Published in Microsolidarity·PinnedCourage Before Hope: A Proposal to Weave Emotional and Economic MicrosolidarityOr: What To Do in the Last Decade of the Anthropocene — I’ve spent most of the past 2 years travelling with my partner Nati, trying to discover what is the most strategic & wise action to take in a world that seems to be accelerating towards collapse. After an enormous amount of consideration, I have a strategy that feels good enough…Climate Change5 min readClimate Change5 min read
Mar 12Fan Letter to Portishead, 25 years laterYesterday I was scrolling twitter, and saw someone shared a clip from your Roseland NYC video. I didn’t even have the sound on, just recognised the picture, and immediately my hair stood on end, goosebumps head to foot. So I took that as a sign it was time to watch…4 min read4 min read
Oct 20, 2022Working with the OpenCollective APIOpenCollective is a financial & legal toolkit for grassroots communities. It’s awesome! We’re using it to transparently collect & spend money in the Microsolidarity Network. Anyone who contributes to our fundraising is welcome to join our monthly members meeting. Until today, whenever a new member joins the Collective, I have…Programming5 min readProgramming5 min read
Published in The Tuning Fork·Feb 9, 2021Transformative Learning is all about Practice & ConnectionThe making of an amazing online course — Nati and I are putting the finishing touches on the course design for our guided learning program: Patterns for Decentralised Organising. I’m feeling totally jazzed because I reckon this will be our best training yet. …Learning5 min readLearning5 min read
Nov 24, 2020Hosting a gathering during a pandemicHow to take care of people at an event that could kill them — Hosting events is a big part of how I earn my livelihood and how I do my community-building work. My year started with a plan to hold at least four retreats, each with around 40 people living together for a few days. Then the pandemic happened and we had to…Coronavirus9 min readCoronavirus9 min read
Published in How To Be Awesome With Spreadsheets·Oct 13, 2020Sharing Money With Friends: What Could Go Wrong?Running the Finances for our Freelancers Collective with One Awesome Spreadsheet — This is partly a tutorial about how to make awesome spreadsheets, and it is partly about how we manage a flexible profit-sharing agreement for our collective of freelancers (The Hum). If you’re familiar with “microsolidarity”, this is the point where things get really spicy: sharing money between peers. We currently…Spreadsheets7 min readSpreadsheets7 min read
Apr 15, 2020Better audio quality on your videocallsHow to: record great-sounding podcasts over Zoom — I’ve been experimenting with different methods for improving the audio quality of my videocalls, both for meetings and for recorded conversations like podcasts. So I have a few suggestions to make your next call sound less like a laptop, more like a studio. I’ll start with some microphone basics. Then…Audio6 min readAudio6 min read
Published in The Tuning Fork·Apr 11, 20205 Decentralised Organising Tips For A New COVID-19 Volunteer ProjectEngaging volunteers; learning loops; decision-making; care; celebration — Today I had a call with Manu Alzuru from Fight Pandemics, a brand new volunteer project enabling peer-to-peer mutual aid in response to COVID-19. I gave him 30 minutes of rapid-fire advice, some of the “top tips” for a new self-organising network like this. …Collaboration3 min readCollaboration3 min read
Mar 19, 2020A quick visual guide to the COVID-19 pandemicUpdated March 21st — I’ve been producing my own charts to understand the Johns Hopkins coronavirus data. Here’s the situation on March 21st. Reported Deaths Here’s all the countries with 100+ reported deaths. I have zoomed in on the first 4 weeks since the 10th death. This linear scale obscures what’s happening. We need to switch…Co Vid 194 min readCo Vid 194 min read
Published in How To Be Awesome With Spreadsheets·Mar 14, 2020Sooth your pandemic anxiety with spreadsheetsA practical guide for the aspiring DIY data scientist — Living in Italy is intense right now. It took only 17 days to go from first noticing the COVID-19 outbreak, to having to refuse people care because hospitals are overloaded. Human brains do not intuitively grasp exponentials. We need prosthetics. That’s why I have been learning a bunch of math…Data Science6 min readData Science6 min read
