Blimey, how did we get here?!
Today marks 10 years since the original LLP was registered with Companies House. Tam & Harry started Outlandish with a view to doing good work for nice people… it worked out pretty well!
In normal times we would absolutely be holding a mammoth party in the lovely Space 4 tonight, but as with lots of our Christmas parties of yesteryear, you are just going to have to wait a bit in to the New Year before you get an invite. It will be a goodie.
We are incredibly proud of what we have achieved and as all Outlandish is are the people within it, some of our members share their top 3 proudest things that have happened, and the 3 they would most like to see in the next 10:
Kayleigh:
Proudest…
- Taking School Cuts from a self-funded project to a landmark campaign site and leveraged union power to win back billions of pounds back to education
- Managing to get 60 worker co-operators from all over the country into one space in 2016 and start Cotech. Four years later we’re the best example of cooperation and collaboration in the UK
- Setting up Space4, shared workspaces were definitely not a ‘thing’ that we did, now they most definitely are
Next 10 years…
- An international collab with our amigxs at facttic in Argentina
- A couple of spin off co-ops or worker-controlled companies, such as Space4s/tech co-ops
- The same kind of projects that we work on now where we can use tech to make the world a better place… a website that provides the online home of an anticapitalist revolution would be ideal
- (Gonna do another one) an Outlandish training spin off/group of circles where we, and external people can learn how to become a product manager/user tester/refine skills/facilitate etc. With certificates at the end of the study
Polly
Proudest…
- Getting FAC into S4
- Getting the new building/partnership with council
- CoTech meetup at S4 in 2018
Next 10 years…
- Bring more junior people into Outlandish and help them become amazing developers/designers
- Grow CoTech and deliver more collaborative commercial projects
- Increase diversity of our sectors – tech + coops
Abi
Proudest…
- We are still here and people look to us as an organisation who can and will help and support them (not just with building websites and data tools, but with how to BE a co-operative)
- We never think we know how to do anything, we are learning, changing and adapting ALL THE TIME. It is the only reason we are still here
- The members (former and present) have almost recreated themselves with 8 chiddlers and half a one in the oven
The next 10 years:
- More diversity in our team. We have some women, we have some ethnic diversity, but that is nowhere near enough. Differences when brought in and celebrated in a team bring strength, adaptablity, creativeness, fairness, equality and so much more.
- More confidence to talk more about what value we bring to any project. You can’t put a price on the commitment we all make to doing our best on all projects, our collective experience in being able to deliver and our skill and ability to work collaboratively with clients. We should be shouting it from the hilltops.
- A super shit hot away retreat every single year as there will be more people working remote, and the ones we have had have been some of the funnest of my life. I miss Outlandish humans so very much.
Matt K
Proudest…
- Becoming a Co-operative and building a larger network of co-operatives
- The radical changes in the way we communicate and make decisions, and the better people that we are because of it
- The PNGI Portal anti-corruption project and related websites about Papua New Guinea and Bougainville. The output of that work is really powerful, and I’m really proud that Outlandish helped to make it possible. I think that colonialsyndrome.org is my favourite project.
The next 10 years…
- Changing the state of work in the U.K. through workshops and programmes that promote democratic working conditions and processes
- Be part of more projects that have real impactful political change in the world (which given the state of the world seems to be needed more and more)
- Make working collaboratively with co-operatives in Cotech and beyond on large projects a normal state of affairs
