A Role for Drupal in Movements, Communities and Platform Cooperativism
Summary
Session speaker(s): freescholar
How can your Drupal skills and knowledge plug into a movement? Getting off the Island is a fun thing to do, especially when you are aligned with a cause or mission. I started out in a silo as a one person Drupal Agency, and when I joined a cooperative, things began to get exciting. I went from chasing potential opportunities, to joining and building networks of collaboration, introducing Drupal as a foundation. I do what I love to do, all the time.
My cooperative is a member of a movement called: Platform Cooperativism. This movement has been coalesced over 4 years of events led by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider and is sponsored by the New School in NYC. I spoke about the nuts and bolts of my cooperative – how we are structured and earn $ and how we are paid etc. We use Drupal to give people as much power over their own lives as possible!
Agaric got involved with Platform Cooperativism as a way to introduce free software to the movement, and to help other cooperatives and individuals take control of their websites, using Drupal.
A new handbook is being published in October 2016 on Platform Cooperativism and I am excited to have contributed a chapter in this upcoming book on my experience in a worker-owned web development cooperative and how it relates to the larger picture of our future work –
Ours to Hack and to Own – Edited by Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider: The rise of platform cooperativism, a new vision for the future of work and a fairer Internet.
The Platform Cooperativism movement calls for an Internet of Ownership It is a vision for online platforms that share democratic ownership and governance with their stakeholders, especially those who contribute their labor and personal data.
• What is the role of the millions of people who contribute to social networks in governing their behavior? • What role can free software and Drupal play in Platform Cooperativism? • What other movements does it intersect with?
This session will include ample time for Questions and Answers, and a general discussion on ways to bring your creative Drupal skills to movements and communities that are not particularly tech savvy or full of developers.