Design and prototyping in commons.hour

Here we describe the contributions of commons.hour as a space of prototyping.

During this current project phase, commons.hour has four core intentions . .

To design and initiate:

1. The constitution of meet.coop - leading to formal incorporation as a coop

2. commons.hour - an ongoing regular periodic public venue for multistakeholder stewarding of the meet.coop commons

3. An ecology of working practice - including venues, media, tools and protocols - for the operational and strategic steering of contributions in the coop. In addition to commons.hour itself, this includes a multistakeholder General Assembly and a Community circle of operational members; and

4. A coop handbook.

These are prototyped in the commons.hour project as, respectively:

1. A venue-space prototype - the initial General Assembly of meet.coop, which approves a Constitution. As part of this: protocols for a General Assembly.

2. A further pair of venue-space prototypes - commons.hour (a public space); and a Community circle (an operational space). As part of this: protocols for each.

3. A platform-space prototype - the toolstack that is used by contributors in the project (BigBlueButton, the Discourse forum, gitBook, cloud storage, notifications. Etc?). As part of this:additional or amended protocols for the operational toolstack, the public toolstack and the media spaces that they support (eg forum threads, OpenCollective notifications).

4. A media space prototype - the members’ handbook. As part of this: protocols for public media spaces.

When this present development-project phase is completed, all of these prototypes will pass over into operational practice:

• This handbook will become the working handbook

• commons.hour will become the common deliberation space for operational and user members in stewarding the coop

• Protocols from this handbook will become the core of the Constitution

• Toolstack design outcomes will be embodied in the operational toolstack, the public toolstack and working protocols for media spaces; and

• The Community circle will join Tech, Organisation and Product circles in the sociocratic operational machinery of the coop.