A Congress 2016 Logistics Discussion

General
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A 2016 Congress Discussion Thread.
This is not an official discussion thread. Intentionally under General discussion, not Congress as topic breadth of coverage is larger.

So lets start.

I think congress this year will be very important for the survival of PPAU.

Our current situation:

The Good

  • We are from a legacy of socially responsible activism and genuinely visionary thought leadership for the future of democracy in an information enabled society.We have a voice and a vision that people want and need.
  • Our policy breadth AND depth is significant and meaningful. The hard work and debates it took to get here are an asset of the Party and a testament to real good done by our membership.
  • Our brand is interesting and relevant. What Pirate Party is, what it stands for has NEVER been more relevant for Australia than now.

The Bads

  • Tired Leadership.
  • Complete lack of strategic vision. As in why this party should lead Australia over all others.
  • Inneffective Management. Not they are not bad people, They do put a lot into it. But our internal engagement is tumbleweed emoji level. Its too hard and too boring to contribute.
  • Factions. Don’t believe the BS that we are too small for factions. There are small organisationally mediocre groups pushing agendas to make us even smaller and even more irrelevant because they are afraid of the dangers of growth and the risk they may need to open their mind just a little to accommodate more. I would actually respect them if they were attracting people to the party and making us stronger. They are not. This is your writing on the wall btw. I’m coming for you.
  • Technology - our technology is rubbish. Teenage nerds with a total budget of $0 have vastly superior technology infrastructure for co-ordinating large scale international real world and online cultural and organisation outcomes. Our technology is flat out rubbish for building a modern internet cultural and political movement.

Now straight off, I’m a big supporter of what Simon Frew is pushing with a strategic agenda. I’m behind him 100%. I will quibble about the priority of various bullet points in his lists, but that is of less concern. Frew is good. Support the Frew. Ultimately, if broadening awareness of his pushing for a strategy is all that can be achieved from posting about this here, it’s a good start.

Roadblocks. Now there is an almost despair amongst many of the older members I have talked to. Even some of our leaders come across as thinking it’s all too hard.

  • We don’t have enough people
  • We don’t have resources
  • People think the name is a joke.

That’s the 3 headlines.But lets run a thought experiment on this. In our mind, lets solve one of those problems. Lets say resources. A tech billionaire gifts Pirate Party Australia three million dollars. Lets call him Kim DotCom just to pick a random name, How many of our problems does this actually solve? Where are we after another election cycle? How much more advanced and relevant is our party to Australia?

In my mind, the answer is - actually not that much different. We blow half the budget on some awareness campaigns, build a vanity IT project which is staffed by friends of our leadership, buy some ads which are popular for about a week with the Brunswick Rd cafe set and a couple of hardcore libertairan tinfoil hat nerds in the country. And then its gone. We are back to where we were. “Nah I voted Greens, but man those were some great ads you had back then. Want some of my spliff?” will be the last political reference to it in a discussion.

Our roadblock to success as a party is deeper than these three issues. They are the symptom. Not the cause.

What we need: Priority 1 & 2

  1. Leadership. A group with vision and conviction to see it through.
  2. Organisational Effectiveness. People, Systems and Processes overhauled to actually help us do and achieve more faster, and easier than ever before.

Thats it. Thats what we need right now. Without this, this party is about to dissipate into a third rate group that will be taken over by a second rate party. All your work and contribution will be consumed for another parties vision, and worse than that - the meaningful vision of the future that the Pirate Party exists to help bring into existence will never be.

The name debate, when it happens at Congress is a bad attempt at solving the three symptoms I raised. It is a variation thought exercise to the money injection solution. The strategy is flawed. I will be as actively as I possibly can campaigning to retain the name Pirate Party Australia

Now, as politics is “decided by those who show up” this Congress, this time, its REALLY important to show up. One of the biggest barriers is our utter garbage technology platforms and social engagement within the party. So if you do not make an effort, you are going to get more of the same. Voices like mine - and there are others, there are in fact many will be drowned out by the few using boredom and ineffectiveness as tools of control of your votes.

The party deserves more, needs more than reactive yawn inspiring culture of fear of offending that permeates how we not just talk to the electorate, but how we talk to ourselves. We are Pirates. We are activists. We exist to storm the political system because it does not work for the world that is already here and doubly so for the world that is on the horizon. We should be expected to BE FUCKING OFFENSIVE because our message is important and sometimes shock and raw brute force of politics is what is required.

Get your ass to Congress. In person. Physically. If you cannot afford it, talk to me. I want to organise real participation in making this Congress meaningful, because if we don’t I genuinely think it will be the last one as a functionally independent political party.

To this end, I have gone to the effort of writing this massive wall of text because there needs to be someone holding a banner up for people to rally around. So I’m doing it here. I’m here for the party and it’s vision of the future. As I’ve said elsewhere, I don’t need or want any job or title that can come from this for my personal linkedin profile / resume. Being a Senator is a pay cut and I’m sure as shit not interested in media attention. This is a real deal idealist taking a stand. The party needs help. I’m here. So I’m doing it.

Get on board, or if not, at least damn well turn up. If you want to get on board this sort of view, we need to talk and get organised. I want to help put together a coordinated team to lead and run the party. In case you were ever wondering in politics, how that happens… it happens like this. One person taking a stand, makes a position, it attracts others, then negotiating with other groups that started the same way. This is it.

So PM me, email me, talk to me. I’ll set up some technology infrastructure, we will talk more as a group, and then we will have a plan that delivers a vision for Pirate Party Australia to present to Congress.

  • edeity
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God damn, I will reply to this more in depth once I finish work, but you should be giving inspirational speeches. I agree with you on most of your points and am willing to put myself out there to make our vision happen.

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Same, I will read this once over had more sleep to recover from yesterday (sorry dude, too long), but edeity I love how passionate and media savvy you are. I know that you wanted to run as a candidate which you missed out on, but I would have no qualms about wanting to put you in charge of media or another official capacity like that.

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I didnt miss out. I won and then withdrew due to other commitments. Lets be clear.

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I think you and I have similar attitudes so, I’m in. Let’s talk.

I have no experience of previous NC’s, I’m that new. But, my very limited experience leaves me with great appreciation of the effort all NC members contribute, on a daily basis. Indeed, the upcoming Congress makes me nervous. Change is always difficult and I find comfort in a status quo. That said, I understand “need for change” in a changing world, and it’s changing bloody fast. I think PPAU should be keeping up with systems and processes, if not at the cutting edge (remember irc is cutting edge for me :wink:

I support the Frew too.

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Thanks @edeity for something quite different. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses
Cheers

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We need a good long term strategy, we need to examine who we are, what we want to achieve, and then how we are going to achieve it.

We have broad policies and a narrow name. Despite our narrow name we have negligible name recognition at voting booths.

We need policy focus and branding that reflects that focus, the two have to go hand in glove.

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With all due respect I understand what your saying @bug1 but the name change discussion is in another thread and I’m sure we’ll get to vote on that very long winded issue soon enough. I think what @edeity is talking about is first of all proposing fresh vigour into our vision and renewing the Party. And that’s not necessarily a criticism of our current leadership, he’s just proposing something new and different - and some nice needed passion as well!

I’m happy to try something new, and if it doesn’t work, I happy to change it and say that I got it wrong. I got it wrong in business and made massive mistakes, but I learnt a lot and I’m only a fool if I go on to repeat those same mistakes.

Cheers

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Some thoughts:
We’ve seen in our Age the outgrowth of new technology going beyond the ability of government to properly legislate to allow for accountability and ethical distribution. Only the Pirate Party has the industry expertise and knowledge to create policies that understands the roadmap ahead.

Primary Focus Models:

  • Internet Neutrality, Security and Access
  • Technology - Startups, Business, Economy, R&D
  • Online Commerce, Currency and Economy
  • Online Communities, Social Media and Online Diversity
  • Restrictive and outdated Patents and Copyright

Secondary Policies Models that have relevant sub-topics:

  • Education - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise.
  • Science - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise.
  • Health - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise.
  • Environment - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise/knowledge.
  • Trade - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise.
  • Community Services/Welfare - expertise may lie with other political movements. Only have relevant policies within our area of expertise.

Strategic Alliance Agreements will allow us to develop our core and secondary policies further and become a valuable resource for those alliance members. PPAU members should be asked to vote on Policies adopted from other political movements (where they have more expertise) to replace ours. And we should encourage Policy reciprocation.
The other advantage of this is that we gain more exposure in the other political movements announcements and forums. A more flowery term is cross-polination.

With all due respect to everyone’s contribution but do we need an Arts Policy, a Sex Worker Policy, or an income/welfare policy? Don’t other political movements have highly focused and developed policies in these areas? But they may come under our Primary Focus. eg: Arts and Technology. Let’s get rid of all the flotsam policies that just repeat what other more qualified political movements have already done; and get back to our core policies. IMO I think we’re spreading our few resources too thinly, but I’m happy to be proven wrong.
Cheers
{awaiting the howls of derision lol}

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My view: Tactically we need to be able to carry weight in our core areas of difference, which you sum up well in the Primary Focus.

Strategically, a whole of government policy view is important. But we need to earn a place at the table first on who we are and what our view is on a few select areas. I do not believe we have done that well yet in Australia.

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In all our policies, we strive to be evidence-based. Of course, there’s an argument to be made that no such thing is possible.

Electorally, building broad platforms is the way to go. Senate voting reform requires that. If other parties formulate policy on similar principles to us, we should get similar results and we should, verging on must, ally with them.

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Ok slack channel created for those interested in talking about this stuff.

Its called buttercup-pirate
Which has nothing to do with this guy:

Basics:
This is not an official pirate party communications thing, it is just a group of people who met via the pirate party, talking about stuff they think is important or fun or interesting some of which has to do with the pirate party.
No one has a right to be in this group except me, cause its mine.
You do need to provide an email address to get access. Thats a slack thing. It also cuts a little down on fake accounts etc. so its more likely your an actual person.

PM me or find the group via slack and ask to join. If you PM me (or email me) you will need to supply your email address.

Here is what it looks like right now with just me as a member.

You can use web browser, desktop app, iphone app, android app to access slack, and even have them all open at once without needing multiple identities!

I have also enabled a bunch of plug ins to make it fun, take polls, initiate group skype calls and make jokes and white board ideas all in slack. You can also paste in pictures, youtube clips etc and see and play them straight from within slack, anyway, you will get the idea fast even if youve never used slack before. Its annoyingly simple and addictive.

Have fun.

email: lhousego@gmail.com

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Found your group but that’s got to be the most unintuitive login screen I’ve come across. Never used it before and it expects you to know what to do…this is the first time I’ve ever come across a login screen without a registration link or button.

It may be an awesome site but if it isn’t user transparent then it’s got issues.

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Its a pull invite model - i.e. i source your email address and then the experience is simple.

Trying to find it from the slack page is much harder and not the primary way of getting people to join. Bear with it. Worth it.

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Well looks like this is happening.

If you print this ticket out and beat me to the convention center you can scam your way in without registering! You dastardly hackarrgh you.

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Ok so I’m pretty new as a member of the Pirate Party (like less than a week lmao) but I’ve been lurking a bit and reading through several of the discussion topics in here, in particular this one and the name change one. This is a pretty inspiring and persuasive speech and I can definitely understand where you’re coming from and, from what I’ve read at least, mostly agree with you. While I am unsure as to what I can contribute, I am willing to try. I, just like many others, have a vision I want to see come to pass but I don’t want to wait for someone else to make that vision happen because, if I don’t try to make it happen, it won’t, same as many others. We all need to try and contribute what we can for our vision to come to pass because if we don’t than nothing will happen so I respect you a lot for taking a stand like this and hopefully I can count myself among you

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I play a computer game. It is famous for teaching a lot to do with managing people and making difficult things happen. There is a famous saying from the players in this game “Every Ship Counts”.

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Hated that game for years before i finally quit

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I believe that is called winning at eve. Congrats on your success.

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