@h She's moved on. Frankly, I kind of wish there was more competition in getting out the news about recovered businesses.

That said, I'm trying to get a sense of whether there could be an ongoing conversation between the commons and cooperatives.

@Steve I'm exploring a not too dissimilar avenue, approaching it from the free software side of things. There's some overlaps to be sure, but I'm more about finding ways to interconnect and optimise coop systems and processes.

I'm at early stages of thinking this through, so I thought that hanging out with others who have taken the lead (like @mattcropp and @mayel at #socialcoop) is a good kickstarter for cross-pollination in the meantime, in advance to whenever I'm ready to present my stuff.

@h @mayel @mattcropp Interesting. Can you give some examples of what you'd like to see co-ops doing?

I'm a long-time FLOSS user (Linux-exclusive since '07, after dabbling since '99). Look back in my personal feed for my discussion with @dajbelshaw about #gitit.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel

Example:

- Coop A maintains inventory with widgets it produces
- Coop B maintains inventory and sells a product C produced with components (or ingredients, or chemicals, etc) produced by Coop A
- A produces an invoice for items sold to B. Typically B would get a paper invoice, and would update its records locally, and update its own inventory once the items bought are recorded.

If these systems were capable of being easily linked friction would be removed.

@mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw @Steve Additionally, A would have finely tuned controls to allow some of its customers to watch its inventories, and variations in price. All of A's customers could monitor the best time to buy and compare with other coops who produce substitutes. Not for competition, but for optimal cooperative allocation, which could be a semi-autonomous system.

And all the coops would have to do would be to connect the outputs of one coop with the inputs of another.

@Steve @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Some coops provide services, others deliver products, and many a combination of the two. The products of one coop can often be delivered as an integral package with services by another.

The central idea is to eliminate the friction to cooperation, which will make it trivial for a coop to cooperate with another coop, much easier to work with than a capitalist company (as far as this can be improved on the systems and processes level).

@mayel @mattcropp @dajbelshaw @Steve Eventually, what I would like to see would be a type of Cooperation License Manifest that a system can advertise, specifying the types of operation in which it is willing to engage with another coop's system.

That could help further automate price discovery and financial terms among an ecosystem of coops.

Hypercooperation, if you will.

@h @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Very interesting stuff. I've said that the biggest single problem co-ops face (and the co-ops here in #Madison are a prime example) is that we're not in each other's supply chains. Supply chaining is one of #Mondragon's secrets to success, together with co-op education and co-op financing.

Would it be fair to call this decentralized planning?

@h @dajbelshaw @mattcropp @mayel Well, I'm also comfortable with terms like "libertarian left," which are also prone to being dismissed and/or misunderstood, so I'm OK with agreeing to terms and then not emphasizing them.

Anyhow, I'll be very curious to see how your work lines up with a commons-based economy. The physical commons were emergent over centuries, but I think the digital commons will have to be more deliberate.