Yves Bourgeois, PhD Director , UNB Urban and community studies institute Bailiwick 2012 Conference : Focus on open

1. Superconducted info, sticky knowledge • Whendoes « open » help developingeconomies Yves Bourgeois, PhD Director, UNB Urban and communitystudiesinstitute Bailiwick 2012 Conference: Focus on open access UNBSJ, Saint John 24 October 2012 we are gathered here today because knowledge is not free

2. Juxtapositions 1. Gov facilitating and implementing… • 4G, 1gbps networks, e-services • uptown revital, convention centres, airport upgrades 2. We recently observed… • 1 billionth facebook friend request, spike in skype • Can air traffic 85M (2001) to 113M (2011) • Conflicting observations if you subscribe to a Death-of-distance view (ICT-mediated K cannibalizing physical proximity mediated K) • but rational if you consider them mutually enhancing

3. K filtering • You don’t watch a youtube video to learn how to ride a bike (Polanyi 1966), well… • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjUopYKMVhA • Data  Info  K  wisdom (Ackoff 1989) • TK vs CK • When we speak of open innovation, we are speaking of Information and arguably codified K • Knowledge and wisdom = spatially-mediated

4. Packing & unpacking knowledge is costly • Costs to acquiring knowledge can be high & many Direct costs • IPR (Apple-v-Samsung), subscriptions • Venue is money K infrastructure, conferences • Digital pony express data encrypt, netw security Indirect costs • Time = money sift, act, learn (e-journals) • Develabsorptive capacity (training, R&D)

5. Unpacking knowledge is spatial • Distance, K decay, “broken telephone” • F2F buzz – (Storper & Venables 2004) • water coolers  trust, networks, gossip unrecord • Temporary vs permanent knowledge clusters (Bathelt 2011) • Introductions, collaborations, closing deals, fixing misunderstandings …F2F-dependent

6. Knowledge can be sticky • When knowledge can be packed and unpacked into bits and bytes, transmission costs can be virtually nil, but … • not all K can be packed  learning-by-doing, learning-by-interacting etc often requires physical space mediationchefs learn in kitchens, physicists in labs • unpacking knowledge is costly  absorptive capacity (skills, R&D), learning, trust • Inability to pack some K and cost of unpacking impel physical proximity

7. Implications for developing economies • ICT mediated knowledge can substitute or enhance K acquisition strategiesOreilly.com, customer feedback integration • Need much more sophisticated appreciation of how open and “closed” knowledge strategies are used by businesses according to • environment/locales (access to infra) • stages of product development (K forms) • stages of business development (start up, export) • industrial sector • Firms develop sophisticated knowledge strategies – or wing it – recombining physical and relational proximities to identify, adopt, adapt, produce, share and sell knowledge.

9. Reflections on open access • Open access potential of flattening or leveling playing field in scientific production • Open access journals will need to establish credibility not simply turnaround speed Some elephants in the corner… • scientific production infrastructure (nanotech labs, particle accelerators) are spatially anchored • absorptive capacity  skill levels needed to pack and unpack knowledge • peer-reviewed content often subjected to earlier peer-reviews at F2F conferences