The Cyberunions Podcast: Episode Nineteen – Swarming between bureaucratic inertia and the tyranny of structurelessness

Swarming between bureaucratic inertia and the tyranny of structurelessness

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0:35 Stephen’s updates

• Stephen erases last weeks fail and installs Linux on some old hardware
• Installed Crunchbang on an old HP
• Chakra Linux might be worth a look
• Walton commits himself to software good practice
• Stephen fixes the cyberunions mobile site – m.cyberunions.org #win
• We segue into a discursive discussion on black lagers and imperial stouts

6:55 Walton’s updates

• Walton relearns the laws of physics playing football
• Dealing with feeback and planning future shows
• Why are people so interested in organisational theory?
• The most popular page on the site is the article about swarm organising

10:20 Trade union bureaucracy and structural inertia

• Unions are hierarchical and mirror the organisational structure of Fordism
• This model is outdated and holds unions back
• The servicing model has been a failure
• Everyone looks up instead of looking to each other

18:00 So how do we create responsive structures?

• The Tyranny of Structurelessness
• Structure must serve a purpose
• Rhizome vs trees via Deleuze and Guattarri
• Swarm theory
• Twitter is the Hivemind
• Open source politics – many eyes means fewer bugs

29:30 Tech update

• Identi.ca update – lots of great new features in StatusNet

33:20 Feedback

• MJRay criticises Freenode and suggests OFTC
• Örsan reminds us we all live in repressive regimes
• pvh in South Africa says pirate Windows is used a lot more than FOSS