I’m on the train home from London after another one of our We Are Open co-op meetups. These are twice-yearly gatherings where Laura, John, Bryan, and I meet up together. This time was extra-special, as new member Grainne joined us!

We met at Bryan’s house, with our agenda including:

  • Highlights /lowlights— things we’ve enjoyed working on over the last year, and things that were less fun
  • State of the co-op — how we’re doing socially, financially, and emotionally
  • Future plans — ways to get involved in more adventures and raise our aspirations
  • Packaged thinkathons — how could we make it possible for our bespoke thinkathons to be purchased ‘off the shelf’?
  • Events — do we want to run some? why?

We had wide-ranging conversations about all of the above, and more. Some of this led to action (e.g. the first issue of our Minimum Viable Newsletter) whereas others we filed as tickets in our AllTheThings GitHub repository.

Laura kept us organised

We kept (most) of our ‘tricky topics’ — the conversations that are hardest to have — for times when we ate and drank together. There’s something comforting about food that tends to make those discussions easier.

Bryan captured some of our conversation at the pub

We all reflected on the extent to which we’ve retreated a bit from social networks such as Twitter over the last year. While we think that’s because of a wider trend, it might actually be because we’re getting older and tend towards being early adopters. Who knows.

Either way, it’s important that we model working openly, so after tinkering with our website and this blog a bit, we’ll be pushing more things out via our Twitter account and LinkedIn. If you’re interested in subscribing to our (possibly sporadic) Medium-powered newsletter, then you’ll need to follow us and ensure you’re opted-in to ‘letters’ on your publications page.

Scroll down to the bottom and press the ‘Follow’ button!

We’re keen to continue offering thinkathons and guidance around the things we’re already known for (Open Badges, digital skills, helping people work more openly) but also move into new areas. Grainne is certainly helping us with this and we heard from her about efforts to establish a Glasgow City of Learning. The rest of us will be helping her out with that however we can.

We Are Open Co-op works to spread the culture, processes, and benefits of openness wherever we can. Get in touch and see how we can help you!