Introduce yourself to the Loomio Community

Hi @alanna!

There's more detail about my research at:
http://cpas.anu.edu.au/about-us/people/cobi-smith
and updates at:
cobismith.com
I've just come back from being an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development with the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact - I'm passionate about ensuring everyone's voices are heard in decisionmaking, both in their local communities and in decisions impacting all of us.

I would love to be more involved with Loomio, potentially doing a postdoc experimenting with it - I'm finishing my PhD in the next few months and writing postdoc research proposals - I am really interested in Loomio as a decisionmaking tool :)

Welcome @stevenclift ! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

That's fantastic @cobi - the main motivation for Loomio 1.0 is to make the tool truly inclusive, so all kinds of voices can all be heard. Thanks so much for your support!

Welcome to some new members!

@josecordeiro

Founder of Being Sustainable Project and several other things. Application developer, web analyst and system administrator. Particularly interested in startups, open source and scalable technologies. Life in perpetual Beta

@donnaschaap

I’m Donna from The Netherlands and just read a Shareable blog about Loomio. It sounds great and it got me curious… and this seems the right group to start with :)
Good luck with the project!

Welcome @katechapman1 !

Hi! I’m Kate Chapman and I’m involved in a couple communities using Loomio. I’m also a programmer and might be interested in hacking a bit on Loomio itself at some point.

Hi @katechapman1, we've spoken via Tech LadyMafia! Really great to see you here!

Hey everyone, happy to see the community flourishing and to become a part of it. I started a company (Voteit.com) and am contributing all of the code to a foundation to make free for everyone. Lots of stuff we can pool together and share experiences. My day job is running another company I started up, turbosquid.com. Anyway, interesting times, and I vow to make it to NZ to visit Loomio in person.

@mattwisdom thank you so much for supporting the campaign, and for your interest in Loomio! We're really glad to have you in the community.

Welcome @joopkieftelapingvi !

I would love to install an instance of my own of Loomio for the local Party, as communication infrastructure and decision platform.

You might be interested in the Installing Loomio Subgroup

Thanks @alanna, already joined there and got accepted there a bit earlier even :). I am also translating Loomio to Esperanto now, and that seems to be going quite well :).

Welcome @david11!

Hi I recently donated and I am a part of a group that is currently debating whether or not to give loomio a try… too bad we’re not using loomio, it might go quicker :P

Thanks @alanna! :)

Just dropping a note here to say hello. I'm a freelance facilitator and group skills teacher based in Eugene, Oregon, US. I work with groups face-to-face, yet recognize the need for online deliberation and decision tools, so i appreciate the development of Loomio. I have dozens of articles on facilitation, consensus, and related topics posted at http://www.treegroup.info, in case any of them are useful.

I believe far too much precious life energy gets wasted in crappy meetings, and that people should not settle for meetings that are less than lively, productive, and connecting. Strong process leads to excellent product. Rather than being wed to any one method, i enjoy creatively blending formats and approaches to meet groups' needs.

That enthusiasm led me to get involved in the creation of the card deck Group Works: A Pattern Language for Bringing Life to Meetings and Other Gatherings. The deck is available for free download as well as for sale at http://www.groupworksdeck.org--check it out!

Oops, that last URL should have posted as
http://www.groupworksdeck.org
but it didn't and i don't see a way to edit.

It seems you can remove and then post again with correction...

Welcome @olivermintersolvol !

Hi all! My name is Oliver and I am a being who at this stage is specialising in audio & events. I am interested in Loomio as I feel it holds a great deal of potential in a wide variety of applications and would love to offer my thoughts on how it could develop and evolve.

Welcome to @caeschlick!

I’m a German-Venezuelan citizen currently living in Europe, trying to make living possible again in Venezuela so everyone can live freely, in peace and in harmony with the world, making and setting up an example for other cultures to follow and make way to new ideas, co-ruling methods and ways of living. Hopping to use Loomio as a tool to spread and get new and better ideas out in the world for the benefit of everyone.

Great to have you in here with us Cae, make yourself at home :)

Thanks @richarddbartlett I'll do ;)

Hey everyone welcome @charlesthomassin

French student in Local Development, involved in the creation of a food coop and in some other projects, I feel deeply concerned by the issues of participatory democracy. That’s why I’d love to help and support Loomio project the way I can by joining the community.

Glad you could join us Charles! Thanks so much for your support :)

Welcome to @hugovitalis and @kirstenjensen from New Zealand Treasury.

I have had the pleasure of connecting with Hugo and Kirsten this week about the potential of using Loomio to help build successful collaborations across agencies in our Government. Hugo and Kirsten are keen to see active Loomio spaces to understand the power of this tool.

• Welcome to you both, please introduce yourselves here *, and specify any key areas of interest you may have for discussion so that other community members can respond and engage with you, or direct you to discussions & groups which may be of interest to you. Nga mihi

Hi as Chelsea says Kirsten and I came across Loomio as we were pondering a better way of working with others to generate solutions to common problems. I am particularly interested in Loomio as a tool to support the development of new ideas and collaboratively agreeing on potential solutions. Just wanted to find out more about Loomio and the different ways it might be used. Chelsea suggested the best way was to join and have a closer look...

Welcome @johnbrooker! John was part of VISA when it was still run as a chaordic organisation, and now does wonderful facilitation consulting at yesand.co.uk. Great to talk to you this morning John! I think Loomio is more likely to open up more opportunities than put you out of work :)

"Hi. I’m John. I’m interested in chaordic organisations and I am a workshop facilitator who spends his life encouraging people to collaborate, innovate, make decisions etc. I live in London, England and I’d like to help Loomio grow (although it might put me out of work!)."

Thanks Ben. It was inspiring talking to you, so much so I set up a group and did my first ever crowd funding donation! Good luck with it.

Welcome @dwt! Wonderful to have you here - it'd be great to hear more about your experience with liquid democracy!

"Hi there,
I’m one of the original contributors to the liquid democracy effort in germany that happened around the pirate party there.
I really like what you are doing and would love to contribute some of the knowledge we gathered (that I still remember).
Am I in? :-)
Regards,
dwt"

Welcome @daviddigiovanni! David runs a great website called GroupSRC, highlighting the ways groups can use technology to communicate more effectively.

He wrote a really nice piece about Loomio and has been massively helpful getting the word out about the campaign on Reddit.

Thanks David!

Welcome new members!

@nickjohnstone

Interested contributor and friend of Enspiral. Already opened a pull request to fix an issue on Loomio.

@iuliandumitrascu

Hi! I like your approach to voting. I actually see consultations here. We might build a relationship.

Thanks @alanna

Just a bit of an introduction. I'm an 18 year old skater/hacker/wannabe entrepreneur, soon off to be part of the first cohort of Enspiral's Dev Academy.

I really like Loomio as a project (both in ideals and in execution) and I'm hopefully going to be able to help out on the code side.

Mwahahahaha we're sucking you in @nickjohnstone

Welcome Ben Bowie!

I'm an “ideas” man :) as everyone is…And am passionate about the Start up (lean start up community). I am also close to reaching for funding on a project i have been working on & Alanna suggest i join the group.

Welcome @frederickstark and @kevinmartin !!

Please introduce yourself :)

Thanks Alanna!
I'm an Australian climate activist, member of the Australian Pirate Party, and Web developer.
The Loomio crowdfund campaign got me really interested in this as a tool to use in various groups, organisations and companies. So I popped my head in to take a look!

I'm most excited for no more wasted time and fake 'consensus of the silent' in phone link ups!

Thank you Alanna. I am a computer science student from Trivandrum, India. Loomio has been discussed in various mailing lists I subscribe to and thought that it would serve as a good decision making platform for our college FOSS (Free and open source software) cell. I'm excited to say that loomio is a fine example to show my peers how open source is taking the world by storm. Good job :)

@benjaminknightloom Thanks for the kind words Ben!

I'm really glad to have found Loomio just the other day after writing about the decentralization of political power in democratic systems. A lot of my focus has been on how groups can use reddit and reddit-like technology to communicate more effectively. I would say Loomio is a "reddit-like technology", one that is really effective at helping groups make decisions. So I'm excited to see where this all goes.

As far as me personally, I am 27, live in the US, and work as a frontend web developer.

Hi!
Google Search makes available immediately enough information about me.
I am interested in this community because I would like to help improve communication. People need to coordinate and they could do this better, including over the Internet.
To what goals do we unite?
What would the Loomio team like us to do with their work?
Services like Delib, List.ly, Typeform, OpinionStage, PollDaddy, SurveyMonkey and FluidSurveys already provide such services. Should we use some of their work?
I would design any crucial application like this one so that it can be adapted to different usage scenarios and the user experience is close to optimal. I would like Loomio to have many more features and to communicate with other main applications, e.g. for organization management and social networking.
I like it that the Loomio team offer this software for sale to many teams. I would like such services to be used by more than one billion people.
I would participate in designing this service if you asked me to.

Hey @alexpb ! Great to meet you online recently and discuss Mesh Democracy projects! Welcome to the Loomio community, feel free to throw up any topics you want to take action on with others, or discuss :)

Here's how Alex introduced himself (feel free to add to this Alex!)

"Hi, I am working on a similar tool “Mesh Democracy” - an extension to the distrubited F2F system Retroshare adding a topic tree and liquid democractic voting. chozabu.net"

Yo @frederickstark ! Awesome to see a climateer here in Loomio. Do you think AYCC could use Loomio?

@chelsearobinson Definitely!
At the moment discussions and decisions on campaigns that actually make it to the grassroots take forever because each state and action group need to have a meeting to provide ideas and feedback before it goes back up the chain in more meetings!
Mostly this just leads to an aversion to democratic processes, despite a deep desire for more democracy. Loomio could be the solution we needed all along.

I'm not in any decision making spaces anymore, but I'll talk to the current coordinators to see if I can plant the idea in their heads ;)

Welcome @Crispin Clarke!

Crispin introduced himself thusly: "Hi - I’m an entrepreneur, cofounder of a tech startup in California and Colorado, USA, and somebody interested in community and collaboration for pro-social change."

@opseedlib Welcome! This is the home of the Loomio community. Introduce yourself if you would like to provide more info - we all love hearing what people would like to discuss in more depth :)

"I would like to create a place to share #gmofree seeds with our neighbors. #WaveOfAction #OpSeedLib

I wish to create a place where people can post requests for gmo-free seeds so that others in their area can share with them.

I save every seed I can and have made seed library starter kits for requests in my area. If we all save our seeds we can share with our neighbours. We can share starter kits or even one variety of seed.

Every seed can count.

GMO seeds are everywhere. If you go into any store the gmo brands are plentiful always up front and central with huge advertising displays. Organics are off to the side if you can find them at all.

Seeds are costly and they should be free to home growers.

Why do WE have to pay for them? We don’t need to when we can share them.

Thank you for helping to make the world a better place."

Welcome to some new members! @benjaminlupton @brianfey - tell us about yourself!

@laynesmall ....

I’m an operations developer who’s recently left a VFX house to return to university to study electrical engineering. I’ve long felt the need for something like Loomio, and now I want to help.

There are a couple electrical engineers around here, like @richarddbartlett :)

I have been needing a decision making platform for some time.

I am building an intentional community in my permaculture farm, and don't have a lot of faith in consensus decision making. Often there is too much overhead talking without memory or prior discussions. Wasteful.
"Community decision making" often ends up being false with the strong personalities running the show.
So I want a software solution.
I spend many years is software design so perhaps I will have feedback for you.

Right now it is a dictatorship, but as others get involved more decisions with be handled by the group as I near death

You might want to see this question and add your answer about how you use Loomio for a small community: https://www.quora.com/Decision-Making/What-software-could-I-use-for-100-or-more-people-to-be-able-propose-and-vote-on-decisions-for-a-small-town

I plan to have a public Loomio project, and a private one just for residents.

If you have an interest in my strange project, you can like this page to see photos as I post them: https://www.facebook.com/bosqueforest

-Brian Fey
https://www.facebook.com/brianfey

If you have an interest in intentional communities you can watch a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UYHoLzxb_4

Thanks @brianfey ! All the best with your project. If you run into any issues, want to share feedback, or want to discuss best practice with other Loomio users, please feel free to post around here in the Community.

Welcome new members!

@matthewhead

I am a teacher in Oregon, USA. I frequently attend meetings where decisions have to be made and would love a better way to handle these decisions. This tool seems to be a great start. I am very interested in discovering ways to use Loomio in education to facilitate discussions and expedite the meeting process to spend more time working with teachers and students and less time in meetings.

There are many people in this community really interested in how Loomio can work in educational settings, like @mixirving @silviazuur @benjaminknightloom - please keep us posted!

@umutcanonal

This project is very fascinating. I am a software developer on a collobrative consumption project called Library of Stuff in Turkey. We are building our software as a free software and our project is also a social enterprise. I think we can use Loomio for making decision. But furthermore, I think we can learn lots of things from you. So, I want to join your community :)

I'm sure you're aware that Loomio is available in Turkish. All the best with your project and let us know if there's anything we can do to help and mutually learn from one another :)

Welcome new members!

@jamshedpoonawalla

Hello! I’d like to develop a CRM-plattform for the german pharmacies. The biggest problem is to catch the attention of the collegues, that work in the professional associations for long. There should be kind of FAX-Gateway for Loomio. Maybe some kind of the thing, that is used by Loomio for translation. If there was a Fax-connection into a Loomio-group, the group-members could “translate” the fax into text, and consider the info for the poll… Best regards & happy easter!

@erickimori

My name is Eric Kimori, the Executive Director of Complitkenya. COMPLITKENYA is a registered Community Based Organization whose vision to establish modern world-class Community Access Centres in rural areas so as to promote Community ICT Development, promote e-learning and enhance youth employment through ICTs. Due to the documented evident reality in the community about the ever widening digital gap and that rural populations are increasingly being left behind in the technological development, the need for modern and well equipped Community Access Centres to address this gap was hatched at the formation of Complitkenya. We have established 3 such centre so far. Currently we seeking funds to build Nyamira county’s first digital library to help democratize access to information, spur socio-economic development and encourage e-learning. This group could help us network with potential donors or have access to relevant resources.

@christian welcome!

Here is how Christian introduced himself -
I’m a developer in Portland, Oregon, USA. Loomio is the most promising application I have seen in a while with so much potential to really change the landscape of decision making and consensus building all over the world. I will be following this project closely and hope to get some time to delve deeper soon.

Welcome @tobiaseigen !

"Greetings!

I am interested in Loomio for use by my organization (Kabissa - Space for Change in Africa http://www.kabissa.org) and our strategic decisionmaking, as well as perhaps to support decisionmaking in other communities I am involved in including my real-world neighbors on the island where I live (Bainbridge Island, near Seattle) and my geographically dispersed family (Berlin, Washington DC, Berkeley, CA, Bainbridge).

I am deeply impressed by what I see and in particular like the humanity shown in the user interface design. The makers of Loomio clearly don’t put the technology first and you want to serve those trying to make the world a better place. I salute you for that.

Cheers,

Tobias"

@mathijsdebruin ! Welcome!

Here's how Mathijs introduced himself to us on sign-in:
Activist, philosopher, software developer and democracy enthausiast.

Let us know what you're interested in so you can connect with others on topics you care about :)

Glad to be here. Thanks for the warm welcome! :)

"Hi my name is @Elaine I am a business student in my last year with experience in a top down government and corporate entities. I am interested in Loomis because it offers an open forum approach exposing the productivity that can arise from such business practice. I am excited to see this concept further developed and effectively implemented into bigger corporate/ government organisations in particular."\

Welcome!