Where open meets co-op
Platform co-ops, and the burgeoning movement behind them, are big news. For the first time since the inception of the internet a consensus is forming around a new model of economics and governance. At The Open Co-op we have been working on this concept since 2004 and continue to advocate that the internet provides the ultimate tool to help reorganise society and facilitate the … [Read more...]
In 2010, when Transition Towns started growing into the hundreds in the UK, with another 250 worldwide, it felt like something was really happening. Like 'the people' might me about to start taking control of their town's futures. When the Occupy movement camped up on the steps of St Pauls with that huge "CAPITALISM IS CRISIS" banner in 2011, it felt like protest had reached … [Read more...]
Platform Co-op Support The Open Co-op welcomes the support for Platform Cooperatives outlined in Jeremy Corbyn's Digital Democracy Manifesto (pdf). Recent Deliveroo and UberEats strikes highlight the importance of "the inalienable right of trade union membership" and the growing need for a "cooperative upgrade of the sharing economy". Support for Open Source We're also very … [Read more...]
Open Value Networks are very similar to Bettermeans' Open Enterprise ideas and variously described as "people creating value together, by contributing work, money and goods, and sharing the income" a "framework for many-to-many innovation" and a "model for commons-based peer production". The idea is probably most clearly outlined by Sensorica's Tiberus Brastaviceanu in … [Read more...]
Saturday night is not the time most people chose to meet to discuss disrupting democracy. But that's what happened at the Platform Co-ops event in London on the 21st of May 2016. Whilst most of Brick Lane was quaffing vast quantities of craft beer and sipping organic low-fat soya lattes with tofu sprinkles whist discussing how awesome it was that #rainbowunicornkittens was … [Read more...]
Enric Duran of the Catalan Integrated Cooperative has taken the time to comment on Michel Bauwens’ recent article on Open Coops, contrasting Bauwens’ proposals with the practical realities already under way in the CIC’s own forward thinking cooperativist environment. Guerrilla Translation, as a sister collective to the P2P Foundation has copy-edited Duran’s replies. Bauwens’ … [Read more...]
At a recent Solidarity Economy event hosted by Locality and organised by Pat Conaty, Robin Murray put a tenner on the table and encouraged others to join him in order that we can together create the first UK based member of RIPESS Europe, the European wing of RIPESS, the Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy. I thought it was a great idea, … [Read more...]
By Nathan Schneider and originally published on Shareable Image from OpenSource.com's post, "Don't Build a Better Mousetrap. Change the Business Model." One chilly morning last winter, I reconnected with an old friend, Joel Dietz, on a video chat. We hadn’t seen each other for years, and we’d each had several starts and stops in our lives since. He began telling me about his … [Read more...]
Can Cooperatives Build Better Online Tools to Disrupt the Disrupters? by Nic Wistreich (and originally published on Grassroots Economic Organizing) Uberfication has become shorthand for many new concepts—from the sharing economy to any significantly disruptive digital business model. But what exactly did Uber do that was materially different to earlier disruptive … [Read more...]
NOTE: when I first re-launched this blog is was because people like @edmayo1 and @mbauwens had started to talk about 'Open Co-ops'. Now even more people are getting in on the game, it's fantastic! Also, big thanks are due to the wonderful peeps at @GuerrillaTrans for turning the pdf report into html which I could easily copy/ paste from the@Commons_Trans site for re-posting … [Read more...]