Difference between revisions of "Platform roadmap"

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This document is a business plan that specifies an event-line showing our activities to build and deploy the platform network.
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These notes are regarding a concept that is a work in-progress and are to help guide the development of such an organisation on the Organic Design Wiki. A functioning platform would be an example of an [[Open Organisation]]. The question of how to set up a platform arises for people [[on the path]] when they want to surround themselves with others that are on the path to decrease their stress and increase their opportunities and companionship. What form can the living and or working arrangements take to ensure a smooth and harmonious interchange? This is no trivial question, experience has shown us that when communities or teams of any size fail to address it properly, stress, alienation and financial mismanagement are all too common.  
 
  
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For people on the path, the next order of magnitude for organisation up from personal organisation is the platform. Historically this unit has been provided by the family, in modern times this could be looked at more like a team of like-minded people living and/or working together. The platform is a form of collaboration that includes elements of teamwork, flatting and self-employment, but what sets it apart from the contexts mentioned is that is that it is based on people coming together with clearly shared values using decentralised forms of organisation to get things done. It is also different in that it features a strong emphasis on life and work integration, the idea is that people with various interest and abilities come together so that each of them might do what they are most interested in, supported by the other group members. This can work if there is a clear shared awareness of roles and members are selected based on filling gaps in the teams spectrum of abilities.
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It forms the business plan, or simply the Roadmap. This document describes our ongoing work to implement the ideas and principles described in our [[manifesto]]. It is directed at those who share our goals and visions who would like to contribute to help bring them about.  
  
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The idea is that by having organisation in place, many things that can be quite the chore to do or expensive to access for individuals, such as a car or ensuring there is always fresh and healthy food on the table, can be provided by the larger group, thus allowing the individuals to focus more fully on whatever they are good at and enjoy doing. Furthermore, by having a group of well-organised people that are able to work together over time may opportunities may be developed and brought to fruition, allowing the group as a whole to act as a freelance service provider, meaning opportunity and cash-flow is created "in-house", in accord with the values of the group, thus thus allowing the members to overcome the challenge of "right livelihood".
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We call the outcome we are working toward “Platform”, a package of software technologies designed to provide a robust starting point and foundation to help any individual or group to achieve their goals. We envision that this technology can serve to unite existing groups to work together more closely and form larger groups based on shared interests, as well as empowering individuals with information technology that provides flexibility, freedom and privacy.
  
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Of course this way of working is flexible and could be adapted by flats, companies, families or mixtures of these kinds of groupings to add as many or few of these elements as desired.
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We propose that it is possible for people around the world who have shared goals and values to work together much more effectively and harmoniously. The path to achieving this will be to create a flexible framework that can serve as a living, evolving repository for proven and effective methods of collaboration and decision-making, which is easy to change, improve and customise. All users of such a system will be able to contribute to its improvement, much like the Wikipedia has drawn upon a large number of contributors to become the largest and most up-to-date repository of encyclopedic knowledge in a number of languages.
  
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== Global Organisational Concepts ==
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We now have a functional system that we've been using for our own organisation and project management. It still has some critical elements missing and is currently based on a MediaWiki framework (which is why we are calling it [[Wiki Organisation]]). This has been useful for us to develop and refine a prototype within, which also contains the initial content and structure of the Platform. We are currently “packaging” the prototype [[Wiki Organisation]] technology we have developed this way to allow the setting up of Platforms. A foundation exists, but further work is required to document the system and to make it more user friendly, easier to customise, technically efficient and robust.  
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These are ideas for an integrated business management system which platforms may use to manage their own activities as well as coordinating with other platforms. We require a portal to the platform-based organisation, where everything runs together and which is used to run the organisation. The true test of the effectiveness of this interface will be whether [[Business Sitter|someone]] (or a team) with no prior context but experience in dealing with the system could run the organisation using it.  
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*Vision: See [[Organic Design Vision]]
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*Values: See [[Values]]
  
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=== Global ===
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== Goals ==
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The "blue" aspect (goals/knowledge/global) contains information about the platform, relevant research, values statements and links to related organisations as well as the overall goals of the platform network. There is is a definition of the organisational structure the local organisation would like to move toward, this is expressed in terms of products and services as well as roles and resources.
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This is the specific sequence of goals we want to achieve in implementing Platform specification. Each milestone comprises a number of projects and their associated tasks. These "organisational milestones" are conceptually the same as [[W:Milestone_(project_management)|milestones within projects]], except at the level of a whole organisation.
  
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=== Schedule ===
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=== Milestone 1: Business, commercial and funding Structure ===
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In the red section we find the timeline of the local organisation, which gives access to the schedule as well as past and future activities and events within it. Here we find the necessary filters and reports to give us a good understanding of what is happening with the organisation in terms of time. News and updates will also be available through the red section. Currently timeline views are fragmented into email inboxes, wiki-recentchanges, spreadsheets and scheduling applications. These are unified in the red section, which is also where the creation process happens. This is handled through the process of nodal reduction at the nodal root and consists of roles completing tasks at the level of organisations.
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We are currently preparing to [[W:Crowd_funding|crowd-fund]] the first two milestones listed here to give us a fully functional, packaged system to deploy for partner organisations. At this point we will re-assess the most effective path forward. We will be in a position to focus on the development of the [[platform network]] and progress the rest of the milestones in parallel and with much more momentum.
  
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=== Resource ===
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In presenting our work to the public for crowd-funding, we intend to show how much work we have already put into the technology and that we have a solid plan moving forward. We are moving the development work into the public realm to offer transparency, accountability and credibility to potential backers. Our demo system will allow any member of the public to try and use the technology for themselves to see whether it is something they want to use or support. In addition, we plan to offer members of the public an easy way to set up their own wiki organisation for free.  
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In "green" we have access to the local aspects of the organisation and can see its current state in terms of roles and resources. This allows for the management of local infrastructure and other resources. Proper accounting and a complete organisational description allow us to see the current state accurately (sight/awareness) and take this into account when moving toward the goals defined in "blue". For an existing organisation wishing to implement the platform template in order to gain a unified organisational interface, the green interface section is filled in via the process of "[[Borgification]]". This is a service performed by a [[Consultant]], assisted by an [[Operator]] who can aid the process from any Platform via a control uplink established from within the organisation about to be borgified.
 
  
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== Media channels ==
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Organic Design itself is a virtual organisation, comprising members who share the vision of Organic Design, who use the [[Wiki Organisation]] prototype to collaborate on a range of projects, including the development of the system itself. The Organic Design wiki is also a collaborative effort, it serves as a development hub and repository for research and other documentation. [[About Organic Design]] elaborates further on the organisation, which has been operating in this evolving form for the past five years. [[Organic Ontology]] gives further detail on the structure of the current organic design departments and the scope of the work.
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Platforms and [[sanctuary|sanctuaries]] both exhibit an [[education]]al aspect as part of their system design. This is accessed as [[channel]]s of information and media such as documentaries or platform [[news]]/[[newsletter]]s. These channels ensure that all members have a good shared context and are all up to speed with their plans and current state of affairs. [[The project]]'s channels will include many [[documentaries]] about the state of the world and the conceptual nature of how these ways have come to dominate as well as about the many groups which are successfully making a positive difference and their common patterns of success.
 
  
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== Related Concepts ==
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Organic Design maintains a mutual benefit relationship with the Platform One project. Platform One will be a new kind of sustainable learning community in rural New Zealand, designed to develop and model new sustainable technologies and showcase existing innovative environmental, software and social technologies. The Platform One charitable trust, as the legal and financial management foundation, has a constitution incorporating the core of the Organic Design manifesto and will use the Platform technology as a foundation for all software systems and the IT infrastrucutre. In doing so, the trust will drive the development of the Platform technology and the Platform network, while ensuring that all operational methods and procedures will be available as a "living template", allowing the entire organisation to be "cloned" and implemented in parallel on a wider scale. This lends considerable leverage to the work done at Platform One, allowing effective solutions to be deployed rapidly and aiding the development efforts undertaken by exposing the work to global peer-review. In collaboration with Organic Design, the stakeholders of Platform One will be able to eventually foster an entire eco-system of learning communities.
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*[[Set up a Platform]] - procedure
 
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*[[Platform network]]
 
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*[[Channel]]
 
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*[[Sanctuary]]
 
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The next order of magnitude is a group of platforms that may form larger organisations together as the need or desire arises amongst the members. This would lead to the organic formation of sanctuaries.
 
  
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== Organisations that will be based on the Platform template ==
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=== Milestone 2: Prototype Organisation System Complete ===
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*[[Platform 1]]
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By the time we reach this milestone, our system will be available for use by members of the public, who will be able to set up a free, private trial version of the demo system. The first step toward this is to move the development work around [[Wiki Organisation]] to the public OD wiki, out from our private beta testing wiki. Packaging is at a level where someone can download the wiki technology with a basic set of records and subscribe to updates from the demo system. Development can continue in the form of releasing [[packages]] to extend the functionality of the org system. People can choose to set up their own "blank" system, one with user guides, with demo content, or OD default content ("live" projects to improve the system itself).  
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*[[Organic Design]]
 
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*[[ADEFT.COM|Adeft]]
 
  
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== Related work ==
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The goal is to define the minimal set of features and content required for this stage and to separate out development work that can be handled as part of the package release cycle. In addition to being able to maintain a synchronised system, the users are also able to share selected data with other trusted entities or the general public using the system. This allows users to create and publish projects within the trusted network. Some design and UI improvements will round off the initial system.
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*The coworking movement has set up many shared work facilities, although there is not a strong awareness of shared systems, it tends to be more casual
 
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*"Outpost" - based on Post-carbon Institute definition
 
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*"Headquarters" - good in the sense that it conveys the notion of a place where everything runs together, although this name may imply centralisation
 
  
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== Old notes from About OD ==
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=== Milestone 3: Prototype Fully Packaged and Deployment-ready ===
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[[Category:Organic Design]]
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By the end of this phase, we will have the packaging of the system refined to the level where it is self-contained and can run offline. What we mean with that specifically, is that anyone could cheaply obtain an installation CD or memory stick with the current version of the desired Platform software package and install it on any computer they desired, to "boot up" into a free operating system complete with any software required, as well as a range of copyright-free content such as the Wikipedia. Upon opening a web browser, the user could then access a fully functional [[Wiki Organisation]] containing the Platform interface. Some people may also wish to do this using a "live" system that could be removed again without making changes to the host computer.
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{{stub}}
 
  
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=== The Project ===
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The Platform software package could then be set up on a number of other computers to be used by the members of the platform to do work, locally or further afield. Users of the Platform software package will then be able to choose from a number of methods to exchange software updates, emails, organisational records, files and other data, rather than gambling the continuity of their work on the assumption of uninterrupted availability of broadband Internet connections. This is not to say that the Platform software package would not take full advantage of fast Internet, the availability of which would allow for dynamic video and 3d interaction between members. This approach also brings with it the ability to distribute data securely across a trust network and securely log into one's own personal "roaming profile", containing all up-to-date personal files and settings. In this way, people using the Platform software package will have access to [[W:cloud computing|cloud computing]] services with the peace of mind they offer, without having to sacrifice their privacy.
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The big-picture project of which the Yi is an instance of an attempted solution, ie supplying tools to the common people allowing them to grow organisation in accord with the fundamental patterns. Organic Design is an organisation that is set up like a "branch office" to carry out work on behalf of the project in the region covered by its nodes.
 
  
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=== People & their Roles ===
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We intend to use the technology at this stage to expand our network of aligned organisations using a shared system, by offering customisation and consultancy services around Platform implementation. This activity will presumably result in a boost to the development efforts around the Platform software packages and an ensuing decentralisation of development work, taking the pressure off Organic Design and giving rise to other flavours of Platform, with other names, in other languages, which would necessitate the development of a language- and technology-independent specification of the Platform, so that in spite of increasing diversity within the network, effective collaboration will remain easy.
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'''[[User:Nad|Aran]]''''s role is to direct the path of development of the nodal model and develop its software implementations. My responsibility lies firstly with The Project, Organic Design is the org I've set up to help assist in The Project development, but is currently not trading. My main areas of development are the nodal-core, network-architecture, interface-geometry.
 
  
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'''[[User:Milan|Milan]]''' works for The Project voluntarily, and is in the process of setting up a similar organisation to Organic Design to support his work on The Project. Milan specialises in finding and connecting with other aligned organisations and maintaining relationships and information between these various organisations and roles.
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=== Milestone 4: Technology-Independent Specification and Development ===
 +
The focus of this stage of development is to develop a specification of Platform technology that is technology and language-independent, an open standard that can be implemented in any technology or language while maintaining interoperability between the numerous implementations. The result of this effort will be the full decentralisation and internationalisation of the Platform development work. It also means that the Platform can be implemented in the most up-to-date technologies, to allow for effective integration between functions like email, project management and social networking, while making communication more dynamic, adding voice and video collaboration where the bandwidth is available. [[w:Extensible_Messaging_and_Presence_Protocol|XMPP]] currently appears like a good standard to use for creating such a specification, the potential of which has been demonstrated by Google with their "[https://wave.google.com Wave]" application. We envisage a subscription model, where different aspects of the Platform, including the interface, are "curated" by different groups and the users can specify which groups' settings, updates or content they would like to see reflected in their own Platform.
  
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'''[[User:Rob|Rob]]''' is a voluntary developer for The Project specialising in Graphical interfaces, PERL and [[Peerix]] aspects.
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This stage of development, with Platform no longer being constrained by limitations of specific technologies such as MediaWiki, will be ideal for creating a user interface standard for Platform that is based on the most current technologies and is focussed on making the platform as user-friendly as possible. The challenge will be to create a consistent experience across the whole range of software packages used, while still allowing for flexibility in customisation and making effective use of resources such as broadband Internet or hardware graphics acceleration while not assuming the availability of such resources. The challenge of creating a unified "look and feel" also encompasses creating a consistent experience across a broad range of currently separate applications, such as browsing the web, working on emails, managing projects or updating accounts in the book-keeping application. We need a simple, consistent and solid interface that ties together all aspects of creating and growing an organisation, which can reveal complexity where desired.
  
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'''[[User:Sven|Sven]]''' is a voluntary developer for The Project specialising in PERL, R, LaTeX and Statistical analysis.
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At the end of this stage we will have an evolving set of turn-key organisations that can be used by members of the network to set up new organisations in response to the demand within the network. This is an important aspect the specification mentioned above will need to cater to. We envisage a "wizard" interface that consultants can use to create a new Platform, which is able to tap into any existing resources to create a full inventory and then compare such an inventory with current demands within the platform network to suggest products or services to offer. Having technology abstraction means that all the consultants and their clients need to discuss are everyday concepts such as what kind of skills employees have, what kind computers and software are available to the organisation, what kind of financial and production capital is available. By providing forms to fill in this information, the Platform software then converts these everyday concepts into machine-readable format and publishes them within the Platform network. The software can then suggest the most efficient legal structures and most rewarding value propositions based on the data within the network. The foundation technology to do this has existed for some time and it is often referred to as "[[W:Semantic_Web|the Semantic Web]]".
  
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'''[[User:Jack|Jack]]''' is a voluntary writer for The Project attempting to make the workings of the nodal-core generally accessible.
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=== Milestone 5: Currency and Trade ===
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With the foundation of the previous milestones in place, at the end of this stage of development we envisage a range of new services to be supported and enhanced by the Platform network that were previously too complex to orchestrate or which require a certain economy of scale. These services include the provision of currency, insurance schemes and investment capital, allowing Platforms to be set up in a wider range of industries, including farming projects, high-tech fabrication plants for computer hardware, hospitals, universities, banks or even civil engineering projects such as roads and railway systems.  
  
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'''[[User:Phalseid|Peder]]''' works for The Project voluntarily, and uses the tools on Organic Design as a personal management system, as well as a testbed for training business on [[the project]]
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We see a growing demand for groups to effectively formulate policies and goals and to raise the resources required from their members to implement them, with full accountability provided by the underlying technology. This technology should also ensure access by all stakeholders<ref>Loosely: anyone affected by the project, department or organisation</ref> and empower them to review, question or provide feedback on any aspect of the work undertaken. We hope that the Platform network can help meet this demand. It is even plausible at this stage that some of the new non-territorial nations could be represented within the Platform network. Those nations could offer their "customers" citizenship, protection, standards development and welfare services in return for moderate "membership fees", while maintaining full transparency of accounts.
  
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=== Organic Design Limited ===
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We envision this trend resulting in significant empowerment of individuals and families worldwide who are now free to choose between number of economic and legal systems, leading nation-states and other sovereignties to compete for potential citizens by offering more efficient and transparent services, pristine natural environments or more opportunities for social, intellectual and spiritual advancement. All of the above, we hope.
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An organisation set up by me (Aran) for assisting with the development of The Project through its organisational structure, not through its ability to generate profit. It is a legal trading entity that could be paid for performing services in the field, and any profit generated goes into paying fairly for man-hours and required resources, and into propagation and growth of other independent Project instances. It is not currently trading since development hasn't yet reached a stage where it can support the its intended services. After it reaches that stage, it is intended to build and run the Organic Design Limited business system using the developed tools.
 
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*Organic Design Limited currently has no staff, clients, suppliers or any relationships. It owns a domain name, and has a single director/shareholder (Aran).
 
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*Organic Design is just a single instance of work for The Project.
 
  
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=== Platforms & Sanctuaries ====
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== Related projects ==
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The business OD will be carrying on is organisational-functions and seminars and would be set up as a system including cafe, accomodation, education etc. The busniess plan would be a platform-template to allow other orgs to set up in the same way with more or less focus on the carious service aspects. For example a modified version was under construction called ''sanctuary'' which was desgined to be more remote and handle longer-term accomodation and education programs.
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Some organisations and projects involved in similar work:
 +
*[http://www.thebusinessclass.net/ The Business Class.Net] ''- Setting up workspaces with accommodation to ensure consistent standards for people working around the world''
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*[http://www.dreamfish.com/ Dreamfish] ''- Creating a worldwide network to collaborate on projects''
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*[http://www.couchsurfing.org Couchsurfing] ''- Creating a world-wide peer-to-peer trust community''
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*[http://www.gaiasoft.com/index.shtml Gaiasoft] ''- Facilitating the development of shared templates''
  
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=== Money ===
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== Related concepts ==
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I think a concern that needs to be made clear is that money is not the only means to success or influence. It is a centralised way of thinking to assume that to make a significant difference we need money and resource. This way of thought leads to the competitive model which has little use for sharing. Things can propagate through their excellence and easy accessibility with no strings attached.
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*[[w:Body of Knowledge|BOK]]
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*[[w:Commons-based peer production|Commons-based peer production]]
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**[http://blog.ted.com/2008/04/yochai_benkler_1.php TED talk by Yochai Benkler]
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**[http://www.we-magazine.net/we-volume-02/the-emergence-of-open-design-and-open-manufacturing/ The emergence of open-design and open-manufacturing] ''- Michel Bauwens''
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**[http://www.qualityfoundation.org/peer-production/ Quality management of peer-production]
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*[[w:Wikinomics|Wikinomics]] ''- see also the [http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/book/9781843546375/Wikinomics/?a_aid=od Wikinomics book] by Tascott & Williams''
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*[[w:Mass collaboration|Mass collaboration]]
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*[http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/02/20/p2pbased_economy_the_political_power.htm P2P-Based Economy] ''- The Political Power Of Peer-To-Peer Networks''
  
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If other people see what your doing and decide to do it that way without your permission and maybe make money out of it - great! you've succeeded in propagating your way further. Maybe that person "saturates the market" with a better implementation than your original one - great! your way's propagated even more with less work for you to do.
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== Notes and references ==
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<references/>
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Not being in it for financial gain, means not worrying about the state of other peoples financial gain from it either. Those concerns are trivial and anti-spritual merely serving to hinder progress.
 
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=== Intellectual property & security ===
 
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One of the main principles is sharing and absolute knowledge re-use. The core organisational structure shows us that the intellectual property concept is invalid and anti-spiritual. Any groups we work with will need to be working in accord with the same principles. We believe in privacy of conversation and specific organisation or personal information, but not in the hiding of knowledge. For project-related wikis this means that most articles should have public read access, but may be protected from public editing. Articles relating to server configuration or financial information can have private access.
 
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=== Liscencing & Intellectual property protection ===
 
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Another problem with intellectual property law is the ability for knowledge to be prevented from being used by others. We've been ensuring that we put [[Wikipedia:LGPL|LGPL]] liscences on all core programming to prevent reduced access to it. We've chosen the LGPL rather than the standard GPL so that there are no restrictions on commercial use.
 
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=== Project Redundancy ===
 
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Another aspect of all this is that it is actually a very simple and common logical structure at its core and is being developed simultaneously in many places and disciplines. At any time any one of these could reach its critical foundation development and begin spreading exponentially thereby making further effort of the others redundant.
 
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=== Peer ===
 
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Most of the development strands are focussed on the peer. This is the full p2p network operating system built on [[The Nodal Model]]. It is designed to be widely available using any OS/interface environments, but to be capable of working completely independently as well using its own Linux destribution called [[Peerix]]. This is an interface designed for non-IT-specialists to design and maintain any kind organisations in an extremely efficient and sustainable manor while inherently increasing co-operation, re-use and growth.
 
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=== XmlWiki ===
 
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This is a collaborative development environment built on top of the freely available wiki software called [[Wikipedia:MediaWiki|MediaWiki]] which was designed for the [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia|Wikipedia]] online encyclopedia. We have found that existing solutions like [http://www.sf.net Source Forge] are excellent for raw programming, but are too complex and rigid for conceptual development or other use by non-developers. With XmlWiki, we've combined the programming features we needed into the more adaptable wiki environment allowing us to evolve the environment to our needs as we go.
 
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The purpose of XmlWiki has always been to be a temporary stepping stone into the new environment. We were unable to progress on the peer-environment effectively without an existing, but adjustable environment to work togther in.
 
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The peer and XmlWiki enviornments are closely linked as far as content goes, but most actual programming development is wasted going into XmlWiki and should instead be put into peer-based solutions. Although many features are still being specifically added to XmlWiki every week because its a powerful enough environment to add a lot of functionality with little effort.
 
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=== Requirements ===
 
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*'''Writers''' - general and specific ([[user:jack|Jack]] is currently making an attempt at describing the nodal-core in non-technical language)
 
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*'''Programmers''' - there are strict conditions on this which have made it impractical to try to integrate other programmers so far. There are many threads of development that could be assigned to different kinds of IT-specialists, but the problem is that the organisation is not of a scale to support this properly. We have not found any financial support solutions that could abide by the projects principles and work sustainably so far. It's not as bleak and stagnant as it sounds though! since what we're developing is a ''distributed development environment'', it means that development can help itself more as it progresses.
 
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*'''Administration''', The role that's needed to hold all the other work together is administration, which would include the management and maintenance of content, contacts (responsive communications), routing of information to roles (eg. driver updates to the IT role). This role is also has crossover with the ''general-writer'' role. [[user:milan|Milan]] is working "In the field" on setting up a sustainable situation supporting this project-role.
 
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[[Category:Glossary]][[Category:Platform]]
 

Latest revision as of 03:11, 9 August 2011

This document is a business plan that specifies an event-line showing our activities to build and deploy the platform network.

It forms the business plan, or simply the Roadmap. This document describes our ongoing work to implement the ideas and principles described in our manifesto. It is directed at those who share our goals and visions who would like to contribute to help bring them about.

We call the outcome we are working toward “Platform”, a package of software technologies designed to provide a robust starting point and foundation to help any individual or group to achieve their goals. We envision that this technology can serve to unite existing groups to work together more closely and form larger groups based on shared interests, as well as empowering individuals with information technology that provides flexibility, freedom and privacy.

We propose that it is possible for people around the world who have shared goals and values to work together much more effectively and harmoniously. The path to achieving this will be to create a flexible framework that can serve as a living, evolving repository for proven and effective methods of collaboration and decision-making, which is easy to change, improve and customise. All users of such a system will be able to contribute to its improvement, much like the Wikipedia has drawn upon a large number of contributors to become the largest and most up-to-date repository of encyclopedic knowledge in a number of languages.

We now have a functional system that we've been using for our own organisation and project management. It still has some critical elements missing and is currently based on a MediaWiki framework (which is why we are calling it Wiki Organisation). This has been useful for us to develop and refine a prototype within, which also contains the initial content and structure of the Platform. We are currently “packaging” the prototype Wiki Organisation technology we have developed this way to allow the setting up of Platforms. A foundation exists, but further work is required to document the system and to make it more user friendly, easier to customise, technically efficient and robust.

Goals

This is the specific sequence of goals we want to achieve in implementing Platform specification. Each milestone comprises a number of projects and their associated tasks. These "organisational milestones" are conceptually the same as milestones within projects, except at the level of a whole organisation.

Milestone 1: Business, commercial and funding Structure

We are currently preparing to crowd-fund the first two milestones listed here to give us a fully functional, packaged system to deploy for partner organisations. At this point we will re-assess the most effective path forward. We will be in a position to focus on the development of the platform network and progress the rest of the milestones in parallel and with much more momentum.

In presenting our work to the public for crowd-funding, we intend to show how much work we have already put into the technology and that we have a solid plan moving forward. We are moving the development work into the public realm to offer transparency, accountability and credibility to potential backers. Our demo system will allow any member of the public to try and use the technology for themselves to see whether it is something they want to use or support. In addition, we plan to offer members of the public an easy way to set up their own wiki organisation for free.

Organic Design itself is a virtual organisation, comprising members who share the vision of Organic Design, who use the Wiki Organisation prototype to collaborate on a range of projects, including the development of the system itself. The Organic Design wiki is also a collaborative effort, it serves as a development hub and repository for research and other documentation. About Organic Design elaborates further on the organisation, which has been operating in this evolving form for the past five years. Organic Ontology gives further detail on the structure of the current organic design departments and the scope of the work.

Organic Design maintains a mutual benefit relationship with the Platform One project. Platform One will be a new kind of sustainable learning community in rural New Zealand, designed to develop and model new sustainable technologies and showcase existing innovative environmental, software and social technologies. The Platform One charitable trust, as the legal and financial management foundation, has a constitution incorporating the core of the Organic Design manifesto and will use the Platform technology as a foundation for all software systems and the IT infrastrucutre. In doing so, the trust will drive the development of the Platform technology and the Platform network, while ensuring that all operational methods and procedures will be available as a "living template", allowing the entire organisation to be "cloned" and implemented in parallel on a wider scale. This lends considerable leverage to the work done at Platform One, allowing effective solutions to be deployed rapidly and aiding the development efforts undertaken by exposing the work to global peer-review. In collaboration with Organic Design, the stakeholders of Platform One will be able to eventually foster an entire eco-system of learning communities.

Milestone 2: Prototype Organisation System Complete

By the time we reach this milestone, our system will be available for use by members of the public, who will be able to set up a free, private trial version of the demo system. The first step toward this is to move the development work around Wiki Organisation to the public OD wiki, out from our private beta testing wiki. Packaging is at a level where someone can download the wiki technology with a basic set of records and subscribe to updates from the demo system. Development can continue in the form of releasing packages to extend the functionality of the org system. People can choose to set up their own "blank" system, one with user guides, with demo content, or OD default content ("live" projects to improve the system itself).

The goal is to define the minimal set of features and content required for this stage and to separate out development work that can be handled as part of the package release cycle. In addition to being able to maintain a synchronised system, the users are also able to share selected data with other trusted entities or the general public using the system. This allows users to create and publish projects within the trusted network. Some design and UI improvements will round off the initial system.

Milestone 3: Prototype Fully Packaged and Deployment-ready

By the end of this phase, we will have the packaging of the system refined to the level where it is self-contained and can run offline. What we mean with that specifically, is that anyone could cheaply obtain an installation CD or memory stick with the current version of the desired Platform software package and install it on any computer they desired, to "boot up" into a free operating system complete with any software required, as well as a range of copyright-free content such as the Wikipedia. Upon opening a web browser, the user could then access a fully functional Wiki Organisation containing the Platform interface. Some people may also wish to do this using a "live" system that could be removed again without making changes to the host computer.

The Platform software package could then be set up on a number of other computers to be used by the members of the platform to do work, locally or further afield. Users of the Platform software package will then be able to choose from a number of methods to exchange software updates, emails, organisational records, files and other data, rather than gambling the continuity of their work on the assumption of uninterrupted availability of broadband Internet connections. This is not to say that the Platform software package would not take full advantage of fast Internet, the availability of which would allow for dynamic video and 3d interaction between members. This approach also brings with it the ability to distribute data securely across a trust network and securely log into one's own personal "roaming profile", containing all up-to-date personal files and settings. In this way, people using the Platform software package will have access to cloud computing services with the peace of mind they offer, without having to sacrifice their privacy.

We intend to use the technology at this stage to expand our network of aligned organisations using a shared system, by offering customisation and consultancy services around Platform implementation. This activity will presumably result in a boost to the development efforts around the Platform software packages and an ensuing decentralisation of development work, taking the pressure off Organic Design and giving rise to other flavours of Platform, with other names, in other languages, which would necessitate the development of a language- and technology-independent specification of the Platform, so that in spite of increasing diversity within the network, effective collaboration will remain easy.

Milestone 4: Technology-Independent Specification and Development

The focus of this stage of development is to develop a specification of Platform technology that is technology and language-independent, an open standard that can be implemented in any technology or language while maintaining interoperability between the numerous implementations. The result of this effort will be the full decentralisation and internationalisation of the Platform development work. It also means that the Platform can be implemented in the most up-to-date technologies, to allow for effective integration between functions like email, project management and social networking, while making communication more dynamic, adding voice and video collaboration where the bandwidth is available. XMPP currently appears like a good standard to use for creating such a specification, the potential of which has been demonstrated by Google with their "Wave" application. We envisage a subscription model, where different aspects of the Platform, including the interface, are "curated" by different groups and the users can specify which groups' settings, updates or content they would like to see reflected in their own Platform.

This stage of development, with Platform no longer being constrained by limitations of specific technologies such as MediaWiki, will be ideal for creating a user interface standard for Platform that is based on the most current technologies and is focussed on making the platform as user-friendly as possible. The challenge will be to create a consistent experience across the whole range of software packages used, while still allowing for flexibility in customisation and making effective use of resources such as broadband Internet or hardware graphics acceleration while not assuming the availability of such resources. The challenge of creating a unified "look and feel" also encompasses creating a consistent experience across a broad range of currently separate applications, such as browsing the web, working on emails, managing projects or updating accounts in the book-keeping application. We need a simple, consistent and solid interface that ties together all aspects of creating and growing an organisation, which can reveal complexity where desired.

At the end of this stage we will have an evolving set of turn-key organisations that can be used by members of the network to set up new organisations in response to the demand within the network. This is an important aspect the specification mentioned above will need to cater to. We envisage a "wizard" interface that consultants can use to create a new Platform, which is able to tap into any existing resources to create a full inventory and then compare such an inventory with current demands within the platform network to suggest products or services to offer. Having technology abstraction means that all the consultants and their clients need to discuss are everyday concepts such as what kind of skills employees have, what kind computers and software are available to the organisation, what kind of financial and production capital is available. By providing forms to fill in this information, the Platform software then converts these everyday concepts into machine-readable format and publishes them within the Platform network. The software can then suggest the most efficient legal structures and most rewarding value propositions based on the data within the network. The foundation technology to do this has existed for some time and it is often referred to as "the Semantic Web".

Milestone 5: Currency and Trade

With the foundation of the previous milestones in place, at the end of this stage of development we envisage a range of new services to be supported and enhanced by the Platform network that were previously too complex to orchestrate or which require a certain economy of scale. These services include the provision of currency, insurance schemes and investment capital, allowing Platforms to be set up in a wider range of industries, including farming projects, high-tech fabrication plants for computer hardware, hospitals, universities, banks or even civil engineering projects such as roads and railway systems.

We see a growing demand for groups to effectively formulate policies and goals and to raise the resources required from their members to implement them, with full accountability provided by the underlying technology. This technology should also ensure access by all stakeholders[1] and empower them to review, question or provide feedback on any aspect of the work undertaken. We hope that the Platform network can help meet this demand. It is even plausible at this stage that some of the new non-territorial nations could be represented within the Platform network. Those nations could offer their "customers" citizenship, protection, standards development and welfare services in return for moderate "membership fees", while maintaining full transparency of accounts.

We envision this trend resulting in significant empowerment of individuals and families worldwide who are now free to choose between number of economic and legal systems, leading nation-states and other sovereignties to compete for potential citizens by offering more efficient and transparent services, pristine natural environments or more opportunities for social, intellectual and spiritual advancement. All of the above, we hope.

Related projects

Some organisations and projects involved in similar work:

  • The Business Class.Net - Setting up workspaces with accommodation to ensure consistent standards for people working around the world
  • Dreamfish - Creating a worldwide network to collaborate on projects
  • Couchsurfing - Creating a world-wide peer-to-peer trust community
  • Gaiasoft - Facilitating the development of shared templates

Related concepts

Notes and references

  1. ↑ Loosely: anyone affected by the project, department or organisation
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