open money, open metrics, open measures ...
... what's in a name?
It all started with open money, and we'll get on to that in due course, but whatever can be used to record numbers of one kind can be used to record numbers of any other kind.
OM is a conceptual framework supporting the creation of arbitrary measures, variables, signals and records. It is a layer in a universal REA accounting system permitting any measurable quantity to be recorded and transmitted, including, but certainly not limited to:
- diverse types of "money" - representations of value but also a tool to assist in self-organization
- resources needed, provided, consumed, available, unavailable or wasted - including energy, land, biological materials, minerals and time
- quantities of unused, usable and unusable waste products
- transport: distance, time, emissions, surplus capacity
- ratios of other variables - actuality, capability, potentiality
- algedonic signals
- functions or mappings of any combination of other variables
- human measures of satisfaction, uncertainty, contentedness, anxiety, happiness, health
- anything else we can measure, record or express in numbers
In order to constrain the variety to manageable levels, and to group the variables into related sets (collections, ensembles or vectors) of relevance or interest to each agent (user or person or organization), these sets are nested recursively.By analogy with computer networks, we might think of it as "transport layer". It simply allows for the recording and transmission of information.
By analogy with computer networks, we might think of it as "transport layer". It simply allows for the recording and transmission of information.
Stretching that analogy, we might think of everything "above" that as lying in what corresponds to the "application layer" - e.g. credit unions, time banks, food growing networks ... and any measurement/feedback systems connecting these.