those are all pretty much it, except for legal limits that prevent a couple of those things from being totally completely open. But we tried to make the purpose as broad as possible but under Canadian and B.C. law it does have to be defined for co-ops.
I would prefer holoptic, everyone can see everything (that's why we're also including a client/consumer membership class). But it is up to the membership and they might decide against this because we currently have a socio-economic structure that dictates that everyone isn't a part of our multi-stakeholder co-op through the other co-ops in the economy they're a part of, they aren't vested. If you study parecon you will find that the necessary iterations of open planning require transparency and this is what we're currently working to enshrine in our co-op, but it's just one entity and not a part of a whole economic system that reflects it.
The co-op is structured so that it can have different departments and divisions, so check on freedom to start related businesses.
And we our mandated to help start up parecon enterprise system, so check to the whole community benefitting.
So this article has some holes and presumptions built into it that are leading people astray.
1. When 'Open Source' is used to mean OS type processes. That is to say that the co-op, through Balanced Job Complexes, participatory management, holoptic (everyone can see everything going on) transparency, etc., will run on these type of processes... So this is not a business model, but a business process model. I have very distinct ideas about how to make this bugger cut throat profitable, including cornering %12 of the Canadian and %5 of the US market but that is up to the membership to decide democratically through the business process model.
2. This is new; it incorporates a complex share structure that no co-op I've come across has, it will apply parecon (see www.parecon.org) principles like BJC, self-management (your say matches you stake in the matter), and collective capital along with collective effort & sacrifice based remuneration. Some of these things are relatively new in of themselves and putting them all together in this frame work is new (although sure, there is nothing new under the sun).
3. I'm not a bleeding heart when it comes to business. After that quote I said something to the effect of our 'community economic development' work (as far as I'm concerned) will be setting up businesses for a parecon framework that will bank based on market development of loyal patrons to co-operative/parecon economies, and just good margins on products and services. If you saw a way to set up a distinct new brand that you could corner a market with and charge a premium, you'd do it too.
4. ICT workers will manage the company with guidance from the board of themselves and professionals like are lawyers, MBAs and accountants, just like any other corporation. But the workers manage it and do so sufficiently because it's in their interests and b/c they take on roles outside of their specific expertise resulting in them having more perspective on the business as a whole and so being able to collectively manage the biz through enterprise software which gives them a holoptic view. There will also be training of workers in basic business management skills and practices.
I'm sure there's more to clarify but I've got an enterprise to set up, a contract to bill for, and a book to write.
Some good points here:
>> 1. Though the notion of a co-operative is egalitarian, actually, there >>is a small group of dedicated people, who are most involved
I hope that the participatory model or Balanced Job Complex (BJC) arrangement that we will employ in this co-op will address this point, which does seem to be true in many co-ops. Parecon requires that the workers manage the business. BJC allows for members to rotate their roles a little and thus see the operation from different perspectives.
>>2. These people who usually form part of the board, are "more equal than >>the rest" and can actually make people do stuff that is important for the >>co-operative, but can sound unsavoury
The law requires us to have a board, but what we've done is overlapped and balanced board and membership control.
>>3. Also, the co-operative is a pyramidal thing, with the people towards >>the bottom being less skilled than the ones at the top. Its a small >>pyramid with a wide base, but, it is for sure a pyramid. The only reason >>the people at the base are willing to work there are, the money generated >>is for real, (and sometimes, because they trust the people above them to >>be working for their benefits)
The parecon model will take care of this to a large degree. Because the workers will be the managers - with direction from a board made up of professionals from outside ICT - the workers will have to have broad perspective on their business and the business model of the various divisions of the co-op. The co-op will do a good job of bringing in people from diverse sectors of the industry, they will operate their own 'divisions' with the input of other members who can take on different roles. We'll also have to train members in some basic business skills so that they can feel more comfortable in a distributed managment role.
>>1. A co-operative of software engineers is hard to maintain, since every >>one comes with a high level of skill sets and the resultant ego. This >>makes the setting up of a pyramid very hard
This is one of the reasons why we won't be setting up a pyramid as explained above
2. While there are successful models of monetization of open source, they are few and far between and most of these models are hard to replicate. This takes away the basic incentive of a co-operative
This isn't 'monetization' or, more properly, capitalization of OS necessarily. It is taking the processes of distributed development and using those as business operation processes.
>>3. A co-operative is often a below the radar operation, generating wealth >>with out too much of recognition. Most opensource projects (the way I see >>them) work the other way round
We hope not to be too below the radar as we need to make money and that means profile. Plus we have a way to consolidate the business of
We're working on this and actually was included in the presentation. The challenge is categorizing the kinds of decisions that the different categories of membership get to vote on.
Slashdot Mirror
those are all pretty much it, except for legal limits that prevent a couple of those things from being totally completely open. But we tried to make the purpose as broad as possible but under Canadian and B.C. law it does have to be defined for co-ops.
I would prefer holoptic, everyone can see everything (that's why we're also including a client/consumer membership class). But it is up to the membership and they might decide against this because we currently have a socio-economic structure that dictates that everyone isn't a part of our multi-stakeholder co-op through the other co-ops in the economy they're a part of, they aren't vested. If you study parecon you will find that the necessary iterations of open planning require transparency and this is what we're currently working to enshrine in our co-op, but it's just one entity and not a part of a whole economic system that reflects it.
The co-op is structured so that it can have different departments and divisions, so check on freedom to start related businesses.
And we our mandated to help start up parecon enterprise system, so check to the whole community benefitting.
So this article has some holes and presumptions built into it that are leading people astray.
1. When 'Open Source' is used to mean OS type processes. That is to say that the co-op, through Balanced Job Complexes, participatory management, holoptic (everyone can see everything going on) transparency, etc., will run on these type of processes...
So this is not a business model, but a business process model. I have very distinct ideas about how to make this bugger cut throat profitable, including cornering %12 of the Canadian and %5 of the US market but that is up to the membership to decide democratically through the business process model.
2. This is new; it incorporates a complex share structure that no co-op I've come across has, it will apply parecon (see www.parecon.org) principles like BJC, self-management (your say matches you stake in the matter), and collective capital along with collective effort & sacrifice based remuneration. Some of these things are relatively new in of themselves and putting them all together in this frame work is new (although sure, there is nothing new under the sun).
3. I'm not a bleeding heart when it comes to business. After that quote I said something to the effect of our 'community economic development' work (as far as I'm concerned) will be setting up businesses for a parecon framework that will bank based on market development of loyal patrons to co-operative/parecon economies, and just good margins on products and services. If you saw a way to set up a distinct new brand that you could corner a market with and charge a premium, you'd do it too.
4. ICT workers will manage the company with guidance from the board of themselves and professionals like are lawyers, MBAs and accountants, just like any other corporation. But the workers manage it and do so sufficiently because it's in their interests and b/c they take on roles outside of their specific expertise resulting in them having more perspective on the business as a whole and so being able to collectively manage the biz through enterprise software which gives them a holoptic view. There will also be training of workers in basic business management skills and practices.
I'm sure there's more to clarify but I've got an enterprise to set up, a contract to bill for, and a book to write.
Greg
Some good points here: >> 1. Though the notion of a co-operative is egalitarian, actually, there >>is a small group of dedicated people, who are most involved I hope that the participatory model or Balanced Job Complex (BJC) arrangement that we will employ in this co-op will address this point, which does seem to be true in many co-ops. Parecon requires that the workers manage the business. BJC allows for members to rotate their roles a little and thus see the operation from different perspectives. >>2. These people who usually form part of the board, are "more equal than >>the rest" and can actually make people do stuff that is important for the >>co-operative, but can sound unsavoury The law requires us to have a board, but what we've done is overlapped and balanced board and membership control. >>3. Also, the co-operative is a pyramidal thing, with the people towards >>the bottom being less skilled than the ones at the top. Its a small >>pyramid with a wide base, but, it is for sure a pyramid. The only reason >>the people at the base are willing to work there are, the money generated >>is for real, (and sometimes, because they trust the people above them to >>be working for their benefits) The parecon model will take care of this to a large degree. Because the workers will be the managers - with direction from a board made up of professionals from outside ICT - the workers will have to have broad perspective on their business and the business model of the various divisions of the co-op. The co-op will do a good job of bringing in people from diverse sectors of the industry, they will operate their own 'divisions' with the input of other members who can take on different roles. We'll also have to train members in some basic business skills so that they can feel more comfortable in a distributed managment role. >>1. A co-operative of software engineers is hard to maintain, since every >>one comes with a high level of skill sets and the resultant ego. This >>makes the setting up of a pyramid very hard This is one of the reasons why we won't be setting up a pyramid as explained above 2. While there are successful models of monetization of open source, they are few and far between and most of these models are hard to replicate. This takes away the basic incentive of a co-operative This isn't 'monetization' or, more properly, capitalization of OS necessarily. It is taking the processes of distributed development and using those as business operation processes. >>3. A co-operative is often a below the radar operation, generating wealth >>with out too much of recognition. Most opensource projects (the way I see >>them) work the other way round We hope not to be too below the radar as we need to make money and that means profile. Plus we have a way to consolidate the business of
We're working on this and actually was included in the presentation. The challenge is categorizing the kinds of decisions that the different categories of membership get to vote on.