I’m going to be writing here for a bit about Tuttle & Co, Tuttle Inc., Tuttle Consulting and any other ways of saying Tuttle as a business (TaaB – there’s another one). I’m looking for your help with refining these ideas and getting us up and running with some work.
We’ve met now every week for eight years. Some of us have put teams together to beef up existing client work, some have brought half-baked ideas to a Friday morning and gone away with a big project to do, others have mused that they’d like to do something with x and immediately found collaborators. But often things are raised and then just hang there for a while waiting for someone to pick them up and run. Sometimes these things just fade away and die. That’s probably alright, but what if we had a way of making that decision together? In fact a way of making lots of decisions together, because hey, whoever heard of having too many decisions to make or too many projects to contribute to?
How can we make formal the informal relationships that we have, incorporate our unincorporated group with the intention of creating value for other organisations and for us all as a community? And all the while continue to just have fun talking on a Friday morning?
Well, as with the British Council project, that we did oooh nearly seven years ago now, I would want something that is congruent with the way that Tuttle feels. This might not be well-defined. It might actually exist in various different versions in just about everybody’s heads but some of the principles that have emerged are:
Action Research and learning – we develop the thing by doing it and reviewing regularly
Openness – we do it in the open unless there’s good reason not to
We establish and protect reputation through publication
Everyone’s welcome – It’s not for everyone, but it should be for anyone
One member one vote (so equity may be sold but not for any sort of control)
No debt, Low overheads
Equality of opportunity and fairness in the division of any spoils
Being an exemplar for other organisations
Developing new business models for a digital economy
Always learning from others, always improving
Any more occur to you? Any of these that you have a problem with?
The Tuttle Club 
I’m going to be down in London for a few days next week.
I’d be happy to discuss this if it might be helpful.
I though I might drop by your new space?
Or I’ll be at Tuttle in Friday 29/7!
Thanks Patrick, yes I’ll be in Lower Marsh every day this week except Friday when I’ll be at Tuttle. I’d appreciate some time to talk this over, thanks 🙂
I think your principles are excellently stated. The next challenge may be getting potential clients to grasp the new model?
yup, also actually talking to some potential clients 🙂
In terms of decision making models and software to aid them, Loomio look super interesting.
Thanks Francis, yes, we intend to have a Slack group for day-to-day comms (though looking at open source alternatives), Loomio for formal decision-making, Trello for task management and etherpad/GDocs for collaborative writing. I’ve met some Enspiral people before, but hoping to get to one of their events next month. I should write here about the progress we’ve made since July!