So excited to see Loomio on the frontpage of Hacker News! I've long dreamed of an effective web app for consensus decision making processes (and even thought about building one) but as a user of Loomio for over a year I can say they've done almost everything right -- even down to having some serious design chops. I'm so excited to see where they will be able to take this with the money they've raised (hit your goal today! woot!) and look forward to introducing more activist organizations, especially those with people in many geographical locations, to Loomio. Great job to all the devs and designers and alpha and beta testers!
For those of you who don't know, consensus decision making is not just a willy-nilly free for all. Over the years it has been refined by groups, it has developed strong points of process that help ensure it actually is a decision making process, not just a discussion that goes in circles or goes nowhere. (including the infamous hand signals that many saw during Occupy). If you are interested in consensus decision making, I highly recommend checking out this classic book.
While I don't think formal consensus decision making is the best tool for non-hierarchical decision making i all circumstances, I do think it is quite powerful /when used correctly/. Historically this has required strong facilitation skills and other roles (timekeeper, temperature checker, etc) -- all of which play their part in keeping the process working as designed.
Loomio has created a platform for decentralized non-hierarchical decision making that bakes in some crucial features /to accomplish formal consensus decision making/. All the activists I know that have tried it have been impressed by the dev team's responsiveness and dogfooding (Loomio uses Loomio), and have found the features enable formal consensus decision making in a way that a discussion board or voting polls or similar tools that aren't quite designed for consensus just don't.
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So excited to see Loomio on the frontpage of Hacker News! I've long dreamed of an effective web app for consensus decision making processes (and even thought about building one) but as a user of Loomio for over a year I can say they've done almost everything right -- even down to having some serious design chops. I'm so excited to see where they will be able to take this with the money they've raised (hit your goal today! woot!) and look forward to introducing more activist organizations, especially those with people in many geographical locations, to Loomio. Great job to all the devs and designers and alpha and beta testers!
For those of you who don't know, consensus decision making is not just a willy-nilly free for all. Over the years it has been refined by groups, it has developed strong points of process that help ensure it actually is a decision making process, not just a discussion that goes in circles or goes nowhere. (including the infamous hand signals that many saw during Occupy). If you are interested in consensus decision making, I highly recommend checking out this classic book.
http://consensus.net/pdf/consensus.pdf
While I don't think formal consensus decision making is the best tool for non-hierarchical decision making i all circumstances, I do think it is quite powerful /when used correctly/. Historically this has required strong facilitation skills and other roles (timekeeper, temperature checker, etc) -- all of which play their part in keeping the process working as designed.
Loomio has created a platform for decentralized non-hierarchical decision making that bakes in some crucial features /to accomplish formal consensus decision making/. All the activists I know that have tried it have been impressed by the dev team's responsiveness and dogfooding (Loomio uses Loomio), and have found the features enable formal consensus decision making in a way that a discussion board or voting polls or similar tools that aren't quite designed for consensus just don't.
What have you been using Loomio for? I still can't say I really get it.
For doing formal-ish consensus decisionmaking with groups that are geographically dispersed and can't do in-person consensus-based meetings.