Inspiring Projects

OPEN 2018 – Preview

OPEN 2018 is not just about showcasing platform co-ops. It’s about the ownership revolution and forging a path to a collaborative, sustainable economy. It’s about creating new organisations which are member owned and democratically governed so that we, the people, have control over the institutions we rely on. Our vision is of a world in …

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Holochain – The commons engine for cooperation at scale

This article is the second part of our interview with Matthew Schutte, Communications Director at Holochain, which covers their plans to build a “Commons engine” to help provide co-ops with the tools they need to communicate, coordinate and cooperate at scale. In part two Matthew explains how Holochain enables “protocol” rather than “platform” cooperation,  by …

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Holochain – the perfect framework for decentralised cooperation at scale

Holochain is a new technology project with huge potential for the cooperative economy. Members of The Open Co-op have been promoting the idea that new software could, potentially, revolutionise both our failing democracies and our predatory capitalist economies, since 2004. Back then we weren’t quite so clear on exactly how the required information architecture should …

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Hullcoin: can blockchain unlock the hidden value in Hull’s economy?

It might come as a surprise – but something innovative is happening in Hull. Hull is one of those cities, like Swindon and Slough, that’s long been the butt of jokes – like the one about the guy that typed ‘Hell’ instead of ‘Hull’ into his Sat-Nav, but still got there – it’s not that …

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Belonging is a superpower – Patterns for decentralised organising

If you work in any type of co-op, or non-hierarchical group, with open and inclusive values and aspirations for horizontal management, this post is for you. It summarises a workshop from the founders of Loomio, at which they shared their distilled wisdom for effective collaboration within groups. You’ve probably heard of Loomio, the simple but …

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Not a Co-op? Not a Platform Co-op!

Last month Shareable wrote a great article entitled “11 Platform Cooperatives Creating a Real Sharing Economy“.   It’s a really nice list of projects who are all moving in the right direction (i.e. toward greater sharing of ownership and control), but some of them aren’t actually co-operatives. This got me thinking: Should organisations that are not co-operatives be described as …

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