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* The [http://concernedcitizens.co.nz/ Concerned Citizens Trust] is using Loomio to collectively approve exhibition proposals at their Open-Source Community Gallery.
* The [http://concernedcitizens.co.nz/ Concerned Citizens Trust] is using Loomio to collectively approve exhibition proposals at their Open-Source Community Gallery.
=Discussion=
==New Vehicles for Group Deliberation and Governance==
David Bollier:
"Activists, techies and entrepreneurs are devising some fascinating new structures for group
deliberation, self-provisioning, governance and finance. Most of these are far from the
mainstream, but typically the future is incubated on the periphery. That is where Enspiral
originated, a New Zealand-based (and now international) network of 300 people that describes
itself as “a non-hierarchical distributed network of entrepreneurs, professionals and hackers who
are using the tools of business and technology to make positive social change.”19 Enspiral consists
of many different small enterprises, social ventures and collaborative software tools.
One of its most significant projects is Loomio, an activist-driven tech cooperative that has
developed an open source app for collaborative decisionmaking.
The idea for Loomio arose in
2011 when the Occupy movement in Wellington, New Zealand wanted to find a more scalable way
to make inclusive group decisions. “We wanted to create a world where anyone, anywhere, can
participate in decisions that affect them, and weave diverse perspectives into one, via collective
wisdom,” said Benjamin Knight, cofounder of Loomio. The app provides “an online space for
purpose-driven people to talk, build shared understanding and build creative courses of real-world
action,” he said.
More than 80,000 people in 93 countries are now using this open-source software tool. It is being
used by city councils and grocery cooperatives in India, and by Podemos in Spain and the Pirate
Party in Greece. Hungarian student activists used the app to organize successfully against
government funding cuts in education. The Sunflower movement in Taiwan used it to organize
against secrecy in trade negotiations with the Chinese; the Taiwanese government later adopted
Loomio to host collaborative decision-making with citizens.21 Instead of making decisions through
unstructured meetings in which the loudest voices, demographically large groups or people with
lots of discretionary time can dominate the process – effectively excluding most others – Loomio
provides a network-friendly system that blends the advantages of both top-down and bottom-up
decision-making.

The Enspiral network – legally a limited liability corporation but functionally and culturally a coop –
has spawned another fascinating app, Co-budget. This app allows Enspiral members to use a
transparent democratic process to allocate money in the group account in proportion to how much
each person has contributed to it. People can solicit support from group members asking them to
fund specific “buckets” of expenditures – a software project, a convening, specific business
expenditures, or anything else. The system also allows the transfer of money among its members,
in effect functioning as a virtual banking system and a walled garden of autonomy, transparency
and flexibility.
It’s noteworthy that this system is not just about money; it’s about building social trust within the
community. One counterintuitive result of the co-budgeting process, said Alanna Krause of
Enspiral, “is that it stops people from volunteering too much and burning out. A budget gives you
social validation and a way to match people’s interests and output to what the system can fairly
support.” Many Enspiral members see their platforms as powerful engines for building an
alternative economy and society. Krause envisions Enspiral platforms evolving to handle peer-to-peer
credit lines, crowdlending, basic income, and alternatives to taxes and interest.
Enspiral is but one example of an innovative organizational form, the “open value network,” or
OVN, that is emerging. OVNs consist of digital platforms that facilitate new modes of open,
decentralized and self-organized social governance, production and livelihoods. OVNs are
organized in ways that let anyone to contribute to the project, and be rewarded based on their
contributions, as measured by actual contributions, experience and other collectively determined
criteria.
OVNs have been described as an “operating system for a new kind of organization” and
a “pilot project for the new economy.” Other fledgling OVN projects include Sensorica, the iAGRI
innovation portfolio, Greener Acres, metamaps and Guerrilla Translation."
(https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/transnational-republics-commoning-reinventing-governance-through-emergent.pdf)




Revision as of 01:51, 18 June 2016

= An online tool for collaborative decision-making.

URL = https://www.loomio.org/

Description

1.

"Groups of all sizes make better decisions when all voices are heard, so we’re building a system that makes it easy and efficient for anyone to participate in decisions that affect them."


2. Josef Davies-Coates:

"Loomio — a free and open source tool for collaborative decision-making — is what happened when Enspiral met Occupy. Enspiral were committed to being a flat organisation, empowering employees to be autonomous and involved in leadership and decision making. But without the right platform, the overheads of engaging lots of people made it hard to deliver on this grand vision. In practice, only a few people were making most of the important decisions. Similarly, Occupy activists were finding it hard to make consensus decisions with large groups of people. Loud voices dominated and people with less time to commit to the process were being marginalised. They were missing out on the power of including a truly diverse range of perspectives. Together they developed Loomio." (http://stirtoaction.com/open-co-ops-inspiration-legal-structures-and-tools/)


3.

"Something interesting happened in 2011. Millions of people all over the world took part in a wave of pro-democracy movements, demanding a change in the way our biggest institutions operate.

Loomio is what happened when a bunch of activists from the Occupy movement and businesspeople from a social enterprise network called Enspiral realised that they were using different approaches to work towards the same aim: a more sustainable and equitable world.

The Loomio project is about individual voices contributing to collective action: enabling all people to have a say in decisions that affect them in all aspects of life – in their community, their workplace, and the world.

Loomio is being built by a team of passionate volunteers in Wellington, New Zealand, and a wider network of friends and supporters all over the world. We’re operating on a non-profit basis, but recognise that Loomio needs to be self-sufficient long term to have as much positive social impact as possible. We’re currently figuring out the fairest way of charging groups who have a budget to pay for helpful tools, so we can help groups who are doing great stuff in the community with no budget." (https://www.loomio.org/pages/about)


Examples

  • Enspiral is using Loomio to make business decisions and collaboratively write their employment contracts.
  • Diaspora , the massively anticipated open-source social network project, is using Loomio to transition to a community-driven governance model.
  • The Concerned Citizens Trust is using Loomio to collectively approve exhibition proposals at their Open-Source Community Gallery.


Discussion

New Vehicles for Group Deliberation and Governance

David Bollier:

"Activists, techies and entrepreneurs are devising some fascinating new structures for group deliberation, self-provisioning, governance and finance. Most of these are far from the mainstream, but typically the future is incubated on the periphery. That is where Enspiral originated, a New Zealand-based (and now international) network of 300 people that describes itself as “a non-hierarchical distributed network of entrepreneurs, professionals and hackers who are using the tools of business and technology to make positive social change.”19 Enspiral consists of many different small enterprises, social ventures and collaborative software tools.

One of its most significant projects is Loomio, an activist-driven tech cooperative that has developed an open source app for collaborative decisionmaking.

The idea for Loomio arose in 2011 when the Occupy movement in Wellington, New Zealand wanted to find a more scalable way to make inclusive group decisions. “We wanted to create a world where anyone, anywhere, can participate in decisions that affect them, and weave diverse perspectives into one, via collective wisdom,” said Benjamin Knight, cofounder of Loomio. The app provides “an online space for purpose-driven people to talk, build shared understanding and build creative courses of real-world action,” he said.

More than 80,000 people in 93 countries are now using this open-source software tool. It is being used by city councils and grocery cooperatives in India, and by Podemos in Spain and the Pirate Party in Greece. Hungarian student activists used the app to organize successfully against government funding cuts in education. The Sunflower movement in Taiwan used it to organize against secrecy in trade negotiations with the Chinese; the Taiwanese government later adopted Loomio to host collaborative decision-making with citizens.21 Instead of making decisions through unstructured meetings in which the loudest voices, demographically large groups or people with lots of discretionary time can dominate the process – effectively excluding most others – Loomio provides a network-friendly system that blends the advantages of both top-down and bottom-up decision-making. ? The Enspiral network – legally a limited liability corporation but functionally and culturally a coop – has spawned another fascinating app, Co-budget. This app allows Enspiral members to use a transparent democratic process to allocate money in the group account in proportion to how much each person has contributed to it. People can solicit support from group members asking them to fund specific “buckets” of expenditures – a software project, a convening, specific business expenditures, or anything else. The system also allows the transfer of money among its members, in effect functioning as a virtual banking system and a walled garden of autonomy, transparency and flexibility.

It’s noteworthy that this system is not just about money; it’s about building social trust within the community. One counterintuitive result of the co-budgeting process, said Alanna Krause of Enspiral, “is that it stops people from volunteering too much and burning out. A budget gives you social validation and a way to match people’s interests and output to what the system can fairly support.” Many Enspiral members see their platforms as powerful engines for building an alternative economy and society. Krause envisions Enspiral platforms evolving to handle peer-to-?peer credit lines, crowdlending, basic income, and alternatives to taxes and interest.

Enspiral is but one example of an innovative organizational form, the “open value network,” or OVN, that is emerging. OVNs consist of digital platforms that facilitate new modes of open, decentralized and self-organized social governance, production and livelihoods. OVNs are organized in ways that let anyone to contribute to the project, and be rewarded based on their contributions, as measured by actual contributions, experience and other collectively determined criteria.

OVNs have been described as an “operating system for a new kind of organization” and a “pilot project for the new economy.” Other fledgling OVN projects include Sensorica, the iAGRI innovation portfolio, Greener Acres, metamaps and Guerrilla Translation." (https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/transnational-republics-commoning-reinventing-governance-through-emergent.pdf)


More Information

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