Civic Studies » New Zealand http://civicstudies.org An intellectual community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to building the emerging field of civic studies Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:58:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.41 Loomio: A New Tool for Inclusive Decisionmaking http://bollier.org/blog/loomio-new-tool-inclusive-decisionmaking http://bollier.org/blog/loomio-new-tool-inclusive-decisionmaking#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2014 16:20:45 +0000 http://civicstudies.org/?guid=09ccd6e11c5e3f34f99686a8af60d921 It’s clear that there is a great deal of momentum for developing new forms of online deliberation and decisionmaking.  I’ve discussed LiquidFeedback in the past and how open networks are making it inevitable that we will soon have some major shifts of authority and governance to online platforms. 

Now comes word of a crowdfunding campaign underway for Loomio, “a user-friendly tool for collaborative decision-making: not majority-rules polling, but actually coming up with solutions that work for everyone.”  We must be in a Cambrian explosion of rapid evolution!

The Loomio project is driven by a small team in Wellington, New Zealand that is trying to take its prototype to a new level entirely.  The platform provides a way for participants to start a discussion on any topic and bring a variety of perspectives into the open.  Then anyone can propose a course of action with which people can agree, disagree, abstain or block.  With enough agreement, a proposal can be developed and a deadline set for achieving group goals.  Here is a video describing how lots of people can have a complex discussion and make decisions.  

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