Launching a curation, analysis and looking-forward publishing program

Dear all,

We have worked out a new program dedicated to producing / publishing our own pieces of forward-looking works, in cooperation with a French partner, Chronos. Groupe Chronos is a French consultancy dedicated to forward-looking and social science studies. It is now part of (the largest French) cooperative group (Groupe SOS).

There is an introduction the project available in French. Below is a summary for all of you, and to open discussion.

Main objectives of the project

Chronos and OuiShare share many values and have complementary culture, skills and resources. We share the same need to explore new topics, to connect to wide and moving ecosystems, to understand better transitions and to influence stakeholders, based on our values. We want to do that while fully financing the sheer amount of time, work and dedication it requires.

In a nutshell, we want to improve the capacity of our organisations to explore new topics of interest, be recognised as credible stakeholders and influence the ecosystem according to our values, while fostering new project opportunities for the community.

Value proposition

We built a value proposition centered on understanding, anticipating and influencing innovations, be they digital, collaborative or autonomous. We create a dedicated and independent brand to develop the project, “powered by” OuiShare and Chronos.

We deliver this value for ourselves and our customers / partners, both private (customers) and public (mainly partners) institutions. It should be mentioned that Chronos brings in 10 customers that already subscribed to a previous offer of their own. OuiShare expects to bring in new corporate members.

The first circle of our corporate members are French. However we plan to publish in both English & French. We will also finance connections between experts from everywhere in Europe and events we organise as part of our activities.

We deliver this value by

• 1/ Curation (available daily) and deeper analysis (published every 2 months)
• 2/ We build longer term visions of possible and desirable futures and describe means of making it happen. These bi-yearly explorations are an opportunity to engage with emerging ecosystems and foster future project / collaboration opportunities as well as digging beneath the surface (increasing knowledge and understanding of a topic).
• 3/ We create a space for the community of stakeholders (customers, partners, ecosystem) to meet, share and learn. And we influence a larger audience through events, publication and communication. Building commons is fully integrated in the project. As such knowledge produced / published will be under a Creative Commons license and we will build a policy on how to make this commons as useful as possible to other stakeholders and projects.

Regarding the finance, we agree with Chronos on a shared budget where all costs are covered by customer fees. Then OuiShare and Chronos will share value according to contributions. Regarding OuiShare value will be distributed between contributors and the organisation following usual rules (10% at least for OuiShare).

OuiShare involvement and benefits

There is a shared governance between Chronos and OuiShare for this project. Decisions regarding topics, methodology, deliverables, resources allocated and value distribution must be validated through consensus. We will design additional rules as need arise.

OuiShare commits to lead on a daily basis to community-building, events and communication. We are also involved in curation and analysis (depending on our resource / interest).

How to get involved?

• 1/ Opportunities are open to contribute to curation and topic analysis either on a regular basis as a contributor, or as an expert on a chosen topic of interest.
• 2/ Each bi-annual forward-looking exploration will lead to a dedicated team and methodology, depending on the topic we agree to focus on. The first step is the choice of forward-looking scope, for which we offer our inputs and co-decide. Then for each exploration members of our community, especially connectors, could be part of the team either as a co-lead (there will be co-lead on Chronos side, with whom to coordinate tasks and decisions) or contributor.
• 3/ A more stable OuiShare team will be set-up to take in charge communication, , community building and events. This is still very open to discuss who gets involved and how the organisation is crafted. As explained before there will be some financial value shared among contributors. Besides getting involved in one or another of these tasks might be relevant to us in conjunction with our other activities / projects. At that point Taoufik will be in charge of the partnership with Chronos and corporate development with current or future OuiShare partners. I should be in charge of project management & coordination with Chronos, helping all of you getting involved in the project (for instance I would be in support of those of you leading a study with Chronos on a specific topic).

Next steps & decisions

• 1/ I opened this Loomio for the sake of sharing a full-update on the project, inform all of you and collect feedback. Following this Loomio discussion and live-meeting next Monday (see next point) I will either close this post by wednesday the the 7th of September or go to a more formal vote on it (based on our guidelines on decision-making).
• 2/ A meeting is to be planned this month for all of you interesting in discussing the matter and getting invoved. We will set-up Skype or Google Hangout for all those interested and there will be an IRL meeting in Paris. Main objectives are to answer questions, get people involved and set-up an organisation to deliver the project.
• 3/ We plan a OuiShare / Chronos breakfast showcasing our full-package to current and potential corporate members and prospects on the 4th of October. We also designed a roadmap for launching operations by the end of this year.
• 4/ Some communication on the partnership will start shortly.