Feedback on Strategic Plan

[Ethan McCutchen]

We wanted to bring the folks on our wagneer and wagn-dev lists into the conversation about longer-term Wagn plans.  You can see what we've done so far on our "Strategic Plan" card.  You'll have to sign in to read it.  We'll probably change that after we get some feedback (and when our new pattern-based permissioning system comes out).

Much of it is quite rough, but you're all wiki folks -- you're used to that :).  You'll see that it more or less follows a traditional business plan outline, which stems from the document's original intended audience (our board).  As it grows, we hope it will evolve a format more naturally suited to an open community like ours.

I want to clarify, too, that the Statement of Purpose is specifically for Grass Commons, the nonprofit that originally created Wagn.  We obviously don't expect everyone who shares in the Wagn community to share our motivations, but we want to be transparent to invite discussion.

As a sampler for those who don't feel like clicking on links, here's our current "Executive Summary":

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Small organizations need big organizing power.

Many small businesses and nonprofits struggle to keep up with the digital world. Small stores still manage inventory with pen and paper, filing cabinets everywhere overflow, and the universes of local business and ecommerce rarely overlap. Who can blame them?  Piecemeal, one-size-fits-all software options only lead to constant management, maintainance, and integration headaches.

In the age of information, small organizations like yours need easy, affordable, evolvable tools to keep up with the big guns.  You need to information systems so fluid you can collaborate with partners as seemlessly as departments within a corporation.  You need flexibility without the overhead of programming new software.  You need comprehensiveness without logging into 8 systems hourly.  And you need a community of support to get there.

Wagn, a free open-source "system management system", can help your team organize and integrate everything from scraps to apps.  With Wagn, you can manage all your business flows in one place -- from private data to public websites, from wild ideas to daily routines to inter-organizational transactions.  This doesn't mean dropping the software you know and love — it means you can bring familiar tools into a bigger more coherent system, where everything is manageable under one login, one search, one home.

Wagn was created by Grass Commons, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded to help build thrivable economies, in which businesses integrate in deeply generative ways with their community and environment. Grass Commons continues to develop Wagn's codebase, funded by organizations using Wagn.

Today Wagn is growing into a much larger community.  Open source developers refine and extend the code; "wagneers" (nonprogrammers who build new applications out of Wagn itself) apply Wagn in ever more exciting ways; graphic designers adapt Wagn's look and feel to specific needs, data consultants work to integrate Wagn with existing systems; and business development consultants work to make sure the data plan fits the big picture.

To help this community evolve into a highly effective, efficient network, we'll open a "Bazaar" that connects small organizations with Wagn professionals.  The Bazaar will seek to support users, cultivate experts, and facilitate healthy patterns of generating, sharing, and deploying Wagn solutions.

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Ethan McCutchen
One of the Wagneers, Wagn.org

Patterns.  They're not just for quilting anymore.