collective

[very rough first brainstorm]

In the form of questions to be asked of other web shops, Drupal companies, startups, multinational corporations, radical organizations, etc.

What is your legal structure? Why was this chosen?

What are your decision-making processes?

What are your hiring policies?

How do you handle, taxwise and legally, international employees? Contractors?

What do you do for health insurance? What are your policies for receiving?

How do you decide who does what?

How comfortable are you with minimal amenities and accommodations, on a scale of 1 to "I have slept outside in a city before because the hostel wouldn't let me test the wifi before paying"?

draft. The goal is to keep working on this document until it becomes a) inspirational, b) collective, and c) operational. Yes, that's right, this is supposed to inspire, be written by committee, and have a practical handle on the nitty-gritty details, all at once. Starting with unattainable goals takes the pressure off!

Agaric's model is Free and Open: free and open standards, free and open work and management, free and open source code, free and open documentation. We prefer to take on projects that match that vision.

Free work collectives

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_colony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective

For Drupal, Open Source Free Software, and Free Culture and Free Work beyond.

[Draft - internal policy thoughts shared with the world for openness - but not official at all]

Our rates and billing assume some amount amount of work for particular projects will go unpaid by the client.

In particular, we should budget 6 hours for pre-project work in acquiring a project and 12 hours making sure everything is awesome.

Those hours may change but let's keep that 1:2 ratio.

You have to want to do amazing things with Drupal. You have to be dreaming big.

Forget Drupal (OK, not really). An Agaric has passion for doing what is right for the web, and for the collective, for the people of the world off the web, too.

Building a company is a lot of work; building a collective company may be harder. None of us want to knock ourselves out only so someone can make money. That's great but if that's your primary goal, there are lots of opportunities out there in Drupal right now.

Jody Foster has joined Zivtech, and Agaric wishes our best to our colleagues in the Philadelphia area.

They will soon learn that once you have two people, you have a true Drupal shop, and you're just a few steps away from total world domination.

The power of connecting the right people is what PWGD is all about, and it's been exciting to live that power with Agaric Design Collective and to see the same thing happen for other Drupal coders out there.