Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party, wrote a book called Swarmwise that is filled with advice on how to start a movement and succeed in growing it. His book was a way for him to give a clear road-map of his experiences to follow when growing a movement. When asked about the most common mistakes that Pirate Parties do Rick Falkvinge answered:

“Overdoing rules, regulations, and statutes. You don’t need bureaucracy. You need activism and you need to make activism fun. You should have the absolute minimum possible structure that supports activism – essentially having the org held together by duct tape just enough so that people can do activism. Bureaucracy kills activism and repels prospective activists. There’s much more on this in my book Swarmwise”

In 2014 Rob Sutherland, from Pirate Party Canada, started something he called ‘The Swarm 2.0 project’. The project was a way of processing all the information contained in the book and make it easier to follow. He spent the following two years working on the project every now and then until he just now reached a stage where he was content enough to make it public. The project consists of several different parts:

• Github repository containing:
  • An edited version of Swarmwise (pdf)
  • Swarm Steps, a summary/cheatsheet (pdf)
• Website
• Collaborative workspace
• Short slideshow

To develop the project further Rob is looking for people willing to form “a swarm for the swarm 2.0 project”. Participating is an excellent opportunity to experience the different steps of swarming in a practical manner, whilst doing something good.

A swarm is a decentralized, collaborative social group. It looks like a traditional hierarchical organization from the outside and it’s built by a small core of people that make up a scaffolding of go-to people, enabling numbers of volunteers to cooperate on a common goal on a scale not possible before the net. A swarm will form if you present a compelling enough idea. – Swarm Steps

Future plans for the Swarm 2.0 project:

• Continue to edit and improve Swarm 2.0 and Swarm Steps
• Produce a visual novel version of Swarm Steps using Ren’Py
• Convert the visual novel to a video using Kazam
• Translate Swarm 2.0 and Swarm Steps into as many languages as possible
• Promote all of this.

Featured image: Modified from original book cover that is CC-BY-NC-SA, Rick Falkvinge

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

 

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Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party, wrote a book called Swarmwise that is filled with advice on how to start a movement and succeed in growing it. His book was…