In the Workplace

People’s Rights Amendment

27 January 2012

Today, the Court has enthroned corporations, permitting them not only all kinds of special economic rights but now, amazingly, moving to grant them the same political rights as the people. Jamie Raskin, Maryland State Senator Constitutional law expert, Washington College of Law American University   The movement to reserve the rights ensured by the US Constitution [...]

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Co-Operative Identity

12 September 2011

The following Statement on the Co-operative Identity is from the website of the International Co-operative Alliance. It was updated in 2007; previous versions are available there. While applying these principles will ensure a democratically governed organization, they will do so only for the members. Unless the whole organization is composed of workers or the workers [...]

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Suma Wholefoods, Elland, Yorkshire, UK

10 September 2011

Cooperatives are democratic organizations as far as their members go but are often not very democratic in their governance of workers, particularly when the workers are a whole different group of people from their members. And members are, after all, investors. Worker-owned businesses may also be as autocratic in their governance as the most hierarchical [...]

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Co-Operatives UK

8 September 2011

Co-operatives UK is the national trade association in the United Kingdom that campaigns for co-operation and works to promote, develop, and unite co-operative enterprises that in the UK include High Street consumer-owned co-operatives to pubs and football clubs, healthcare to agriculture, credit unions to community owned shops, pubs to public relations, wind farms to web [...]

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DecisonLab, Sussex, England, UK

8 August 2011

A consulting practice that offers facilitation, training, coaching, and consultancy services to organizations and leaders who share common visions of bettering the world. Since January 2010, DecisionLab has been governed and operated along sociocratic and cooperative principles. In March 2010, DecisionLab incorporated as Sociocratic, Ecological and Economic Development (SEED) Ltd, which is a registered member of Co-operatives UK. Their [...]

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Aptivate, Cambridge, England, UK

8 August 2011

An NGO and not-for-profit organisation that provides IT services for international development. Works on both grant funded projects and direct partnerships with NGOs. Mission Aptivate believes in the power of knowledge and communication to alleviate poverty, suffering and conflict, and in the right of every individual to inform and be informed. We are dedicated to [...]

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Fractals, Natural Writing Systems, Topological Features

18 January 2011

Big words in a string — fractals, natural writing systems, topological features — that all melt down to the fact that our writing systems develop out of the forms we know from birth, the world around us. The shapes in the landscape and in our built world are mathematically similar to those in letters. And [...]

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Round Pyramid, or Rounding the Pyramid

3 January 2011

Used by Ricardo Semler in Maverick to describe the circular hierarchy created at Semco in Brazil. (Chapter 24, “Rounding the Pyramid,” pp. 187-196.)

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Terra Viva, São Paulo, Brazil

28 December 2010

Terra Viva is an agribusiness centered in São Paulo, Brazil begin by the Schoenmaker family in 1959 to grow gladiolas. Though not mentioned on their website, Gerard Endenburg consulted with the owner in the 1970s to develop the company using sociocracy. They now have more than a thousand workers and focus on bulbs and plants for [...]

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Semco, São Paulo, Brazil

28 December 2010

Throughout Maverick, Ricardo Semler’s book on the development of his corporation Semco, he expresses and implements ideas that are hauntingly similar to those of Gerard Endenburg. Semler calls his method “open management” and refers to democracy for workers. He never mentions Endenburg’s “sociocratic-circle-organization.” What was the connection between the ideas of Semler and Endenburg? Between [...]

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