Brand
Brand is an important aspect of market share and client relations in modern commerce. It is the imprint of production, which communicates a story of origins and identity in a dense multi-media package. It is often treated as a commodity in itself.
Peer production within an OVN may take a different approach. The aim is to efficiently provide context for decisions around trust and collaboration. The 'customer', user, prosumer or sponsor is seen as an active participant in the brand story and community. This gives rise to challenging considerations for boundary conditions of brand development and use.
OVNs are instantiations of Commons-based peer production. Their deliverables (can be products) arise within the commons, which means that the knowledge embedded in them is widely shared. OVNs do not seek market advantage by the control of knowledge, like traditional corporations do. They benefit from a higher innovation rate and a shorter time to disseminate / distribute / deliver (or to market) that is enabled by open innovation and peer production. If the OVN succeeds in establishing this basic economic advantage, it may then seek to differentiate from other players via brand development.
Branding has two important dimensions: branding the network, project or venture and branding individual artifacts (or products).
Branding the OVN
It is important to establish a relation of trust between the end user/prosumer/consumer/client/partner and the producer. In the case of peer production via OVN, brand has many shifting dimensions. However, the network operates |transparently and it is therefore possible for the end user/prosumer/consumer/client/partner to view the entire production record of an item, and infer much more detail about a particular deliverable.
The overarching elements of "brand" for an OVN may be viewed by:
- What is produced - what is created by the network; which reveals how is the network valued by the ecosystem
- How does it function - what patterns of production and distribution/dissemination are at play, or how do participants collaborate
- Why is it there - what motivates contributors to apply and express themselves, or how is a coherent story demonstrated in action"
Branding artifacts
Individual products within the OVN can adopt their own distinguishing marks and supportive content. In order to carry the brand of the Network, it may make sense to establish a "quality assurance" body and process which ensures that deliverables meet minimum basic standards and characteristics of the Network.
NOTE: not all fruits of OVNs are canned and distributed as products through the market. Some will be disseminated as DIY open source designs and materialized locally by the end user or a third party.
Branding for affiliates of the OVN
The OVN is an association of individuals, coordinating and collaborating to create and distribute/disseminate valuables through a p2p platform, and sharing benefits by using a contribution accounting system. Active contributors have a very high degree of autonomy. Some contributors might prefer to have their own brand associated with the brand of the network and of the product they've contributed to, and this is entirely possible.
State of the art (Draft)
Actual branding components Extracted from SENSORICA's doc
- Product name
- Productmotto/slogan
- Productlogotype (wordmark)
- Productlogo (image)
- Productcolors
- Exchange firm name
- Exchange firm logotype (wordmap)
- Exchange firm logo (image)
- Exchange firm colors
- Value Network name
- Value Network motto/slogan
- Value Network logotype (wordmark)
- Value Network logo (image/icon)
- Value Network colors
Co-branding
There could be cases where an OVN conjugates its brand with another brand, of another OVN or any other type of organization. One example is "X (made by Sensorica)", X can be an open source DIY hardware brand, belonging to an online community of OSH designers. This is analogous to "IBM, Intel inside". Sensorica has implemented this co-branding strategy in the Local Fabrication venture. When it comes to fabrication, the Sensorica brand speaks about fair, transparent, open, local.
Challenges
The OVN has decentralized and distributed communication channels. In order for the brand to be well-formulated and well-communicated the network needs to form a cluster of members that nurture and police the brand. The brand can belong to a trustee, a Custodian, which acts as the recipient for all shared resources.
Questions arise around who can speak or act on behalf of the network in a way that reflects on the whole, such as in the media. Some of the ways to address this include specific guidelines in the membership agreement, formal governance structures and membranes for public broadcast, and via reputation system which provides tight feedback based on actions of members. Another option is to carefully avoid the presentation of an individual voice speaking for the collective altogether, using only content which has been formally adopted as representative of the whole.
Dangers
Branding is a vector of attack, as in identity hijacking. Large open networks or ecosystems have a critical mass of an immune system build out in the open. For example, is some entity decides to destroy the reputation of the Bitcoin network on social media, there will probably be millions of individuals out there who will respond to defend the Bitcoin brand. Then it's just a numbers game, which narrative will survive, the one crafted by the attacker or the one crafted by the crowd / swarm. Small networks however, don't have a critical mass of a defence system built out in the open and may need to incorporate internal mechanisms of defence against identity hijacking or any other malicious use of the brand. Sensorica has developed governance around the use fo the brand, see more here.