Contract for employing technologists
By Ed Mitchell 29th April 2010
When we started working with the Transition Technologists, we didn’t have a standard contract for them or us to agree on and sign and officialise the relationship.
Download the standard contract from our resources section
We focused on trust and good communication and conflict management. That was fine, and in our lessons learned session we all agreed that it worked out. However, we also agreed that in order to expand the Transition Technologist group (a long term goal of the web project is to facilitate across the emergence of a widening group of technologists to support the movement), we could not always presume to be working with such a core group and that ‘trust’ might not always be taken for granted, and a standard contract would be useful.
So we borrowed one from the awesome Transition Organisation Consultants (they know a thing or two about this stuff), kicked it about a bit, added our extra bits including the Open Source principles and how we share budgets collaboratively rather than compete for the whole budget, passed it by our chairman (who as well as many other things is a lawyer, which is very handy, and he agreed that we don’t want to ‘own’ code, that’s just silly), and hey presto, there you go.
Having found agreement with all parties, we’d prefer it if that wheel doesn’t need to be re-invented, so would like to share it with you too – so if you need a standard contract for employing technical folks on an organisational web development project, download the attached or follow the link to our resources section, and see what you think…
Download the standard contract from our resources section
NB: if you’re wanting to be master of the universe, in control of everything you see and do, and owner of all the code and content that makes up your website, this really isn’t for you – our focus is ‘from stuff to flow’ as Joanna Macy once said…