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<DIV><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>Thanks Sam for the summary of David Bollier's paper, 
which is itself a summary of his notes from an Aspen Institute round table. I 
remember&nbsp;the buzz around&nbsp;"push" vs. "pull" models --&nbsp;the ever 
finer articulation of consumer demand&nbsp;that becomes&nbsp;determinative of 
production -- but hadn't thought about it lately, esp.&nbsp;in relation 
to&nbsp;social networks.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>More people creating 
more&nbsp;themselves&nbsp;and being more active in creative processes is a 
good&nbsp;thing, like&nbsp;education,&nbsp;lesbian moms and apple 
pie:)&nbsp;</FONT></SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>One problem,&nbsp;much discussed 
here and on other lists, is about</FONT></SPAN><SPAN>&nbsp;effectiveness and 
exploitation; and that's where I'm thinking agency theory might be 
useful.&nbsp;</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>What I'm interested in is the&nbsp;link between 
creation&nbsp;and reception, between creator and audience, 
where&nbsp;</FONT></SPAN><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>are a number 
of&nbsp;agent-like&nbsp;tasks:</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>a) contact and relationship 
building</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>b) presentation and 
promotion</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>c)&nbsp;value 
judgments</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>d) aggregation of&nbsp;responses, 
and&nbsp;</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>e) publication of&nbsp;response 
results.&nbsp;</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial></FONT></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>Agency theory has, in my very limited 
understanding of it, arisen to resolve problems between principals and agents 
due to incomplete and asymetric information, inefficiencies that stifle 
effective representation. (Bernard Roddy pointed out that the theory is 
'burdened' by&nbsp;the&nbsp;business context&nbsp;where these issues tend to 
have critical economic consequences, but I don't see that as a reason to 
discount the theoretical apparatus as such: an "agent"&nbsp;that fails to 
build&nbsp;good networks, misrepresents the work or improperly values it, or who 
doesn't appropriately provide&nbsp;feedback or celebrate success&nbsp;needs to 
held accountable, whether we're talking about Chrysler or 
MySpace:)</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><FONT face=Arial>So the question that arises is whether in the 
p2p environment of the Web,&nbsp;agency is as&nbsp;efficient and effective as we 
tend to think it is.</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>Speaking strictly from personal experience, within relatively 
small networks like this one, I feel represented&nbsp;and, in terms of the 
esteemed audience who I hope have read this far down in this post, it seems 
quite efficient.</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>anyway, this is intended only to open 
discussion...</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>Sam's summary of Bollier's paper:</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><A 
href="http://www.cooperationcommons.com/Documents/EntryView?id=129">http://www.cooperationcommons.com/Documents/EntryView?id=129</A></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>Bollier's original paper:</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><A 
href="http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7BDEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5%7D/2005InfoTechText.pdf">http://www.aspeninstitute.org/atf/cf/%7BDEB6F227-659B-4EC8-8F84-8DF23CA704F5%7D/2005InfoTechText.pdf</A></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>The principal-agent problem on Wikipedia</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN><A 
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal-agent_problem</A></SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN></SPAN></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV>
<DIV><SPAN><SPAN>- Robert Labossiere</SPAN></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV></SPAN><SPAN><FONT 
face=Arial></FONT></SPAN>&nbsp;</DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>