Exchange
Related to the OVN model
from Tibi
One of the main purpose behind the OVN is to reduce the reliance on external resources (resources that don't belong to network affiliates). One way of seeing it, is to reduce the reliance on the bank to kick-start a venture, to create value. This is why the concept of co-creation is so big in the OVN model, and this is the main role of the value accounting system (I like better the expression contribution accounting system now). In other words, the VAS describes how contributions are amalgamated into a product. No one pays anyone, there's no exchange, everyone contributes with something, and when the exchange happens, when that thing is sold for example, this is when everyone involved gets paid. Shared risk, shared revenue, no one pays anyone, everyone earns. This is where the name of Exchange firm comes from, exchanges happen at the periphery of the network. When we are in the context of NRP-VAS development, the term exchange takes another meaning, a technical meaning used by programmers, that is not the same as exchange used in the OVN model language. Now, recently, we had a lot of discussions about material contributions. Some affiliates want to donate their equipment and tools and this is the use case based on which we created this exchange category material contribution. But more and more people want to bring something at the lab, hoping that it will be used in processes so they can get equity or payment, like renting it. So they want to keep ownership of the thing and rent it out in exchange of $, fluid equity or a combination of both. I don't know what to do with this, but I do think that we should not say not entirely to this proposition, because it is usually better than renting it from the market, at market price.
There is also the use case where 10 affiliates buy a 3D printer, and agree to get their money back from commercial use, + some interest, before changing the ownership regime of that equipment from private to pool of shareables.
Exchange in the server-based NRP-VAS
Totorials
- NRP exchange types concepts and tutorial
- NRP supply concepts and tutorial
- NRP exchanging resources concepts and tutorial
from Lynn
Processes create or enhance or otherwise change stuff, exchanges transfer rights (usually ownership) to stuff but don't make any changes to the stuff itself. So exchanges give or trade stuff.
Possible examples to give the idea:
- Sales - give products or services to a customer in exchange for usually money. (2 transfers in one exchange)
- Purchases - project receives products or services from a supplier in exchange for usually money. (2 transfers in one exchange)
- Purchase contributions - project receives products or services from a supplier, affiliate (not the project) pays supplier (2 transfers in one exchange) and is then eligible for distribution through a value equation
- Cash contributions - someone gives money to a project or network. (one transfer but giver is eligible for distribution)
- Material contributions - someone gives equipment or whatever to a project or network (one transfer)
- Crowdfunding - someone gives money to a project or network, project or network gives some award (2 transfers in one exchange)
- Barter - give products or services in exchange for other products or services (Sensorica doesn't do this right now, just an example that doesn't involve money)
- Maintenance fee - user of the 3d printer puts $1.50 per hour of usage into the equipment maintenance fund (one transfer)
Note when I said "one transfer", in NRP, this is always inside an exchange, even though nothing is being exchanged. Conceptually, it wouldn't need to be, and in the ValueFlows vocabulary it won't require that. But inside NRP, it is a lot more convenient for us (the programmers) to always have an exchange.
In Sensorica, exchanges are mostly at the edges of the network, involving resources going in or out of the network. Some networks have mostly internal exchanges, and Sensorica has moved towards a few more internal exchanges.
How exchanges fit in to the core:
The transfers that are part of exchanges fit into the value flow chains, for example: A part is purchased and then put into an assembly in a process. That process creates another component that is input to another process that creates a product. The product is sold to a customer. These chains or flows can be long and complex. They form the guts of the NRP model.
Possibly the main reason these value flows are important is that they are followed backwards when income is distributed based on a value equation. So some of the exchanges above will generate income from sales - like cash contributions, material contributions, affiliate payment for purchase. That creates the "other side", but we don't record the distribution as part of the exchange directly, although that is kept track of in the data so we can tell when things are "paid off". I consider a distribution to be a type of transfer conceptually, although we separate it in the NRP because it has a bunch of additional behavior, happens at a different time, etc.
Here's a cartoon! (for the visual among us)
we need to differentiate these "exchanges" based on their relation with time. In crowdfunding for example, the $ intake precedes the delivery of the perk for a quite long time. In the case of buying 3D printer together and getting the money back in time, there's also a delay. Other exchanges are instantaneous.
See also
How internal exchanges and schedules must work in a value network