A conversation in ShikshaLokam’s Voices of Cerebration series, on building public goods.
Transcript
This transcript was generated with AI-assisted transcription and may contain occasional transcription or speaker-attribution errors.
I have two fundamental anchors. I used to be an intellectual property rights lawyer, so I have very, very strong thoughts on the nature of knowledge and how knowledge has been privatized, much to the detriment of the commons. So in a sense, my journey really began with a very strong personal motivation to make knowledge more widely accessible.
And the philosophical underpinning that enriching the commons was important because then we can all grow and learn together. The second underpinning, which is perhaps more relevant for our work, is that philanthropic capital, which is what powers a lot of our work or government capital, builds public goods. Philanthropic capital, to me, is capital which would otherwise have been taxed.
Taxed capital is government capital. Government capital, in an ideal world, is mostly used to build public goods. So I have these two, these are the three anchors I have.
One is that information must be free. Information must be open and accessible to all in the idea of the commons, the public commons. And the third one is really that the capital we use to deploy to build our work is, would have otherwise been taxed.
And taxed capital is used to build public goods. Therefore, what we build must take on the characteristics of public goods. Broadly, the distinction that excites me between the traditional notion of public goods and the digital notion of public goods is this key point that everyone has articulated of reuse.
In physical public goods, reuse is usually meant to be that the public good can be amortized over a long time and that everyone can use it. It’s not a one-time use. In digital public goods, the thing that really excites me is that every copy is as good as the original.
There’s nothing lost when you make copies. And I believe all of the work that you have talked about and all of the work being done on digital content, the central idea is that every copy is as good as the original and there is nothing lost when you make a copy. Bit for me, and this is the thing that I really want to draw your attention to, is in the universe in which we work, whether it’s education, whether it’s platform thinking, whether it’s societal platform thinking, this idea of agency has come across so strongly.
Distributing agency, distributing the ability to solve, all of that. Rohini did an entire session on it. And what I want to flag is that the idea of agency in a digital world or in a digital universe is very, very strongly tied to the idea of public goods.
If you believe, as most of us do, that what agency involves is the ability to create contextual problem-solving approaches, is the ability to take what is context-insensitive and make it contextual to your universe. The ability to do so is limited by the license under which that context-insensitive content is available. For example, you work in a school in Manipur and there is a wonderful book you have seen that would be amazing if you could both translate it as well as contextualize it, so change the names of the characters, whatever you do.
That you have the ability to do so, you can use whatever, Adobe, Microsoft, etc., that you can do so is limited by the availability of the content under an appropriate license to do so. So, to me, the big link is between agency and digital public goods, is the fact that what digital public goods do is give space for you to have agency to solve your contextual problems. Agency alone is insufficient in a digital world without the appropriate licensing framework around the content or the code.
And I would love for you all to start to think about what that means in your context. Because I think there are two parts to this, right? One is giving people the ability and the freedom to make content, at least, or broadly, as we call it, the agency.
Giving them that bundle of rights to make local problem solving, to be able to contextualize work is useful. When we first started our open content journey in Platinum Books, all we did was put out PDFs of the books available on our Dropbox, saying these are Creative Commons attribution only license and you all can do what you want with them. And then people wrote to us and said, this is wonderful, but I can do nothing with it.
So then what we did was we separated the pictures and the text and said, here are the pictures and here is the text, do what you want with it. So people sent back the text saying, here is text in another language, what do you want me to do with it? So then the third phase was to say, oh, okay, then we will dedicate a resource who will help disaggregate the content into ways that you can exercise agency over them and then you can send it back to us in ways that we can then put it together in ways that are useful for your context.
Very soon we realized that the bottleneck, particularly when you work with communities, is you. Because there were hundreds of requests coming in from hundreds of requests a month to hundreds of requests a day, which is when we were like, we can’t do it this way. Which is when we said, let’s build a platform.
Now, the goal of the platform is really to amplify content, agency and use. To me, that was what we set out to do. And so then essentially what happened is to remove the biggest bottleneck, which was us, and said, here is a platform that allows you to reuse and redo what you want to do without involving us, makes it easier to do.
And I think the last bit is really important. It captures the reuse. Because otherwise what happens is every time someone creates a version that is locally relevant, it’s lost.
If they do it on their computer, nobody else has access to it. So to me, what the platform layer really does is also it doesn’t just make reuse easier. It also captures the reuse that’s available for everyone.
Create the content, you create them in as atomized forms as possible. And the second one is to keep in mind when you’re creating the atomized formats, to do it in a way to do it using formats that are not proprietary. So if you could choose HTML over Microsoft Office, so on and so forth.
And the last one, which is the really difficult one, is discoverability. There is almost always someone who wants to, who’s looking for what you have. The problem is that someone will never be able to, it’s almost impossible to find.
What we were able to do, what we have been able to do in many of the cases is find an entity that is a very strong node in the network and use them to be able to share discoverability across the network. But to me, as important as the first ones are, they’re all useless and nobody actually finds your content. So I do believe that the greatest value you can add is in visibilizing what you hold.
There are many ways, there are many, many ways of doing it. Platforms is one approach. But I think the bit that’s important is really just talking about it.
Very often, where we really, really struggle is the fact that we create all of this and then we expect people to use it, but we don’t want to make the effort of talking about it. And I think that’s the key distinction. It’s much easier now than 10 years ago.
But 10 years ago, how, what did you do? Jet emails. But now there’s everything from a mix of social media to private WhatsApp, etc.
To even platforms like Deeksha, etc. that enable this visibility at scale is really, really important. Because without that, people will 100% create no scratch because everybody wants to solve their problem.
It’s not like people are saying, Oh, I can’t find anything. Therefore, I won’t work on the, I won’t work on the problem. Invariably, what ends up saying is we’ll build it from scratch.
And I’ll again allude to some of the experiences we’ve had. I think the most important bit to understand is that creating open content or public goods is a journey. It’s very difficult to say we will start like this.
It’s easier to say we will arrive here. And there are many, many layers. So, for example, assuming you have a range of people who are creating content for you or creating content for the platform.
I think the first part of it is to even to take your story to them about why we’re doing this. Take, for example, book publishing or take, for example, any industry where the traditional form of monetization has been for people to get paid for what they create. The moment you say public goods, they’re like, no, no, no public goods.
I will write, you pay me and we will publish. There’s no, I’m not doing this. The idea of a public good is so alien to them because the traditional model of copyright is to restrict access to enable rent-seeking, whereas with public goods, you’re saying we will broaden access to enable co-creation.
And it’s a complete mindset. So I think the most important thing to do for me is to ensure that when you when you start this journey is that everyone is aligned to this. Right.
I just want to go back to some of the ideas that you’ll have probably heard about around systemic leadership. In a sense, you have to start to tell the story that you believe as Siksha Lokam or any other platform that every problem is solvable, that there is more than one path to achieve that vision and that solutions emerge through co-creation and multiple iterations. If you do not anchor your work there and you keep talking about public goods, everyone’s like, I don’t care about public goods.
You have to talk about the why, the deeper philosophical why. And you have to tell that story to every person in your organization. Once you have that, then, of course, there is the really empowering idea of what we refer to as agency.
But more so that everyone can contribute to an ecosystem where everyone can work on the problem. And then, you know, the idea that we might be platforms, etc. But to start the conversation at the level of the human being and the human values in which we are.
Because then once you have that, what you can do is every contract that you have with people creating content, either on your platform or for you, will reflect this. That, you know, you’re creating this content, you buy into the larger idea, and that the content is available under a Creative Commons license. Whether you choose to make it publicly visible just yet, you have a platform, people will reuse it.
Those are all questions that will emerge, that you’ll get to later in your journey. But if you don’t have this when you start, two years down the line, when someone says, I want to use that, you’ll be like, oh, sorry, that’s under a copyright license, I can’t. So to me, I believe that this good starting point is to ensure an alignment of understanding and ideology with all of your early participants so that at least you have the basics in place.
They agree with the mission. The licensing, the agreements and licensing that you have with all of them include the ability in your journey to open it up for co-creation and participation. But I recognize that that’s going to take a while.
It will not happen right up front. So as a ladder, the basic one is, the non-negotiable step is everyone buys into why we’re doing this. That why is reflected in the licensing agreements and contracts that we have with co-creators.
And then you can build upwards. Otherwise, you’ll keep going back up and down the ladder. It won’t be a linear journey.
Can everyone reuse it without having to pay money for something? So, for example, if you use Microsoft Word, it is not interoperable because the next person has to buy Microsoft Word. As opposed to if you use open office or plain text or HTML, that is a public standard that everyone can use.
So interoperability to me is really a question of standards. And so long as we use public standards and private standards, we should be okay. When it comes to code and platforms and APIs, etc., etc., there’s a much more detailed and nuanced conversation over there. But for the purposes of content, I think it’s safe to say that what we do is we choose and prioritize the creation of content under open source independent standards rather than closed source private standards. Perhaps sometimes the word public good gives it a sense of grandeur that we struggle with when we say we’re creating an image, we’re creating a story. Look at public goods as characteristics rather than things, and it might make it easier.
I prefer the term, I mean, I prefer the term open content, which essentially means under an open license, in open standards and no barriers to use. That’s probably how I come at it. The last point I just want to leave with you is, you know, we talked about we talked about why open or why public goods, the link between public goods and agency.
I just want to talk about the link between open content or public goods and systemic change. You know, to me, what these artifacts do, these openly licensed artifacts do is a there’s this benefit to every individual because there’s a greater sense of personal fulfillment in what we’re creating that has a wider resonance than just us. It’s beyond the profit.
In a sense, within the organization, there’s a there’s this likely to be an increased sense of shared purpose because there are more opportunities to engage in collective action and collaboration because these artifacts enable that. And at the level of the system, you’re opening up new opportunities and value creation beyond the walls of your own organization. So realistically, you know, you’re moving you’re moving the narrative at the level of the self.
Every participant in every creator gets a little bit more value out of what they’re doing because they see it being used at the level of the organization. You’re creating artifacts of collaboration, conversation and co-creation. And similarly, when you expose that at the level of the system, you’re unlocking many, many new opportunities and value creation beyond the walls of, you know, whatever, wherever you work.
And I think that’s the that’s the second bit that that I that I really love about opening up stuff. It’s not just about the ability to express agency. It’s also about what it means for systemic change.
I think for me, I don’t know. I don’t necessarily know a way to do it. It’s always been.
I think keeping yourselves at some level open to what you’re hearing and create those opportunities to listen is important because then you will hear what people want. I am, you know, Steve Jobs. You don’t know what you want.
I know what you want. That’s not me. So I think really, as you as you engage in this journey, listening deeply and keeping some amount of vulnerability.
So you truly hear what people are saying rather than rather than hearing what you think you want to hear is really, really important. So, you know, to your point, a priori. Sure, we can say that it’s, you know, in non-proprietary, independent, open standards, you can do all of that.
But that’s sometimes at the level of Apple, Purify and Motherhood. And there might be details. Don’t put it on that server.
Put it on this server. Why don’t you post on that WhatsApp group? Those are those are nuances that you only ever hear when it comes from from from from from from deep listening.
I’ll give you an example. When we first started putting out books and platform books as PDFs. The largest request we got was from the visually impaired community.
And they were like, you know, A, nobody lets us convert their books. B, you’re saying your books are open, but actually we can’t access them. And C, can you do X, Y and Z to help us to help it to help make it more accessible.
And honestly, for us, if we if we weren’t keenly listening, what would have happened is we’re like, it’s open, you please do what you want. But what we realized was that part of the atomization problem was that if we put it out in this particular structure, it would make it easier for everyone to use as well as converting to Braille or screen reader, etc. So it was a small group of people asking us for it.
But the value that it unlocked in being able to listen and understand that was massive across everything we did. The interesting bit is that also led them to some amount of legal reform. And they used an example of what we had done to kind of create a much larger piece of change that people who are visually impaired now have access to any book, irrespective of whether it’s under copyright or not.
And they’re allowed to convert it into a format that are more suitable to them. So never underestimate the power of deep listening and of being vulnerable while you’re listening, because you never really know what it might trigger. What I learned in my journey is that inclusion is as much a challenge of intent as much as it is a challenge for consumption.
And I think I learned that, for example, the visually impaired, they’re not saying give it to me in Braille. They’re not saying give it to me as an audiobook. They’re saying just give me the ability to do so.
And I think that was the big shift in my head, right? Is that what we need to do is enable them to be able to convert it and create it in ways that are relevant to their context, rather than us having to do so. So the constant necessity to lower the barrier of access, whether it’s a format, whether it’s a tool, etc., is the only journey we can take. We don’t have to solve for every context, but we have to make it available for everyone to solve in their context. So in many ways, like I said, in the book publishing industry, what we discovered was making it available at its lowest level of granularity didn’t just solve for the visually and print impediments. It opened up possibilities of co-creation for everyone.
And I think that’s the bit that keeps coming back to me. The more accessible you make something, it’s not that it’s less relevant to fewer and fewer people. It’s actually more relevant and easier to use for more and more people.
So yeah, that was the big takeaway for me. It is the number one question that comes up. What if we create bad content?
And my thinking has evolved over the years as well. I think early on, my stock response is, who are we to be arbiters of good and bad? That we consider something good doesn’t mean other people feel the same.
And that we consider something bad doesn’t mean that other people feel the same. But I think in particular, given the context in which we work with this, which is primarily with children, my thinking has evolved a little bit on that. My thinking has evolved to say, A, we have to be mindful of that context.
So the good and bad definitely has some boundary conditions. But also to believe that we don’t necessarily have to lose sight of the fundamental purpose, which is to create the opportunity for a flourishing and abundance. In a flourishing and abundance, there will be some stuff that is good and some stuff that is not so good.
Perhaps what we could do is lead in ways that surface people who are proximate to the context to figure out what’s good and bad. So something that we have done in some cases is to give organizations lenses in ways that they can curate what works for them. To share and surface those lenses that other people might be able to find value from it.
So we are not deciding this is good, this is bad, be on our platform, don’t be on our platform. Unless there is definitely something illegal, some copyright filter or has something that is obscene. It’s easier because of the context in which we work with harder for a general purpose public platform.
But what we have found is the opportunity to create curation and lenses for organizations as a powerful one. Because then they can figure out what’s good for them as opposed to us saying what is good on the platform. One of the things about public goods is that since they are usually built by government, they usually last many people.
But they are a service that is provided because it needs to exist. Similarly with open content and with digital public goods, I think one of the challenges is on what time frame do you evaluate this? Is it a month?
Is it a year? Is it a decade? Assuming you have some of this stuff publicly out there and you go back to usage over time, it varies widely.
Something that could be very popular in year 1 could see lower use in year 5, could see great use in year 10. The long tail of this is massive. I wouldn’t necessarily set up the metrics of success based only on access and views.
I would do it a little bit differently because the value of every use is very different. If someone is able to reuse a piece of content in a language that only has 3 books, it’s tremendously more important than the value of reuse of a book in English. One of the challenges with systemic work is how do you measure progress?
That’s part of the question that you are asking. So long as at the level of the whole, you see greater access and greater reuse, with a focus on reuse, not just on access, I think that’s fine. But I wouldn’t necessarily evaluate that at the level of each piece of content because the context in which it’s being used is massively important.
If someone converts a book to Braille, it’s 100 times more valuable than someone translating a book into English.
Originally published by ShikshaLokam on 1 September 2021. View on YouTube →
Gautam John 
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