Strategic Ideation - 2

Pod 1: bl, gi
Focus area: BE NEIGHBOURLY!

Brief

With your pod, generate a list of possible goals and strategic initiatives within your assigned focus area - incorporating the trends and surfaced themes

Come up with 5+ ideas in 20 minutes

Ideation Area…

• bl: how do we be neighbourly while getting paid?
• gi: what does it mean to be neighbourly?
• gi: what have we done that is neighbourly?
  • covid solidarity
  • covid connect
  • working for c4c for $32.50 an hour
  • aether hourly rate
  • handbook, publicly facing artifacts, sharing our work openly
  • sharing with those who asks about them
  • signalling with the co-op movement, in turn many of those groups engage (e.g. SEIZE, Foodster)
    • we end up spending time engaging and doing free consultation if needed (coordinate learning group with Foodster, digital coaching for CWCF)
    • "sales & marketing" and neighbourly work gets blurred
• GOAL: Establish what neighbourly means, and the boundaries of what this means in the co-op. Prioritize neighbours
• GOAL: Understand what is a "neighbourly approach" vs. "sales approach", what are the process and outcomes differences
• GOAL: Establish practices that empower co-op members to engage in neighbourly activity
• Types of neighbours:
  • DWeb
  • CivicTech
  • CWCF
  • Meet.coop
  • What are the boundaries of neighbourhood
• bl: who's a neighbour to you?
  • gi: the geographic communities, Great Lakes Region (CTTO, Foodters)
    • harder to classify DWeb and CWCF (bl: we term those virtual neighbours)
  • bl: is Enspiral and Diglife neighbours? (harder to classify!)
    • there's less in common
    • degrees of neighbours?
    • lack of access to enspiral (transient, we agree in their leadership)
  • gi: educational institutions, esp. locally
    • including george brown blockchain (know folks there)
  • bl: is Qm or Aether a "closer" neighbour? Internet Archive?

APPDENDIX: Ideation Toolkit

Example goal: Collaborate with Great Lakes Region Coops.
Example strategic initiative: Host a meet and greet with other cooperatives in the Great Lakes region to discuss possibilities of collaboration and ways we can support each other.

Trends

Trend 1: Growing adoption of digital technology; cost and tech literacy are barriers
Trend 2: Canadians are concerned about their security and privacy
Trend 3: Declining trust in most tech companies
Trend 4: Feelings of vulnerability and social inequity driving Canadians toward coop models
Trend 5: Desire to secure worker's rights and livelihoods as we transition to post-carbon/sustainable economies
COVID-19 + Protests agains Police Brutality: What will be the long term effects? How can we help?

Hypha AGM Themes

• Secure more projects
• Do more infra client work
• Showcase and publish our work
• More financial control and better tracking
• Find budget to invest in meaningful ways
• Be neighbourly on the DWeb
• Build with other coops
• Collaborate more as a team
• Respond to the needs of our community during crisis
• Demonstrate our committment to our values

Goals and Initiatives

• Hiring and HR - individuals and skills we want to grow with
• Workflow and processes - streamlining our work
• Infrastructure - tools, automations, our virtual office
• Partnerships and collaborators
• Service and product offerings
• Budgeting and tracking
• Investments
• Personal development and learning