Welcome! Please introduce yourself

Hi, I'm @idmyn@social.coop and I'm excited to get involved with the things going on here!

I'm currently a religious studies student based in Edinburgh/London but I'm working towards a career in a UX.

I'm here because I'm really interested in decentralisation and cooperative governance, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in 😄

Hello, I'm @ron_houk@social.coop. I work at a public library in Ottumwa, IA. I'm excited to be part of the coop. I'm interested in learning about cooperatives in general. Ideally, I'd like to apply what I learn here toward community building in my local community. Social.coop seems to be a place brimming with ideas and positivity. Thanks for allowing me to join in.

I seem to have failed to introduce myself here, although I've been a member since December '17.

I'm an Edinburgh, UK based software engineer. I joined this experiment to self-educate, "find the others" and maybe even find a route to happily co-operative self-determination.

Motivated by, well, yes: terror of the destination global society seems to heading for. I'd like to be a Spaceship-Earth Buckminster-Fullerist, but find myself a bit Vonnegutian, apparently complete with a taste for absurd humour.

Basically wanting to unravel the error of our ways, whilst trying to stay as sane as I can as a consumer in a consumer society pooping on itself and everything in sight.

Interested in monetary and economic reform, hopeful of P2P Foundation, Commons Transition and The Next System Project, and listening to Douglas Rushkoff.

From all this and a natural sense of alienation from employment came the hope that co-operative ownership might be part of the solution. Or at least, a way to mitigate where business as usual is taking us... Or at least, maybe a happier way for me to make a living.

I am a co-founder member of http://edinburghhacklab.com, and currently helping to kick-start a local P2P Foundation meetup.

Hi Nick, you seem like someone who might be interested in https://fair.coop if you didn't already know about it. Your interests coincide with mine to a great extent and I have been involved with FairCoop since its inception. If you need any info about how to get involved please let me know. :)

Hi all! I've been a member since last autumn, but not introduced myself before. So!

I'm a writer and translator, and I'm also a founding member & current board member of a publishing cooperative Osuuskumma (http://osuuskumma.fi). Other than cooperativity I'm interested in languages (currently I can use Finnish, English, Swedish and Dutch widely, and I've studied several other languages so that I can read them with various skills), bicycles (in casual urban sense (”Dutch style”), not as a sport), trains, cities & urbanism in general, and of course books. My favourite pastime is reading.

If I was to describe myself with one hashtag, that could be #velopunk. Coincidentally, that's the genre of my first novel, coming out in Aug 2018.

And oh, at the moment I live in Finland (more exact coordinates are available for those who may want to meet me irl), but that's subject to change.

Eric from Los Angeles. I'm active on mastodon and matrix. social.coop/@spudboy

Hey! I'm Gabe, a web developer, comic book reader, and foss-enthusiast. Joined the mastodon instance several weeks ago and am just now finally getting around to joining the loomio group.

Look forward to meeting cool people, helping the community grow, and working toward a better, brighter, decentralized and open internet!

Hello! I'm Blake, I'm interested in technology, particularly the open web and FOSS, and I dabble in electronics as a hobby. I live with my wife and cat in Lake Macquarie, Australia, and I'm a software developer by trade.

Like @gabegabegabe, I joined social.coop a couple of months ago and I've also only just got around to joining the Loomio group. I'm looking forward to getting involved, learning, and helping where I can. 👍

I’m Danyl Strype, a trouble-maker and general rapscallion, and outlaw and in in-law, a professional volunteer, an environmental, human rights, and technology freedom activist. I currently post on the fediverse as @strypey@quitter.se (uptime has been pretty patchy lately), and those posts are echoed on the birdsite under the handle @danylstrype (some gym nut beat me to my usual username!). My activities have been organised for about a decade under the one-person umbrella of Disintermedia.net.nz, which points to a blog and wiki kindly hosted by CoActivate.org. More about my background can be found there:
https://www.coactivate.org/projects/disintermedia/danyl-strype

(fair warning; it’s long and messy, efficiently shameless self-promotion is not my strong suite)

I'm Karl, in Lancaster County, PA. My role in society is that of the system designer. I work as a software engineer, although my background is in electrical engineering. I'm self-educated in many subjects, especially philosophy and systems analysis. My understanding of philosophical holism is partly what interests me in cooperatives.

If you really want to understand something, there's no substitute for actually experiencing it. Hence my joining social.coop. But also, I am proposing to create an Internet service provider cooperative in my area. There's much to do at this early stage, but my short-term goal is to find collaborators. Feel free to reach out (https://social.coop/@kdsch), if just for a stimulating discussion.

I'm Graham, based in the South Pennines in Yorkshire, UK. I've been starting, running, working with/for/in cooperatives since the late 80s, including a spell with Co-operatives UK (the national support org for cooperatives in the UK). I'm a generalist. I know a lot about using CiviCRM and Drupal (less so about Wordpress), a bit about Linux. I know about marketing and communications. I think I'm a pretty good salesperson. I'm a socialist/anarcho-syndicalist. I'm a member of FairCoop and help run the FairCoin crypto network in a small way. Current projects include establishing a new platform cooperative to support people wanting to start new cooperatives and/or develop existing co-ops (https://platform6.coop) and also enaged in a local initiative to develop a solidarity economy think/do tank where I live. My co-op - http://mc3.coop - is part of CoTech

I am Micky - https://duckduckgo.com/?q=micky+metts&atb=v112-1_y&ia=web

Hi, I'm Phoebe, based in Manchester, UK. I haven't been involved in any cooperatives before but have a number of coop organising friends (mostly housing and/or food distribution based) and have always been interested in the idea. I'm pretty keen on the idea of cooperatively run social media. I used to be actively involved in radical politics but mostly serve in a background capacity doing childcare and moral support these days.

I do infosec testing for a job, and code in a fair range of languages (I'm pretty keen on Rust recently, but have done various sorts of stuff from C to front end web dev). I contribute occasionally to OSS projects but don't have any huge commitments in that sphere right now (partly because keeping current in infosec is a constant losing battle). I'm also a radio ham.

I'm kind of hoping one day to build or get involved in some sort of tech coop with security consultancy features and trying to help democratise tech/infosec education in a useful way to reduce the degree to which ability to operate and participate in our emerging tech landscape is governed by capital. Joining/contributing to social.coop is a tiny step for me towards that.

I became a member of social.coop because I feel that much of today’s online world is essentially broken, straying as it does from the open, people-focused web which has so much in common with co-operative values and which many of us once presumed would flourish.

It is good to be involved!

Hi friends! I'm Jeremy. By day, I'm paid to work on the Electron open-source project full-time (by Slack), and on nights and weekends I collaborate with robots to make art. I'm in search of social structures that can create a more humane and equitable world, online and off, and I think that cooperatives are one such structure. I'm excited to be joining you all!

Geographically, I'm living in San Francisco, but I grew up in Sydney, Australia. If I get the chance to meet any of you in person, that'll explain my accent.

Hey, I'm Bradley. I have experience volunteering in various collective projects, both online and a community center in Santa Cruz, California. I've been an Indymedia/Indybay volunteer since 2001, and have built sites with WordPress as well. 💚
https://bradleyallen.net/
https://www.indybay.org/

Hi everyone! I joined social.coop a few weeks ago after having been on mastodon.social since around October 2016. This is my third instance (I'm also on scholar.social), and I decided to add it because I wanted to learn more about and become an active participant in a platform coop. I have just a little coop experience--belonged to several credit unions and worked for and belonged to a grocery coop in the past.

I am a faculty member teaching philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I'm also the Deputy Academic Director of our Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology. I am a proponent of using and creating open educational resources in education, as well as open science, open data, etc. This platform fits in well with my overall values of emphasizing equity, inclusion, justice, fairness, and the like in whatever I am involved in. Excited to get to know many of you virtually!

Hi, I'm Risa Bear, 69, retired, fading, but with a glow of enthusiasm left over from coop days (1970s to early 80s). I have been a techie but am no longer tech competent. Here to cheer folks on. CV starts in the 90s: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7nnmlrnZ6rkRWJWZG5xOWYzNk0/view?usp=sharing

Hi Everyone,

I’m @roryridleyduff@social.coop, and my day job is Professor of Cooperative Social Entrepreneurship at Sheffield Hallam University. In the context of this group I can help with constituting multi-stakeholder platform coops. I’m author of the FairShares Model (used by Resonate.is in Ireland, anyshare.coop in the USA, Bravely in Canada, EvoluteSix in the UK), and FairShares Labs in Germany, Croatia, Hungary and Netherlands.

Find out more at www.fairshares.coop, www.fsi.coop and www.fairshareslab.org

Hi all - I'll contribute when I can. My name is Rory Ridley-Duff, and my day job is Professor of Cooperative Social Entrepreneurship at Sheffield Hallam University (working in Sheffield Business School). I'm a practice engaged academic through the support given by the FairShares Institute (at my university) and FairShares Association (outside my university) to various platform (and other) co-operatives that constitute using the FairShares Model. So far, anyshare.coop, resonate.is and brave.coop have adopted the FairShares Model to constitute as platform cooperatives.

Next year, I lead a new MBA Cooperative Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship course at my university. Aside this, I am involved in three international research projects; a 2.5 year project to create FairShares Labs for Social and Blue Innovation (social solidarity economy incubators); a 4 year project on Social Innovation Skills Education in Schools called NEMESIS, and; a 4 year project called EMPOWER-SE, which is investing in the next generation of social enterprise scholars).

@roryridleyduff1 "a 2.5 year project to create FairShares Labs for Social and Blue Innovation (social solidarity economy incubators)" - is there more info on this and how our nascent Solidarity Economy Network in Kirklees might engage/benefit?

Graham - yes, there is plenty of material available now.
The following page enables you to download project brochures in English, German, Dutch, Hungarian and Croatian.

http://www.fairshares.coop/fairshareslabs/

We're now translating the FairShares Plaform and Planner into the five languages (the Platform is for people to register Labs, Projects (ideas, plans, enterprises), Courses and Trainers. The Planner is an online planning tool to gather the view of all four stakeholders and let them vote on the resulting FairShares Plan. With that in mind, I attach the Methodology for Creating a FairShares Lab (translated into all languages as well) and the FairShares Canvass (which contains all the questions that will be in the online planner). You initiate the Planner from the Platform.

Next week, we meet in Deventer (Netherlands) to test the 'live' version of the Platform and Planner. Hope to share URLs for that soon.

I can't edit this thread's header, or I'd put it there, but I suggest we might reference a "help needed" page somewhere which directs newcomers where they can help out if they want to.

I've created a ticket in GitLab for this as a reminder:

https://git.coop/social.coop/community/docs/issues/4

Hey all! I'm @tao, a software engineer soon to be based based in Edinburgh. After working for a large silicon valley company, I'm looking to get back to my socialist roots. I'm currently taking a sabbatical to work on FLOSS software and activism. I don't know much about the practicals of coops, but I'm hoping to learn more through social.coop!

Hello Tao - there's a couple of us here in Edinburgh at least (@idmyn is another, @dougwebb visits from time to time). Feel free to drop me a line when you arrive.

See also P2P Scotland which is my pet project, currently a bit quiet but I hope to revive it real-soon-now.

Can you elaborate on your plans? Sounds interesting. Also, why Edinburgh?

Thanks Nick, I definitely will! Great to hear there are a couple of people there :)

Edinburgh because I love the city (studied there), and my partner lives there. I don’t have very specific plans, but one of the first things I’ll do is see what’s happening at the ACE these days!

Hello all, I'm a software developer in Hobart, Tasmania. I must admit that my only driver for joining was to contribute to and be part of a collective Mastadon instance, but after reading through these threads I'm intrigued and excited about the other possibilities.

Hi all, I’m a public health researcher from Sydney, Australia.

Hi, everyone!
I'm Lindsay, from the Philadelphia area.
Currently I'm freelancing, writing and graphic design, and trying to do what I can when I have the strength to do it. (It's a lifestyle)
The small city I'm currently living in has been stagnant for a long time, but shows signs of promise. There are a few successful collective groups in the area, but I am hoping to learn from social.coop and see if more can be done. That is the biggest reason for my joining, plus Twitter is just getting weird.
My migration over to mastodon and loomio is a bit slow, so apologies for that.
It's a pleasure to meet you all! (＾◇＾）ノ

Hi, I'm Mike. Been living in the SF Bay Area long enough to see a whole boom and bust cycle :)
For work, I do software development / devops at a company that makes big enterprise storage stuff. I've been using Linux personally and professionally since the fairly early days of it.
For fun mostly a lot of non-computery technical stuff (electronics mostly), some casual wood and metal working, gardening, and a bit of messing around with synthesizers.
Aside from using a credit union, my experience with coops is pretty limited, but I'm grateful to join a mastodon instance that isn't that one big one, nor is set up impulsively by a friend who might lose interest in running it. Unsurprisingly, I've been deeply disappointed in the past by internet services which were advertising supported, but I've also been pretty disappointed in things which I paid for but for which I was the smallest sort of nuisance customer.
I'm not sure I can spare much time to help, but I'll try to generally keep an eye on the loomio forum and I'm very happy to be donating to the operation of the instance.

Hello! Most people call me Sue. I'm a writer and historian, born and raised in North Carolina though my family does not have previous roots here. I studied history in school, but while I did work as a historian for a brief time after graduation, I was laid off and have worked as a writer for various games and other stuff since then, while still making room for my own personal projects.

I've actually never been involved in a cooperative before, but the cooperative movement is something that has always piqued my interest. I figured that where I was at in life and geographically precluded any participation, but then I came across social.coop, and knew I had to get involved! I've been struggling with health problems this year, but I'm determined to do my best despite them - and haven't given up hope that I'll get past them soon.

In any case, I'm really happy to be here and really excited to take part, and hope I can contribute something good in some way. :D Also, I'm notoriously shy and reserved, but I'll do my best to speak up as I can.

Hi, my name's John. I'm a philosopher and software developer living in Newcastle, UK. For the past 3 years I've been working on an anarcho-syndicalist app called Wobbly, it was actually the reason I decided to learn how to code. Wobbly is a tool for precarious workers to use to form a decentralised union, gain power in the workplace, and move their labour-power into a co-operative economic system. I just finished writing an article that explains more here: http://notesfrombelow.org/article/an-introduction-to-wobbly
We're currently finishing up the prototype and looking for devs to help as we move into production. Any help or even interest is very much appreciated! I'm usually available for a quick chat if you'd like to learn more, and we also have a mailing list if you want to get updates on our progress.

My main experience with co-ops, comes from when I lived in a student housing co-op in Edinburgh for 3 and a half years. I've been privy to the magic, tragedy and comedy that comes with working collaboratively with people who haven't really done that before.
My day job is freelance software developer. In Newcastle, I'm working with a local council on an enterprise called Code-Operative, which will be a co-operative network for tech freelancers, coders, designers, UX etc. We're having a launch event in about a month's time.
Social.coop is very interesting for me, as I have a lot of interest in decentralised and non-hierarchical organising. I think I'll be able to contribute some facilitation experience, and maybe some neologisms (I wrote an article about a methodology I call Convocational Development: https://bananananaba.com/Creating-Worlds.html). I'm also working with WeCo to make a tool called Decision Trees, that could be helpful for this group.

Met John at Open Coop 2018 event, and he is a brilliant fellow with lot of good ideas. He has been of great help to WeCo and I hope to help him with Wobbly as much as I possibly can. Hopefully there's people from social coop who also want to get involved with Wobbly, it fits perfectly with the ethos shared by our members.

Hi, I'm Jaron. I'm a software developer living in Kent, UK, working in London. Mostly I work in Java but I like to branch out. I guess it's fair to say that my interest in coops started relatively recently compared to many on here, being swept up in the Corbyn phenomenon a few years back at a time when I'd just basically just started working full-time which turned out to be a pretty good way to get me to think about the nature of work and hence ownership quite a lot. So at the moment I guess you could say I'm a cooperative enthusiast with a slowly growing collection of memberships, although the dream is to work for a co-op full time. So it's good to be in here with you!

Hi, I'm Micah!

My background is in technology and I'm honestly pretty high on social anxiety and low on useful social abilities, but I'm excited about the decentralized web, and I'm interested in social.coop and the cooperative structure as potential social and resource structure that could help power the decentralized web.

I'm in the San Francisco bay area these days, in Emeryville (near Oakland and Berkeley). I worked at tech companies for a while, these days I'm making internet videos about electronics and reverse engineering for online patronage dollars mostly.

Good to be here! I'm looking forward to helping out and learning and working.

Hey all, I'm a public health researcher from Sydney, Australia.

Hello, I'm Antoine-Frédéric.

I'm a 22 years-old sociology student from Lyon, France, leaning towards biology, Frankfurt's Institut for Social Research (the so-called "School of Frankfurt"), and computer science. As soon as I get my OpenBSD-running desktop computer, I'll write a document about art, intelligence, culture, encryption, capitalism, free software vs. dark patterns, neuroses, decentralization, and the Internet.

I'd like to help where I can, but I don't feel competent enough to do system administration without getting my hands into a real, non-critical server first.

Hi all! I am a web developer and when I’m not at my day job I co-ordinate an artist residency co-op in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. I cut my teeth in the co-op movement many years ago when I worked for, was a member of and served on the board of a partially worker-owned coffee roasting co-op in a different part of rural Nova Scotia. Eager to help out here in whatever ways I can!

Hello all, John McNamara reporting in! I am a co-op developer and educator based out of Olympia, WA (Northwest Co-op Development Center). I have justs realized that I haven't posted here yet, but I have been on social.coop for awhile. I spent just shy of 26 years with Union Cab of Madison Cooperative. I have a Masters in Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions from St. Mary's University where I am also finishing a Ph.D. in Management. My thesis examines the how the type of management/governance used either assists or hinders the expression of the co-op identity in worker co-ops. I also teach a summer course on worker co-ops and democratic management at The Evergreen State College. I also work with the organizations Sociocracy for All.