice has been implemented in the summer of 2014, after the "tragedy of the commons crisis".
Jim's proposition on SENSORICA mailing list sets the bar even higher, it defines a moral standard. It says that ANY individual and organization that uses SENSORICA's assets to generate revenue, material or immaterial, tangible or intangible, has a moral obligation to give 5% back to SENSORICA. Steve would go right in that category with his consultancy practice and for the fact that many of us have assisted Steve in his consulting endeavors. Just saying... In this case, Steve (or his company) would be an Exchange Firm of SENSORICA. He would give 5% to the Custodian, CAKE. Continuing with this example, Jim's standard is a moral standard that plays on reputation and therefore on the ability of someone to enlist people from the network on activities, to gather traction for initiatives, and more...

Tammy, our experience tells us that people don't want to pay 50$/month to sustain the infrastructure. My past experience is that some people were running their businesses from the lab, making money using space and equipment, and refused to pay 5%. They left the lab rather than pay.
Another thing is that SENSORICA is in competition with Fablabs and Makerspaces that offer space, equipment, tools, for 50$/month of membership. Startups that want to develop their products would go there, if they don't understand SENSORICA's model, i.e. if they only see SENSORICA as a fablab and nothing more.
We can try to increase to higher than 5%, but higher than 10% would be wrong, in my opinion. The probability that someone would bring a project to SENSORICA will be too low.
Numbers are numbers. What's important is how people react to numbers.
The problem is not the 5%, but the income. As you say Tammy, it doesn't take much income to cover the costs. The problem is that we don't generate enough, for different good reasons...

I object to what @tiberiusbrastavice wrote about @stevebosserman above.

Steve has tried to bring projects to Sensorica, over and over again. Sensorica has not moved on them successfully. But Steve has not profited from any of this.

He has tried to promote the OVN idea to his clients, because he believes in it, but none of them have adopted it. He has lost clients from this promotion, rather than gotten clients.

So Tibi's accusation is not only untrue and unfair, but also an unjust attack on Steve's reputation.

I guess its time I jumped in since my need to clarify the current definition of the 5% has sparked some accusations. The reality here is that in our collaborative network financial contribution is necessary to maintain and improve certain key elements of the infrastructure. Since these contributions rely on activities that can be funnelled through an exchange firm belonging to any affiliate, the activities may not be fully transparent. So the question is: when does an affiliate's existing company become an "exchange firm" to the OVN? I believe the answer is clear: when a part of the commercial activities rely on resources from the OVN, be it equipment, human resources or the last one (which is hard to track), knowledge. This last resource must obviously rely on the honour system and is of moral obligation to the network otherwise suspicions might raise a flag as is in Tibi's case with Steve. Not re-inforcing the accusation here, just analyzing it. I suggest we make a decision: is my definition of the 5% (or higher)a correct one? Can we base future contributions on these ethics? Since this was rather vague (correct me if i'm wrong) in the past I don't think past judgment should affect reputation in the network, unless anyone has something else to add? Steve how do you see this analysis, since you seem to be more involved with activities that can fall into that category?