OPEN 2019: Community Gathering – Decentralised Collaboration -- The Open Co-op

TLDR@ OPEN is the main Platform Cooperative conference. I’ve been invited to deliver a presentation about the Aragon Cooperative DAO, as one of a ‘handful of new, distributed, cooperative, technical and social projects, through a selection of lightning talks. After that attendees will be guided to co-design the event by proposing, refining and voting on the content for the rest of the two days’ sessions’ – building on those initial lightening talks.

’What you plan to do with the funds’

180DAI (£140) Ticket to Present and Attend OPEN:2019 Conference
150DAI (£115.30) super off-peak return. Travel to London via train (approx 500 miles round trip)
190DAI (£150) Accommodation Budget (Two (2) nights in cheap Bed & Breakfast/Pension type room lodgings [in Central London])
600DAI = 2 x AGP-40 Agreed CoopDAO Human Working Day Rate
=1120DAI
+10% Contingency

= 1232 DAI IN TOTAL

what the specific deliverables are
Giving a presentation (lightening talk) about the Aragon Cooperative DAO.
Promoting, exploring and educating knowledgeable Cooperative practitioners from around the globe about the work we are doing both in the Coop and across the Aragon Network as a whole.
Shilling Aragon and the ‘Year of the DAO’ lf.
Taking part in various potential Media opportunities (last year this event garnered significant cross-media attention)
Mucho Networking (workin’ the room baby:) :star_struck:

when you plan to deliver them

Leaving home midday Wed 26th June - midnight Fri 28th June
(as I’m sure many are aware, conferences are just ‘on’).

Notes
Huge HT to @light who flagged this Event up yesterday.
I emailed them a brief proposal and was offered a place on the Lightening Talk list in minutes.
Last years’ OPEN:2018 was a key event for digital cooperativism, with many ‘big players’ in the field attending.
This years event is exploring an interesting structure:
" The OPEN 2019 Community Gathering is an open space event designed to strengthen the network of communities and organisations that are working on building a collaborative, regenerative economy.

In previous years, we’ve promoted platform co-ops in a traditional conference format. This year we’re doing things differently and will be exploring opportunities to increase decentralised collaboration in a completely open space format. We’re proud to be working on collaboration with Phoebe Tickell and Nati Lombardo from Enspiral, to convene and facilitate the event."

Ideally it would be good to have a verdict soon so I can book tickets at their 1 month prior (26th May) cheaper deals (trains & accommodation) but obviously understand if that’s not possible.

I’m guessing that they’ll hold onto a ticket for me (will check) but there’s only 150 of those.

Happy to discuss in more detail below…

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As per the lovely logic of Radical Openness - here’s the proposal I sent to the organisers:

" Hello, My name’s Julian, I’m one of two current coordinators for the recently formed cooperative digital collective, the ‘Aragon Cooperative DAO’. DAO’s (Decentralised Autonomous Organisations) have been described as ‘non-hierarchical organizations that perform and record routine tasks on a peer-to-peer, cryptographically secure, public network, and rely on the contributions of their internal stakeholders to operate, manage, and evolve the organization through a democratic consultation process’.

As far as we are aware, the Aragon Cooperative DAO is the first functioning DAO intentionally operating as a Cooperative organisation, and thus we are happily investigating and experimenting with groundbreaking governance processes and tools. Initially funded by a small Aragon Governance Proposal (AGP-40) grant equating to fair pay for 'One Human Working Day, Five Days per Week) for Three Months (May - July 2019), this funds two Coordinators working two days per week, and further monies available for a range of tasks, or ‘bounties’, distributed amongst our membership (currently twenty three, with another twenty three awaiting full membership).

Some of our roles within the wider Aragon Network (see aragon.org), includes being a purposeful Democratic response to Aragon Network Token (ANT) Holder Plutocracy, working with and for ANT Holders to signal researched voting intentions, collectivising community sentiment beyond chat room and fora discussion, sharing documentation of internal processes, testing experimental apps, organising educational opportunities and external knowledge distribution, building potential communities of Cooperative DAO Practitioners.

I would be very interested in attending the event, providing a Lightening Talk on this topic, and exploring some of the fascinating emergent opportunities Cooperative DAO’s can present, in much greater depth within a potentially curious and experienced Cooperative community. Certainly from several discussions I’ve taken part in, with a wide range of groups, there exists much appetite, and perceived value, for many of the innovatory mechanisms that our Cooperative DAO affords.

Wishing you well,

Julian"

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:raised_hands::raised_hands::raised_hands:

I support this proposal as-is and won’t leave it hanging with no votes :wink: given the time crunch @Julian I say put this proposal in the app on Monday if there are no major changes requested over the weekend.

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I got lost for a momment, sorry…

This 600 DAI are in scope of the AGP-40 grant, so it shall be asked to the Coop-DAO budget, not to the CFDAO…

For the rest of the budget: 582 DAI* in my count, I’d be more than happy to support this innitiative, @Julian is for sure one of the members that participate in Aragon forum, and I think he can share meaningfull insights to the community!

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Can you quote the part of AGP-40 that you think would cover this kind of work? My reading suggests attending events is outside the scope.

(In any case, if @Julian would prefer not to apply this towards his two days per week Coop work, I support that; the CFDAO is quite flush right now and I think the 600 DAI would be well spent.)

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I would prefer to not apply this to my 2 days p.w. work. Though, for me, perhaps there is an argument that such work could be perceived as part of our AGP-40 mandated tasks, there’s already Coop Coordination demands on my time above and beyond our allotted 2 days per week.

Could I highlight as well that this opportunity will require marshaling significant preparation resources - has to be :fire:

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actually I can’t, what confused me is the way it’s stated here as it would be part of that scope but the money is requested here

that being said, if the requirement includes a request for payment for Julian’s time while he’s there as it is (ignoring the AGP-40 relation), I think this has sense to be approved! :smiley: and I will support this vote.

On other side, and since Julian’s coordination’s work in the Cooperative is mentioned here, I feel the responsibility to bring transparency to people reading this post, and let them know that Julian’s future involvement as a coordinator is currently under the judgement of Coop members as per #ACPP-1 & #ACGP-4 Discussion Thread

Apologies for the confusion here @sepu85 . The above line was meant to signify the fee being ‘the going rate’, rather than meaning any direct connection with my CoopDAO transactions (work).

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As advised:
https://mainnet.aragon.org/#/agp10.aragonid.eth/0xdbe4a3cc1eca108c1215d974b9bab8863f522b75
THX @light for your assistance with this :pray::smiley:

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@Julian in light of the turbulence in the Coop, would you say that the organization is ready to be represented at an event like this, and that it would be able to represent Aragon in a positive light? After reviewing the ongoing threads and Keybase chats and thinking about this some more, it may be premature to present the Coop to this conference (and have that be the OPEN community’s first exposure to Aragon) while the fate of the organization hangs in the balance as it does. Perhaps an event like this may be more beneficial once the Coop organization and its processes are stabilized a bit. What is your opinion on this?

(I welcome input from other Coop members on this as well, who may have more context than I do about what’s going on.)

Hey John,
I’d like to think that whatever happens in this current situation, should have no bearing whatsoever on my commitment to represent the Aragon Cooperative DAO in anything other than the best possible light - and thus the Aragon Network itself.

I’m a fully signed-up member of the Aragon ethos, manifesto and ethical position that implies.

I’ve said I’m happy to step down from my current position if that’s what the community would wish to do. Equally I’ve said that I’m ok with this, and fully intend to take actively take part in whichever governance processes are deemed most appropriate to move the Coop forward.
Still very much see my role as applying for funds from tasks that we were planning on doing as part of our roles - it’ll just be the heavy cat-herding and more behind the scenes stuff that I’ll have to not take an as active part in (though would still argue such work is vital to the potential success of the organisation).

I’ve already been approached to do a couple more of the these How to DAO with Aragon type gigs, and am actually really up for it, as well as think I’ll be pretty darn good at it. Think this is a really solid method to get the good word out and about in communities not yet aware of both how simple these tools are to make use of, and also how powerful they can be once put into the right hands.

I’m really committed to this you know.

[EDIT] - Can I add too that there’s still a meeting planned for this evening for those interested in doing so, to help clear the air, talk some of this through and propose methods for progression.

We’ve also said it would make some sense to take some time out, disengage a little, and come back clearer. What is undeniable is that this really matters to people, we just need to harness this evident energy better - it’s a powerful thing we have here.

I have to admit I have encountered feelings about this, I mean…

Julian does not represent anymore the Cooperative, the keybase chat speaks for itself so don’t think this is up to discussion. I won’t really like that if this funding is approved Julian would be feel empowered somehow to represent nor the Aragon brand nor the Aragon Coop. I mean, he surely does’t represent me, nor other members.

On the other side, I feel like we should still support him in going there, maybe he would gather the leanings about decentralization, collaboration, openness and transparency that lacked so much in these last weeks. Also, as mentioned before:

so I think those 1232 DAI would be spent well.

I will only demand a gentlemen commitment from @Julian to guarantee us all, that he won’t be presenting himself as an Aragon representative before deciding in supporting this.

Gus, I’m truly sorry you’re in so much pain you would write this.
None of this is helping anyone,here or on keybase, least of all that which you claim to represent.