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America Online Volunteers: Lessons from an Early Co-production Community
My discussion for this conference continues previous work that analyzed the case of America Online volunteers (AOL) from critical perspectives and incorporates newly acquired documents and interviews by the US Dept. of Labor with volunteers. Specifically, I put forth the AOL volunteers’ case as an instance of co-production that eventually met its demise when organizational changes and the rise of a work consciousness among some volunteers made the ongoing relationship impossible. I will discuss the types of co-productive labor that took place during the height of the AOL/volunteer relationship and the structures put in place to help AOL harness the power of a free distributed workforce. I suggest that the success of the co-productive relationship was a function of a balance between the perceived reasonable compensation on the part of volunteers, social factors and attitudes towards work such as a sense of community, creativity, and a sense of accomplishment |
