By Danny Spitzberg
Most days, the promise of democracy on the internet feels far away. But with 300 people gathering in NYC this past November, CoLab decided we should host an afterparty to start collaborations – the first of many!
As part of #platformcoop 2017, Ethan, Danny, McKenzie, and 75 technologists and allies gathered on Sunday for an unconference that ran from brunchtime to beer o’clock. We formed a community of mutual support around platform cooperativism. One group focused on chess and the game of life. Another group discussed digital credit unions. Others hashed out challenges around multi-stakeholder co-ops, codes of conduct, governance justice, and a platform-builder toolkit called ShareTribe. Even the decentralized social network Secure Scuttlebutt was there! More than notes from the self-organized sessions about tech, co-ops, and chess, people wanted to continue conversations.
Now, wo keep the momentum going, we’re hosting an open forum online, 4pm Eastern time on Jan. 30th. Even if you weren’t at #platformcoop 2017 or our afterparty, you’re welcome to join!
One more thing!
Do you want more space for discussion and link-sharing? People are reorganizing a Slack channel for #platformcoop. Click here to get an auto-invite! Bonus: in addition to Slack, you can also join an email list, a couple Facebook groups, and a co-op node on Mastadon, the open source and federated Twitter alternative!