Welcome to the new DisCO Website! Here to accompany you through the Burning 20’s and beyond.
When we launched the DisCO Manifesto back in the autumn of 2019 we needed an online space to share it and give some context. We had already secured the DisCO.coop domain and we built a website around the Manifesto, with an “About DisCO” page, a blog and some supplemental materials.
Much to our delight, DisCO has gathered a lot of interest since then. Many people who read the Manifesto or attended one of our workshops were inspired to start developing their own DisCOs, or recommended our work to others, resulting in over 20,000 downloads of the Manifesto and over 15,000 of our second publication, the DisCO Elements. However, we received feedback from some DisCO newcomers (who hadn’t had the time or inclination to read the Manifesto or attend our workshops) that the information was hard to put together and, while they liked the overall tone and aesthetics, many simply didn’t get it.
We faced two problems: the first was the issue of accessibility and having a clear idea of what DisCO is about (hint, it’s not just an alternative to DAOs, nor a small business accelerator). The second is how to incorporate four years of new work done: growing DisCO’s resources, establishing alliances and incorporating fresh perspectives that emerged from deep dialogues with a wide variety of people and groups. This work has mainly been reflected through our in-person events, webinars and blogs, but not as readily apparent in our original site.
DisCO.coop 2023
Our new site’s landing page leads to its main four sections: About, Media, DisCO FLOOR, and DIWO.
The About section takes you to the DisCO Basics (more on that later), introduces you to the DisCO Crew and Pink Board, explains the DisCO Principles and presents the DisCO LABS. The FAQ is also here.
The Media section features our publications as well as DisCO Stories, featuring news, articles, interviews, research, events, videos, and the archives of our newsletter, the DisCO.beat.
The DisCO FLOOR section offers resources to learn about and build your own DisCOs. This includes DisCOverse Live (our regular community calls), the DisCOspace, our self-hosted Loomio discussion group, and the DisCO Challenge, an interactive quiz to get you up and running as a baby DisCO in no time. You will also learn about the DisCO Journey, our peer to peer DisCO learning process where you can go deeper in your DisCO development. Here you’ll find material prepared to help you unlearn the biases of the dominant system and create economic counterpower in small, federated groups. DisCO FLOOR also includes intros to the DisCO Ball Wiki and Governance Modelling resources.
The DIWO (Do it with Others) section outlines how you can engage with us, and describes our collaborations with other orgs. There are sections on Events, and how to contract us for DisCOnsulting. You’ll also find out how to get some DisCO Swag, how to support our mission, and all the info on DisCO’s Partner organizations.
DisCO Basics
What’s better than a new DisCO website? Two brand new DisCO Websites!
To provide a good understanding of DisCO in lieu of reading the Manifesto or attending an event, we’ve developed the DisCO Basics, an online primer that takes you on a tour of the DisCOverse.
This lightning-fast and beautifully designed website has 9 entries on the main menu. Within each there are pop-up glossary definitions for specialized terms and special links that instantly bring you to relevant sections within the site. Each entry also features a TLDR with the highlights, and a “More Resources” section.
The 9 entries are:
- What is DisCO?
- DisCO Principles
- DisCO Origins
- DisCO Journey & LABs
- DisCO Futures
- The DisCO Project
- How do I get involved?
- More on DisCO
We’re happy to say that Basics is ideal if you’re reading on hand-held devices. We hope it provides the best balance between user ease and content depth. The beautiful designs were provided by Rory-Robertson Shaw of Autonomous Design Group and the Solidarity Economy Association, who also crafted the designs for the main site.
DisCO Manifesto Remastered, Pink Paper, DisCO Ball Wiki and more
Apart from the main site and Basics, our publications have homes of their own: the DisCO Manifesto, DisCO Elements and the in-progress DisCO Pink Paper. The DisCO Manifesto is currently being updated with fresher links, new introductions and an Afterword reflecting on its relevance during these last four years. A Spanish translation will be launched in the coming months (2024) along with the DisCO Manifesto Audiobook, narrated by co-authors Ann Marie Utratel (English) and Stacco Troncoso (Spanish).
The DisCO Ball Wiki is the main knowledge repository for DisCO.coop. This wiki is designed to semantically interface with other wikis and DisCO-repositories, and upgrades the usual wiki experience by being more user-friendly and visually attractive. Its categories cover the DisCO Principles, the DisCO DNA, DisCO Elements, Peer Governance resources, documentation for tools, and active mapping of the DisCOverse.
As of October 2023 the wiki’s basic structural content is still in development. As we add this content we are also upgrading the user interface — the version you can see today is being developed to give it the same functionality and aesthetics as DisCO Basics: responsive, fast, and seamlessly informative. This ongoing makeover is part of a larger DisCO-tech project called Kwiki (for “Quick Wiki”), aimed at making federated and semantic wikis a lot more user friendly. Our intent is to offer an accessible, navigable tool where groups building DisCOs or taking the DisCO Journey can add new content as they progress, sharing information with others to build and support the widening community. It will be easy to make copies and forks, adapted to any specific group’s needs and circumstances. As soon as this is ready, you’ll be the first to know.
The DisCO Journey, our peer learning program, is currently in development and will have its own dedicated site in 2024. If you’re curious, you can read more here and if you’d like to be put on the waiting list, you can sign up through this link.
Also scheduled for early 2024 are additional short films in our Punk Rock Economix series, covering “DisCO Remastered”, our series of events with DisCO Pink Board Members, as well as DisCOthons with communities that are experimenting with DisCO. Sign up for the DisCO Beat, our most-stimulating newsletter, to keep up with all the action. You are also welcome to join our community calls or Loomio discussion group, and follow us on social media, including Mastodon, Instagram, whatever Elon calls Twitter these days, Linkedin and the DisCO Wire, our Telegram channel.
Spread the Love
Our new site and the DisCO Basics was lovingly made by DisCO.coop and given to you with care and excitement. The main site was initially wireframed by Kadallah Burrowes; visual design was created by Rory Robertson-Shaw from Autonomous Design Collective. The designs were rendered by Mireia Juan Cuco and implemented on WordPress by Luis H. Porras and Javier Arturo Rodríguez, with Javier serving as sysadmin for the site and Stacco Troncoso convening the crew and facilitating the overall process. Rory, Mireia, Javier and Stacco repeated a similar process for the DisCO Basics.
Texts for Basics and the new website were written, reviewed and otherwise inspired by the DisCO.coop crew featuring Ann Marie Utratel, Stacco Troncoso, Sari Escribano and Irene López de Vallejo. Major props and gratitude to all involved in the process.
Lastly, we want to thank you — we literally couldn’t have done it without you because your curiosity, challenges and motivation are what keep us going.
We invite you to share the new website and the DisCO Basics with anyone you think will be interested. If you want to support us more directly, please see the Support DisCO Page to sustain us on our mission to create economic counterpower for the 2020s and beyond.
With love,
The DisCO Crew