The following scenarios are hypothetical (well, except for the 2005 one, which used to be hypothetical and is now quite real), but they illustrate some of the great potential steps in the evolution of a Network of Integrated Consumer Knowledge.
Winter, 2005
Robert Cratchet wants to buy his son Tim some mind-bending board games for Christmas, but having himself interned for a scrooge, he wants to buy them from a company that treats its employees well. Looking to humanitarian organizations for assistance, he finds several references to alonovo. While he shops, Bob uses alonovo’s my values ratings to find out how socially responsible companies are, and he manages to find a great game for Tim that leave him feeling good about his roles as Dad and citizen. Alonovo had created its my values rating by mapping together data from Amazon.com and investment research firm KLD using software that would later become Grass Commons’ IntoGreater tool. Of course, as Bob seamlessly clicks through the check-out, he’s too curious about the new information and delighted about his feeling of awareness to bother pondering all the technical details.
Summer, 2006
15-year-old hacker Kenny Thompson wants to buy a new printer so he can print out a manual on emacs lisp to read while serving a week’s sentence away from his computer (don’t ask). He’s concerned about price, total cost of operation, linux compatibility, energy efficiency, and buying from a company that’s not too stingy with intellectual property. Being very internet savvy, he heads straight to Hooze.org, the new grassroots NICK client. The site’s not too flashy, but it gets a lot of geek traffic, so it’s easy to find information about all the things he cares about and weigh them all in one place, product by product. Having poked around at GrassCommons.org, he knows that all of this information is being provided in open formats with open source software. It almost makes the prospect of having to spend a week in the real world bearable. He chooses a Kyocera, but before he clicks off to a merchant site for a confident purchase, he contributes several comments about other hardware he’s used to help fill in some gaps in the information for future users.
Fall, 2007
Just out of college and planning for a big hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, 22-year-old Birute Galdikas is in the market for a backpack, lightweight stove, compass, sleeping bag, ground pad, water bottle… There are now several websites using NICK data, but for this task she chooses one with some mathematical tools so that she can keep track of the total weight of everything she wants to buy. She has already configured her NICK preferences to filter out any companies with a history of animal testing, womens’ rights violations, or support of the Remopublicratic Party (these three issues are especially important to her), and by default she gives extra ranking weight to products that do well on two indeces of importance to her. One is alo|novo’s Social Responsibility Index, which has become one of the most respected summary CSR ratings. Another is the True Cost product index, produced by an alliance of several organizations, many of which produce more specific indices of their own using NICK data. Since both indices are published on the NICK and her preferences were all set up beforehand, Birute hardly pays any attention to all these considerations at all most of the time, but when she gets curious, it’s easy for her to click on the data source icon and delve into the information these ratings were all based on. At the moment, though, she’s content to trust most of the research so she can concentrate on finding gear. Still, she takes comfort in knowing that she’s organized her shopping enough to be confident that she’s supporting companies pushing sustainability so that she can come back and hike the trail again when she’s 88.
Spring, 2008
Rachel Carlson’s responsibilities at the University of North Carolina include overseeing major product purchases. The university has recently adopted a new institutional procurement policy that involves several specific requirements for all sizable university purchases: no products from companies operating in Myanmar, only Energy Star certified electronic equipment, only Forest Stewardship Council certified wood, preference to locally-produced products, and absolutely no business dealings with Duke fans. Savvy Rachel already uses the open source institutional procurement NICK software OrgaNICK, which will not only help her insure compliance with the new rules but also ties in with financial accounting software and other recordkeeping. After a few minutes of configuring custom filters and ranking preferences all the new concerns (with the exception of the DUKE rule — not much NICK data on that yet) are addressed. What’s more, she can now produce a great variety of purchasing reports to help the university track the broader effects of its spending. So simple is the process, she even writes up recommendations for additional purchasing guidelines that she thinks would help the school govern itself more responsibly. “It’s going to be a lovely spring,” she thinks to herself silently.
Summer, 2009
As she traveled the world giving lectures on the economic exploitation of developing countries, Rigoberta Menchu used to fret about the enormous difficulty of shopping responsibly. Making ethical choices in your own neighborhood is hard enough, but doing so as you travel from place to place is nearly impossible. But now it’s a cinch. Everywhere she travels in the industrialized world — not to mention much of the developing world — now has some sort of standardized product code labeling (EAN, UPC, EPC…). Handheld devices capable of scanning those codes are proliferating rapidly, and Rigoberta managed to find a great deal on a cell phone with the feature. So now, whenever she shops, she simply scans the products she’s considering and can instantly access all the knowledge of the NICK. For convenience, she’s configured the software to reflect her personal emphasis on fair trade and international social justice. When she’s in a hurry, she mostly bases her decision on a color-coded grading scheme that she can see without bringing the cell phone to her face. When she’s got more time, she digs deeper and often finds material for her next lecture.
Winter, 2010
Lyov Myshkin hates shopping. E-commerce, markets, malls, outlets, kiosks, and travelling candy bar purveyors all meet the same vituperative scorn from Lyov. However, having reconciled himself to the corporeal necessity of engaging in the exchange of resources, Lyov shops. To do so, he relies on the only means of shopping he can stomach: the new phenomenon of agent-assisted shopping. First, he asks the automated agent to find him a product, like a can of soup. Based on Lyov’s profile, his agent hunts for a can of soup that adequately matches his preferences. Convenience (nearby stores, minimal waiting) tends to be a huge factor for Lyov, but his agent also knows of his preference for local products and healthy food (and that he’s allergic to leeks). Often the agent returns with a few questions for clarification, particularly on more expensive purchases, but Lyov has it configured to pester him with as few details as possible. At the end of the process the agent has arranged all of his purchases for him. He could opt to have them delivered, but the thought of Natasha at the SunBoogie Market almost always persuades him to retrieve his goods in person.
