To form the prototechnate, non-profit organizations (NPO) present in the world today are helped to join up into a structured cooperative in which the NPO themselves, according to a specific design, take care of coordination, adhering to technocratic principles. This is a voluntary membership structure that offers to simplify attaining goals trough the effects of synergy and provide some mechanisms for the mutual reliability required in such cooperation.
The holonic structure of the technate provides the theoretical basis for the organization of a fully functional technate, however there is an obvious gap between what it suggests and the current state of organizations in the world today. This article attempts to better define the transition of the current society to the technate, thus defining one of the possible implementations of the prototechnate.
Non-Profit Organizations or similar communities are basic building blocks of the prototechnate. Their inherent structure makes them the most suitable entity in today's society for making up a technocratic network. This is because they are:
Autonomous - once established they operate under their own set of rules
Non-profit - although they can and usually do generate profit it is not their goal, just a means to an end
Goal oriented - they have specific goals that they try to achieve through their projects
The NPO is a voluntary membership organization and may be anything between single active individuals to communities of hundreds or thousands of people. The NPO internally arranges itself into workgroups that work on their projects, they internally arrange to ensure they follow their goals and are willing to adopt whatever they can use to achieve them.
While different nations around the world have different laws regarding the NPO, the general definition of a successful NPO is that is is an independent organization who's members are not motivated by profit and who's goals are defined, adhered to and not changed during the lifetime of the organization. This is also what makes them appropriate for membership in a prototechnate (see NPO references).
These NPO are assisted by coordinators (see below) to join together to form a cooperative, in which they would coordinate their activities to assist each other in attaining of their goals. To simplify cooperation between NPO from similar areas (either geographically or by branch of technology), the NPO in a prototechnate are also be joined into a holarchy (see Wallace 2008); possibly as well into a more dynamic holarchy, where members may change over time in case of coordinated projects.
So far we have defined the prototechnate as a cooperating holonic structure of NPO. It has been stated that these NPO are supposed to cooperate. But just NPO, each working at their own goal may not automatically form a cooperative or even cooperate well. This is where the coordinators come into play. The coordinators are NPO, experts in their field of coordinating organizations, who have attained the coordinator Class (see below) and will support the people in their holons and help them cooperate.
This role is as much official as it is personal. The coordinators must work closely with the people within the holon. Coordinators may be outsiders by expertise and must thus be in an interactive relationship with the people, to ensure that what they are doing is helpful and is having an effect. This is the nature of support jobs and is comparable to the role of secretaries, IT departments and the like.
A coordinator's goals include for example:
Gathering information - collect and process data about what NPO do and how they do it
Supply and demand - communication between those NPO that provide and those NPO that require goods
Counseling - providing Principles according which the NPO would operate and cooperate optimally and help maintain Standards (see below)
Predicting future trends - the data that is gathered is also used to create simulations and propose actions based on them
In the structure of the prototechnate, each holon has it's own coordinator. This means that in the structure, each holon, regardless of whether it is a single NPO or a group (of NPO, which being holons already have a coordinative organ each), is in touch with a coordinating NPO, helping it cooperate within the holon. Due to the nature of the coordinator's goals, it is very likely that these would seek to link up and help each other as well.
Let's look at some examples:
In a typical scenario, we have a local group holon of several local NPO and it's local coordinator is a NPO specialized in the area of coordination, which has attained the coordinator Class. It helps the NPO in the local group holon cooperate with each other. Many such local group holons then group together into a regional holon, which has another specialized NPO for coordination (coordinator Class, naturally). This regional coordinator helps all the NPO within it cooperate, and does so in concert with the local coordinators.
In a smaller-scale example, we have a group holon of two or three NPO, their coordinator is an active individual who has attained the coordinator Class, who is otherwise also working in one of the NPO.
NET is a NPO that holds the coordinator Class. It can be in contact with other NPO and be assisting them with their technocratization.
Already mentioned above, Principles, Standards and Classes represent the most important part of this design because whatever they are defines how the design behaves.
Principles are rules defined in cooperation with the NPO or larger holon, which are simply recommended to the NPO to help them improve their activities. A NPO or larger holon need not adhere to a Principle, but it is desired that they do and should be assisted towards adhering to it by the coordinators. Most rules in the prototechnate should be Principles as the level of adoption of a Principle tells us how helpful it really is.
Once a Principle becomes commonly accepted within the NPO or larger holon, it becomes a Standard.
A NPO or larger holon adhering to a set of Standards attains specific Class. Classes are defined as a set of adhered to Standards. It is the role of the Directors to verify if a NPO or larger holon is adhering to it's Standards (per the Standard's definition) and assigning them Classes (per the Class's definition), if the Standards are not adhered to, the NPO or larger holon looses that Class. The Director should sign off on the NPO or larger holon's Class membership to allow verification and provide a trust reference. Other NPO may use Classes as a criteria for determining the level of cooperation with them.
Anyone may specify new Principles and Classes, each should be specified with an unique identification for reference, a short readable description and a definition, and should be signed off on by at least the author to allow verification and provide a trust reference. Existing Principles and Classes cannot be changed to avoid confusion.
The prototechnate, defined in this way, is a collection of NPO working together with the assistance of coordinators and their principles. People may choose and join any NPO or make their own and it is the NPO's internal responsibility to arrange these people and use their work to achieve the it's goal. The coordinators, the prototechnate's method of expansion, only help NPO to increase efficiency trough their own principles and thus help each NPO attain it's goal by providing access to a synergistic structure.
Principles provide long-term goals that the society of NPO may look towards, yet choose between, while Classes provide a reliability framework, which is an equally democratic mechanism that allows the society of NPO to choose the rules by which they will live and (co)operate.
Holon and Holonic structure:
Non-Profit Organizations:
http://friends.s5.net/tina/VRSTE%20IN%20OBLIKE%20NEPROFITNIH%20ORGANIZACIJ.ppt
Non-Profit Organizations and law: