Service-Oriented Communities: Visions and Contributions towards Social Organizations

Abstract

With the increase of the populations, resources are becoming scarcer, and a smarter way to make use of them becomes a vital necessity of our societies. On the other hand, resource management is traditionally carried out through well established organizations, policies, and regulations that are often considered as impossible to restructure. Our position is that merely expanding the traditional approaches might not be enough. Systems must be radically rethought in order to achieve a truly effective and rational use of the available resources. Classical concepts such as demand and supply need to be rethought as well, as they operate artificial classifications that limit the true potential of systems and organizations. Here we propose our vision to future, “smarter” systems able to overcome the limitations of the status quo. An example of such systems is the social organization that we call Service-oriented Community, which we briefly describe. We believe that such organizations—in heterarchical coexistence with traditional systems—provide the features necessary to prevent societal lock-ins like the ones we are experiencing in assisting our elderly ones.