Hi, I thought I would share some computer consultants coop (co-op) history from 1986 - 1988.
*We Wanted to be Like a Medieval Craftmen's Guild or the Food Coop* I was a co-founder and the Executive Director of "small systems guild" (yes, all lower case) in Ann Arbor, Michigan (1986 - 88). We were modeled after the Guilds of Medieval craftsmen. We were about 60 Macintosh programmers, who also liked the philosophy of the Ann Arbor Food Coop. Our group had been mostly individual freelancers and 2 person consultancies. We decided to rent about 10,000 square feet of warehouse space and came together to form a worker owned cooperative that would present itself to clients as a much bigger enterprise than any of us would have been able to do on our own. At that time The University of Michigan had the largest number of Macintosh computers anywhere on the planet, and our group came together from having been members of the "Mactechnics" Macintosh Users Group. *Size Gave us Power* In 1986, no one used the word coworking. The spirit and practice of coworking was a part of what we built, but we went much further. We became a democratically run worker owned cooperative. We were able to do things that none of us would have been able to accomplish in our previous small consultancies or freelancer positions. - SSG (small systems guild) organized the first National Apple Users Group conference in Ann Arbor in 1986. Attendees included Bill Gates, Alan Kay (co-inventor of Smalltalk), Ted Nelson (He coined the terms hypertext and hypermedia in 1963) and many other notable folks. - SSG got contracts with Apple to develop curricula for Macintosh programmer training - SSG flew people around the country to deliver Macintosh programmer training classes - SSG was a 4th Dimension partner (popular Mac relational database) and published a monthly newsletter that came with code on a floppy disk and was distributed internationally. - SSG had a large contract with Dayton Power & Light that created a hypermedia process monitoring system on Macs for a coal fired electric power plant. Plant operators could scan in a plant diagram and then select from a filterable list of 10,000 data points (temperature, pressure, voltages, amps, etc.) to drag and drop them onto the diagram, which would display live data when reopening that diagram. What SSG built in 1988 was very much like what we would see years later in web browsers. *Guild Points Earned Ownership Shares* All of the infrastructure was run by members logging hours when answering the phone, emptying the trash, creating marketing materials, etc. These hours were unpaid, but a member earned one guild point for every hour worked, regardless of the type of work. Your member ownership percentage in the guild was equal to your total guild points divided by the total number of outstanding guild points of all the membership. Profits at the end of the year were to be distributed to members based on the percentage of ownership. *Billable Hours* Members only earned dollars when we were able to bill a client in a 3 tier price point system of (1) $20/hour, (2) $50/hour, (3) $100/hour. SSG took 10% to pay for infrastructure and members got to get 90% of the billable rate. *What Went Wrong?* We never made a profit because a 10% margin was not enough to pay for the infrastructure. So, no profit sharing at the end of the year was possible. Many of the members who earned guild points answering phones, etc. never got above the $20/hour billable rate and didn't get enough of those hours. We should have taken 20 - 30% margin for infrastructure and used that to pay a decent wage for infrastructure support staff (we had many heated debates about this that weren't much different than a psychology encounter group). We failed to write non-compete contracts for people and some members left the group, taking business with them. *What Went Right?* We got amazing experience for our resumes. When the cooperative structure was about to implode in 1988, I paid $30,000 to buy the company, we downsized to 3 people and we successfully finished the Dayton Power & Light contract, which funded us for the next two years. This was probably higher than the marketplace would have paid for what was left at that time. I determined the price by multiplying the number of outstanding guild points by minimum wage at the time in Michigan. By finally offering compensation, to those who had worked for free, I earned the loyalty of many for years to come. Many of the original guild members came to work for me at Arbor Intelligent Systems, Inc. which I sold in 1998 for $3.1 million. During those years I gave stock in the company to our employees and while we were no longer a democratically run worker owned cooperative, I always tried to listen to my staff, pay people to develop software products when consultants did not have billable hours with clients and we kept much of the cooperative spirit going. I'm still interested in democratically run worker owned cooperatives and planning to head to Cuba to see first hand what they are doing. Best, @DrRon On Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 3:36:39 PM UTC-5, Trevor Twining wrote: > > Alex, I think I’ve mentioned before how much IndyHall has influenced the > creation of our space. Without you sharing what y'all put together there > I’d probably still be waiting for someone else to have built a space. You > should come hang out for a bit with Jay Tennier and me and I’ll show you > around :D. You’re a good bit younger than I am, but I consider you a mentor > when it comes to what we’re collectively building. :D > > We are classified as a member or service co-op; our members have organized > this business for the purpose of providing a specific range of services to > its membership. We have a couple more co-ops in the works, and some of > those are worker co-ops, some of them are marketing co-ops, and one of them > is potentially a credit union). > > When we get to profitability (we’re six months now at break-even, and > slowly growing), we will decide as a group how to use the money: to reduce > monthly subscriptions, invest in new gear, stockpile it to purchase our own > property, or give a rebate at the end of the year. Whatever we do, it’s > democratic: every member has one vote, no matter how much they invest or > how much business they do with us. So in that sense, every member is > already a partner. > > We’re planning to open more spaces throughout the region: when we get > there, we might offer member shares to raise the capital. These would be > preferred shares, and so dividends would be paid out on those before the > regular member shares. But they’d be non-voting. > > Keep the questions coming! They’re useful for the next post :D > > -------------------------------------------- > Trevor Twining > Cowork Niagara > http://coworkniagara.com > Home of Niagara’s independent workforce > twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining > > > > > On Feb 18, 2016, at 3:15 PM, Alex Hillman <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > > Man, I love seeing the Indy Hall playbook in action like this <3 <3 > > Echoing lots of what's been said here - I look forward to a more detailed > follow up post :) > > We have a few members that are VERY active in the co-op world and we often > get together to talk about how much co-op DNA Indy Hall has. > > I've also learned a lot about the different *kinds* of co-ops, including > member co-ops, employee co-ops, etc. Is there a specific kind of co-op you > chose? Are there any financial benefits to a member-owner, like dividends > or discounts? Are new members given opportunities to become member-partners > now that you're up and running? > > -Alex > > > ------------------ > *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* > Join the list: http://coworkingweekly.com > Listen to the podcast: http://dangerouslyawesome.com/podcast > > On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 1:55 PM, Trevor Twining <[email protected] > <javascript:>> wrote: > >> Here’s a link to the Ontario Co-operative Association, whose resources >> and advice were particularly valuable when we set up. If you’re in Ontario, >> they’re more than happy to offer some initial assistance. If you’re >> outside, they’re happy to refer you to the group in your area who can help. >> We’ve become quite involved in the Niagara Regional Co-op Network which is >> closely connected with On Co-Op. >> >> http://www.ontario.coop/programs_services/coop_development/starting_a_coop >> >> It’s a rich resource, but there’s still a lot of jargon. I’ll try to >> break our experience down in plain language. >> >> 1. We were already meeting as a jelly group for 18 months before we >> started with our space, so we had a core community from which to build. >> 2. As we were talking about the mutually-invested community we wanted to >> build, someone who was already working on a food co-op in our city asked if >> we had considered the model. >> 3. We looked at the resources at the link above and enough connected that >> we decided this was the model for us. >> 4. We filled out the incorporation forms ourselves. It took a couple of >> hours. (I can walk you through if you get to this stage) >> 5. The membership fees from the founding members gave us the capital we >> needed to create the corporation and get the initial paperwork filed. >> 6. Members pre-paid first, last and as many months as they could up-front >> so that we could build a nest egg. Some members provided member loans. >> 7. Our membership model also encourages participation that doesn’t >> directly involve the space, so we have a larger group of members than space >> users. (our current membership is 70, but less than 30 use the space >> 1d/week or more) >> 8. With that money in the bank, we were able to sign our lease, get our >> utilities set up, and hang our sign on the door. >> 9. We have a board of 8 directors, and they help guide the long term >> direction of the group. I’m still chief resident volunteer >> cat-herder/tummler, and we’re working on expanding our service offering so >> we can pay someone to be in this role. >> 10. Annually we have a meeting to review finances, vote on key changes in >> direction, and when we get to the point where we’re managing a surplus, the >> group will decide how that’s allocated. >> >> Next coworking meetup-type thing we do, I’d be happy to present this as a >> talk in more detail. >> >> -------------------------------------------- >> Trevor Twining >> Cowork Niagara >> http://coworkniagara.com >> Home of Niagara’s independent workforce >> twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining >> >> >> >> >> On Feb 18, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Trevor Twining <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >> Thanks all, for your feedback so far. >> >> Sounds like I need a (few?) follow up post(s). I’ll also post some links >> shortly to resources we used. In Canada, most co-ops are provincially >> incorporated, so I assume that in the US each state will have its own co-op >> legislation. >> >> I’ll share what we did here in Ontario, and you should be able to figure >> out how that works in your province/state. >> >> I’m not sure how this works in other countries, but the co-op movement in >> Europe generally is huge, so there should be some good resources on that >> side of the Atlantic. >> >> -------------------------------------------- >> Trevor Twining >> Cowork Niagara >> http://coworkniagara.com >> Home of Niagara’s independent workforce >> twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining >> >> >> >> >> On Feb 18, 2016, at 11:28 AM, Tony Bacigalupo <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >> Trevor, I think a lot of us are excited to learn more about how you >> pulled this off! >> >> I encountered early thoughts on this topic as well, but found it >> difficult to get a clear sense of how to go about in a way that would be >> viable. I think any more details you can provide on that would be helpful >> to others considering similar structures. >> >> Thanks! >> Tony >> *---* >> *Projects: New Work Cities <http://nwc.co/consulting> • Open Coworking >> <http://opencoworking.org/> • Cotivation <http://cotivation.co/>* >> *eBook: No More Sink Full of Mugs <http://nwc.co/mugs>* >> *Connect: Personal site <http://tonybacigalupo.com/> • Twitter >> <http://twitter.com/tonybgoode> • Facebook >> <http://facebook.com/tonybacigalupo>* >> *New: Preorder the Ultimate Coworking Toolkit >> <http://nwc.co/consulting/toolkit>* >> >> >> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 8:53 AM, Jenifer Ross <[email protected] >> <javascript:>> wrote: >> >>> Ditto. Can you provide more details on the financial structure? >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> On Feb 18, 2016, at 10:40 AM, Jacob Sayles <[email protected] >>> <javascript:>> wrote: >>> >>> I'd love to know more about this. I'm certainly sold on the value >>> alignment but I don't have a sense for how it works. >>> >>> On Thursday, February 18, 2016, Trevor Twining <[email protected] >>> <javascript:>> wrote: >>> >>>> Apologies. I used an internal link. </embarrassed> >>>> >>>> Here’s the real link >>>> >>>> >>>> http://coworkniagara.com/blog/2016/02/10/why-co-operatives-and-coworking-go-hand-in-hand/ >>>> >>>> Trevor Twining >>>> [email protected] >>>> 416-201-2254 >>>> twitter/skype/linkedin: trevortwining >>>> >>>> On Feb 18, 2016, at 9:40 AM, Trevor Twining <[email protected]> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> Hey everyone, >>>> >>>> When we were developing the business plan for our space two years ago, >>>> a prospective member asked us if we had considered setting Cowork Niagara >>>> up as a co-operative. We didn’t know what that was, so we checked it out. >>>> >>>> It was the best thing that we could have done. We’re the only >>>> co-operative coworking space in english-speaking Canada (there’s one other >>>> in Quebec). I’m now convinced that if more spaces use this model it will >>>> help create stronger, more resilient coworking communities. I’m sharing >>>> this in the hopes that it piques your collective curiosity. >>>> >>>> I wrote a post about it on our newly-launched blog. If any of you have >>>> any questions about this, feel free to ask. >>>> >>>> >>>> http://cowork/blog/2016/02/10/why-co-operatives-and-coworking-go-hand-in-hand/ >>>> >>>> -------------------------------------------- >>>> Trevor Twining >>>> Cowork Niagara >>>> http://coworkniagara.com >>>> Home of Niagara’s independent workforce >>>> twitter: @coworkniagara, @trevortwining >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >>>> --- >>>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>>> Groups "Coworking" group. >>>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>>> an email to [email protected]. >>>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>>> >>> >>> -- >>> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >>> --- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Coworking" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >>> --- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Coworking" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >> >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. 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