Be part of PlatformCoop, the Book

[chadwhitacre]

I received an email with the above subject from @nathanairplane. Posting with permission (#411).

Dear Chad,

Remember Platform Cooperativism? We had a blast and learned a ton. By the end, there was a lot of talk about a meaningful follow-up. A lot of people have a lot of ideas about this, but here’s one of ours: We’re putting together a book, so that some of the knowledge and vision we experienced can be more easily shared. And we’d love to have Gratipay as part of it.

This is not an academic volume. We’re thinking of it as a handbook for people who actually want to make and join platform cooperatives. And a key part of this, for us, is to present a showcase of the existing projects that constitute the emerging ecosystem. This is where you come in. For each project in the showcase, we’re asking a representative to fill out this brief form to give readers a sense of your work. The total text is only around 250 to 300 words—so expect to be concise as well as eloquent.

As we want to keep the momentum going for this movement-in-the-making, we need to move quickly. Drafts are due on Sunday, January 24. Seriously. We’ll do a bit of revision, but we’re aiming to get the whole thing turned in by April Fool’s Day. If you can’t keep up, we’ll be sorry to lose you.

Our publisher is OR Books, which had a presence at our event and which has published important books on digital politics with people like Julian Assange, Elissa Shevinsky, and Micah Sifry, as well as our own Tom Slee and Douglas Rushkoff. In order to proceed, we need you to sign and send back the attached contract. This is important; without it, we cannot move ahead. There is no pay for contributions. Proceeds from sales will go directly to organizations developing the platform co-op ecosystem. You will, however, receive two free copies of the book.

Logistically, this is a rather arduous process, and we are delighted that the media scholar Samira Rajabi, who is copied here, will be assisting us in pulling the effort together. Expect to be in contact with her over the course of the project.

By way of recap, here’s the order of things:

• Before January 10, tell us whether or not you can commit to the project. Send Samira your signed contract by then, too.
• Fill out this form by January 24.
• Wait to hear back from us with edits, and return a revision before the deadline we set.
• When the book comes out, tell everyone you know how great it is.

In cooperation,
Nathan and Trebor

ContributorAgreement.pdf

[chadwhitacre]

What does it do?
(What service do you offer, how do you offer it, and what is the value proposition?)

Who owns it, and how do you make decisions?
(How do you share ownership and governance? Who is included, and how? Who is not?)

How are you making it work?
(What are or have been your needs for tech, financing, and growth, and how have you met them, or how do you plan to meet them? How can cooperative practices help?)

Where are you now, and where are you headed?
(How far have you come? What accomplishments are you proudest of? What are you expecting to accomplish in the next few years?)

Please answer the questions above in the box below, one paragraph for each.
Answer will be capped at 1,900 characters.

[chadwhitacre]

Background: #384.

[chadwhitacre]

Hearing no objections, I sent back the signed contract this morning. Hopefully we're not too late. :(

[chadwhitacre]

Sounds like we're not too late. :-)

Now, what should our responses be?

[chadwhitacre]

Here's a first crack (public but unlisted) at answering these questions.

[chadwhitacre]

Take two ... trimmed down to within sight of the 1900-character limit, needs another revision ...

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What does it do?
(What service do you offer, how do you offer it, and what is the value proposition?)

Gratipay offers payments and payroll for open, collaborative, commons-based projects and organizations. We offer our service over the Internet, and our value proposition is that we enable organizations to maintain their open and collaborative identity and comply with the global financial and legal system. We compete on mission because we ourselves are an open, collaborative commons, and we compete on cost because our fees are pay-what-you-want through our own platform.

Who owns it, and how do you make decisions?
(How do you share ownership and governance? Who is included, and how? Who is not?)

As a legal entity, Gratipay is an LLC with a minimal set of owners, just enough to get by. As a commons in the free and open-source software (FOSS) tradition, on the other hand, Gratipay is a benevolent dictatorship with a large and fluid membership, distributed along a spectrum from casual to
committed. Practically all of our decision-making happens in public on the Internet. For us, de facto sharing via openness is more important than de jure sharing via legal structures. See our company portal at inside.gratipay.com for full descriptions of our membership and governance policies.

How are you making it work?
(What are or have been your needs for tech, financing, and growth, and how have you met them, or how do you plan to meet them? How can cooperative practices help?)

Gratipay is funded from revenue, which has been rewarding, yet challenging. Work is time, and time is money. All other bottlenecks reduce to a bottleneck in capital. We've had trouble with financing beyond revenue, because we blur the lines between company and charity: neither capitalists nor philanthropists know quite what to do with us. We have some potential solutions to this problem—cooperative capital?—but the example of other successfully bootstrapped companies is also inspiring. In any event, we depend entirely on the Gratipay community and FOSS models of cooperation.

Where are you now, and where are you headed?
(How far have you come? What accomplishments are you proudest of? What are you expecting to accomplish in the next few years?)

Gratipay has processed over $1M since launching in 2012. We’re proud of this modest accomplishment, because we’ve achieved it while also pioneering an open, collaborative organizational structure in a heavily regulated industry. Along the way we've survived several existential crises, so that today we have a small but loyal community that has been through a lot together. We process about $5,000 per month for about 150 projects and organizations, and we’ve learned a lot about what it will take to achieve our mission. The task before us now is to keep steadily cultivating an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love.

[chadwhitacre]

Third time's the charm?

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What does it do?
(What service do you offer, how do you offer it, and what is the value proposition?)

Gratipay offers payments and payroll for open organizations. We offer our service over the Internet, and our value proposition is that we enable open organizations to comply with the global financial and legal system. We compete on mission because we ourselves are an open organization, and we compete on cost because our fees are pay-what-you-want through our own platform.

Who owns it, and how do you make decisions?
(How do you share ownership and governance? Who is included, and how? Who is not?)

As a legal entity, Gratipay is an LLC with a minimal set of owners, just enough to get by. As an open organization in the free and open-source software (FOSS) tradition, Gratipay is a benevolent dictatorship that shares power broadly through open, public decision-making on the Internet. Anyone willing to behave well is free to voluntarily participate in our decision-making, our work, and our revenue. See inside.gratipay.com for details.

How are you making it work?
(What are or have been your needs for tech, financing, and growth, and how have you met them, or how do you plan to meet them? How can cooperative practices help?)

Gratipay is funded from revenue. We've had trouble financing beyond revenue, because we blur the line between company and charity: neither capitalists nor philanthropists know quite what to do with us. Our desire to solve this problem so we can grow faster is offset by the example of successfully bootstrapped companies, and by a wariness of greed. Perhaps we should keep growing only as revenue allows?

Where are you now, and where are you headed?
(How far have you come? What accomplishments are you proudest of? What are you expecting to accomplish in the next few years?)

Gratipay has processed over $1M since launching in 2012. We’re proud of this modest accomplishment, because we’ve achieved it while pioneering an open organization in a heavily regulated industry. Along the way we've survived several existential crises, so that today we have a small, loyal community that has been through a lot together. The most inspiring thing about Gratipay is the way that our open organization has enabled people to find not just economic support, but meaning and purpose in a community of work. Today, we process about $5,000 per month for about 150 projects and organizations. We don't know how big we're supposed to get, or how fast we're supposed to get there. Our goal over the next few years is to stay faithful to our mission: to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love.

[chadwhitacre]

Submitted:

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Gratipay offers payments and payroll for open organizations, via the Internet. Our value proposition is that we enable open organizations to comply with the global financial and legal system. We compete on mission because we ourselves are an open organization, and we compete on cost because our fees are pay-what-you-want through our own platform.

As a legal entity, Gratipay is an LLC with a minimal set of owners, just enough to get by. As an open organization in the free and open-source software tradition, Gratipay is a benevolent dictatorship that shares power broadly through public, open decision-making on the Internet. Anyone willing to behave well is free to voluntarily collaborate in our work, and share in our revenue. See inside.gratipay.com for details.

Gratipay's collaborators do most of our work, though we don't hesitate to hire outside experts as needed. We are funded from revenue. Our desire to finance beyond revenue is offset by a wariness of greed, by our difficulty fitting into traditional capitalist or philanthropic boxes, and by the example of other successfully bootstrapped companies.

Gratipay has processed over $1M since we launched four years ago. We’re proud of this modest accomplishment, because we’ve achieved it while pioneering an open organization in a heavily regulated industry. Even better, though, is the way our open organization is enabling people to find not just economic support, but meaning and purpose in a voluntary community of work—a community that has already survived several existential crises together. Today, we process about $5,000 per month for about 150 projects and organizations. We don't know how big we're supposed to get, nor how fast we're supposed to get there. Our goal over the next few years is to faithfully pursue our mission: to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love.

[chadwhitacre]

Looks like I've got an edit link if we want to tweak anything.

[chadwhitacre]

Tinkered with the latter half:

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Gratipay is funded from revenue. Our interest in growing faster than revenue allows is offset by our difficulty fitting into traditional capitalist or philanthropic boxes, by wariness of greed, and by the example of successfully bootstrapped companies. We do most of our work ourselves, though we don't hesitate to hire outside experts as needed.

Gratipay has processed over $1M since we launched four years ago. We’re proud of this modest accomplishment, because we’ve achieved it while pioneering an open organization in a heavily regulated industry. We're even prouder of the way our open organization has enabled people to find not just economic support, but meaning and purpose in a voluntary community of work—a community that has already survived several existential threats together. Today, we process about $5,000 per month for about 150 projects and organizations. We don't know how big we're supposed to get, nor how fast we're supposed to get there. Our goal over the next few years is to stay faithful to our mission: to cultivate an economy of gratitude, generosity, and love.

[chadwhitacre]

Good morning, Samira! I submitted a contribution for Gratipay last night, which I've edited lightly this morning. Looking forward to hearing from you about next steps! :-)

[chadwhitacre]

Thank you so much for your contributions to the platform coop book. We will be submitting our manuscript by the end of this month and wanted to give you one last opportunity to edit your contribution.

We have all of the contributions in this google doc and would love if you can make direct edits in this doc. Please note that the book will come out this coming Fall so make sure that your information is up to date for the time of release.

If you could please send your responses/edits'updates to me by Tuesday at midnight that would be great.

Thank you all for excellent contributions.

[chadwhitacre]

Thank you to those who have sent me edits for your showcases. I am including everyone on this email as I am providing one last opportunity to add changes to this document before it is sent for final edits to the publisher.

I have provided you all access to the google doc so you can make any changes to your section directly.

[]

Thank you for all your continued work. This is going to be a great addition to this necessary and important book!

[chadwhitacre]

The only edit I'm seeing so far is "$1 million" instead of "$1M".

[chadwhitacre]

(I.e., edit made by the editors, not us/me.)

[chadwhitacre]

I changed "Location" from "Ambridge, Pennsylvania" to "Global, with headquarters in Ambridge, Pennsylvania."

[chadwhitacre]

I struck the line:

We do most of our work ourselves, though we don't hesitate to hire outside experts as needed.

[chadwhitacre]

Dear contributors to the platform cooperativism book,

We are delighted to inform you that we are in the final stages of edits with our publishers, OR Books. At this link you will find the full text of the book with comments and edits visible on your contribution. To find your contribution, simply search (by pressing control/Apple-f) for your name, and it should be one of the results. After reviewing those edits/comments, please refer changes to the "Contributor Copyedits" document available at this link. For copyedits please add your name and the name of the chapter; under that, be very specific about each change or comment you want to make, and we will make the changes as necessary.

While we invite your thoughts and commentary, given the extensive editing process we've already gone through, please make minimal changes—unless absolutely possible, only in reference to copyedits made by the publisher.

All edits and comments absolutely must be received by the end of business day June 24th to be included in the book.

Thanks for your continued effort in moving this great project forward.

👍

[chadwhitacre]

Dear Ours to Hack contributors,

You get a free copy of our book! We've just finalized everything and it looks great. It's off to press. Copies will be ready by mid-November.

But we need your addresses. Please fill out this form—say, before Tuesday, October 18:

[]

In the meantime, keep spreading the word! Encourage your networks to get their copy here:
http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/ours-to-hack-and-to-own/

[chadwhitacre]

Done! I have three copies in hand. Gonna drop some off at coworking spaces.