[hackerspaces] a study of governance

[Edward L Platt]

The book "Reinventing Organizations" has some excellent case studies of
organizations that fit into a third, self-managed category:
http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/ -Ed

On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 6:44 PM, Xer0Dynamite <dreamingforward at gmail.com>
wrote:

> In the cornucopia of hackerspaces, two organizational structures seem
> to stand the test of time:  '''do-ocracy''' and '''bureaucracy'''.
>
> They represent two competing ideals.  Do-ocracy is a vertical axis of
> individualism and bureaucracy is a horizontal axis of collective
> action.  Economically, the comparison would be like capitalism vs.
> socialism.
>
> The success of do-ocracy is that you can just get things done -- if
> you ''already have the will for it''.
> The success of bureaucracy is that everyone is empowered -- when there
> are resources to do them.
>
> The weakness of do-ocracies is that since there is no pre-planning,
> things you need ''aren't there''.  It gets there ''after'' a failure
> occurs and ''if'' the individual acts on it.
> The weakness of bureaucracy is that things happen s-l-o-w-l-y because
> it's difficult to reach consensus and people burn out.
>
> Most hackerspaces are not quite at these extremes as do-ocracies
> implement weekly meetings, for example, for collective discussion, and
> bureaucracies generally allow individual action when it doesn't
> adversely affect anyone else or affect safety.
>
> Most adhocracies seem to die out through lack of leadership,
> participation, and entropy.
>
> Here endeth the lesson.
>
> \0x
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
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>



-- 
Edward L. Platt
PhD student, University of Michigan School of Information
https://elplatt.com
@elplatt <http://twitter.com/elplatt>
KC1DYK

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