Damazo, Frances Grace P.

2009-08193

PA 111-WFR Prof. Erwin Alampay

The Cooperative Framework (Collaboration) Versus The Institutional Framework: Which works better? Of the entire things one can have as an example of an organization, the photo sharing website Flickr would not be the first thing to pop into anyones head. It is because most often than not, we view organizations as somehow comparative to government institutions and other large scale companies. What we fail to realize is that behind small-scale organizations, there exists a web of varied and complex organizational challenges. Behind everyday things we see and use, just like social networking sites, there exists an organization to make things possible and easier for us to have information. Before getting into it, there are issues that need to be resolved internally. The underlying question in Clay Shirkys lecture is: How do you organize group of individuals so that the output of the group is coherent? Clay Shirky provided two options: Build an institution, and the other, in his own words, is to Put the cooperation in the infrastructure. In other words, the Cooperative Framework. The former is said to be a classic answer. It functions to raise resources and to coordinate the activities of a group of people. The latter, meanwhile is an alternative option. This is where Flickr became an example. One of its features is tagging. What is remarkable in this is that it gave the users the ability to characterize the photos. Because of this, one problem can be solved: the Coordination Problem. Every institution comes across this management problem of bringing its people together. There can be ways of solving it. Either you use the institution to organize them into pre-arranged structures or there is what they call the Flick answer: Building cooperation in the infrastructure. It is all about arranging coordination IN the group. These two concepts are different from each other because in the Institutional Framework, the arrangement is already predetermined. There were already divisions even before people enter into the office. Meanwhile, in the Institutional Framework,

arrangements are determined by the group dynamic they have. In this structure, the people have their leeway in doing things because rules are not imposed. It is created based on them. This brings us to the second point: The Cooperative Infrastructure. With Cooperative Framework/ Collaboration, it claims to bring the same outcome without the institutional difficulties. In here, it raises volunteerism in a whole new scale. Coordination is a major thing rather than planning. It shifts the question from we must to lets deal with it as we go. This is a far-cry from the rigidity of the set of objectives an institution usually has. It is basically saying to cross the bridge when we get there. There is an advantage and disadvantage, as well, that arise from this scenario. In one way, the rationale is that you can only determine the issues, goals or objectives of the organization when you get into specific situations. Meanwhile, lack of planning can also lead to lack of direction. Planning is good in a way because you can already anticipate the issues and strategize ahead. Organizations need both elements to fully function: planning and cooperation. The third point is the 80-20 rule. This usually occurs in the Collaborative/Cooperative Framework. The reason behind it is because the people are allowed to contribute as little or as many as they like. When applied to work, the employee is not expected to contribute a specific number of works. Whether you produced thousands or just one, your outcome is taken as a collective body of work. In the example given by Shirky, the graph signified that 80% contributed below average. The 80-20 rule is that 20% of the merchandise accounts for 80% of the revenue and that 20% of the users use 80% of the resources. Although, some justifies this rule saying that with even only a single contribution, it can provide innovation. A case in point given was the software programmers at Microsoft. The question in this framework is what is their contribution like? as opposed to the institutional framework of: how is he/she as an employee? This view is very different from the Institutional Framework in that the institution expects its employers to have specific number of outputs. They are paid for their labor while in cooperative framework, good ideas are the main thing. In conclusion, cooperative framework is a revolutionary idea. It gave institutions or organizations a fresh way of seeing and doing things. This framework came into the scene because of the advancement of technology. The way things are handled in the World Wide Web is not the same with how things are handled in existing institutions or organizations.

I cannot answer which works better in an organization: the Institutional Framework or the Cooperative Framework because the examples given in the lecture are those in the internet. The latter has not been around for long to conclude that it is much better. What it gives, though, is a new perspective on management. Just like what they always say: Not everything that is old does not necessarily mean its wrong and what is new does not always mean it is right.