Section 3:
The Labor Market Software Registry
With, characteristics, principles, purpose, key elements, and "glue" in hand, it is now possible to be concrete about the shape of a new type of public/private partnership. I have chosen the most direct and mundane name I could think of ("Registry") in order to avoid distractions. Combining all of the prior discussions, we end up with:
Organizational purpose:
• Create a system capable of delivering a premium selection of tools and information resources into every labor market in this country.
Organizational Concept:
• Manage a means to track the use and sale of software components by other software and information integrators so that the producers of those components can be fairly compensated.
Once the Registry was formed, the California company immediately reprogrammed its software into a Registry-compliant standard. Now they could sell the component without giving away their trade secrets. They then turned around and upgraded their own comprehensive program with other Registry modules. |
Legal form:
• For-profit membership corporation. Non-stock.
Since it is likely to own various assets and be jointly owned by numerous for-profit interests, the easiest and most versatile legal form is that of a for-profit corporation. Borrowing from Visa's experience, avoiding the issuance of stock removes the threat of hostile takeovers and is probably required by the "no intrinsic advantage" principle.
Membership boundary:
• Institutions or individuals who are creating or selling tools or information resources for labor markets.
Since the function of the organization is to register software components, applications and databases, only those that produce such items need to be members. It may make sense to have the users of such products be called members, as well, but if that is done, then their membership rights would be distinctly different.
Since ownership could be registered only to a member, and some products would be the result of multiple individuals or institutions, group memberships would be allowed but would have the same basic rights as individuals.
Likely organizational assets:
• A pool of software primitives and completed applications which can be combined for use and resale under a general license agreement.
One "group member" would be the organization as a whole. There would be a number of imaginable situations where ownership of a product would be shared among the entire membership. Membership would entitle one to these products and would be a major draw to membership.
Software development has often been slowed down by the need to negotiate license arrangements on a case-by-case basis. Many mergers and acquisitions in the software industry have been at least in part due to the fact that its sometimes easier to buy a company than to license a critical technology. Placing and using software components under a general agreement would markedly simplify the sharing of technology.
One of the early services to spring up through the registry was a catalogue and cross-reference of all standards and information resources. The Illinois companies next launch into a new field went much more smoothly. Also, now they are gaining 10% of their revenue from selling training aids, and the owner has a prominent place on an industry-led , voluntary standards committee. |
• Content databases linked to applications
One way to broaden the use of a database is to make it available on-line. This would allow real-time updates without having to reinstall a whole application. Again, some databases would be proprietary and others would be public.
• A means to establish prices for use of components and track inheritance.
The Registry would create an open marketplace for software components. The simplest form would be a price for an unlimited license, but any number of arrangements could be made and should be left to the ingenuity of the members. The only important restriction is that all members face the same price and conditions.
• Registry trademark.
A registry trademark would ensure interoperability of the various software components. Even if software products were technically compliant with Registry standards, they could not cite this fact in marketing materials unless they were registered as members.
Growth dynamics:
• Exquisitely low barriers to new members
New members should have the same basic rights and access to Registry property as existing members.
• Devolution of jurisdiction and expansion into new areas
Members have rights to form specialized sub-Registries and take jurisdiction away from a more centralized body as long as they agree to abide by the same basic principles of operation and governance. The same is true for any function that is not currently centralized but where voluntary agreement can be organized.
Benefits to members:
• Ease to form a work group with any Registry members to create or market products (and register ownership) or establish new standards (must be Registry wide).
• Right to market any and all Registry products
Since a member can combine several components for sale, there is really no meaningful barrier to market any Registry product. While this is quite different from the way that most software is marketed today, it dramatically democratizes the distribution channels, making it possible for small concerns with good ideas to rapidly capture market share. This will in turn attract the most entrepreneurial minded individuals and companies.
• Testing to ensure Registry interoperability
This is almost certainly an early service of the Registry that will be jointly funded through member dues.
The Atlanta office chose to go with a Registry product. A year later, they heard about a great job matching module developed by the New Hampshire state board of higher education. Rather than having to start from scratch, they hired a Registry certified programmer to integrate the new module, and while she was at it, to tie the system into the new national labor market database that had recently be created by a coalition of research universities.
The work was so good, that several other states heard about it and became Registry members themselves just to get access to it. Atlanta ended up earning enough money after just three such sales to pay for the whole original upgrade. |
Benefits to customers:
• Guaranteed interoperability with any other registry product.
• Right to shift from user license to member license, or back, at any time.
Once a user is familiar with a product, there would be a known economic calculus determining when it is more appealing to shift to a member license (pay dues, but have rights to fine tune your applications with other registry products) or stay as a user. There probably would be an economic incentive on the part of Registry members to keep that barrier as low as possible so that Registry dues could be spread more widely.
• Virtually transparent upgrade path.
Most likely "upgrading" would become a continuous process rather than the discrete process it is now. And the user would have a great deal of control regarding the direction of the refinement, since any Registry member could help him do it.
A Little Crystal Ball Gazing
If an organization like the Registry came into existence, a number of currently difficult things would quickly become possible. Beyond those mentioned in the side bars, just imagine:
• An industry group creating a group member (or group user) to collect data for its own use.
If several firms in an industry were using Registry products, they could easily create a proprietary database to track or identify important trends. Once they had the basic information they needed and were ready to move onto the next thing, they could sell it into the Registry marketplace, and recoup some of their development cost or draw other people into their particular way of doing things.
• An unemployed salesman begins selling software.
A salesmen who was laid off is doing a job search on a Registry product, and is so impressed with it that he decides to create his own business selling Registry products. All he needs is a Registry membership.
• Several federal departments loading statistical data into "free" database.
Rather than investing in huge data processing departments, several agencies decide to publish their data free of charge into the Registry. Multiple parties quickly battle to convert the data into the most usable form and either update their own proprietary Registry databases or simply "point" their applications toward the new data.
• A community college joins with a local business association to create a preemptive training program.
Rather than having to reinvent the wheel, a local college in New Mexico has access to state-of-the-art software components and decides to work with a local Registry member and a group of local businesses to create a life-long learning program for their employees. In-take procedures as well as some curriculum packages are virtually off-the-shelf and can be easily tailored for their purposes. The college gets to focus on what it does best – teach – and leaves the software design and other elements to world-wide experts.
• Trade union creates world-class application only for its members.
An imaginative union was one of the first Registry members and has developed an enormous proprietary library of applications and information that is available only to its members. Its services are so superior that it has gained membership in each of the last five years. Its volume of use alone has made several programmers who supplied some of the union's early software components very wealthy.
• A former manager of a One-Stop Center gains notoriety for being able to translate one data language to another.
Even with all of the standards that have emerged, there is still an art to translate one to another. A public servant in Virginia seems to have developed quite a knack for it, though, and is in constant demand for her expertise. Registry products with her translation components are known to command twice the price of comparable offerings.
While the preceding stories are fanciful, they convey a very different flavor for what could be possible in the market for labor markets tools and resources. DOL would not have to do everything by force of will. It would unleash the energy of a whole marketplace on what is ostensibly O*NET's purpose. DOL could then focus on the always sticky problems of equity and access.
Secondly, DOL would bypass many of the legal and legislative issues commonly associated with privatization. DOL would not have to "give up" ownership, even if it priced its products at virtually zero. The products that have been paid for by taxpayer money could always be made effectively "public" both in access and in cost.
There is nothing keeping DOL from continuing to be an aggressive creator of products and services for the Registry. The difference would be that DOL could recover some of its cost through different pricing strategies; it would face a real market test that would satisfy even the most ardent right-wing economist; and it would benefit from a much wider pool of product developers and innovators.
Getting from Here to There – DOL/O*NET Leadership
None of this is to likely to happen spontaneously in the near future. It would take real leadership on the part of DOL and O*NET to further test the idea and then make it a reality. Two paths should be followed simultaneously:
1) Launch a serious effort to construct the new public/private partnership.
• Create a workgroup of a handful of the most creative and publicly-minded individuals and institutions that would likely be active participant/owners in the new system.
• Familiarize them with the concepts expressed in this paper and those surrounding the creation of Visa.
• Have this group work through an initial design process to familiarize themselves with how the process works.
• Steadily expand the circle of participants until there is an adequate critical mass to form the marketplace and work out the initial technical challenges. This process itself can be designed by the workgroup.
2) Begin to conform any policies or RFPs to the principles outlined in this paper and enhanced by the workgroup as it proceeds.
• Use RFPs to encourage experimentation on how these concepts can be applied in the various programs underway in DOL and related agencies.
• Steer any organizational "reengineering" toward more open and market-driven approaches. But a caution: It is probably unwise to try to directly convert any existing program or structure to a form such as those imagined here. Of the more than 20,000 member banks of Visa, none have yet to adopt a comparable structure, even though they have been made infinitely more productive and profitable by its existence.
Conclusion
Creating something like the Registry would clearly signal the start of a new generation of public/private partnerships. As co-owners of a commercial enterprise that creates an expanding marketplace of goods and services, the public and private sectors would control their own destiny. Each would see an explosive increase in their ability to achieve their goals. Each would have played a role in creating a new realm for collective effort and success.
But while it would be a first, it would not likely be a "last." There are numerous other settings where technology is forcing government to reconceive the way it protects the public interest – such as the challenge of governing the so-called Information Superhighway. People's experience with the Registry will lead them to think about how this approach could be applied elsewhere. Each new effort will be progressively easier to organize and to sell. The experience gained in one will cascade to a multitude of others.
Eventually, people will be saying, "The Registry? What's so special about that…" |
