@sam Currently, yes, we rely on OC for bookkeeping. It works since we don't have expenditures or income outside of it. But in the long term it isn't really adequate to play that role for a sophisticated organization.

Hey #Socialcoop members! Do you want to get into the nitty gritty of our co-op? Consider joining the Finance Working Group, where we propose and implement budgets, manage community contributions, and more.

Interested? Let me know!

This interview with @zephoria on social media and youth is a must-listen, especially for parents: https://lookslikenew.net/podcast/what-does-digital-privacy-mean-for-young-people/

The latest episode of my lab's podcast/radio show, #LooksLikeNew.

@kissane Totally with you. I've tried working with several tech co-ops to this for my lab, but I haven't been able to get the cost quite that low for a Cloudron stack.

That said, MayFirst.coop is cheaper than that. It's not VPS, but does web hosting great. I pay Wallabag and Zotero for hosting directly to support the projects; while not co-ops, they act like co-ops.

The Collective Intelligence Project has been doing incredible work lately with bringing democratic practices to AI, incl. w/ OpenAI and Anthropic. I've joined them to take this work one step further: bringing democracy into companies themselves.

Read here: https://www.cip.org/blog/shared-code

@erlend @ntnsndr Yeah! Working on an essay on economic democracy for AI with CIP right now.

On October 29, come join me and some leading co-op builders from Colorado and Puerto Rico at a US Dept. of Agriculture webinar:

"Cooperative Ecosystems: Transformations in Worker Ownership, Housing, Community Development, and Agriculture"

Register here: https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_UTyOzugwRnqXIy7ojzuXpA#/registration

How Has Structural Racism Held Back the Co-op Movement?

Join MEDLab and the E2C Collective for an event on an important new book on the co-op legacy and racial capitalism. Learn more and register here: https://www.colorado.edu/lab/medlab/2024/10/07/how-has-structural-racism-held-back-co-op-movement

The #exittocommunity of @opencollective to a user-governed nonprofit is big news for those of us who rely on it, including #Socialcoop members.

@sam @eamon We do have a collective May First membership, but that does not include email servers at this time—it would be too much overhead for our team. But we encourage folks to join individually (as I do). See info here: https://wiki.social.coop/wiki/May_First_Movement_Technology

@jaz @evan @Identitywoman @j12t Totally. Glad you're really optimizing for non-technical conversations, I think that's essential.

There may be considerable overlap between what we're thinking about and IFTAS Connect—to the point that maybe we should just point people there.

I think the difference might be that a lot of our folks are still ideating, not yet in the weeds of problem solving.

@jaz @evan @Identitywoman @j12t Thanks for this. One thing we're explicitly trying to challenge is the current overlap between admin and community; our working theory (validated by the application pool) is there is a lot of interest in these tools from people who have been intimidated by the technical barriers and the overrepresentation of techies.

@thisismissem @evan @Identitywoman @j12t I'm not familiar with SocialHub—can you point me to more info?

@j12t @evan @Identitywoman @jaz ("Exit to Community" is one of our lab's pet concepts, so theoretically we are experts in those kinds of transitions!)

@j12t @evan @Identitywoman @jaz Yes, and given the nature of the group, it may be possible to transition it to participant leadership if it seems useful. We could continue to participate, but we won't have the same level of funded labor available after the program.

@j12t @evan @Identitywoman I imagine the discussion we'd hope for would focus on things like community management, choices in tools, tech support, governance, codes of conduct, etc.

@j12t @evan @Identitywoman This would be really focused on community builders, not at all devs.

Currently if we build this as part of our cohort process it would be managed by our team at MEDLab. If it has life beyond the cohort period, others might have to take it on or we could intentionally shut it down.

@evan @Identitywoman @j12t Friends, a thought: We had such an overpowering interest in the Open Social Incubator (177 apps for 8 slots) that we are thinking about creating a forum space (prob. Discourse) for people building community in open social networks. We want this to be resonant and mutually supporting with efforts like yours.

Do you see any dangers with this approach, or is there redundancy with anything you're aware of?