CoDoIt

CoDoIt is a concept defining 3 ideas based on stigmergy and collaboration:

• CoThinkIt
• CoMeanIt
• CoFundIt

Where Capitalism failed to resolve conflicts between profit and humanist activities, making difficult to improve their objectives, CoDoIt tries a new approach with stigmergy.

What is Stigmergy ?

Stigmergy is a biological mechanism observed from ants and termites, where individuals act from traces left by other individuals.

This mechanism allows the construction of complex structures without coordination.

Every actions leave a trace, the more traces there is, the more actions there will be.

Hierarchical model

When an organization is built on a hierarchical model, a minority controls the group and the objective.

This can lead to frustration from the lower layers, as they are just executing decisions made by a minority, without any influence on the decision.

Cooperative model

When an organization is built on a cooperative model, the group controls individuals and the objective.

This can lead to slow decision making, as the group have to talk until a majority or unanimity is reached.

The decision will mainly be influenced by charismatic speakers, as they will rally more people.

Stigmergic model

When an organization is built on a stigmergic model, each individual contributes and forks projects.

In this model:

• each individual can fork the project to contribute with their own idea: creativity is not inhibited
• each individual can contribute to any fork: flexibility in the group is improved
• most promising forks gather more individuals: decision is a consequence, not a cause
• each model can be simulated within a group of individuals: compatibility with other models is kept

Our model

Our model is built on a stigmergic model applied to a network of people.

Key concepts

The model is composed of members, and traces:

• projects
• groups
• means of project making

Partners are people who contribute with less implication and transparency on projects/groups.

The result is dynamic, flexible and very resistant to failures.

Key rules

Autonomous members

Diversity is the key point. Like in every biological systems, balance is acquired through diversity. With a single mind model, errors could not be raised soon enough, and could be fatal to any project.

Common rules defined by a majority of members and a minority of partners

Rules are renewed during an annual Administrative Council. The influence in decisions is distributed among peoples.

Example:

• 66% of the decision must be taken by members, 34% by partners
• only 2 members are present, but 8 partners are present
• each member have 66 / 2 = 33% of influence in the decision
• each partner have 34 / 8 = 4.25% of influence in the decision

Trust

Responsibility is shared by all members, which implies an improvement in quality testing.

Self-management

Social pressure is a key for auto-rule application among members. Developing or using tools to ease comunication will ensure self-management.

Transparency

Freedom of activities improves idea efficiencies, reputation and the network expansion.

Shared economy and means

It is up to the Administrative Council to decide how the network behaves. Because every one can take part in the decision making, all means for funding or making projects are shared by all.

Degrowth

Bigger is the network, lesser is the necessity for the member to provide funding for common activities.

Solutions