Laura James: OPEN 2018 last week was an exciting event, not only because of the incredible people the organisers brought together, but because it felt like something new was starting to take off.

There were people from many different organisations, sectors, and backgrounds, and they found sometimes unexpected things in common with each other. Although we heard some big ideas from the stage, it felt like most attendees were actually working on things, and had practical questions and collaborative opportunities they wanted to discuss. To me, the diversity and the blend of pragmatic action and shared big vision feels like a new movement getting off the starting line.

But what is the movement? OPEN 2018 has “platform cooperatives” next to the logo and yet a lot of the most interesting conversations weren’t actually about platform co-ops. It felt like a melange of several things:

• internet technologies
• open source
• open standards and protocols (as distinct from open platforms)
• commons (not just of code, but of knowledge, public space and more); a mixture of collective goods, and public goods (echoing the Public Stack Summit)
• co-operatives, the co-op principles, and the broader co-op movement
• entrepreneurship — people trying new ideas and ventures
• networks and ecosystems of mutual support
• a desire for impact at meaningful scale (looking beyond local activities)
• resilience and distributed systems (in the technical sense)
• equality and fairness, specifically around technology and data

This is a powerful set of ideas.

They are things I’ve been thinking about and working on in different ways for some time, but I didn’t have a clear sense of them as a group or a coherent whole until now.

I wonder whether others would recognise this list as the facets of OPEN 2018?

It all fits together quite coherently, to me at least, although we’ve no catchy phrase to explain it as a whole. “Platform co-operatives” doesn’t quite do it. “Collaborative technology for the cooperative economy” is the event byline, which is good, although maybe not quite the visionary call to action a movement might coalesce around. Oli Sylvester-Bradley talked in his thoughtful introduction about “people and planet before profit” which seemed to resonate with many of us as a grand vision, although it’s perhaps a little vague? Or maybe it sets out a general dream, without defining what this particular community is doing to achieve it. Gary Alexander talked about a movement and a shared vision too: working together for mutual benefit rather than competing; a society organised for the wellbeing of people and planet (not for money and profit). He also helpfully checked what the audience thought about this (positive, but a little mixed), and admitted some of this may be too much like “new age bollocks.” Recently John Elkington, creator of the triple bottom line (where social and environmental factors are considered alongside economic ones), announced earlier this year that it was time to review whether it is still fit for purpose. So maybe we need to thrash out some more specific, compelling and useful framing…

Part of what made it feel like the emergence of a new thing was that, whilst there is a big vision for a new economy, fit for the internet age, still a little vague in some details, it didn’t feel like a hyped up rally where we all unhesitatingly cheered. Even on the main stage, as well as in smaller conversations, critical questions were posed which we do not have answers to. And there was an energy and a focus on practical action as well as reflection and learning.

Of course, there were ways the event could have been better, and I’m sure 2019’s equivalent will be different, more diverse, and maybe more interactive. But it’s quite something to convene across interests in this way and to frame an event which felt so special. Huge thanks and congratulations to Oli, Thomas and the Open.coop team!

Nathan Schneider had questions about the cooperative side of things. Are we using the language of commons, or the language of ownership? Are we escaping ownership, or doubling down on it? As I feel I’m barely on the edge of the cooperative movement, still figuring out how it works, and its relationship to technology, Nathan’s musing on whether this community is part of the traditional co-op movement or something new and different was interesting. I remain astonished how many co-operatives there are around us. In the UK there’s the Coop Group, John Lewis (as I think John Bevan said, you can take a radical stance just by getting your groceries at Waitrose), but also many others such as dairy co-ops. I learned at OPEN2018 that in the US, a surprisingly large proportion of electricity cable networks are co-operatives. I hadn’t realised that Visa and Mastercard were mutuals until early this century. But they are pretty much invisible in everyday life, in conversations about economic growth and enterprise. Cooperatives UK’s 2018 co-op economy report highlights the scale and scope of co-ops in the UK.

Nathan also talked about where we all sit relative to the mainstream, for-profit startup world. Are we doing entrepreneurship but a bit differently? Or are we doing something radically different, entirely away from concepts like disruption?

One of the things I found really encouraging at the conference was the number of enthusiastic initiatives setting out to make it easier to set up and grow co-operatives, with different combinations of toolkits, mentoring, and funding (Platform6, start.coop, incubator.coop, Solidfund, CoopStarter, and more). And boy, are there more ways to get risk financing in the co-op space than I’d realised. There’s paying a regular cash return, investment from other co-ops, token issues, specialist investment houses such as Purpose Ventures; and depending where you are, tax breaks and specialist co-op startup funds. I was surprised how different the co-op startup financing environment is in different countries. Regardless, platform co-ops are out there already, and in diverse sectors — eg. Stocksy, Savvy.coop and Arcade City. There are more tools than ever before to support scalable co-ops too, with collaborative budgeting (eg. Cobudget), decision-making (eg. Loomio), and day to day participation. There are co-ops you can work with on technical stuff, such as Outlandish or the other denizens of CoTech, and co-ops who can help you with other things such as working openly. Coming soon there will be new ways of distributing computing, organised by co-ops like RChain. Of course, there are also support networks and communities of practice, such as Enspiral.

Cristina Flesher Fominaya talked about the words we use, in a great session on narrative and the importance of stories. In particular, she highlighted that some of the most successful campaigns and movements avoided using the words that one might expect to define them; instead, focussing on stories, and getting away from polarising framings such as anti-capitalism (maybe a story about corruption might be more persuasive?). Cristina also highlighted a point I tried to make in my talk earlier that day, that collaboration is not always built on a shared discursive framework, but might involve parties with very different world views and ways of communicating.

I’m delighted to hear there will be an OPEN 2019, and looking forward to it already. (This is also motivating me to make sure that I can show up next year and feel I’ve done something useful in the interim!)

A note on hyphens: I’m sticking with “co-op.” I can’t bring myself to say “coop,” like a place chickens might live, and I think I know enough people who, like me until very recently, don’t know much about co-ops, and would be confused by coops in this business context

Some rights reserved – CC-BY-SA 4.0

Laura James  is the editor of Digital Life Collective

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Adding to the body of existing tools and training material on cooperative development, ILO now launches Think.Coop, a new training tool for those interested in cooperation and its benefits for improving businesses of potential members.

A great new initiative from ILO to encourage new cooperators!

Think.Coop  is an orientation tool that helps participants understand how mutualism and cooperation can improve livelihoods opportunities. It provides the basics around the cooperative business model, and helps participants understand whether joining or forming a cooperative would be a feasible option. This one-day training tool uses a peer-to-peer, activity-based learning methodology, without an external facilitator or expert to guide the process. Instead, the participants work together as a team, following the simple step-by-step instructions for activities provided in the manual.

Think.Coop was tested in Cambodia among workers in the informal economy , and in Myanmar with farmers and rural workers . The manual is easily adaptable to different contexts, and it can be used as a first step in learning about the cooperative business model. Following the sessions on the importance of relationships, benefits of collective action, types of business structures and types and advantages of a cooperative, the participants are expected to have sufficient information to decide whether the cooperative business model suitable to them.

The manual is copyrighted under the Creative Commons licence. Hence it is free to use for non-commercial purposes, as long as the ILO is clearly attributed as the original source. For more information about Think.Coop, please contact [email protected] .

Further information

Publication

Think.COOP – an orientation on the cooperative business model  [pdf 5542KB] 

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‘Pollinating Prosperity’, presentation by local economic development expert Michael Shuman in Adelaide, South Australia, March 2016:

Shuman delivered this talk at an event held by Economic Development Australia SA, sponsored by Green Industries SA and the Department of State Development.

A pollinator is a self-financing economic development program or company, an approach Shuman advocates over ‘attract and retain’, which diverts attention away from local economic development and is both an inefficient and ineffective use of public funding http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Relocalizing-Business-Shuman.pdf.

The workshop began with a 20-minute presentation on pollinating prosperity, which included Shuman’s four principles for building prosperity locally:

• Maximise local ownership, the percentage of jobs in the economy in locally owned business
• Maximise local self-reliance and import replacement, not to detach from the global economy, but to  engage with it from a position of strength rather than race to the bottom
• Spread models of triple-bottom-line success – local business with high labour and environmental standards
• Create an entrepreneurial ecosystem with the 6 Ps – planning (analyse and plug the economic leaks), people (support entrepreneurs who are leading), partners (make networks of local business more competitive as a group), purse (tap local savings/superannuation and put it to work in local businesses), purchasing (spearhead buy local campaigns by consumers, business, public agencies), policy (remove anti-local bias)

Michael Shuman Bio

Author, entrepreneur, and speaker Michael Shuman is a Stanford educated economist and attorney, and a leading global expert on local economics.

He is one of the architects of the crowdfunding reforms that became the ‘JOBS Act’, signed into law by President Obama in April 2012, and dozens of state laws overhauling securities regulation of crowdfunding.

Shuman is currently Director of Community Portals for Mission Markets and a Fellow at Cutting Edge Capital and Post-Carbon Institute. He’s also a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE), and an adjunct instructor in community economic development for Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

Shuman has authored or coauthored eight books, including Local Dollars, Local Sense:  How to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity, and The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition. His most recent book is The Local Economy Solution, which is is focused on local economic development and how innovative, self-financing ‘pollinator’ enterprises can grow jobs and prosperity.

In recent years Shuman has prepared studies the on the opportunities for food localisation for New Mexico, Detroit, Cleveland, Boulder County, Denver, Michigan, Washtenaw County (MI), and Pioneer Valley (MA). He led another food study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation, analysing case studies of 24 local food businesses worldwide. (www.communityfoodenterprise.org).

He has performed “leakage analyses” and related economic-development planning for Spokane (WA), St. Lawrence County (NY), the Katahdin Region (ME), Martha’s Vineyard (MA), Appalachia, Davidson County (NC), Kootenai County (ID), Cabarrus County (NC), Wabash County (IL), Biltmore Estates (NC), Central Park (NC), and the Port of Baltimore (MD).

Photo by Edith Maracle

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You can now apply for ECF’s third Idea Camp that will take place in March 2017. Deadline to apply is 20 September 2016.

What’s the Idea Camp?

ECF’s Idea Camp is a three-day collaborative working platform organised within the framework of Connected Action for the Commons, a network and action research programme led by ECF together with six cultural organisations from across Europe.

• The Idea Camp 2014 took place in Marseille, France and focused on the topic “Connected Action for Public Space”.
• The Idea Camp 2015 took place in Botkyrka, Sweden under the theme “Build the City”, applying the principles and ethics of the commons.
• The Idea Camp 2017 will take place in Spain on 1-3 March 2017 and will focus on the theme “Moving Communities”.

ECF believes in bold alternatives provided by citizens through their local cultural initiatives. At this time of transition, ECF invests in these local initiatives to help them to become enduring solutions to the challenges facing our continent. Europe as a shifting ‘home’ of changing communities – where people can live together in solidarity, accepting their differences – is an urgent priority in ECF’s focus over the coming years.

Moving Communities

We are living and working in an increasingly complex environment. Across Europe and its neighbouring countries, more and more people are confronted with discrimination and exclusion on a daily basis – whether economically, politically or culturally. As a result, societies are becoming more and more fragmented, extremism is on the rise, and the divisions between people – and between individuals and institutions – are growing ever wider.

Migration, distrust towards traditional institutions and the widening gap between the idea of a democratic Europe and the reality of a divided continent are among the biggest challenges that we are facing at present. These challenges are not new, but they have reached a degree that directly affects existing systems and policies, both at national and European levels.

Entitled “Moving Communities”, ECF’s third Idea Camp will focus on the current positive, radical resistance movements that are daring to counteract anti-democratic practices.

Co-hosted by Platoniq, the Idea Camp will take place in Spain from 1 to 3 March 2017 and will bring together 50 participants whose emerging, groundbreaking ideas demonstrate a firm desire to contribute to fostering political imagination, building bridges and effectively contributing to the development of a society with a stronger sense of social justice. Based on the values of sharing, inclusion and openness, the Idea Camp offers Idea Makers a unique opportunity to meet peers from diverse backgrounds and with different visions from across Europe and its neighbouring countries.

Guidelines and application

Please submit an idea that fosters the Europe we believe in: a Europe of solidarity and openness shaped and nurtured by people

We invite you to apply for Idea Camp 2017 with an idea that:

• brings forward voices that are excluded from public debate and decision-making
• has an open approach to the way people can learn, share and live together
• applies a critical perspective to what could be a more accessible and inclusive society
• strengthens the vision and practice of shared communities and coexistence
• builds bridges across differing perspectives to help counter harmful public discourse
• contributes to discussions about genuine integration opportunities and people’s rights and accountability.
• fosters political imagination and promotes social justice, solidarity and equity among various social groups.

Your idea might reflect one or several of the issues aforementioned.

We invite you to carefully read the application guidelines before submitting your idea. If you have any questions, we are hosting two online Q&A sessions on 6 July and on 7 September, both from 12:00 to 13:00 CET, on Facebook and Twitter. You can join us there.

CLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION AND GUIDELINES

Following the Call for Ideas, 50 participants will be selected according to the guidelines. ECF will cover travel costs and all expenses related to the stay in Spain during the Idea Camp for a maximum of one representative for each idea.

After the Idea Camp, participants will be invited to submit a concrete plan for further research or investigation of their ideas. A total of 25 proposals will be selected and consequently awarded an R&D Grant, up to a maximum of €10,000 each.

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In this episode we speak to Michel Bauwens, a Belgian Peer-to-Peer theorist and cyber-philosopher.

Michel Bauwens is a theorist in the emerging field of P2P theory and director and founder of the P2P Foundation, a global organization of researchers working in collaboration in the exploration of peer production, governance, and property. He has authored a number of essays, including his seminal thesis The Political Economy of Peer Production.

You can find out more at p2pfoundation.net/

21st Century Design is a research podcast by Engage by Design (Rodrigo Bautista) and Regenerative Design (Jan Leyssens), in which we ask designers, tech-experts, writers, theorists, academics, activists and campaigners 5 questions on the future and role of design in creating the 21st Century.

Subscribe for the podcast through iTunes or Soundcloud, or look us up on our home on the web www.21stcenturydesign.org.

– Music: www.bensound.com
Photo by smoMashup1

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