a group of dedicated independent consultants who have found strength and support in working together
Knowledge:IT, a Cooperative is a group of IT professionals working primarily in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
Most of our members have at least ten years of experience offering technical and management services. We come from a wide variety of backgrounds and share a commitment to working together within a cooperative structure to provide excellent services to our customers.
Our members have expertise and extensive experience in a wide variety of IT functions, IT tools and languages, mostly related to application development. We offer project management, systems analysis, functional analysis and architectural services as well as system development and database administration services. We also have a group specializing in the design and development of eLearning.
We have people skilled in a variety of tools including (but of course not limited to!) Java, Natural, COBOL, .Net, SQL, SQLServer, FileNet, PLSQL, ADABAS, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, Flash, html, XML and PHP.
Our experience comes from having worked as employees of organizations, as contractors to organizations, and as project staff on contracted projects.
Our primary business areas are government, health care and insurance.
Our services are available through contracts to individuals or to a group for a project or for hourly rates as needed.
We are unique in being a group of dedicated independent consultants who have found strength and support in working together. We are a profit-making cooperative, distributing profits in accordance to our contributions, and following the principles of cooperatives around the world.
Most of our members have at least ten years of experience offering technical and management services. We come from a wide variety of backgrounds and share a commitment to working together within a cooperative structure to provide excellent services to our customers.
Our members have expertise and extensive experience in a wide variety of IT functions, IT tools and languages, mostly related to application development. We offer project management, systems analysis, functional analysis and architectural services as well as system development and database administration services. We also have a group specializing in the design and development of eLearning.
We have people skilled in a variety of tools including (but of course not limited to!) Java, Natural, COBOL, .Net, SQL, SQLServer, FileNet, PLSQL, ADABAS, Oracle, MySQL, DB2, Flash, html, XML and PHP.
Our experience comes from having worked as employees of organizations, as contractors to organizations, and as project staff on contracted projects.
Our primary business areas are government, health care and insurance.
Our services are available through contracts to individuals or to a group for a project or for hourly rates as needed.
We are unique in being a group of dedicated independent consultants who have found strength and support in working together. We are a profit-making cooperative, distributing profits in accordance to our contributions, and following the principles of cooperatives around the world.
Our Story
In 2002 a small group of IT professionals had an idea. We wanted to build an organization that would allow us to do things a bit differently than we had been doing them. We decided to consider becoming a cooperative.
Principles
The co-operative principles are guidelines by which co-operatives put their values into practice:
1) Voluntary and Open Membership
2) Democratic Member Control
3) Member Economic Participation
4) Autonomy and Independance
5) Education, Training and Information
6) Co-operation among Co-operatives
7) Concern for Community
Source : ICA News, No. 5/6, 1995.
Cooperatives have been working on pretty much those same principles since their “modern” beginnings in England in 1844 with the Rochdale Society.
Why did we decide to use this structure for our business?
Well, we LIKE these principles. They allow each of us to have slightly different motivations to participate: all of us are receiving financial benefit, some of us are motivated by the sense of community that is available to us, some gain new experience by being on the board which operates the cooperative throughout the year, some of us have had experiences that have added to our career prospects, some of us really enjoy working together on projects and learning from one another as we do our work. Most of us like having a say in the business itself and in what we do on a day-to-day basis.
How do we benefit financially?
This far in the history of our cooperative, we have not paid those members who are elected to the board which operates the cooperative throughout the year. Board membership is limited to three consecutive years of service, so the management group is a rotating one. Members gain experience in running the business: dealing with financial, legal, business acquisition, and personnel issues. The board members volunteer their time for this. This service component is part of the “responsibility” that comes with membership. And it’s one way we save money for all members, allowing us each to keep more of our earnings (profits) than we might be able to do in another type of organization.
Principles
The co-operative principles are guidelines by which co-operatives put their values into practice:
1) Voluntary and Open Membership
2) Democratic Member Control
3) Member Economic Participation
4) Autonomy and Independance
5) Education, Training and Information
6) Co-operation among Co-operatives
7) Concern for Community
Source : ICA News, No. 5/6, 1995.
Cooperatives have been working on pretty much those same principles since their “modern” beginnings in England in 1844 with the Rochdale Society.
Why did we decide to use this structure for our business?
Well, we LIKE these principles. They allow each of us to have slightly different motivations to participate: all of us are receiving financial benefit, some of us are motivated by the sense of community that is available to us, some gain new experience by being on the board which operates the cooperative throughout the year, some of us have had experiences that have added to our career prospects, some of us really enjoy working together on projects and learning from one another as we do our work. Most of us like having a say in the business itself and in what we do on a day-to-day basis.
How do we benefit financially?
This far in the history of our cooperative, we have not paid those members who are elected to the board which operates the cooperative throughout the year. Board membership is limited to three consecutive years of service, so the management group is a rotating one. Members gain experience in running the business: dealing with financial, legal, business acquisition, and personnel issues. The board members volunteer their time for this. This service component is part of the “responsibility” that comes with membership. And it’s one way we save money for all members, allowing us each to keep more of our earnings (profits) than we might be able to do in another type of organization.