Assemblany: Towards Democratic Corporations

My Favourite Charities

2007-06-11T22:28:00.000+09:30

This blog post is completely subjective - I'm only talking about my current favourite charities and the reasons why I donate to them. I currently donate most to charities that are trying to address global poverty.

I've been a long-time Oxfam supporter, and still donate on a monthly basis. I occasionally donate to the Red Cross and the Leprosy Mission (hoping to help eradicate leprosy). These charities and others like them have achieved a lot, and certainly health (as measured by e.g. infant mortality rates and life expectancies) has improved remarkably the past few decades.

But for some reason there seem to be a lot of exciting new charities with new approaches springing up. (Maybe there have been for years and I just haven't noticed.) Maybe it's my scientific bent, but I like to see statistics as well as read stories in order to know what effects the charity has already had, as well as what needs they're addressing. I already know that the needs are desparate; what I want to know is, will my donation make a difference?

So statistics like the number of people (families) helped out of poverty in the last year are just what I like to see. If the charity also states how much money was spent to achieve this (so some kind of measure of the effectiveness of each dollar), so much the better.

All of the following charities are very transparent and visible about what donations achieve. They also all support entrepreneurs/small businesses (including farmers), which is definitely an approach worth trying.

* Kiva These guys are doing amazing things. Knowing (and choosing) exactly who I'm helping - lending money to - is a powerful and moving experience. The outcomes feel much more tangible - yes, they're small-scale, but every person who is no longer hungry is a victory worth celebrating.
* KickStart The idea of appropriate technology has been around for a long time, but KickStart has really put it into practice. They develop and sell hand-held pumps to farmers in Africa, allowing them to increase their income up to ten-fold. They're also a great example of the kind of statistics I mentioned above, which was a significant factor in my choosing to donate to them.
* TechnoServe They provide business advice / professional development, for example to farmers in Africa to improve the quality of their coffee/pineapples/other export crops ... and thus earn higher prices.

I've seen a few other great ideas on the Web as well, but haven't yet donated to them:

* Acumen Fund They're doing things like building affordable housing and investing in water suppliers.
* Living Goods From microfinance to microfranchise ... Apparently they help "mobile health providers" to make a living selling health products - thus improving people's lives and providing employment at the same time.

More on the new approach to aid later.

Tales of Silicon Castles #2: The Three Sons of Professor Griffith (Part 1)

2007-03-21T22:21:00.000+10:30

Once upon a time there was a professor of computer science, who lectured at a red-brick university. He had three sons, and taught them everything that he could; but because the stipend of a professor is not large, they knew that when they graduated, they must go and seek their fortune in the world.

The first son, Alex, majored in finance and computer science, and did well at both. Immediately after graduating, he accepted a position at a company called Full Speed Astern. They were a high-powered stock analysis software company, with an office in an ultra-modern skyscraper in the city. Their chief customers were hedge funds, contrarian day-traders and a group of rogue accountants who for some reason always dressed as pirates. By contrast, company dress code at Full Speed Astern was a suit and tie, and Alex always wore a sober and sensible tie with faint stripes, small dots or fading triangles. Thanks to hard work and dedication, and a knack for finding better visualisations for the oceans of data that their customers daily filtered like baleen whales, he did well. Within a few years, he was promoted to deputy CTO. But one night, flying back from a conference in Switzerland, he looked out his window and saw the stars. Really saw them, the way he hadn't seen them since he was nine years old, realised their beauty and majesty. He stared and stared, conference forgotten, plane forgotten, alone with the blackness and the galaxy.

When he arrived home, he bought a powerful telescope, and took to driving out into the country to star-gaze, something in him thrilling to the mystery of space. He became a little dreamy in meetings, seeing the stars again in his mind's eye. Secretly he painted constellations with luminous paint on his office ceiling, just for the moment when they would glow after he switched off the lights at the end of the day.

The second son, Brian, majored in psychology and computer science; he preferred the statistical and analytical side of psychology, of viewing others from afar, and was never quite comfortable with the practicals. After graduating he soon found a job with an internet dating startup. They had a medieval theme, and were called knightsanddamsels.com - though some of the feedback they were getting from their female customers was that the males took the whole armour and visor idea a little too literally. The office was in a business incubator in a former warehouse, next to some arts studios, but was a fun place to work; the management got the developers nerf lances and wooden shields for stress relief, shouted them ale on Friday nights, and put "Sir" or "Dame" on their business cards.

Late one winter afternoon, with twilight shading the full-length windows behind his terminal, Brian was working on adding some new functionality to the date initiation form. The back-end business logic passed the tests, but he wanted to check out the placement of the new buttons as well, so he fired up a browser. He picked a random profile, clicked through the buttons and completed the form. At that point something about the feedback page rang alarm bells, and he realised that he'd selected the actual site by mistake instead of the test version ... It was too late to cancel, she (the damsel he'd selected at random) would have already received a message requesting a date from him.

In shock he stared at the screen. She - Maria - wasn't his type at all; in her photo, she wore chunky jewellery and colourful clothes, and her bio said she liked poetry. But she'd feel insulted if he cancelled - wouldn't he? He logged in to the customer database and found her records. No dates offered or initiated for the past two months ... now he felt worse. Maybe he should go to the date, be as nice as possible, but then fake an oversea trip or serious illness or something - would that work? Would she see through it? Would she think it was pity - would that make _her_ feel worse?

Before he could decide anything, an icon on his browser flashed - she'd already answered! And accepted, and suggested dinner on Friday night at a nearby Greek restaurant he'd always avoided. Numbly he agreed.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. Friday night he got there early, wearing arguably the most colourful and interesting clothes he owned. He sat there, outwardly still, inwardly nervous, and was still somehow surprised when she arrived and sat down opposite him. After introductions (yes, he did work at the dating company, like it said in his bio, he had to admit), and discussions about the restaurant (no, unfortunately he'd never been there before), she sat back and looked at him with a small quizzical smile.

"To be honest, Brian, I was rather surprised that you asked me for a date. From your bio, you don't seem my type at all - very conventional, mainstream background, job in IT, the only interests you list are sci-fi and roleplaying games - no offense, but you seemed like a typical geek. But, you know, so far none of my other dates worked out - too self-absorbed or, well, unstable ... I was going to cancel my account anyway, so I thought why not? But tell me, why _did_ you ask me for a date?"

Brian coughed and looked away. The question had come sooner than expected, and now he found that he couldn't lie to her. He mumbled "Really sorry ... just testing some code out ... it was an accident ... I didn't want to hurt your feelings by cancelling ... I'll refund your subscription fee ... " He wanted to say "and you're beautiful" but his throat closed up, so he just stopped there.

Maria was making a strange noise. He looked at her - she was laughing! He flushed even redder and looked at his feet. But she said, "Thank you, Brian, I do appreciate your not cancelling - though I wouldn't have minded if you'd told me why at the time. As it is, let's forget about the date, but since we're here, we might as well keep each other company while we have dinner. I think you'll like the food here; it's one of my favourite restaurants."

He looked up, gratefully - she was still smiling, now warmly and somewhat ironically. "Thank you", he managed.

The food was good. He found out that she actually reviewed books - serious books, literature - for newspapers and that she'd tried some Asimov once but didn't like it. At that, he suggested a selection of other science fiction, from Anne McCaffrey through Orson Scott Card and Iain M Banks, stopping only when her smile grew a little too wide. Somehow over the course of the evening he also admitted to having a semi-famous father, and got her laughing about his experiences with a lab rat called Walter.

This was the rat that had bitten his finger when it was supposed to be eating cheese, then dived onto the floor and disappeared. Brian had searched for the rest of the practical, but hadn't found him. The tutor said not to worry, they set out traps at night. So he headed off to the lawns for lunch, only to find Walter hiding in his bag and only crumbs remaining of the sandwiches he'd packed. On discovery, Walter had fled again, back to the psychology building, never to be recaptured - to his knowledge, he added.

They discovered that they'd gone to the same university - she'd been a year ahead of him, they hadn't taken any of the same classes but they did have a friend in common, a student politician of that time. Somewhere around dessert time, he also agreed to read some Walt Whitman to make up for not taking any English classes after high school.

As they said goodbye outside the restaurant, he felt relieved that she'd taken it so well, yet somehow flat.

It was a flat week. He forgot to read any poetry. Work was dull, even surfing the web didn't lift his mood - life seemed gray, overcast, he had nothing to look forward to. But late Friday afternoon, there was a knock on the side door to the adjacent studio. It was Maria, her smile electric, glowing bright enough to dispel the winter gloom instantly. She had a friend working in the art studio, it transpired, who didn't know exactly which company was next door, except that they were some kind of crazy geeks who hit each other with rubber sticks. So here she was. Without knowing it, he was smiling uncontrollably, too, and when she suggested that they go and see a new avant-garde near-future romantic comedy, he happily agreed. They exchanged phone numbers outside the cinema, and left open the possibility of having dinner again sometime.

The next week he read Walt Whitman and enjoyed it, because it reminded him of Maria. On their third date, he finally told her that she was beautiful; that evening, she kissed him as he said good night. In two months, they were engaged; within a year, they were married.

His company had just folded after burning through the last of its VC cash; the suits of armour (officially only used for marketing and promotional purposes) were sold off at discount rates. It wasn't long before he found a new job with Maria's help, at a small B2B company for authors and publishers. It was called "market of the mind" (all lower case). There he found a niche for himself in fixing intermittant bugs and reducing users' frustration. Maria kept on reviewing novels, now including an occasional obscure science fiction release.

[End of Part I - to be continued, as we find out what happened to the third son, Chris.]

Fast Company - Design

2007-01-16T00:01:00.000+10:30

For a recent (day-long) train trip, I wanted some new reading material, but the local newsagent was out of "The Economist". They did still have a copy of "Fast Company", and as it happens, I'd read a few articles from there lately (including browsing the article on Gordon Bell the life-logger). So I took a chance and bought a copy (the November 2006 edition).

It was highly enjoyable reading. In particular, I thought the design was excellent and exemplary. (It compares favourably to the design of "New Scientist", not coincidentally another of my favourite magazines, which also pays careful attention to readability.) The text is easily integrated with the images, just about every page seems fresh and readable (no doubt helped by having plenty of short 1 or 2 page articles), and it used some great photographs. (I know nothing about design, these are just my impressions.)

No doubt I'd get bored with it over time, but this, the first edition I'd bought, was a highlight.

The next time I was looking for a magazine to buy (for a 3-hour plane flight this time), I couldn't find a copy of "Fast Company" ... but they did still have the Christmas double edition of "The Economist", so I was happy to settle for that.

Tales of Silicon Castles #1: Going Green

2006-10-17T23:42:00.000+09:30

Tom worked for a large software company. He'd worked there for five years, the first job he'd had after he'd graduated. He'd kept his head down, worked hard, never spoke up, passed unnoticed by most of his colleagues.

One day he noticed a small green sprout growing from the carpet near his PC.

He stared at it for a while, then acted as if it wasn't there. But when no-one was watching, he watered it and gently stroked its tiny leaves. When he touched it, he thought he heard a faint parrot squawk and smelt the raw, damp, green smell of a rainforest after the rain.

His cubicle was out of the way and no-one usually came to visit. It was two weeks before anyone else noticed his plant, and by that time it was a foot tall and had pale blue flowers.

"What is it, Tom?" they asked. "How did it get here? What have you done?" He shrugged and said nothing.

The next day it was gone - there was just bare ground where it had been. An email informed all employees that there was a new policy on plants in the office.

Tom resigned that afternoon, and moved to a small farmhouse in the country.

At first he tried setting up his laptop on a card table on the back lawn, under a tree, with a chain of extension cords leading inside. But the wind, sun and insects got a little too distracting.

He talked to a local builder, but straw bales or pressed earth weren't quite right, and then to the local scout master. He ended up with a lean-to made of branches, with a leafy roof and grass for a floor. Most days he worked barefoot, shaded by the roof and cooled by a breeze, bird feeder set out nearby.

Work now was bits of this and that - small contracts, open-source, web design. His old company sent him an email asking whether he'd like to come back on contract for a couple of months; his reply was polite but definite - no thanks. He attached a JPEG of his floor, saying "My feet are on the ground now."

He took to eating apples from the trees in the overgrown orchard, drinking rainwater, talking to the birds that came to eat at the feeder.

One morning he went to the lean-to to find that the extension cord had become a root leading down into the soil and his laptop was flowering. He laughed, shrugged and started typing.

Definition: Unstitute

2006-08-21T21:35:00.000+09:30

unstitute (n.): a network set up to solve a problem and not perpetuate itself; an institute without self-preservation instincts.

Thoughts on Limited Tribes

2006-06-01T21:45:00.000+09:30

As a thought experiment, consider a meta-org created to pursue long-term goals that a number of people belong to. Over time, as opportunities arise and/or customers express interest, it spins off short-term organisations (limited tribes). Each limited tribe has one specific goal that they are dedicated to, and dissolves when that goal is met.

If the meta-org is a company, then the limited tribes are project teams, which many people are familiar with. But if the limited tribes are companies, then the picture looks quite different ... I know there would be problems, like "what about liabilities and support" - most customers feel more secure knowing that the company will be around for a long time - there wouldn't necessarily be a cash buffer against the times between projects. But consider the advantages for a moment: think of the excitement in starting a new company every year; the chances to keep the best parts from previous projects/tribes; the chance to work with self-selected groups of people (assuming that people in the meta-org have the freedom to pick their own project, which I admit is unrealistic).

There can be a productive creative tension between short-term and long-term thinking in companies - though often things that should be changed regularly are preserved past their use-by date and vice-versa. If many policies and the mission statement change every year, while procedures spelling out which version of which software to use remain unchanged for 5 years, there's a mix of confusion and conservatism in the minds of employees (and probably management) of that company. There have been so many opportunities for positive change in the last 10 years (how many people used the internet 10 years ago?) - organisations should be open to them and ready to seize them. More on this topic later.

Definition: Limited Tribe

2006-06-01T21:37:00.000+09:30

limited tribe (n.): a group of people who agree to work together for a defined time to accomplish a goal (and/or project). Usually construct and preserve a common (group) identity through the use of jargon (slang), in-jokes, rituals etc.

See also "transient tribe", "sunset company", "mayfly org" and "tempany".

Democratic and/or Creative MMORPGs

2006-05-23T22:11:00.000+09:30

I recently discovered that "A Tale in the Desert" allows users to vote on laws, so it could be described as a democratic MMORPG (though I'm not sure if the Pharaoh is up for election :)

Similarly Second Life (no link necessary :) would have to be one of the more creative MMORPGs - I hear that you can design vehicles and buildings as well as clothing (and hairstyles).

But I think there's still room for innovation. From a previous post: imagine a MMORPG where you could also vote in rules that allowed entirely new classes of objects; where the profit from fees was shared by developers or re-invested in the business; where new realms or worlds could be created at the whim of the players. (All of this, of course, assumes that the developers can actually implement the changes in a reasonable time :)

Differentiating Features for Assemblanies

2006-05-19T21:11:00.000+09:30

Some possible differentiating guidelines for assemblanies:
* Be a seed for change in the world.
* Businesses can (and should!) be profitable and ethical at the same time.
* Write down the unwritten rules.
* Flatten the hierarchy.

How and why these are specific to or valuable for assemblanies:
* Assemblanies can be not just achieving goals in themselves, but also demonstrating a better (freer, more equal) way to work and live.
* Everyone having a vote on all major decisions makes it harder to fudge an issue or bury it under the carpet: ethical problems must be faced by the whole assemblany.
* Formalising unwritten rules reduces the fear of overstepping boundaries or making mistakes (in particular, reduces the prevalence of double bind situations); openness and transparency is good in itself, as well as promoting trust and increasing effectiveness.
* By definition, assemblanies flatten the hierarchy and share power; everyone has a vote on all major decisions. Usually in the corporate world empowerment is restricted to a narrow (technical) area and doesn't apply to broader, company-wide policies; in assemblanies, empowerment would be ubiquitous and almost invisible.

Africa on the Internet

2006-05-04T22:51:00.000+09:30

Some more random thoughts:

Apparently Kenya now has 1.5 million Internet users - up from 0.5 million a year ago!

For listings by country, see here - what surprised me was Somalia having 89,000 Internet users (from 200 in Dec 2000), more than many other African countries, despite having no central government. But still obviously a long way to go - or, looked at another way, a lot of growth potential in mobile phones and Internet: see here on "a new scramble for Africa" and here on the new East Africa submarine cable being built.

Democratic countries and post-post-communists

2006-05-04T22:17:00.000+09:30

Not related to companies as such, but definitely to democracy: I've just heard of Timothy Garton Ash, a journalist and author who wrote about the fall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. So naturally I tried to find any articles of his that I could online ... and read a very interesting article on the future of Iran here, and fascinating interview on the end of communism here (ten years old but still relevant today).

Also found the recently released failed states index. Still, states do have longer lifetimes than businesses ... and then there's the comparison between CEOs' salaries and political leaders' ...

Forgiveness, even for Software Developers

2006-04-27T20:54:00.000+09:30

Even for Christians, it's not always easy to forgive others who have hurt you at work.

It's not easy to forgive when deadlines loom, work piles up, the pressure mounts. Then it's easy to look back and blame your managers, and think, "Why didn't they plan to spend more time on testing from the start? Why didn't they put more people on the project from day one?"

It's not easy to forgive co-workers when you have to fix their mistakes, when that takes time away from what you're supposed to be doing; it's not easy to forgive them for code that you can't understand, that's uncommented or too complex or just plain wrong.

It's not easy to forgive customers for changing their mind, or adding more requirements - even if they claim it was due to a misunderstanding in the first place.

It's not easy to forgive managers and others for not even noticing when you're hurting, or wanting more from your job, or just doing your work as well as you can.

It's easy to blame others, to feel bitter, to carry grudges; it's hard to admit responsibility for our own mistakes, to forgive others and start again ... But that is what Jesus calls us to do, not seven times, but seventy times seven: to forgive those who hurt us.

What makes it easier is knowing that we are forgiven. That God forgives us for Jesus' sake, and loves us despite our mistakes, even despite the fact that we keep on making mistakes over and over again, and hurting others (deliberately or not).

God forgives us for our bad decisions, for the mistakes that we made long ago and close at hand, for buggy code that has never been fixed. For bugs and unreadable code that cause us and our co-workers pain, our company money and our managers stress.

God also forgives us for our short-sightedness and ignorance, our clinging to old habits, our refusal to see that we could be wrong, our glossing over and covering up old bugs. For the ways in which we hurt others, in failing to acknowledge their efforts and appreciate them as pople, to help them as we should.

For all the ways that we fail and mess up time and time again, God forgives us. God knows that we are imperfect, flawed, sinning human beings, but he still loves us, and still forgives us. He washes us clean through our baptism and covers us in Jesus' robes. With endless patience, day after day, time and time again.

Therapeutic Writing for Software Developers

2006-04-13T22:09:00.000+09:30

I've recently re-discovered Gillie Bolton, an expert on therapeutic writing (see for example here and here). She writes in the context of medicine - doctors getting in touch with their own feelings and patients learning to understand themselves and come to terms with their illnesses. But it seems to me that therapeutic writing is valuable in any job that involves people (i.e. all of them).

For example, in software development, it ties in nicely with project retrospectives, where we seek to understand and capture what went wrong, what went right and how we can do better - and our feelings are a vital guide to this. But even on a week-to-week or day-to-day basis, it can be helpful to explain to oneself and thus explore our feelings about what we have done, are doing and will do, as well as about our team and our manager(s).

Dilbert is one extreme example of this - blogs are (in general) rather more moderate examples (very rarely are they completely factual). But blogs are self-censored for the sake of one's reputation - therapeutic writing can be written entirely for oneself.

Definition - consensism

2006-03-20T22:16:00.000+10:30

consensism (n.): An organisation committed to making all significant decisions by consensus.

See the Wikipedia article on consensus decision making for examples of such.

EDIT: see also this Seeds for Change article.

EDIT (19 May 02006): Please note that this is a potential future definition and is not (as far as I know) actually being used by anyone ... Apparently there is another definition: "a new style of art recently introduced to Bali by artist Lony Wing", which I was not previously aware of.

Fribitzberry - proposals update, week 53

2006-03-19T22:00:00.000+10:30

Well, here's the latest on the proposals that got in and the new proposals for this week. Thank God for the rule that any proposals (not concerned solely with Workers) need to be seconded by at least 5 Voters - that's cut down on the volume a lot over the past month, so we only see (relatively) serious proposals now.

Of the proposals that did get in, I'm particularly happy with the proposal to clarify the language on our "what we do" web page. The previous version was way too tech-heavy, with all its talk about "Web2.1", "AJAZ", "REIFY", "written in Lobar", and "using the NEPHRITIS engine"; that's all been moved to the "technology" index page. Instead it's just focussing on fribitzing of rogenthumps, including splendiferric rogenthumps, which after all is what the customers care about, not what code is sitting on the server (or "behind the curtain" as someone said in the discussion of this proposal). They just want it to work.

Someone's made a new proposal that security and robustness should be prioritised ahead of new features; as a tester, I have to agree. We've got way too many defects at the moment, and need to focus on fixing them now. Looks like the customers recognise this as well :/ - well, I guess if that's what they want (and we'll see next week), that's what they get - the customer is always right, particularly at Fribitzberry.

Also, looks like it's time for elections to official positions again. I'm not standing for Social Events Co-ordinator again after the debacle with the canoeing afternoon ... Actually, it'd be great to get some volunteer support for that from a non-Worker Voter. I guess I should probably volunteer for Rule Engine Maintainer ... Tom needs a break, and the Rule Engine isn't that different from our product, really, so it's not too much to learn. I should nominate Tom for the Selfless Hero(ine) award, though - after 5 months of maintaining the rules through our growth spurt, he deserves to be recognised.

And that's all the rules-related comments I have for this week; tune in next week for more. (And/or some comments on my tests, which are more frustrating than ever.)

Introducing Fribitzberry

2006-03-19T21:47:00.000+10:30

To further illustrate how an assemblany could work, there'll be a series of posts about a hypothetical Web assemblany called "Fribitzberry" (the name has no particular meaning).

Fribitzberry has been operating for about twelve months, and is just starting to become profitable (yeah, yeah, it's a hypothetical example). It has 10 Workers and about 200 other Voters (these are customers who have cared enough about its products to sign up and try to influence improvements that are made to it).

It is "focussed on enabling the better fribitzing of rogenthumps" (at least, that's its mission statement).

EDIT: the entries will be written from the point of view of a Worker, specifically a tester for the company's product(s).

Draft Initial Rules 101-102

2006-02-08T22:37:00.000+10:30

The following are suggested (and very much draft) initial rules for an assemblany (democratic corporation). They can be modified (though these rules should be harder to modify than most - see rule 109).

Rule 101 establishes that the rules of the assemblany are, indeed, rules, and as such must be followed. Policies, most procedures, and guidelines are not rules and should be treated separately.

Rule 102 sets out classes and categories of rules, and establishes that both classes and categories may change.

If you haven't read Nomic rules before, please be aware that they are intended to be precise and loophole-free - though generally not as legalese as the laws of a country tend to become.

Rule 101
"All Workers must always abide by all the rules of the assemblany then in effect, in the form in which they are in effect.

"All Voters must always abide by all the immutable and mutable voter rules of the assemblany then in effect, in the form in which they are in effect.

"The rules in the Initial Set are in effect when the assemblany is formed. The Initial Set consists of Rules 101-1ab (immutable), 201-2cd (mutable voter) and 301-3ef (mutable business).

"Ethical and relevant legal considerations always take precedence over these rules when there is a conflict."

Rule 102
"Initially, rules in the 100s are immutable, rules in the 200s are mutable (in the voter category, or mutable voter rules) and rules in the 300s are mutable (in the business category, or mutable business rules).

"Rules subsequently enacted or transmuted (that is, changed from immutable to mutable or vice versa) may be immutable or mutable regardless of their numbers, and rules in the Initial Set may be transmuted regardless of their numbers. Similarly, mutable rules may be transformed (ie change category from voter to business or vice versa) regardless of their numbers."

Note that "Worker" isn't explicitly defined here, and maybe isn't defined at all in these rules. Implicitly it means someone who is paid wages from the revenue of the assemblany, in recompense for work carried out on behalf of the assemblany. However, the boundary may be fuzzy between Worker and Voter.

A "Voter" is someone who has a say in how the business operates, and is generally a stakeholder of some sort (typically worker or customer). There is a danger of voters trying to overturn the assemblany by forcing workers to follow undesirable rules; some safeguards against this can be built into the initial rules, while other safeguards can be put in place as vulnerabilities of the rules are discovered. (This is also common practice in Nomics, that rules are patched up to prevent recurrence of a scam; see for example this article on the history of a scam in Agora, one of the longest-running Nomic games on the net.)

Refactoring Test Code

2006-02-03T20:59:00.000+10:30

Not strictly related to assemblanies, but I recently found a very interesting book on refactoring test code on the web.

Much test code that I've written for projects has the smells mentioned in the book, including Interface Sensitivity, Slow Tests (though getting faster), Obscure and/or Eager Test, and Assertion Roulette ...

Example #1: The Medieval Democratic Republic of Cyberspace

2006-01-29T20:49:00.000+10:30

One example of an assemblany in practice:

A MMORPG created by a group of people, who agree to contribute equally towards the costs of servers, web hosting, admin time etc through monthly license fees. In return, they get a vote on all policies and policy changes [*]. This includes creating, modifying or deleting player abilities, items, quests, monsters (mobs) etc. Meta-rules would govern the voting on policy changes.

The base for the software could be an existing open-source project such as Arianne, Worldforge or even a graphical MUSH. New code, images and rules could be added by a subset of the players (as defined by the meta-rules) and/or by paid developers or artists - again, the salaries would come from the fees.

This should cut down on complaints about nerfing and what are perceived to be unilateral decisions, since any such rule-change would have to pass a vote ... Though depending on the voting meta-rules, it is still possible that minorities could feel victimised.

While it's unlikely that such a MMORPG would be as popular as existing MMORPGs in the short-term (since its graphics and content couldn't match the huge investments of mainstream MMORPGs), it should still be fun for its players; through its gradual change and development over time, it would also push the boundaries of player-led and designed online games ...

[*] To some extent, admin and development staff would still make some policy decisions by default or due to limited time available to consult, but these would be subject to review by the voters.

So what is an Assemblany?

2006-01-21T20:38:00.000+10:30

Q: So what is an assemblany?

A: The dictionary will say:
assemblany (n.): company governed by decisions made by (possibly virtual) assemblies of all employees (and/or stakeholders). see also "consensism". also known as "parliamentary corporation", "participatory co-operative".

Q: How does this differ from current co-operatives?

A: While all workers have a share in a co-operative, and thus (at least theoretically) a say in decisions, this may only occur at annual general meetings. Between times, decisions are taken by an executive committee or a board - senior management - whatever. Similarly it's difficult for the workers to set the agenda.

In an assemblany, company-wide decisions are voted on by all workers/stakeholders. Similarly all workers/stakeholders can make proposals for the actions that the assemblany shall take and the rules that shall be followed.

An assemblany would typically be a co-operative (and could also be a consensism).

Q: How can this possibly work?

A: How do parliaments work? They follow rules that they agree on and have rules to allow them to change the rules.

On a smaller scale, many games of Nomic (as defined here, with many examples here) have been successfully run. Any assemblany would probably start with rules ("seed rules") based on, or very similar to, Nomic (which is close to the minimal set of rules allowing self-modification).

The proposing and voting could take place either at weekly face-to-face meetings (if the assemblany is geographically compact so that this is feasible) or electronically via mailing lists, Web fora etc.

Q: Why do you think this would work?

A: Why do parliaments work? Because everyone has a say and is thus deeply involved and committed. An assemblany should be more focussed and also more fun to work in than a traditional company.

Q: What are the key values of a typical assemblany?

A: Transparency, integrity, and flexibility to extreme levels.

(Note: my apologies if I misrepresent co-operatives; I don't have inside knowledge of them. I'm trying to spark new ideas here, not debate the workings of existing organisations.)