the products, and it would allow producers to understand the interests of their consumer base. As mentioned in the beginning of this essay, Socrates was wary of the effect of written language on public perception of truth. Socrates wanted us to be able to know the source of knowledge, and he felt that that awareness was best achieved with face-to-face dialogue. In a global market, that face-to-face contact is too costly to engage in. However, Facebook-to-Facebook interaction is proving to be an affordable and effective strategy toward establishing trust among geographically dispersed people.

There is some debate on whether or not the lack of geography on the Web is good. On the one hand, a globally distributed site without a sense of geography may be viewed as a medium for democratizing an unlevel playing field. Victor Hugo, in his enthusiastic description of the printed page, celebrated the fact that human thought was no longer earthbound and likened the mass production and distribution of ideas that Gutenberg’s press allowed to the power of a flock of birds. Very poetic. But I think there are advantages to “ grounding” online collaborative places with geospatial architectures. To follow through with the Worldstock example, producers and consumers could benefit from knowledge architectures that map how their connections enable social, environmental, and economic benefits on a global scale. It’s one thing for me to buy a rug from India and hang it on my wall, such that when a friend comes over I can say, “yeah, that’s from India.”

But if there were geospatial architecture integrated with my purchasing experience, then I could link my spending to the economic benefits of underdeveloped economies. If there were life-cycle data available, as there is on Patagonia’s Footprint Chronicles, I could learn and show my friend what natural resources went into creating this product. I hope we would choose products that were sourced responsibly. And through artisan profiles mapped out on a geospatial architecture, we could understand how the choices that we make when we produce and consume stuff affect people, the environment, and economies. The geospatial architecture places our social, environmental, and economic activity into a morally tangible context.

However, all of these added features are starting to feel like information overload. That’s why we need a feature that helps us to synthesize this new knowledge. Once we’ve established trust with a global network of producer and consumer friends, it’s important that we put our connections to good work. Yet, unlike the hierarchical organization flow that we have in the office building, where the CEO decides what is good work, independent global networks can write their own definitions of progress and organize the work among self-organizing, collaborative groups. Maybe the Indian textile artisan and her cousin want to hire a few more women to help them expand their business. These new workers are young women who might otherwise be pressured to enter the sex trade. We don’t want that. So we create a work plan with

achievable goals to work toward solving these problems collaboratively. In this networked community where we’ve established trust and collaborative relationships through individual profiles and geospatial architecture, and an additional element of a sense of accomplishment, our collaborative, goal-centered interactions are more sustainable and, I argue, more satisfying than the consumer/producer interactions we have at present.

 

ABOUT ThE AUThOr Xanthe Matychak teaches industrial design and conducts sustainability and information technology research at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She is also a contributing writer to the online industrial-design publication Core 77. Xanthe’s primary research focuses on how social network tools can promote micro-entrepreneurship for people living in disadvantaged urban communities. Other research interests include sustainability and narrative, the aesthetics of sustainability, and pedago-gies for facilitating multidisciplinary collaboration. She received her M.F.A. in industrial design from RI T and her B. A. in music from Ithaca College.

July + August 2008

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