2020 Social.coop Strategy Summit
At the recent meeting to discuss the formation of the Coordination Working Group, we decided that, as developing and monitoring our co-op's strategic direction will be a core task, it'd be good to launch its work with a co-op-wide strategizing process.
So, the Community Working Group Ops Team will schedule a 90 minute "strategy summit" for late summer and, in the meantime, will work to develop some asynchronous processes to collect ideas and aspirations from as many members as possible to inform the work done during the live call.
We'll use this thread for communicating logistics and sharing the ways in which members can weigh in prior to the "summit".

Poll Created Tue 22 Sep 2020 3:12AM
BBB Link for Strategy Summit -- Saturday September 26th 12pm EST Closed Sat 26 Sep 2020 4:02PM
https://ca.meet.coop/b/oli-kzr-cyv-rke
If you have any trouble, please DM Matt Noyes Matt_Noyes@social.coop
Draft Agenda here: https://pad.disroot.org/p/Social.Coop_Strategy_Summit_%231
Results
Results | Option | Voters | |||
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Yes | 9 |
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Undecided | 120 |
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9 of 129 people have participated (6%)

Yasuaki Kudo
Sun 20 Sep 2020 11:45PM
yes

Poll Created Sun 20 Sep 2020 11:32PM
BBB Link for Strategy Summit -- Monday September 21st 9pm EST Closed Tue 22 Sep 2020 5:02AM
https://ca.meet.coop/b/oli-kzr-cyv-rke
If you have any trouble, please DM Matt Noyes Matt_Noyes@social.coop
Draft Agenda here: https://pad.disroot.org/p/Social.Coop_Strategy_Summit_%231
Results
Results | Option | Voters | |||
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Yes | 6 |
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Undecided | 122 |
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6 of 128 people have participated (4%)

Jonathan Bean Sun 20 Sep 2020 7:48PM
Thanks for sharing. I like the instructions for commenting you included in that Polis poll. Maybe we can use those too. The process you describe does seem like something that could help us with getting some much needed open-ended feedback using Polis. I think the use of the HackMD pad is also a good idea for us too to accompany the deliberations. Thanks.

Patrick Connolly Sun 20 Sep 2020 7:26PM
Re: Polis. I've used it for small discussions, so it's not just an "at scale" thing. Specifically, one discussion was a lengthy and dramatic mailing list thread surrounding a contentious hackspace decision. I teased the seed statements from that thread (linked in convo description), and offered this:
If you can suss the dynamics from clicking around the viz for a few minutes, then I'm glad to say I just saved you from reading 20 pages of unstructured emails :)
Note that there were 15 people who chimed in via email, and 20 who participated in the conversation. A 33% increase in participation feels significant. imho Polis really shines at async or combination sync/async via pre- or post-circulation -- ideally post-circulation, as sychronous comms in advance allows seeding the Polis convo with lots of nuance. Having 7 people in the synchronous convo is a minimum for getting the visualization to show.
Anyhow, hopefully this is helpful, but I'm fine with whatever those convening think best! (Polis is actually easy to use unofficially, just by taking notes and populating a polis conversation with seed statements, then sharing it in the last 15 minutes)
Disclaimer: I'm biased here, as I did participatory community research on g0v and vTaiwan in 2018, and now steward the weekly pol.is community calls :)
mike_hales Sun 20 Sep 2020 6:38PM
I suspect the people of Taiwan were much more sussed and better organised than the membership of social.coop, when it comes to strategy. Also, far more numerous.

Jonathan Bean Sun 20 Sep 2020 6:34PM
I thought that the way the people at vTaiwan made their government would be a good model for us to follow. Some of the methods described in the Exit to Community: Distributed Governance | Media Enterprise Design Lab | University of Colorado Boulder Webinar with @Nathan Schneider were effective in organizing their new Democracy. In Particular I think the use of the advanced AI analysis polling platform called Polis was effective for rational deliberation at scale - Polis -
I would like to know what everyone feels and thinks about using such processes for our strategy summit.
Here is the summary of the webinar by E2C.
Check out the webinar if you haven't already or again if you have maybe.
What does everyone think about the processes used by vTaiwan to form their government and its relevance to informing our collaborative strategizing processes? 🙂
I could set up a poll on Pol.is for the question of what our purposes and strategies should be and everyone could put in their statements and everyone could vote on them. The analysis and process with Polis smart polls seem to be more informative than regular polls and could yield useful conclusions and data to inform our summit processes.

Manuela Bosch Thu 10 Sep 2020 10:30AM
Unfortunately I am occupied both days of the summit! Thank you so much for putting this all together and for everyone who will take the time and join. I am looking forward to hear about the outcome.

Hakanto Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
Interested in (among everything else) talking about the concept that Social.coop could take on an intermediary role between Meet.coop and other co-ops (who maybe can't afford Meet.coop directly). Co-ops could get access to some Meet.coop services through their Social.coop membership, and it would be a incentive for co-ops to bring more of their social media activity onto Mastodon.
mike_hales Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
Almost a year ago I filed some thoughts on social.coop strategy. I think they still apply (hmmnn, a story there?). Consider these as topic suggestions.

Zee Spencer Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
I can make either of these times work.

Ed Summers @edsu Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
I signed up for both because I can do either one . I'll probably attend the one that has the most attendees.

Noah Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
i'm a very weak maybe for 9/26 but a definite yes for 9/21.
Poll Created Wed 9 Sep 2020 1:03AM
RSVP for one (or both!) of the social.coop Strategy Summits Closed Thu 17 Sep 2020 11:03PM
The Community Working Group Operations Team will be facilitating two "Strategy Summit" events to discuss the future path of our project. The facilitators will be meeting next week to flesh out the agenda a bit more, but the goal is to have a bit of an unconference style dynamic with topics collected beforehand and at the beginning guiding the discussion.
So please RSVP for one (or both!) of the sessions via this poll, and add any topics you'd like to add to the list via a comment on your poll response.
We'll post additional details, including video call links, as the event draws closer.
Results
Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |||
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9pm Monday 9/21 EDT (1am Tuesday 9/22 GMT) | 57.1% | 16 |
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12pm Saturday 9/26 EDT (4pm GMT) | 42.9% | 12 |
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Undecided | 0% | 87 |
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21 of 108 people have participated (19%)
Matthew Cropp
Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
Formalizing our organizational structure, vision for additional services and an expanded purpose.

Nick Sellen
Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
(unsure if I can make the summit) it would seem very useful to get a clear idea of what social.coop actually is - variously it's described as:
"A coop-run corner of the fediverse"
"The social network of the future"
"an experiment in user-controlled social media"
"a community hub for people interested in co-ops"

Zee Spencer
Sun 16 Aug 2020 5:15PM
I’d like to get a better idea of how we can support mutual aid efforts led by Black and Brown people through social.coop dues/activities.
mike_hales
Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
Is social.coop just a coop-run Mastodon instance? Or does it aim to be a community of insights and knowhow on radical coop practice?
Does the social.coop platform need more tools than Mastodon to meet its purpose?
Is tool hosting affected by the social.coop decision on meet.coop?
How does this bear on the admin work of the Mastodon instance?

Clayton Dewey
Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
I would like to talk about ways we can both better support and bring more transparency to the tech team and the moderator team.
I'd also like to discuss ways we might foster more community within the social.coop instance itself.
Thanks to all who are organizing the summit, I'm excited for it!

Yasuaki Kudo
Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
what time?
Poll Created Thu 13 Aug 2020 5:11PM
What would you like to discuss at the social.coop strategy summit? Closed Thu 20 Aug 2020 5:04PM
Please include your ideas in the comment section of your vote!
While planning the summit, we are starting with a blank canvas. After we collect some ideas from this thread, we will group them into several discussion themes that people can talk about in smaller groups, taking notes and reporting back to the whole group, like in the Open Space Technology approach.
Results
Results | Option | Voters | |||
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Yes | 5 |
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No | 0 | ||||
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Undecided | 114 |
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5 of 119 people have participated (4%)

Zee Spencer Thu 30 Jul 2020 7:39PM
Wed/Fri/Tue are my main client days. Sat is the day I get to spend with partner/family

David Mynors Thu 30 Jul 2020 7:39PM
I don't finish work until 5:30 UTC+1, so I'd be much more able to do a midweek option if it started 30-60 minutes later
Poll Created Thu 30 Jul 2020 7:39PM
What time could you attend our 2020 Strategy Summit? Closed Thu 6 Aug 2020 7:01PM
To accommodate the most people, there will be two sessions:
Monday, September 21 at 21:00 ET
Saturday, September 26 at 12:00 ET
Sorry I couldn't find two times that worked for everyone!
September 20-26 was the best week for most people in the previous poll. Now let's find a time. Mark everything you can attend. We are considering holding two slots to accommodate for different timezones.
Results
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Sun 20 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
8.5 |
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Mon 21 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
8 |
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Mon 21 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
7.5 |
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Tue 22 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
9 |
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Tue 22 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
7.5 |
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Wed 23 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
7.5 |
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Wed 23 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
8 |
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Thu 24 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
7.5 |
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Thu 24 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
9 |
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Fri 25 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
5.5 |
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Fri 25 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
8 |
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Sat 26 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
7 |
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Sat 26 Sep 2020 4:00PM |
9 |
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Sun 27 Sep 2020 1:00AM |
8 |
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14 of 116 people have participated (12%)
mike_hales Mon 20 Jul 2020 8:03AM
Time zone wise, am Mountain Time is good for BST/CEST evening

Nathan Schneider Sun 19 Jul 2020 9:24PM
For me it's less about the date than the time. Best to do either 9-12 Mountain or after 9 pm.

Josef Davies-Coates Sun 19 Jul 2020 3:52PM
Doesn't really make much difference to me at this stage so just opted for the already most popular week :P
Poll Created Sun 19 Jul 2020 1:19PM
What week in September are you most likely to be able to attend the 2020 Strategy Summit? Closed Sun 26 Jul 2020 9:01PM
Looks like Sept 20-26th is best! I will post a time poll now.
We're trying to narrow down a time that works for everyone (and we're considering multiple times for our friends in various timezones). But the first step is just picking a week! What week in September would you most likely be able to attend? Once we have a week, I'll open a time poll with some more specific time slots.
Results
Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |||
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Sept 20-26 | 33.3% | 12 |
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Sept 27-Oct 3 | 27.8% | 10 |
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Sept 13-19 | 22.2% | 8 |
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Sept 6-12 | 16.7% | 6 |
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Undecided | 0% | 100 |
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15 of 115 people have participated (13%)

Erik Moeller Tue 14 Jul 2020 6:09AM
Just a note that Mastodon 3.1.0 added an "Announcements" feature that would be nice to use for letting folks know once a decision has been made on time, date and agenda.
https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon/pull/12662
Leo Sammallahti Wed 10 Jun 2020 5:53PM
Would be interesting to do some outreach, especially towards the global south. Me, @Graham and two other codirectors of Platform6 Cooperative (who is now the host of Social Coop Open Collective!) set up a Co-op Support Network facebook group. It has managed to attract quite a decent membership from non-western countries, which was a positive surprise. Would love to see something similar happen with SC.
I could put 20$ into a "Developing World" fund that would help pay the membership fee of those who come from low-income countries.

Derek Caelin Thu 11 Jun 2020 5:29PM
Draw.io (Diagrams.net) also integrates with Nextcloud.

Jonathan Bean Wed 10 Jun 2020 4:31PM
We talked about adding a virtual board, I made one available on diagrams.net which is free and open source but the only options for cloud storage besides self hosting is google drive and Onedrive.
It is stored at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ePfJSH1rP9rdx_RtLc0C7gT8InwLIfPZ/view?usp=sharing
Information on this app https://alternativeto.net/software/diagramly/about/
It can be edited by anyone with the link.
Also probably we can just propose ideas and things here and then someone can add it to the board for a visual summary if it would be helpful to the process.
Feel free to offer alternatives.
So what do we want to discuss and bring to the strategizing summit of 2020?

Manuela Bosch Mon 8 Jun 2020 1:23PM
🙌

freescholar Mon 8 Jun 2020 3:41AM
👏
Patrick Connolly · Sun 20 Sep 2020 8:04PM
No prob! Gotta give credit where due: It's derived from a Google translated version of vTaiwan's stock description, and adapted from there :)