The Future of CoTech

Future of CoTech session

• Chris Croome giving an overview of the worker.coop merger decision
• CoTech was setup before there existed a dedicated worker co-op umbrella organisation (there was co-ops UK but they also deal mainly with retail co-ops etc)
  • Around 2 years ago workers.coop setup
  • We've recently agreed a memorandum of understanding for CoTech to become the "IT and technology industrial sector" of workers.coop
• MoA
  • All members of CoTech not already in workers.coop will be invited. After 2 months if they haven't joined their membership of CoTech will be removed.
  • Note membership of CoTech isn't really strictly defined. We have people who's membership has been approved, those who were in the original group, paying members and non-paying members
  • All members of workers.coop will be asked if they want to join CoTech, open to any co-op that indentifies with CoTech's objectives/purpose
  • Will employee-owned organisations be able to join workers.coop? Maybe, seems like some workers.coop people are keen for that to happen.
• CoTech fund. Does that continue to exist?
  • Does CoTech retain a portion of workers.coop funds to spend? Not as currently agreed.
  • Proposal: to cover CoTech related costs (infrastructure) for a couple of years, run the CoTech fund down to zero.
  • Natasha - we'd like someone to get paid to do organising /
• What does CoTech membership mean?
  • Richard is on the board of workers.coop
  • Everything up for grabs at the moment
  • "Industrial circles" don't exist yet, so we're going to be the first - can work out the details.
• What do we want CoTech to do?
  • Business development, sharing work
  • Mutual support, meeting like minded other companies
  • Sounding board, tapping into the community
  • Our processes are really different from other "normal" companies, really like to have an open forum with other co-ops on how to tackle certain issues. Return for the money we pay into it.
  • CoTech is the gatherings. Work collaborations have been a bit hit and miss. For example workshop about R&D tax credits made a huge impact
  • Alternative modes of tech ownership - the group could do thought leadership on that. Knowledge centre for platform co-ops.
  • Radical initiatives together.
  • All work is exploitation. CoTech sense of openness, willing to share bank accounts, pay etc. etc is really important. This facilitates societal change. Everyone should work like this - we can show the way. Leverage the psychology of money - you've effectively pre-paid for your gathering ticket.
  • Co-business development, co-bidding. Helping with legal forms - should we be a limited company or LLP, we can find others to ask them their experiences.
  • Meeting like-minded companies, particularly in our area where there aren't many co-ops. Sharing business development would be good. Professional networking, meeting other people who do the same job.
  • Comparing CoTech/worker co-ops with Housing co-ops. Do we have an equivalent of housing assets? Community owned technology?
  • We like the brand - good to say to potential clients that we have others we can lean on. Would like to know what other people do. See us as pressure group in tech, stop big tech.
  • If we're talking to each other, visible, active there's a snowball effect - more can join.
  • A rotation system among co-ops, so that we can work on "robin hood" projects and rotate people off projects that make them sad.
  • There are tech meet-ups in the retail sector of workers.coop

CoTech 2024 - Colchester

What do we want from/like about CoTech?

Community

• Sharing resources + experiences
• Socialising with people with common interests
• Community support (moral)
• Honest sharing of problems and info
• Help smaller coops

Tools for Sharing

• In-person gatherings
• Cotech Forum
• Online Events

Skills Hub

• Know who does what
• Sharing employees

BizDev

• Win work together

Change the sector/Our society

• Advocacy + a model for change in the world
• Being a model for better forms of work
• Thought leadership
• Aggregating proof of what we’ve achieved
• Make radical initiatives together
• Community assets

ACTIONS

• Polly to take the summary of why CoTech exists and turn it into prose for the website
• Natasha and Chris L to work out how to invoice for the CoTech fund for 2025.
• We think this should only be members of workers.coop (who are also members of CoTech)
  • Make sure people know it's optional
  • Re-state what the fund is for and why we're collecting it (in addition to worker.coop)
• Natasha to think about phone banking, sort out the worker.coop CiviCRM