Update to Loomio Supporters: July 2014 – Happy Matariki!

It’s Matariki here in Aotearoa New Zealand and we’re really feeling the winter solstice vibe at Loomio HQ – feels like it’s getting brighter every day!

Rocketing towards Loomio 1.0

In the month since you last heard from us, we’ve been hard at work making huge progress towards Loomio 1.0:

• Identity – groups can now customise how they look with a swanky cover photo
• Privacy – we’ve made it much easier to control who has access to your groups. In practice, this means for example that anyone interested in the Diaspora software project can join in their discussion and decision-making at the click of a button.
• Editing – the most-requested and most-debated feature in the project’s history, it’s now possible to edit your comments to fix up typos!
• Email – we’ve finished the first piece of our project to make Loomio totally accessible through email. We just released the ‘Yesterday on Loomio’ summary message, which updates you with any content you’ve missed.
• Translation – thanks to our phenomenal volunteers, the software is now available in Khmer (Cambodian), Belarusian, and Macedonian. This brings the language count up to 22, with plenty more in the works 🙂

We’ve also deployed a collaborative roadmapping process, which means you can contribute to our development priorities.

Building bridges with the international civic technology community

We were lucky enough to have one Loomion (Ben) flown over to the Personal Democracy Forum in New York last month. PDF is an amazing gathering of people working at the intersection between technology and politics, and speaking alongside people like Sue Gardner, Edward Snowden (via video-link), Anne-Marie Slaughter and Clay Shirky was a huge honour.

Aside from the conference, Ben spent time connecting with some truly inspiring folk, getting to know people like Tim O’Reilly, Zeynep Tufekci and Joi Ito, as well as building partnerships with groups like NYU GovLab and the Open Technology Institute’s Commotion project. Expect to hear more about those collaborations as things develop 🙂

So many people!

We’re seeing 2-300 new groups joining Loomio Beta each week (around 200 people per day!) from all over the world, which means that well beyond 20,000 people have signed up to Loomio now. We’re really feeling the demand from all corners of the globe.

Loomio in the news

Nathan Schneider wrote this really great editorial for Al Jazeera, contextualising the Occupy movement in the series of global movements that preceded it and continue to this day. He mentions Loomio as one of the promising outcomes of this ongoing movement of movements towards positive systemic change.

Highlights from the blog

• Loomions Alanna and Vivien were interviewed by world-renowned management expert Gary Hamel at a recent conference in Auckland
• We also talked to Polly LaBarre about the future of business, the 7th woman to join our series of Inspiring Disruptors
• The incredible poet and performer Ali Jacs was inspired by Loomio to make some rhymes about the power of democracy when it goes so far beyond just ticking a box

As always, thanks again for your ongoing support, vibes, enthusiasm, and energy!

Tags: News