5 ms·

Why you should hire a tech co-op

16 points by conatus 9y ago

kingbirdy 9y ago
This seems like it's just a pitch for this company - what's the actual value of the article?
- bussierem 9y ago
  The value of the article is the advertising - I could tell just from the title that it was almost certainly written by someone employed by a "tech co-op". I've never seen an article like this introducing a concept and why it's so great without it being written by someone financially motivated to do so.
31h 9y ago
> we reinvest our own profit into new projects that we believe are going to bring about real social change. So what? Why is there an implicit assumption that if someone is trying to bring about "change", that it must be good?
- everestjustleft 9y ago
  I believe the "good" is implicit mate.
  - 31h 9y ago
    Pardon if I don't give someone credit for asserting they support "social change" without specifying what they're changing. It could mean anything from "ban mosques in London" to "free condoms with every middle-school lunch".
    - conatus 9y ago
      What social change we want to cause is: a) decided democratically by those who have done the work. b) subject to a rigorous "theory of change" (of the kind used by charities and the third sector) to decide on potential impacts and side effects of any change caused and to measure how much change has been caused. So we don't just do change for changes sake but try and cause positive social change. We talk about this internally a lot and have robust consent based decision making processes to be "checks and balances" on these matters.
      - 31h 9y ago
        a rigorous "theory of change" (of the kind used by charities and the third sector) to decide on potential impacts and side effects I see. Sounds like "very rigorous maritime engineering standards".
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    The Southern Student Organizing Committee sought social change that they saw as good. OTOH, so did (and do!) the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Opinions rather radically different on which social change is good, so someone who merely tells you that they are seeking social change (whether or not they explicitly specify that it is “good”), but not what specific change they are seeking probably doesn't deserve much credit. Unless you are merely a seeker of chaos, such that any change, regardless of the nature of the change, is, inherently, good in your view.
megamindbrian 9y ago
I hired from a tech-coop and the person didn't do any work.
- the_cat_kittles 9y ago
  "Why you shouldn't hire a tech co-op"
- cortesoft 9y ago
  Yeah, because the status quo is to 'do the work you are hired to do', and they disrupted it.
agentgt 9y ago
I can't figure out why Co-ops (particularly education institute backed) haven't really taken off in the US. For example my alma mater Georgia Tech used to offer a Co-op program but I believe they discontinued it. Northeastern here in Boston from what I have heard from others had serious problems with adoption of the Co-op program (I have to find the citation where I also read this). Of course this was a few years back so maybe Co-ops are in now?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jasode 9y ago
  >I can't figure out why Co-ops (particularly education institute backed) haven't really taken off in the US. I'm not familiar with what "education institute backed" means. Does that mean GTech provided initial seed capital to the co-op for free? If so, how much money was it? To the general question of why co-ops are not prominent, it's because the workers don't have significant money. By definition, the co-op is owned by the workers and therefore, the workers need to fund the business. That limit on investment is why co-ops are often smaller businesses like consultants sharing an office & a laser printer or farmers-&-market collective. I also made a previous comment about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165966
  - agentgt 9y ago
    I had a complete brain fart and thought they were talking about education co-op which is more like an internship (sadly I skimmed the article... poorly). I am surprised I wasn't downvoted (I deserve it) to oblivion for such a mistake.
- 31h 9y ago
  An educational co-op is a completely different concept from what is described here. Work/school co-op means a student does paid full-time work while still enrolled in a degree program (e.g. a semester off). What is described in this article just refers to a worker-owned consultancy.
heliosAtwork 9y ago
The concept sounds interesting. Are there any successful tech-coops in the San Francisco bay area that people are aware of?
- conatus 9y ago
  I don't know of any off the top of my head, but I do know that substack, James Halliday, who is behind Browserify has launched a tech coop https://bits.coop/ https://bits.coop/
conatus 9y ago
I work here. AMA.
- 31h 9y ago
  What's the pitch based on value to your customers, rather than some imagined "social value" from political causes which your customer may well perceive negatively?
  - conatus 9y ago
    We hope we produce well made software for our clients which tries to follow the best industry practices when building these kinds of things both technically and in terms of project direction. This all springs from a very close and collaborative relationship with the clients that being a coop lends itself to: user led design with plenty of user testing, short sprints focussed on delivering high value products that can be used immediately, close interaction with clients so we always produce precisely what they are after (standard agile methodologies apply here) a high quality of support and after care and so on. As for clients perceiving the social value offer negatively, we tend to find people choose us because of the way we share and distribute the surpluses we make. In honesty I've been working here a year and it hasn't come up. Sometimes clients come to us because they know that we are the only place that would be interested in building what they are after. Amongst other things, basically, if we love a project and think it can help make the world a slightly better, fairer place, we may actually support it's development (or further development) by funding some of its design and build ourselves. That's one way that a client may get value, but not the only way.
    - 31h 9y ago
      we tend to find people choose us because of the way we share and distribute the surpluses we make. In my experience engaging consultants, I've never asked how they spend their profits. It surprises me that would be your major selling point, but maybe your clients are spending other people's money.
      - 9y ago

16 points by conatus 9y ago

kingbirdy 9y ago

This seems like it's just a pitch for this company - what's the actual value of the article?

bussierem 9y ago
The value of the article is the advertising - I could tell just from the title that it was almost certainly written by someone employed by a "tech co-op". I've never seen an article like this introducing a concept and why it's so great without it being written by someone financially motivated to do so.

31h 9y ago

> we reinvest our own profit into new projects that we believe are going to bring about real social change. So what? Why is there an implicit assumption that if someone is trying to bring about "change", that it must be good?

everestjustleft 9y ago
I believe the "good" is implicit mate.
- 31h 9y ago
  Pardon if I don't give someone credit for asserting they support "social change" without specifying what they're changing. It could mean anything from "ban mosques in London" to "free condoms with every middle-school lunch".
  - conatus 9y ago
    What social change we want to cause is: a) decided democratically by those who have done the work. b) subject to a rigorous "theory of change" (of the kind used by charities and the third sector) to decide on potential impacts and side effects of any change caused and to measure how much change has been caused. So we don't just do change for changes sake but try and cause positive social change. We talk about this internally a lot and have robust consent based decision making processes to be "checks and balances" on these matters.
    - 31h 9y ago
      a rigorous "theory of change" (of the kind used by charities and the third sector) to decide on potential impacts and side effects I see. Sounds like "very rigorous maritime engineering standards".
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  The Southern Student Organizing Committee sought social change that they saw as good. OTOH, so did (and do!) the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Opinions rather radically different on which social change is good, so someone who merely tells you that they are seeking social change (whether or not they explicitly specify that it is “good”), but not what specific change they are seeking probably doesn't deserve much credit. Unless you are merely a seeker of chaos, such that any change, regardless of the nature of the change, is, inherently, good in your view.

megamindbrian 9y ago

I hired from a tech-coop and the person didn't do any work.

the_cat_kittles 9y ago
"Why you shouldn't hire a tech co-op"
cortesoft 9y ago
Yeah, because the status quo is to 'do the work you are hired to do', and they disrupted it.

agentgt 9y ago

I can't figure out why Co-ops (particularly education institute backed) haven't really taken off in the US. For example my alma mater Georgia Tech used to offer a Co-op program but I believe they discontinued it. Northeastern here in Boston from what I have heard from others had serious problems with adoption of the Co-op program (I have to find the citation where I also read this). Of course this was a few years back so maybe Co-ops are in now?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jasode 9y ago
>I can't figure out why Co-ops (particularly education institute backed) haven't really taken off in the US. I'm not familiar with what "education institute backed" means. Does that mean GTech provided initial seed capital to the co-op for free? If so, how much money was it? To the general question of why co-ops are not prominent, it's because the workers don't have significant money. By definition, the co-op is owned by the workers and therefore, the workers need to fund the business. That limit on investment is why co-ops are often smaller businesses like consultants sharing an office & a laser printer or farmers-&-market collective. I also made a previous comment about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11165966
- agentgt 9y ago
  I had a complete brain fart and thought they were talking about education co-op which is more like an internship (sadly I skimmed the article... poorly). I am surprised I wasn't downvoted (I deserve it) to oblivion for such a mistake.
31h 9y ago
An educational co-op is a completely different concept from what is described here. Work/school co-op means a student does paid full-time work while still enrolled in a degree program (e.g. a semester off). What is described in this article just refers to a worker-owned consultancy.

heliosAtwork 9y ago

The concept sounds interesting. Are there any successful tech-coops in the San Francisco bay area that people are aware of?

conatus 9y ago
I don't know of any off the top of my head, but I do know that substack, James Halliday, who is behind Browserify has launched a tech coop https://bits.coop/ https://bits.coop/

conatus 9y ago

I work here. AMA.

31h 9y ago
What's the pitch based on value to your customers, rather than some imagined "social value" from political causes which your customer may well perceive negatively?
- conatus 9y ago
  We hope we produce well made software for our clients which tries to follow the best industry practices when building these kinds of things both technically and in terms of project direction. This all springs from a very close and collaborative relationship with the clients that being a coop lends itself to: user led design with plenty of user testing, short sprints focussed on delivering high value products that can be used immediately, close interaction with clients so we always produce precisely what they are after (standard agile methodologies apply here) a high quality of support and after care and so on. As for clients perceiving the social value offer negatively, we tend to find people choose us because of the way we share and distribute the surpluses we make. In honesty I've been working here a year and it hasn't come up. Sometimes clients come to us because they know that we are the only place that would be interested in building what they are after. Amongst other things, basically, if we love a project and think it can help make the world a slightly better, fairer place, we may actually support it's development (or further development) by funding some of its design and build ourselves. That's one way that a client may get value, but not the only way.
  - 31h 9y ago
    we tend to find people choose us because of the way we share and distribute the surpluses we make. In my experience engaging consultants, I've never asked how they spend their profits. It surprises me that would be your major selling point, but maybe your clients are spending other people's money.
    - 9y ago