The presentation will go through the exciting process of finding out what open communities would find useful, the social research, codesign workshops, multiple prototypes tested, and the actual result: Teem. Teem is an app focused on increasing the participation and sustainability of commons-based peer production communities (e.g. Wikipedia, free software, Arduino), although it may be applied to other open online communities (networks, open organizations) or even social movements (social centers, collectives). After doing intensive social research and prototype testing, we are aware of the main needs of the different roles within a community (following the classical 1-9-90 rule: core, occasional collaborators and users), and the tools they typically lack (related to management and internal organization, listing the subprojects available and the needs of each). The app is grounded on these findings to reduce the frustrations of all participants and increase participation (90s=>9, 9s=>1)... while providing a kind-of project management tool for communities (but informal/liquid/open to fit the context) together with a work-space with collaborative edition (like a google-doc) and a group chat (like a whatsapp/telegram group). You can try the app in http://teem.works and the Android app in http://tiny.cc/teemapp The code is available in: https://github.com/P2Pvalue/teem

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework
Programme for research, technological development and demonstration
under grant agreement no 610961
Applying Research into Building an App for
Commons-based Peer Production
Communities
Samer Hassan
Berkman Center for Internet & Society - Harvard Univ.
Univ. Complutense de Madrid
@sh3v3k

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Commons-based Peer Production

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Commons-based Peer Production
● Facilitate the
CBPP ->
Paradigm

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Theoretical
Discoveries
Social
Research
Co-creation
workshops
Lean Development
Decentralized
Architecture
Canvas
Web App
UX

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[Parenthesis: A Framework to Build
Decentralized Real-Time Collaborative Apps]
✓ Real-time collaboration
✘ Decentralized
✘ Free/Libre Open Source
✓ API
✓ Real-time collaboration
✓ Decentralized
✓ Free/Libre Open Source
✓ API
http://swellrt.org

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Theoretical
Discoveries
Social
Research
Co-creation
workshops
Lean Development
Decentralized
Architecture
Canvas
Web App
UX

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Social
Research Web App

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Social
Research Web App
Useful?

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Social
Research Web App
Useful?
Lean Development

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Lean Principles
● Fail fast, Fail cheap
○ Reduce waste
● Don’t build things people don’t want
● Experimental
○ Hypothesis-driven
● Agile
○ Iterative & incremental

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Social
Research Web App
Useful?
Lean Development
Needs?

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The Creative Process

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Creative workshop
of new tools for collaboration
in communities

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Task management &
visibility of participation
PrototypesInterviews

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Management Tools?
Deadlines?
Resources?
Formality?
Projects?
Tasks?

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Proposal Management
PrototypesInterviews

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Conflicts

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Passionate
> Responsibilities
> Concern
Anxiety
Frustration
Fatigue
Pushing Forward Communities?

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Sustainable?

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1-9-90 rule

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1/9/90
Interviews

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Now...
Think of a community
you participate(d) in...
...and your role within it...

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Role 1%: Common Needs
To support community sustainability
To delegate and share responsibilities
To assess the community by knowing what
is happening

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Role 9%: Common Needs
To help others, to lead initiatives
(change things, to progress)
To get recognition from others

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Role 90%: Common Needs
To check if aligned to community’s values/aims
To explore what is happening and consuming
To meet people face-to-face, matching profiles

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Aim: 1<=9<=90
Reduction of Frustration & Guilt
Reduction of Dependency
Distribution of Workload
> Sustainability?

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1/9/90
Interviews Prototypes

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Prototypes for the 1%
I want accessible, concise & updated
information (1%)
I feel consumed by communication
(meetings, mails,...) (1%)

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Prototypes for the 9%
I want my contribution to be useful
& meaningful (9%)
I want to feel valued in the
community (9%)
I like the reputation for contributing
(9%)

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Prototypes for 1-9%
I don't want to explain things multiple
times (1%)
I want to help blocked participants
(1%)
I want to learn new things (9%)

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Prototypes for 9-90%
I want the community to be inclusive
(9%)
I feel lost (90%)
I don't know how to find information
(90%)

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Teem, for 90%
I feel lost (90%)
I don't know what’s going on (90%)
I don’t care about many community details
(90%)
I would like to be aware of what the community
offers (90%)
I feel frustrated because the community is not
coherent with its values

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Teem, for 9-90%
I want to support the community &
the commons (90%)
I enjoy feeling part of the
community (90%)
I don't know how to get started
(90%)
I feel insecure about how to
participate (9%)

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Teem, for 9%
I want to collaborate to keep the
community running (9%)
I want my contribution to be useful &
meaningful (9%)
I feel inspired by some community
(core) members (9%)
I want to lead my own initiatives (9%)

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Waiting...
Complexity
+Widgets, +Smart pads
Dashboard (for 1%)
to assess growth, stagnation, problems
Immaterial Rewards
Gratitude
Reputation
Medals

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Trying it out
Web App: http://teem.works
Android App: http://tiny.cc/teemapp

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Communities? Feedback?
Samer Hassan
Berkman Center @ Harvard
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
http://samer.hassan.name
@sh3v3k
This presentation is a composition of text and images. The text is released as Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International. The images are mostly copyrighted and used under Fair Use. The background
image belongs to P2Pvalue under CC BY 4.0 Int. The image logos belong to their corresponding brands/
projects/ institutions. Sources of other images: CSA Tabacalera, Calvin & Hobbes, Big Bang Theory,
Brainless Tales, Baran (1964), P2Pvalue, GRASIA UCM, Wikipedia, Microsoft and unknown others