OAE proposal from a SX perspective

Loomio is a cooperative that focuses its business on serving the commons to stimulate cooperation, which is the area of my applied research (on hobby track, not earning an income yet) on Social experience design (SX). SX is emergent evolutionary design that takes grassroots social dynamics into account on the intersection of sustainable FOSS, social web, and the commons that cocreates and must evolve and sustain both of these. I was just informing @wouterfreeknowledge.eu on the holistic focus of SX, combined with its utterly pragmatic approach. A SX solution exists when you can write it on a sticky note, from where it evolves. SX provides formula's, recipes, and missing ingredients for organizing cocreation at scale. The goal is to deliver "commons based" solutions, i.e. where people are in control of open technologies. SX 'adds something extra' to all the things we already do, in terms of how we can organize and govern a commons collectively.

It is interesting to me to mull this proposal against my SX elaboration work. This is my intrinsic motivator for this post. Otherwise purely informational along OAE's purpose to share from personal experiences.

An SX process starts by asking: Who are Stakeholders? What are their Needs? What Solutions cover these (starts with sticky notes)? This is then input to a breakdown structure that maps to the FSDL: Free software development lifecycle or Fediverse solution delivery lifecycle, depending on context. One of the objectives is clear expectation management at any one time. By default in a commons there are zero expectations, and no commitments or obligations. Commitments are only made with full mutual understanding and agreement.

@Danyl Strype's proposal would result in a SOSS initiative - a concept that extends FOSS with a focus on sustainability and addressing uncomfortable questions - that delivers, evolves, and sustains the proposed solution. SOSS applies hedonic peer production which involves seeking the intrinsic motivations that encourage people to engage in collaborative arrangements and cocreate together. Proactive participation is key, and any Participant is a Stakeholder, which has their own Needs wrt the SOSS initiative and its evolving Solutions.

It may be interesting to do this SX exercise with the proposal as input, and start to elaborate further. Social coding forum / note-taking tool can facilitate elaboration. Note that all the new terminology around SX above relate to my opinionated design of an innovative solution development method, that is fit for the Commons. But Social experience design itself is universal. A complete new field of IT that is open to anyone to explore their own way. It involves bridging the huge gap between what technology delivers and what society needs.

Some SX musings on the proposal..

Stakeholders:

• OAE members

• FOSS / open app developers

• Loomio

• People in collaborative commons

• Broader public

Needs:

• (expressed) Paradigm shift to web technologies that bring simplicity and productivity.

• (implied) Paradigm shifts are possible that reduce dependence on corporate Web 2.0

• (assumed/observed?) Relieve Loomio from unproductive work to focus on core business.

• (expressed) Cocreate a new stack for Loomio's product portfolio, and other Participants.

• (expressed) Eval web technology innovations that may enable important paradigm shifts.

• (implied) Make a commitment in time and possibly money to be part of a FOSS project.

Further elaboration is needed, and a list of Opportunities might be maintained.

Questions:

• What does OAE want to be? How does it relate to Loomio? Is OAE on paid subscription?

• Besides tech survey, mastering new tech, what are concrete Needs wrt Loomio platform?

• What are the Benefits to each of the Stakeholders that encourage proactive participation?

Ideas:

• Social coding commons has a community collective Guild Alpha (dormant) that..

  • Consisted of FOSS enthusiasts that would vote which project to work on for a time.

  • For selected projects would find most interesting features to build, and work on that.

  • Delivers results and moves to the next project. Made good contributions to Bookwyrm.

  • Became inactive in typical FOSS fashion, wasn't based on SX, not sustainability-first.

  • Can be easily revived, ready to go, follow SX. Might take on OAE plans for the future.

• Social coding commons has member collectives for FOSS / social impact initiatives.

  • That allow projects, communities, institutions, business to collab on shared goals.

  • That may have a dedicated collective for further OAE ambitions if there's interest.

  • The collective becomes part of a commons based cocreation & affiliation network.

Join the Social experience design channel to chat about this subject in more detail.

I'd be glad to see clarification of what it might mean for "a subgroup of OAE members" to be " forced to experiment

I only just spotted this, which was a typo; the intended word was "formed", not "forced" (again, the cludgy mobile interface of Loomio let me down here). Not only would forcing people to volunteer for a software dev experiment be totally counter to my most fundamental values, I can't imagine any way members of OAE could be forced to do anything 😆

Since this is a sense check, not a decision that needs to be made with any urgency, I've pushed the closing date out another week, and may do so again.