Building the tools for the future

It is hard to convince people that it matters what code runs on their devices, in their bodies, and for services they use from the cloud. Richard Stallman has been working on this for decades. I have this 50 minute presentation and more things to cover, so here's a scary picture.

Here a hacked jeep was driven into a ditch. "Computers and the Internet are everywhere and the world is increasingly made of them." - Cory Doctrow

Dries Buytaert, http://buytaert.net/winning-back-the-open-web Winning back the open web

Tech co-ops are usually development shops that build customized tools using technology.

Platforms are the tools used by the public, members or anonymous users.

TechWorker.coop

What is it?

Collaboration opportunity: organizing the larger network for greater awareness, co-marketing, referrals, etc.

Collaboration opportunity: identifying collaboration opportunities between individuals and coops, or among coops (hiring/joining/time-sharing, overflow work)

Collaboration opportunity: skill sharing/training

Collaboration opportunity: Hacker News for co-ops--a news aggregation community collecting articles and soliciting questions

Collaboration Opportunities for Cooperative Development

Drupal and Coops

The Drupal community is an excellent model of cooperation in action.

What are some examples of cooperation that exist within your community?

http://drupal.org

And the Drupal community -

http://groups.drupal.org

Platform CooperativismThis movement has been coalesced over 4 years of events sponsored by the New School in NYC. The last two events being:http://digitallabor.orghttp://platformcoop.net

The idea of platform cooperativism has been spreading around the world.

Trebor Sholz's primer - http://platformcoop.net/platform-cooperativism-by-trebor-scholz is being translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese.

http://platformcoop.net/participants/micky-metts

I presented at the event on the nuts and bolts of my coop - how we are structured and earn $ and how we get paid etc. (my segment is on the timeline @ 50:00)http://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop/videos/105663835and I also speak in an interview at the conference:https://vimeo.com/150036963

Another interview at the Platformcoop conference with me and Janelle Orsi (a lawyer with http://theselc.org) is featured on http://www.lauraflanders.com/?video=MQaY3cONV7g

A book about Platform Cooperativism is due to be published soon, I am one of the authors with a chapter in a forthcoming book on the subject and I am involved in discussions on how to start/help/continue in building the platforms we need to own. An example would be an Uber owned by the drivers.

Your voice is welcome and needed!

Here is the start of a list of platform projects:http://internetofownership.net/wiki/platforms

The Book

News and Resources

Articles about cooperatives

http://www.thenews.coop/The Guardian - http://bit.ly/1s83iyEThe ecologist - http://bit.ly/1oaxYythttp://shareable.net/blog/how-to-start-a-worker-co-op

Worth a listen: "Tech Cooperatives: A Better Way to Make a Living" http://schedule.sxsw.com/2012/events/event_IAP9313 with Jack Aponte of http://palantetech.com

Starting a cooperative

http://banyanproject.coop/starting-a-news-co-optech-coop@npogroups.org -the best tech-worker-coop-related mailing list that i know ofhttp://npogroups.org/lists/info/tech-coophttp://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/workercoop/infohttp://www.techworker.coop/

My Projects and Interests:LibreBoston.orgAgaric.comPowerToConnect.orgVoipDrupal.org

Micky Metts ~ FreeScholar
Chris Thompson ~ Wolcen

micky@agaric.comchris@agaric.com