This group is an experiment in opening up Compumentor's project development process in a very action-oriented way.

We will soon--within the next two weeks--be opening several discussions to start the process. Each discussion will concern a specific project under development now at CompuMentor.

We are a very result-oriented organization. We can (and do) talk and write at length, but when we invest time in a project, we want to bring it to market or drive a stake through its heart sooner rather than later. We will see how this orientation plays out in the format of Omidyar.net. Our commitment will be to have an open discussion and to be transparent about how we decide to move the project(s) forward.

We see a fantastic upside to this experiment.

1. We have our own smart people among the 90 at CM. We'll bring them and their ideas to the mix.
2. We have a larger community of advisors and allies, accumulated over 17 years of organizational work. We'll do our best to bring them to the Network, and we think they will enrich both our discussions and the network as a whole.
3. We perceive an already-existing network of some pretty brilliant people on the Network. We hope to interest them in our work, and, if we succeed, we'll be immensely the better off for these new collaborators' involvement
4. We hope we can do some modeling here for the larger npo community of the benefits of transparency and shared process.

For starters, we are opening a 'background' discussion about CompuMentor, TechSoup and TechSoup Stock. For those who don't know us (and even for those who do!), this is a place to find out more and offer comments on a meta-level about CM's organizational development.