September 23, 2024
10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Mountain Time
Free webinar

At the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Main Street Phoenix Project was founded as an audacious, worker-owned holding company to buy and protect food-service businesses. It acquired two Denver companies but ran into trouble. After closing the company down, founder Jason Wiener has done a rare thing: made the company's operating documents available to the world.

In this event, Wiener will share lessons from the Main Street Phoenix experience and ideas for how those lessons can be useful for emerging efforts to build mutual enterprises. Fellow co-op entrepreneur Alissa Orlando will share reflections on the current state of investment and strategy for social enterprises.

Jason Wiener is the Principal of a boutique law and business consulting practice whose specialty is in cooperative law, shared ownership models, cooperative finance, regenerative capital and financing strategies, sustainable economies law, teal lawyering, virtual outside general counsel, and worker-ownership. He serves on the state of Colorado's Employee Ownership Commission.

Alissa Orlando leads Camillus Partners, an entrepreneur-led fund dedicated to buying, leading, and growing a mission-driven business. She was previously co-founder of the Drivers Cooperative in New York, which is currently launching in Colorado. Before that, she headed Uber’s operations across East Africa.

Sponsored by the Media Economies Design Lab at ���������� Boulder, , and the .

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On August 8, 2023, approximately fifty people from across the Rocky Mountain Front Range convened at the University Memorial Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder. They came for “Local Tech Ecologies,” a regional conference celebrating technology designed to empower local communities. After MEDLab director Nathan Schneider opened up the conference, Mayor Aaron Brockett of Boulder gave a brief talk about the work happening in local tech and community building across Boulder and the surrounding communities.

Following Mayor Brockett was Dr. Fernanda R. Rosa from Virginia Tech. She gave the first keynote address, which raised critical questions about the “local,” including its colonial implications and its relationship to the “global.” In the process, she shared the voices of various projects around the world attempting to build local tech ecologies. There were some technical issues during Dr. Rosa’s talk, which led to more discussion with the audience while the tech crew worked. Unfortunately, due to these issues, we were unable to capture recordings of the mayor's introduction or Dr. Rosa's outstanding lecture.

Dr. Rosa offered a powerful reminder to think critically about what we mean when we discuss the local, who is left out of those conversations, and how to bring those people to the forefront when discussing technological solutions. For instance, her talk included a video, "," an important opportunity to hear about a local tech project in the participants' own voices.

With that, we moved into the lightning talks. The goal of this session was to showcase a diverse range of locally focused tech projects underway in Colorado. Each project had seven minutes to present. During the session we had folks share all sorts of projects, startups, and community-building ventures including , , the , , , the , , the , and . LeeLee James of Slay the Runway also had difficulties with multimedia; see her materials at and .

What came from the lightning talks was more than just sharing what is going on across Colorado. Technology can become a very tiring and dark subject to explore. Many global solutions and tech communities have done a great deal of harm across the world. The lightning talks inspired many in the room, offering a reminder that more community-based technologies really are possible.

There was a break following the lightning talks where much of this excitement was shared throughout the conference. As people settled back down for the lunch keynote, Dr. Ted Striphas of the University of Colorado Boulder gave a reflection on the lightning talks that, among other things, called into question the intrinsic value of the local.

Our lunch keynote speaker was Ethan Zuckerman of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His talk examined the relationship between misinformation and democracy, going back to the founding of the United States, while drawing lessons from that history for today. By the time of his talk, he had already posted to his blog about and the .

After Dr. Zuckerman’s charismatic analysis, we moved onto the final planned session of the day, the panels. These divided the conference into breakout rooms to discuss three topics: gaming, journalism, and crisis.

The gaming panel hosted Anne Marie and Taylor Clark from ���������� Gaming and Griffin Opp from CSU gaming to discuss the difficulties in cultivating local communities in the vast and global world of online gaming and esports.

The journalism panel heard from three local journalists Stacey Feldman from the Boulder Reporting Lab, Rossana Longo from the Colorado News Collaborative, and Linda Shapley from Colorado Community Media. All three of them discussed the importance of local tech and community in both reporting and news entrepreneurship.

The crisis panel focused on how technologies could better serve local communities in the context of crises such as natural disasters. Dr. Nabil Echchaibi of ���������� Boulder opened the panel, followed by talks from Dr. Leysia Palen of ���������� Boulder and independent documentary filmmaker Saleh Khaled Ibrahim.

The conference concluded with a reception where participants discussed their projects with individuals, shared laughs, and enjoyed the warm Colorado sun beaming in through the windows of the conference room.

The Local Tech Ecologies conference did more than just showcase ideas on what it means to build community and local technology networks, it was a living embodiment of its goals. People who may have never engaged with one another otherwise were able to come together in one space to discuss the trials and promise of what a local tech future could bring. Importantly, something that touched me was the openness of the space, the warm inviting wonder many had in sharing their ideas. We seek to build a brighter and more hopeful idea of technology than the dominant narrative of global tech companies today.

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August 8, 2023
9 a.m. - 5 p.m. (in-person)
9 a.m. - 1 p.m. (live-streamed)
University Memorial Center room 235
University of Colorado Boulder

When the devastating Marshall Fire spread across Boulder County in on December 30, 2021, many of us turned to our phones and our networks. They helped us make sense of the crisis and keep each other safe. We relied on information from local organizations and governments, as well as global platforms not designed for a moment like that, and not designed for our community.

What if we valued local technology the way we value local food and local businesses?

This event explores opportunities and challenges for building healthy tech ecosystems that are focused on the needs of local communities—with a focus on projects active across Colorado's Front Range. What kinds of social media could bring people together rather than driving them apart? What kinds of gig platforms could put workers and small businesses above global monopolies? How can regional journalists develop tools truly suited to their needs? The event will make space to introduce projects already cultivating local tech ecologies in Colorado and beyond, and we will discuss strategies for more intentionally developing those ecologies in the future.

Schedule

9:00-10:00am
Room 235

Welcome
Aaron Brockett (Mayor of Boulder)
Nathan Schneider, Assistant Professor at ���������� Boulder and MEDLab Director

Morning Keynote
Fernanda R. Rosa (Virginia Tech)

10:15-11:45am
Room 235

Lightning Talks
Josh Ritzer (Nigh)
Caroline Savery (Bloom Network)
Nikhil Mankekar (Colorado Venture Capital Authority)
Becks Boone and Jamie Anderson (Rootable)
Pat Kelly (Colorado ReWild)
libi striegl (Media Archaeology Lab)
LeeLee James (Slay The Runway)
Erika Ianco and Trish Uvenferth (Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center)
Mike Perhats (Nosh)

12:00-1:30pm
Room 235

Lunch and Lunch Keynote
Ted Striphas (���������� Boulder)
Ethan Zuckerman (UMass Amherst)

1:30-2:30pm

Room 235
Panel: Crisis
Nabil Echchaibi (���������� Boulder)
Saleh Khaled Ibrahim
Leysia Palen (���������� Boulder)

Room 245
Panel: Journalism
Stacy Feldman (Boulder Reporting Lab)
Rossana Longo (Colorado News Collaborative)
Linda Shapley (Colorado Community Media)

Room 247
Panel: Gaming
Ann Marie (RemainNA) (���������� Gaming)
Taylor (MustardSauce) Clark (���������� Gaming)
Griffin Opp (CSU Gaming)

3:30-4:30pm
Room 235

Unconference

4:30-5:30pm
Room 235

Reception

Lunch will be served, along with snacks and a reception at the end. This is a free event, but please consider to support our work.

Organized by the Media Economies Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and made possible by a generous gift from Colorado ReWild.

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$5.49 per hour. That’s how much, on average, rideshare drivers in the Boulder-Denver Metro area earn, per hour, after accounting for expenses. In contrast, the minimum hourly wage in Denver is as of 2022 is $15.87. Rideshare drivers, unlike minimum wage workers, are independent contractors which means that they are not entitled to minimum wage. In addition, as independent contractors, rideshare drivers are liable for the covering the expenses associated with “being your own boss.” These hidden costs are what eat away at drivers’ wages. However, systematically tracking these hidden costs and using this information to develop a counter narrative to rideshare platforms’ claims about workers’ wages is a technically difficult task.  

Rideshare workers face significant barriers in accessing employer-owned documentation of their working conditions as well as communicating about these conditions with fellow drivers due to the isolated and distributed nature of their work. This prevents them from forming shared narratives, articulating workplace issues, and collectively organizing for workplace justice. Additionally, workers do not have access to the data assets which they create as a by-product of their driving for rideshare apps. As a result, rideshare companies hold the exclusive ability to shape the conversation around working conditions utilizing data narratives built on driver data assets as their source of evidence. 

To overcome rideshare companies’ enclosure over drivers’ data assets, we partnered with The Drivers’ Seat Co-op, Colorado Independent Drivers United, and Colorado Jobs with Justice and developed a methodology for capturing accurate data about drivers’ earnings. To gather wage and expense data, we utilized a data cooperative third party mobile application, called Drivers Seat Cooperative (DSC). DSC is a California-based data cooperative that provides rideshare drivers with legible information regarding their wages and expenses through a mobile application that tracks the distance and time spent driving. Data gathered through DSC was used, in conjunction with a representative survey of over 300 rideshare and delivery drivers in Denver, to draw conclusions about drivers’ net wages. 

We found that on average, drivers take home $5.49 in hourly wages after accounting for expenses such as vehicle wear and tear, vehicle lease payments, interior cleaning and maintenance, provision of personal protective equipment, and unremunerated time spent going to and from rider pick up location. You can read more about the full findings in the and the for calculating net wages from the DSC trace data. 

Upon publication of our results in , spokepeople from Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash contested our findings claiming that the hourly wage for drivers, according to their data ranged between $25 and $37 per hour. Importantly, none of the spokespeople elaborated on how expenses drivers incurred affected their hourly wages. Additionally, the claims from the rideshare platforms align with our findings: before incorporating calculations of expenses the average wage ranged between $19 and $50 per hour based on trace data acquired through DSC. However, after accounting for the expenses that drivers must pay in order to work, earnings decreased dramatically.

Rideshare companies’ claims about flexibility, independence, and potential earnings must be scrutinized. Because these companies hold a monopoly over access to official driver data, including time spent driving, waiting for rides, and distance driven, it is difficult to contest their narratives. Through a community-based approach, we engaged in grassroots data gathering to better understand the true costs associated with “being your own boss.” Access to—and control over—data is essential for workers to shape the public narratives and legislative agendas about their work.

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September 20, 2021
10-11 am Mountain Time
Free webinar

In May, Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper introduced the , an historic proposal for opening the doors of the Small Business Administration to cooperatives of all kinds. If made law, this bill would enable member-owned businesses to access resources that other kinds of businesses have long enjoyed. In this webinar, we will hear from leaders in the Colorado cooperative sector about the importance of capital access, as well as a representative from Sen. Hickenlooper's team, who will discuss the bill's progress so far.

• Sandra Baca (Assistant Director, Rocky Mountain Farmers Union Cooperative Development Center) (or director Dan Hobbs

• John Conrad (Special Assistant to Sen. John Hickenlooper)

• Yessica Holguin (Executive Director, Center for Community Wealth Building)

• Doug O'Brien (CEO, NCBA-CLUSA)

• Linda Phillips (Senior of Counsel, jason wiener|p.c.)

Map of Colorado cooperatives from coloradocoops.info/directory. Organized by the Media Enterprise Design Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder and Zebras Unite.

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January 22, 2020
3-5 p.m. Mountain Time
Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE), E422

A workshop for New Venture Challenge participants

How can you anchor your startup to a social mission? How can you make it accountable long-term to the communities it is meant to serve? This session, led by members of CMCI’s Media Enterprise Design Lab, introduces several strategies for protecting social enterprise, including nonprofits, benefit corporations and cooperatives.

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When the Longmont Observer responded to a request-for-proposals for control over the city’s public access channels, the team wasn’t sure they’d win. The contract had been held by another organization for over 30 years, and most assumed it was unlikely to change hands. But the Observer presented an unusual idea, one that sparked imaginations by proposing to reconfigure notions of media ownership.

If you walk into one of Longmont Public Media’s community organizing meetings, you’ll find 20 to 30 enthusiastic individuals happy to greet you and excited to work. Longmont Public Media is the Observer’s new public access branch. The energy of this eclectic group is palpable. Many in Longmont are excited to be pioneering their own model for public access television.

The notion of public access television was devised in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In the era of the first televised war, NBC, CBS and ABC controlled broadcast coverage of the cultural, political and social conflict. They depicted the gruesome fighting overseas and the civil unrest here in the United States. The effects were extraordinary. Screen media began to have a major influence on public policy and mass upheaval. TV began to be seen as a uniquely powerful force, one that was dictated by commercial broadcast networks. Recognizing the power of the medium, counterculture movements and media scholars began to advocate for what was referred to as “.” Michael Shamberg pioneered the term in 1971, stating, “Guerrilla Television is grassroots television. It works with the people, not from above them.”

Recognizing the importance of community driven media, the FCC developed regulations authorizing state and local governments to require cable television networks to set aside channels for public access. Cable companies entered franchise agreements with municipalities in which access to infrastructure——telephone poles, sidewalks, etc.——was granted in exchange for 5 percent of companies’ gross revenue. This franchise fee was paid to the city, which often reinvested this money into public access. Initially many local municipalities adopted this model, granting community members access to production and distribution methods. However, as pressure for public access decreased and many municipalities began experiencing increased financial burdens, funding for public access became less feasible. Some communities shut down public access channels entirely, while others limited them to local legislative proceedings. Public access shifted from a place where community members could develop skills and exhibit ideas to a droning of traffic court and city council hearings.

To complicate the matter further, in August 2019 the FCC approved an amendment to their 1970s regulation. The change in legislation allows cable companies to deduct “in-kind provisions” from their franchise fees. This means cable companies can now assert that the market value of public access networks is deductible from the revenue they pay to the municipalities. In 2017 Longmont allocated 25 percent of the franchise fees collected from Comcast (or $187,924) to public access television. , that is enough funding to cover one full-time employee and two part-time employees. The diminishment of franchise fees will seriously impact the ability of cities and states to maintain public access television. The president of Rocky Mountain PBS told the Colorado Sun, “Going from having franchise fees to not having them, typically what happens in that case is the public access goes away.” It’s clear that new models must be developed in order to maintain public access.

Longmont Public Media has taken on the challenge of innovating public access. Its founders have suggested that public access television can truly function as it was intended, as a resource created for and by the masses. They have proposed a cooperative model of media ownership in which members pay a small fee and in exchange can produce and exhibit their work. The studio that houses Longmont Public Access will be transformed into a media makerspace, serving as a venue for community members to create, collaborate, share infrastructure and distribute work. Each member of the co-op contributes to ideas around governance, programming, events and space utilization. As Michael Shamberg explained when he was proposing public access, “The inherent potential of information technology can restore democracy in America if people become skilled with information tools.”

This is not Longmont’s first foray into municipal ownership of community media. In 2014 Longmont launched NextLight, a municipally owned broadband enterprise. NextLight has dethroned Google Fiber as the fastest fiber-optic network, and it is now a national model for publicly owned internet access. Five years later, Longmont is building on this precedent through the creation of Longmont Public Media.

When Longmont Public Media asked MEDLab to get involved——to help formulate this model of cooperative public access——I knew it was an opportunity not to be missed. Thursday nights have become one of my favorite parts of the week, when I slide past the local middle school choir and the couples quietly nestled sipping lattes to the back room of the local coffee shop, where we work to revolutionize media ownership.

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