Month: July 2023

The Threads dilemma: a lesson in cooperative decision-making

Posted on July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 by Doug Belshaw

As a member of social.coop, a cooperative social network that uses Mastodon, I’ve recently observed our community grappling with a significant decision. Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, announced that their new platform, Threads, would join the ‘Fediverse‘ — a collective of instances compatible with federated social network protocols like ActivityPub. This sparked a debate within social.coop about whether to block any federated instances created by Meta, a decision that had to be made democratically.

However, the way this decision was introduced was problematic. A member, who hadn’t been active in prior discussions, suddenly proposed a vote. This rushed approach led to a low turnout, with only 68 out of several thousand members voting. The result was inconclusive and not representative of the community.

What followed was a convoluted discussion with multiple threads (no pun intended!) that were hard to follow. Many comments were made without considering previous discussions. Two more ‘formal’ proposals were brought forward, but neither provided a clear path forward. The lack of structure and process was evident and concerning.

The issue escalated to the point where some members suggested splitting the co-op along the lines of those for and against defederating with Threads. This is a situation we should strive to avoid. Cooperatives work best when there are defined and well-understood processes, leading to productive discussions and timely decisions. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case in our response to Meta’s announcement about Threads.

My concern isn’t so much about the decision to defederate from Threads, but rather the process by which we arrived at this point. The discussion was exhausting and unproductive, with endless notifications about new opinions that often repeated what had already been said. This felt like an endless cycle of debate without resolution.

Cooperatives should not rely solely on consensus or voting. Instead, they should use consent-based decision making, which focuses on whether members object to a proposal rather than whether they agree with it. This approach acknowledges different perspectives and experiences and allows us to operate together towards a shared aim.

To improve our decision-making process, I suggest the following:

Proposals should follow agreed guidelines. If a member is unsure how to proceed, they should consult with a working group.
There should be separate areas for discussion and decision-making.
Proposals should be high-level and only brought to the whole membership if they aren’t covered by an existing policy.
We should use consent-based decision-making, asking whether people object (i.e. have critical concerns) rather than necessarily wholeheartedly agreeing.
Our mantra should be: is this good enough for now and safe enough to try?

By adopting these solutions, we can ensure that our cooperative remains a place for productive cooperation and informed decision-making. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by discussion and debate but the cooperative movement has solved problems in this area, and I think social.coop would benefit from adopting them.

Photo by Stephane Gagnon on Unsplash

Weeknote 28/2023

Posted on July 16, 2023July 16, 2023 by Doug Belshaw

I’m lying on the sofa writing this absolutely stuffed after Sunday dinner at The Dirty Bottles in Alnwick. On TV is the men’s Wimbledon tennis final which is still in the balance. My son and I went swimming this morning and helped a neighbour lay their patio. We’ve also had a couple of house viewings.

Yesterday, thunder and lightning swept over the North East of England. It affected my wife, Hannah, who was doing a 26-mile MacMillan Mighty Hike with friends, as well as my daughter’s football tournament. Her first match was abandoned, yet the team still went on to reach the semi-final. She scored a screamer in the top-right corner of the net, but it wasn’t enough to prevent them losing 2-1.

It’s been a funny old week, work-wise. Last week, I mentioned that I was giving a presentation on Wednesday, which was actually part of a job interview. A few weeks ago, I saw that the position of ‘Head of Digital’ at Northumberland County Council (NCC) was advertised. I’m not particularly looking for a job, but it sounded interesting, so I applied. It turns out I got an interview.

The selection process itself was run very professionally, with candidates giving a presentation then being interviewed. My presentation (slides) went well, although I slightly over-ran. Afterwards, one of the 10 people who had been in the room introduced himself as someone I’d got to school with 29 years earlier!

When I went back in, there was an interview panel of three people. Long story short, one of them was the guy to whom I’d been sending slightly angry emails about the traffic diversion situation near our house. Awkward.

While it was a positive experience, there was plenty of talk both on the day and beforehand during the chats I’d had with Will Callaghan and Dave Briggs about ‘resource constraints’. I would also have had to line manage a bunch of people. I’ve got a good thing going with WAO, so the next morning, I emailed to withdraw from the process. I’m having a coffee with Chris Thompson, who is Director of Digital & IT at NCC, so something positive may still come of it.

The interview and preparation for it took up a lot of the first half of the week. A lot of the rest of it was taken up with user research interviews for both workers.coop and Bonfire. My wife is a user researcher and, while I wouldn’t want to do it full-time, I have been enjoying meeting people and finding out more about them.

For workers.coop, the Member Learning group is trying to find out what members of the federation of co-ops want to learn. For Bonfire, we’re testing a prototype of the ‘composer’ — the place where you create your message and choose who can see it, interact with it, etc. I already knew this from my product manager days, but ensuring something is ‘intuitive’ to use takes time and effort.

The rest of my time was spent doing work on the project we’re running with Participate, preparing for The Badge Summit, and working on a free email-based course that we’ll be launching properly there called Reframing Recognition. I also updated AILiteracy.fyi a bit.

On Friday afternoon, after ~~I forced~~ my son agreed to walk the second half of The Pennine Way with me, we went shopping. I bought him a one-person tent, as well as a few other things. I won’t be beasting myself like I did doing the first half of it in April, but we do need to get it done in a week.

There are plenty of logistics to sort out, as after my trip to Colorado, I’m back for one day before heading to Center Parcs in The Netherlands with Team Belshaw, then Devon, and then doing our walk. We’re dropping off our rucksacks at my sister’s on the way down the country, and then picking them up on the way back.

This coming week, Laura is away visiting family and friends in the US before heading to Colorado for The Badge Summit. So I’ll be working with John and Anne a bit, and also doing some stuff by myself, such as synthesising the insights from user research interviews. I’m quite looking forward to taking some time off, TBH, even though it won’t be particularly ‘relaxing’ 😅

Photo of water droplets on a leaf taken by me on Saturday morning.

Weeknote 27/2023

Posted on July 9, 2023July 10, 2023 by Doug Belshaw

So, we’re now properly into July. I’ve got quite a lot to do, think about, and prepare for in the next couple of weeks. As a result, this week’s update will comprise mainly of bullet points.

This week I’ve been:

Recording a couple of episodes of the Tao of WAO podcast, which I co-host with Laura. My son, Ben, is currently gainfully employed by WAO to add transcripts to previous episodes. He’s finished Season 1.
Responding to a UNESCO Call for Contributions around AI Literacy. You can read what Ian O’Byrne, Tom Salmon, and I came up with in short order via this blog post.
Continuing to carry out user research interviews for the workers.coop Member Learning group.
Preparing with Ivan for upcoming Bonfire prototype testing and user research, which starts next week.
Taking our daughter to a couple more football trials. She’s been coming down with a cold all week and has been tired. I would never force her to perform, but she insisted and got through the final Newcastle Utd callback dosed-up on ibuprofen, paracetamol, and Lucozade.
Finishing and transferring another free email-based course, this time giving an introduction to the concept of Open Recognition. We’ll launch it soon.
Planning for Badge Summit with Sheryl Grant, with whom it’s always a pleasure and privilege to talk. Weird to think I’ll be in Colorado in a couple of weeks’ time.
Configuring an instance of Discourse for WEAll, as they’re testing it starting next week. We’re confident it will suit their needs better than Hylo.
Running every morning with Ben. I’ve also added the ‘tranquility spa’ to the gym subscription my wife and I have, so I can chill out a bit.
Continuing to work on our ongoing projects with Participate. I’m looking forward to seeing their new platform continue to evolve.
Getting ready for a presentation I’m giving next Wednesday. More on that next week.

As I’ve alluded to above, it’s only a couple of weeks until I fly to the US. After that, I’ll be on holiday in the Netherlands, then staying near Hannah’s family in Devon, and then planning to walk the second half of the Pennine Way with my son for company.

Team Belshaw was heading to France, but we cancelled our Airbnb after realising that no wifi or TV was perfect for adults, but not so much for the kids — especially as the Women’s Football World Cup is on at that time. So we’re driving east instead of south-west from Calais, our destination being a Center Parcs near Eindhoven!