Your ideas for Compass

For me, the most important thing for Compass to do is to enable the ~8,000 members and supporters to network together on projects that they feel to be important.

This would be a bit like kickstarter, but mainly asking for people to give effort, and perhaps some funding too.

I share Bob's viewpoint, though I think there could be as much for Compass to gain through spearheading development of such a platform as there could be from using the working product.

The free software (aka open source) movement has been extremely influential in the technology world, but despite its left-wing philosophies inspiring ideas such as open source governance, I feel it has yet to be tapped into by mainstream politics (at least in the UK). Ironically its fruits are enjoyed extensively and disproportionately by large corporations, often with wildly different political agendas.

I think it's fair to say that, considering the ubiquity of computers now, large amount of projects on Bob's platform would have some technological aspect to them. By developing the platform as an open source project, and promoting it within those circles, we could attract like-minded engineers to our community/platform and the future projects launched from it.

Yes, I see a lot of mileage in a 'kickstarter' style platform, and as Tom says this could be done in a way that reflects our values of sharing and openness.

Perhaps a good basis for such a platform is to have people to pledge time or specific actions: a way of obtaining pledges in a way that can easily be quantified and offered.

Tom, Jack. I feel shocked and embarrassed that I've left it so long to respond. I have a couple of excuses, but that's not good enough. I'm really sorry.

I've been thinking about this a bit more, and whilst I do like the idea of building something ourselves, I think this isn't my area of focus, as I want to get things moving (at least once I'm through my house move etc). However, I would be willing to initially work with you and others to kick it off.

Here are my thoughts:
1. we're not sure what sort of takeup we're likely to get,so why not do something cheap and cheerful first?
2. so, why not - when we, or anyone else, have a pitch - get Compass to broadcast it to all supporters, perhaps point them to a Prezi for more info, then link that to a Loomio discussion?

Here's my first example (without the email to Compass members (still have to persuade Neal!)) http://prezi.com/ueu2lqwiimh-/extend-deepen-democracy/

What do you think?

Once again, I really do apologise for tardiness.
Bob

I agree: it seems sensible to avoid investing too much time and effort on such a platform before there is interest in it.

I should admit that my technological knowledge is very limited, but I think I grasped Bob's Prezi: with a bit of organisation, various groups like Compass can make use of various existing free/ low-cost services to facilitate collaboration and discussion.

Is there a specific or potential Compass project for which it would be possible to name a few examples of the benefits of such a system/platform? That would help with a pitch to Neal or whoever else.

Hello Jack
Actually I'm attending a brainstorm on Friday as to how to make the organisation more networked, so I might have some concrete ideas after that. I will get back to you.
Bob

Sounds good to me - development should certainly be done steadily and in response to the needs of existing projects, rather than jumping in the deep end and heading in the wrong direction. Running a couple of projects on existing platforms and studying their requirements would be handy.