Definition

OP stands for Open Play. It defines a process that enables community members to make plays that invest their efforts in the growth of wealth of a community. It supports, accounts for and sustains the circulation and growth of wealth? in communities. It allows transactions to be assessed and accounted for at all levels of wealth (vital, emotional, mental, spiritual...), at the individual as well as collective levels.

OP avoids blind transactions that have a negative impact on the whole community despite being good for the individual transactors. Therefore OP can be seen as a groundbreaking resolution to the problem of blind economies and the Tragedy of the Commons?.

One of the main purposes of the OP process is to simultaneously allow individuals to invest their efforts in a project with the confidence their investment will "pay back" if the project succeeds while at the same time not enclosing the ownership of the project itself, i.e. ensuring that the project remains in the commons.

Usage

Because wealth can manifest as time, expertise, hard cash, goods, support, energy, network connections, care... whatever represents value for the community in regards to its current context, needs, value system and projects, OP is built on top of the infrastructure of the open money wealth acknowledgment information system, which is capable of tracking all these types of wealth.

The OP process defines the methodology for participants to project, declare and track the wealth? that is created for the community. It does so even in a transaction that involves only two individuals.

Steps of the OP process

1. Offers and Requests for Acknowledgment

Making a play begins with either a offer or a request for the acknowledgment of some kind of wealth. We give this act the generic name of play. Making a play initiates a dynamic tension inside the market place where mutual parties can meet, evaluate each other, and complete the play. Requester and offerer can be individuals, the community or their representatives.

2. Examination

The play is assessed by the offerer, the requester, and the community (or its representatives) when the community is not already the offerer or the demander. Parties examine the wealth this play claims it will generate in regards to their needs, criteria, value system, ethical standards, etc. This evaluation can be done as a deliberation (inquiry of convergent interests) or negotiation (tension between divergent interests leading to a final compromise). See Wealth? and Wealth inquiry? for further understanding of this process.

3. Agreement

The play can be accepted, refused or re-examined. When a final agreement is reached it becomes an approved play, which is a contractual transaction that involves the offerer, the requester, and the community (if the community is not already the offerer or the requester). Deadlines, numbers, milestones, costs, deliveries, particular wealth acknowledgments are detailed in this agreement. Wealth acknowledgments can be – and will in most cases be – expressed in multi-currencies in the open money way: hard cash?, community currencies, reputation points, carbon credits, etc...

4. Evaluation

Once the content of the play has been delivered (i.e. the work, or resources, etc. have been deployed), the community, the requester and the offerer check whether original expectations have been met and the original contract respected. The level of generated wealth can be reevaluated negatively or positively (as in the examination phase) through a deliberation or negotiation process.

5. Acknowledgment

Acknowledgment is the conclusion and closing of the agreement. It seals the level of wealth the community and the transactors agree to acknowledge that the play has resulted in. This acknowledgment itself will be expressed as a flow of some set of open money currencies between the various parties involved. The level of wealth acknowledged may be stable or may continue to evolve in the future. In the later case we enter in the wealth assessment? marketplace.

The person or group of persons who have generated the wealth become the trustee of this piece of acknowledged wealth. Trustee but not owner, since the system is not based on ownership.

6. Redeeming

The redemption phase of the process is where the acknowledged wealth of play that has been recorded in the previous phase, is converted to some other form of wealth that the contributor can use. It's the "pay-back" phase. At anytime, depending on the original agreement and on the flows of other forms of wealth (i.e. hard cash, commodities, etc) inside or from outside the community, trusted wealth can be redeemed. Those who generated the wealth are paid in whatever currencies, as agreed in the acknowledgment phase. A redeemed play becomes a "closed case" that remains in the memory of the information system, i.e. in the collective memory of the community.

Reputation

Successful plays allow the building of reputation for members of the community. Open money is just a breathing flux that goes positive and negative, and has no value by itself, reputation is a currency that accumulates along successful transactions. Reputation is the fundamental asset of a person inside a community. For more information, see reputation system?.

What currencies?

OP is in early alpha testing phase. Our first return on experience shows the possible emergence of a multi-currency flow pattern.

First, all participants have to build a sense of what is their harmonious income?, expressed in whatever currency, hard cash or open money.

Then any transaction may include some quality and quantity currencies, expressing different levels of wealth (vital, emotional, mental, spiritual...):

• a harmonious income, which is the minimum prorata temporis fee asked for the transaction, according to the community values;
• a qualified income, made to acknowledge some specific expertise or effort;
• a wealth income, which is an expression of the wealth generated for the community, independently of the density of work;
• a risk income, which may assess the level of investment risk taken by the transactor. Time can definitely be a factor of risk, which may lead to a controlled interest (linear and/or limited);
• a reputation income, which is likely to be a hoardable currency