From colab.coop
CoLab Coop’s mission is to help you help others online. We often collaborate as part of multi-disciplinary ‘do good’ teams that make the world better. Our specialty is in designing and programming technology solutions that meet socially conscious business objectives. Coop means that each technology worker in CoLab has the option of becoming a co-owner of the company. We recognize that all of our contributors are equally responsible for our success or failure.
Taksu Interactive in is the process of forming a cooperative, brought about by the spirit of collaboration that runs deep with in our souls. In life and in work, we have found that when we join forces with other like minded individuals to achieve a goal, we end up exceeding expectations, learning more and being less stressed in the process. In the works for over a year now and perhaps in our hearts dating back several years, Taksu is taking the leap to become a member owned technology cooperative. Working independently as designers, developers and new media professionals for the better part of 10 years, collaboration on each others projects began to become more and more common. It became clear that some kind of formal organization would allow us to share resources for more challenging projects and offer clients faster turn around time. We could do this all while creating a nurturing work environment and helping the careers of people we loved. It was a natural evolution. We are realizing too that there are many people out there who share a similar desire to redefine the concept of work and how it integrates with other parts of one’s life. It is for this reason that we will be sharing a lot of what we go through here on this blog. We can also humbly say that we are not the experts, but hopefully by sharing our experiences in forming this coop, we can help others and ourselves grow stronger and happier.
The process really started to snow ball when we discovered that an old friend of from the Bay Area, a coop founder himself, had begun coaching other organizations on the process. Shawn Berry (along with Tom Clossey) formally organized their wood shop, Woodshanti into a worker-owned cooperative in 2002. Since that time they have become a model for progressive business development, joining other long standing coops in Northern California like Rainbow Grocery and CELLspace. You can read more about Woodshanti and coops in general at www.go.coop.
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