Jock McQueenie has been leading the design and implementation of groundbreaking models of community and technology engagement – BeefLegends – as part of the BeefLedger export smart contracts collaborative project. His approach is based on decades of experience and practice through what he calls the “3 Cs” – community, culture, commerce. He recently presented his work in progress to peers at the Food Agility CRC Summit in Sydney.
Here is Jock’s presentation in full:
Beefledger is an integrated blockchain-enabled beef provenance platform and smart contracting payments regime:
Beef Legends is its design based community engagement component.
BEEFLEGENDS aims:
- To help communicate Beefledger and engage the community of production
- To build capacity in the community of production
- To develop content in various forms that connects the two ends of the supply chain:
The diagram shows BL’s existing supply chain schematic and below it the value adding community narrative component.
This illustrates the harvesting of digital stories in the community / blending these with Blockchain data within a school’s STE(A)M program to develop authentic local content – which is then added to the credentialed packaging for scanning by the consumer.
However, field research with both regional producers and Chinese consumers confirmed not one but two interrelated Digital/cultural divides.
FIRSTLY: There is a problematic disconnect in the visual language used by Australian producers to speak to Chinese consumers.
In the age of social media, consumer culture is becoming increasingly disintermediated, more hyper subjective, instant, and ubiquitous. The clumsy visual language with which the Australian industry speaks to (Chinese) markets appears dated, increasingly less relevant, and therefore less effective in the promotion of our products. Long boring videos of middle aged blokes in Akubras simply won’t cut it.
SECONDLY: And arguably of greater concern in the broader community, is the issue of digital/social inclusion in regional Australia which is expressed by the community development sector explicitly as a “digital divide”.
Beeflegends’ contribution to bridging these gaps will be to leverage the well documented role of women in agriculture and regional communities. Women are also closer to, and more engaged with, the real experts in user generated content – the kids
Thus, the next stage of the research will link the issues of digital/social inclusion in rural communities to the living culture that Australian young people have in common with Chinese consumers (digital cultures/social media) to create a feedback loop between the community of production and the communities of consumption and back again.
Like the Beefledger credentialing model, my 3C model of creative (agile?) project design is scalable and replicable. It delivers outcomes that are practical, strategic and discursive. It adds another layer of authenticity to the products’ story by brokering a new model of corporate social investment, a more contemporary model of community engagement, and mediates new cross sector partnerships that join the dots between community, culture and commerce.
The export smart contracts project is a collaboration between BeefLedger, Food Agility CRC and QUT as well as other industry partners.
