At Open 2018 I was able to give a brief talk about the broad concept that I called 'cooperation-as-a-service'. One focus at that time was the idea that project groups during the early stages of their inception were focussed totally - and quite reasonably so - on what they wanted to achieve as a group rather than the how, and certainly not on what might follow once they'd achieved initial goals, in terms of governance arrangements, working practices, etc.Two years on, and the Digital Life Collective - a UK registered co-operative, is rolling out a practical implementation of some of these ideas, a socio-technical platform that we've called CaaS, or Cooperation-as-a-Service. We've been using it internally as we've built it over the last year or more, and we're now making the service available to a number of organisations, communities of interest/practice and other aligned networks.

In practice the service provides access to a collation of open source software services (e.g. Mattermost, CodiMD, and others) that are integrated through a custom interface that provides additional functionality. We're operating on a live beta basis, working closely with each new community of users as they get on board, enabling them to co-create the next iteration of the service with us, as partners and members of the platform cooperative. A key facet of what we're working on is opportunities for these various communities to talk to and work with each other, creating a multiplex co-op, a complex ecosystem for mutual benefit. Our next big challenge is to move beyond the relational, conversational base that we have and enable some transactional services, and our team is in active collaboration with blockchain based projects on this front, as well as mutual credit, to enable trade within the network and beyond.

Of course there's nothing new in the idea of software as a service or platform as a service, but we believe that our cooperative take on the idea, putting cooperation front and centre, can increasingly deliver a lot of added value for the people and organisations that use and co-create the platform.

We'd be very happy to run a session at the event to present the thinking behind the service offering, and where we'd like to take it over the course of the next year or two. We'd also be very interested to use Open 2020 as an opportunity to bring at least some of the other players in this space, some of whom have been represented in previous years at the OPEN event, for mutual benefit. I'm thinking the folks at https://www.commonscloud.coop and others. Presentation and Discussion.

A presentation and invitation to collaborate in an emerging movement supporting mass mobilisation of communities, schools, colleges & other organisations to prioritise solutions, learn together and organise action around the climate & ecological emergency (C&EE).

Working practically on system change (not climate change!) developing digital & dialogue tools (blended/hybrid approach) for local democracy, participatory budgeting and community organising. Demonstrating strong case studies in schools, colleges, universities, unions and geographic communities. Many ideas being prioritised are of an environmental nature and this can encourage a move to declare climate & ecological emergency. 

This model can be rolled out to large networks of communities, schools and groups and generates demand for large numbers of volunteers and economically self sustaining Community Organisers to help people engage with the process and move into action.

In biomimicry terms, we are trying to create highly functioning local cells (communities/groups) that can process and replicate high impact/healthy DNA (project templates) more effectively, rapidly and at scale.

We invite you to learn about our journey so far and discuss how we might collaborate and cooperate going forward to build mass mobilisation movement capable of tackling global challenges.

.....

More info:

About: https://about.vocaleyes.org

Blog: https://blog.vocaleyes.org

Tutorials: https://academy.vocaleyes.org

A presentation and discussion about how we can go beyond isolated town pound, timebanking and LETS currencies to carve out a new digital economic intervention fit for the 2020s.

Most complementary and alternative currencies fail after a few years - some because of lack of funding, some because of volunteer burn-out, and some because of a reduction in usage after the initial excitement wears off. Meanwhile, the big tech giants are increasingly monopolising our payments industry, taking ownership of our transaction data (driving advertising and unsustainable growth), not to mention syphoning significant amounts of money out of our economy.

Meanwhile in many parts of the world, municipalities are becoming more autonomous.  Local governance structures and are increasingly held accountable for local performance in areas such as economic development, carbon emissions, social exclusion, social care and health.  The economy is the mechanism for sharing the world’s resources amongst the people - and the local economy is therefore a key system for municipalities to engage with.

We are also starting to see changes in attitudes to citizens’ involvement in the democratic process, following the rise in populist movements as a result of the disconnect between the political leadership and the people the politicians represent. 

The idea I wish to present is a payment platform with local cooperative governance.  The platform would not only carry financial transactions, but also a range of complementary tokens, co-designed by the community.  

Some of the tokens might be issued by anchor institutions to engage citizens and businesses in activity which is helpful in meeting the institution’s targets.  For example, tokens might be earned for cycling and walking, for looking in on an elderly neighbour, for taking a reusable coffee cup, for keeping water or household energy consumption low.  Tokens might drive discounts in pursuit of other targets - for example, tokens might enable discounts at independent shops and hospitality businesses, which in turn can part pay their business rates in tokens.  In effect in such a scheme, a local authority would take a hit in income, but could treat this as a cost to its strategy to reach its zero carbon, social care and local high street goals.

Other tokens might be issued and traded completely separately to the anchor institutions.  There could be LETS type tokens to encourage the sharing economy, and timebanking tokens to help poorer communities share their skills to meet each other’s needs.  But even these tokens might drive discounts in the mainstream economy, for example, offering cheaper rates at the local sports and leisure centre - again, a slight loss in income ultimately for a local authority, but in return for increased community cohesion, wellbeing and health.

Two other key points.  Because the platform would consist of e-wallets outside the banking system, with regulation through an EMI, we could tackle the issue of access to digital money, which is rapidly becoming a significant problem for those who are unbanked.  And finally, the data would be used ethically - the holistic, anonymised dataset would provide great insights for local anchor institutions and the cooperative itself, to assist with future policy and planning, including the ongoing development of tokens on the system.

The truly innovative concept is bringing together fiat and complementary currencies onto one platform, in such a way that the local people have a hand in creating the kind of local economy they want, rather than being coerced into a global economy over which they have no control. Championed by local anchor institutions, the platform would operate at scale with all citizens and businesses having ewallets, which would be the payment method of choice for anchor institutions and businesses.