Digital Products Research and Development

Research and development of digital products for the colab and allied networks.

Funded with 12, 000 GBP through next steps

STATUS : Complete

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Next Steps Team

Aimee Fenech, Anton Oussik, Dominik Jais

Reporting Officer: Aimee Fenech

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Area

Prototyping, Next Steps Project

objectives 2023

1. Identify CoLab / wider needs using information already available in the network, convergences report, previous meetings etc.

2. Document & Publish research already available & additional findings in the research phase.

3. Prototype new offerings, including installation, training and onboarding.

OUTCOMEs 2023

Some Digital products R&D happens in and around other work tasks, as and when small pieces of research into tools (eg best choices, alternatives etc) comes up. As such it can be tricky to track time accurately. Future larger pieces of more focused research will be simpler to track and log.

objectives 2024

1. Grow the open-source tools database through research and documentation.

2. Record and release demos for tools used within the CoLab.

3. Support exploration into ethical digital tools for self-organised teams.

Outcomes 2024

We have been working on increasing the data in our opensource tools database which can be found here: https://baserow.app.perma.earth/public/grid/rZ9jGD4PZEPpZHc5pBd3txQRbZ3XVA7is3iHqnTwdRM

People can contribute to the opensource tools database here: https://baserow.app.perma.earth/form/GAfk4jdzSjmEmO7NRoszF7PPhQ\\\_-5mDskj_EpXGO9aQ

We made a start at the research project for this year you can read about it here: https://cloud.perma.earth/f/715264

objectives 2025

• Maintain the open source tools database through research and documentation- https://baserow.app.perma.earth/public/grid/rZ9jGD4PZEPpZHc5pBd3txQRbZ3XVA7is3 iHqnTwdRM (cap to 20% of the budget – 674 GBP)

• Complete research into slack alternative for the CoLab, facilitation of community consent process and implementation – 2696 GBP

• Team reporting, admin etc. (630 GBP)

Outcomes 2025

September Update

The Digital Circle Research Team has nearly completed the Slack alternative report for the International Permaculture CoLab with two alternatives deployed for community testing. We will be looking to implement the solution in the coming months. You can read the report here: https://cloud.perma.earth/s/AZiwRxTaMJssfyf

Final Update

We researched various alternatives to Slack and evaluated them based on alignment with Permaculture ethics, principles and values. Out of the projects that showed high alignment we deployed several for evaluation, and after an evaluation period engaged the CoLab community members to participate. After taking back the feedback from the community members and putting it through a sociocractic consent process after which we selected an alternative and migrated the community onto it. To facilitate the migration we produced a number of instructional videos that explain how the new system works and migrated some of the important information onto the new platform.