Platform roadmap
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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.
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.
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".
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.
Contents
Global Organisational Concepts
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 someone (or a team) with no prior context but experience in dealing with the system could run the organisation using it.
Global
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.
Schedule
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.
Resource
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.
Media channels
Platforms and sanctuaries both exhibit an educational aspect as part of their system design. This is accessed as channels of information and media such as documentaries or platform news/newsletters. 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.
Related Concepts
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.
Organisations that will be based on the Platform template
Related work
- 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
- "Outpost" - based on Post-carbon Institute definition
- "Headquarters" - good in the sense that it conveys the notion of a place where everything runs together, although this name may imply centralisation
