Outlandish

"We help more people work on technology that makes a difference." - https://outlandish.com/

Outlandish is a productive digital workers cooperative with a heavy social/political leaning. They have a nice little office. They've changed a lot since starting up not that long ago, nearly went bust, switched from llc to coop, etc. They do commercial work and distribute it in an interesting mostly egalitarian way (i.e. the highest paid wage is capped at being three times as much as the lowest.) They regard 'surplus' as a way to fund free project work (i.e. We've earned 100k this quarter and we only need 75k to cover all costs → we can do '25k-worth' of free work next quarter.) such as making and remaking Corbyns website, political dataviz stuff too, etc. They seem to have a good time! Non-residential

The Commons House

"The Common House is an experiment in building a commons." - http://www.commonhouse.org.uk/about-2/

The Commons House is a small rented space for all sorts of different groups. When I went there there was a print-making workshop which was nice (I made a little Greco-Roman stamp...) I didn't see any of the 'crew' to see how it's running from their perspective. Seems to be quite heavy on resistance-type things which I'm generally a bit 'meh' about, but lot's of arts and events going on which look good.

Newspeak House

"A community space for political technologists." - https://www.nwspk.com/

Newspeak House is a whole building owned by this guy Ed. He had a brief financial career which allowed him to buy the place outright and he's now opening it in a controlled way for a mult-faceted political action. Not resistance political action, but reforming and refactoring. The space at the bottom they rent out now and then which covers the entire running costs of the building for him and 7 rotating 'fellows' who integrate with the project and do their own work, for free, for six months. If you know London at all, you will understand how amazing this is! Whilst the other two projects have significant rent to pay (an active topic for The Commons House, who have no income) Newspeak house has it covered... A really curious project also in active experimentation.

General thoughts from the tour

Being selective: Outlandish and Newspeak both have quite clear directions and are accordingly quite 'pre-selective' about who should come. Outlandish has a compatibility matrix, Newspeak does sort of 'interviews'. Kayleigh from Outlandish quite clearly opined that skills are much easier to learn than culture. What is the direction for Wurzen/x? How do we ensure those people come or the 'culture' is resilient?

Longer periods: After joining outlandish, you have to be there for 1/3 of a year before you can become an 'Outlander' and for 2/3 of a year before you can become a member. The newspeak fellowship lasts for 6 months after which you must reapply. What roles should exist in Wurzen/x? What temporal restrictions/permissions are appropriate for that?

Monitoring: Both Newspeak and Outlandish take an active interest in the work of their colleague and have formalized events and processes for evaluating and giving feedback. Evaluation/feedback/monitoring really do seem to be a hallmark for effective groups. Effective at what? How to perform it in a way that isn't authoritarian? (sidenote: I think that 'monitoring' has gotten a bad reputation through resistance to authorities whereas it performs a real function in communities to prevent slacking and encourage performance... it's one of Ostroms 8 design principles for sustainable commons.)

Clear and consequential: or as Katia said in Neuried 'say what you mean, do what you say.' Letting people know the outer or upper limits of what they are welcome to do at their position/role means they can comfortably do so without worrying about norms and judgment. Also not changing what has been said would appear to be pretty great too (Rotterdam was awful for 'hard rules' quickly changing without warning... really stressful.)

I am not interested in talking about the resistance/revolution/reform: I just want to do it.