In the last couple of weeks I’ve been using a programming language (Python) that I’ve not used extensively in the past to work on a unit of a production website, increasing the simplicity of the unit and hopefully also increasing the efficiency (Occam’s Razor stylie?). I have been learning “as I go along”, and with a little help from a borrowed book[1]. It has been fun, and I’ve found myself liking Python a lot more than I was expecting (as I documented in my previous blog post about My Python Learning Curve).

Within the past week I’ve also picked up a small project (almost finished), which was essentially “Web Design“. Those of you who know me, probably know that I’m not really a “designer” but a “developer”. So this has been a bit of a learning curve for me too, actual practical - production level use of CSS (both 2.1 and 3 - focusing on getting it working for Chrome, Webkit, Firefox and IE >= 8), and also some graphical work using the GIMP.

Being freelance means that I’ve been able to focus on learning new things, and doing it quickly - its something that I love. I may, or may not, use the new Python and Design skills in the future - but hopefully it helps me to become a more well-rounded freelancer. Variety is also a spice, and so it has been nice to step away from the PHP/MySQL and Semantic Web stuff that I’ve been doing for quite a while.

The next step is progression. Next week is the beginning of a new tax-year here in the United Kingdom, and I hope that I will be able to progress using some variety (as indicated above), some reuse of my existing skill set, some hard work, some networking and a bit of luck!

Where am I going (i.e. where am I progressing to)? Who knows where the path may take us? but travel it nonetheless in good faith taking decisions when needed.

I have figured out that at any one time I have:

• A favoured set of skills (skills that I already have, some of which might be rusty)
• A set of skills that I’ve recently been using or learning (skills that I have and are refreshed in my mind)
• A set of skills that I want to acquire
• A set of interests which I wish to apply my skills to

So I look for freelance work that will combine as many of the above as possible (so if you can help then please let me know!).

As I am becoming a Journeyman of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, I shall be “paired up” with a mentor (someone who has many many more years in industry than I - although I do have quite a few already to be honest). This mentor will hopefully help to guide me on my career path, hopefully help me to avoid pitfalls that I have made in the past and choose good choices to make. I always hope that I can get more involved with the British Computer Society, but haven’t yet found their events particularly interesting (and when they do seem interesting, then they are usually somewhere else at some strange time).

So, time to plan combining skills and interests for the new tax year then!

Footnotes:

1. Learning Python by Mark Lutz

This is a continuation from my first blog post on “Business, Politics, Technology and Religion”. Please note that much of these two articles comes from my previous research and my current conceptualisations, it also comes out of my head exactly as you see it. When I write blog posts I try not to edit it too much, and therefore I apologise for any fragmented and disjointed flow to the articles.

Last time I highlighted the Guild system, and highlighted some of its contemporary counterparts. Notably Livery Companies, Guild Socialist groups, Co-operatives and Friendly Societies. I also noted that the Guild-style groups share some kind of connection with political ideology, yet they have supporters and enemies from the whole of the political spectrum. My attempt in this part is to try to reach some kind of personal conclusion.

With Guilds and guild-style systems there seems to be some kind of connection with business, or at least the way to personally run a business. As I mentioned before, Guilds themselves were made out of self-employed members, and Co-operatives these days are also a form of “shared independence” (either as an entity employing people, or as a collective of self-employed people).

We can also see some kind of connection between co-operatives and political parties. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is a “Co-operative Party” which is strongly allied to the Labour Party (you’ll often see some MPs as belonging to the Labour Co-Operative Party). However, Co-Operatives in general do try to maintain political-party independence, and will do their best to promote the co-operative way of working to all political parties. Co-Operatives have a following from many people, and the Liberal Democrats of the United Kingdom have a informal group dedicated to Co-Operatives being a good Liberal and Democratic technique for business.

Livery Companies seem to have a strong interest in helping individuals do the best that they can for the progression of their industry. This is through schemes such as the Journeyman Scheme (as mentioned in Part 1), or through Charity (in the form of University/Research bursaries, or funding community initiatives). From what I’ve read so far, they don’t seem to provide any kind of way that a business should work, although in many cases they can act as professional bodies and provide professional advice. Livery Companies do, however, have some ceremonial hand in the politics of the “City of London Corporation”, as they provide the construct for a man or woman to become a Freeman or a Liveryman of the City of London (which I understand to have certain privileges relating to the election of the Lord Mayor).

I’ve not said much about how technology hooks in with all of this. Technology, in particular the world wide web, provides a platform for the ability to work across all localities, states and countries. Merchants of yesteryear used to sail the seas and traverse the lands in order to trade, nowadays a lot of trade happens on the world-wide-web. Many businesses and many self-employed people now have their own website, their own portal to their work - this is new merchantry. This means that the freelancers of today, myself included, that work primarily on the web (Thomas W. Malone, whom I am drawing from some of his ideas, would call us e-Lancers [1]), are new merchants. But we lack a professional basis, granted that there are professional bodies such as the British Computer Society (BCS) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), but they are often “too professional” for the grassroots style of the web. There are also a handful of co-operatives which have started up to provide software and web development services (one such service can be found in my home area of the South West of England and are called the “Software Co-Operative”, an organisation that I would highly recommend), but I am not sure if I am ready to commit myself to working within a co-operative just quite yet (but I shan’t rule it out for the future). I believe that “e-Lancers” could probably do with being part of a Guild, something that can act a bit like a professional body, at the same time as providing some kind of co-opertition, with some “friendliness” (possibly in the friendly-society meaning).

Almost every Livery Company of London is styled as a “Worshipful Company”, this is because they have a Royal Charter from the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. The Monarchy is a religious organisation, it is Protestant Christian - the Queen being seen as the head of the Church of England (Anglicanism) and the Church of Scotland (Presbyterianism) [2]. The Livery Companies therefore have some spiritual basis, but I must state that the companies are open to any man or woman. The Worshipful Company of Information Technologists also have a “Ethical and Spiritual Panel”, which I find quite interesting and will try to find out a bit more about.

I am currently (3:15pm GMT - 23rd March 2011) writing this line of text in a Costa Coffee shop just in front of St Pauls Cathedral in London, drinking a Cinnamon Latte. I am within the City of London area, the very capital of the Livery Companies of London. At 5pm, I am due to have some meetings at the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) - as I have applied to become a Journeyman of the Company. I suspect that I’ll possibly write yet another blog post after I’ve had the meetings, just detailing whats happening and maybe also anything that I may have learnt that is relevant to these two blog posts.

Now lets put this all into a personal context. Many of you will know that I try to promote the act of “building bridges between communities”, and also the act of “knowing thyself” - and hence my stringing together of Business, Technology, Politics and Religion in these two blog posts. You will know that I am a rather Liberal individual, I am happy in the knowledge that other people have different religious and political views to myself, and I accept our differences. I also try to promote equality amongst all peoples (no matter about age, gender, race, cultural background or political views). I condemn those people, organisations and schools of thought that try to destroy freedom and human rights. I promote organisations which try to better society, and try to make things more efficient. I somewhat favour distributist or decentralist political theory. I am a card carrying member of the Liberal Democrats of the United Kingdom (and support the actions of ALDE, ELDR and Liberal International). I try to promote the use of the Alternative Vote (AV) system, and also (preferably) the Proportional Representation (PR) election methodology - for the use in all elections in the United Kingdom [3]. I am a Christian, albeit one with a slightly unorthodox (or heterodox) theology based around mysticism, esotericism, liberalism and progressivism, but I was baptised and confirmed in the Church of England as an Adult by the Bishop of Oxford (John Pritchard). I am also a Freemason (in the Craft under UGLE, and in Royal Arch under the SGC of England), and I am happy to admit that as I believe that Freemasonry has nothing to hide, plus I’m quite open to talk about it and what it means to me (I am also acknowledge all three forms of Freemasonry: Male, Female and “Co” Masonry - as each have their reasons for existence, and I would say that the members of all are my Brothers/Sisters). I am a self-employed Computer Scientist, and a Member of the British Computer Society (BCS). This is how I approach Livery Companies and Guilds, and hence why I believe that the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (WCIT) may be useful to me, it will hopefully help me to help my clients, through professionalism, cooperation, coopertition and inter-independence.

I believe that knowing myself as I’ve shown above (and this doesn’t mean that I have finished “knowing myself”), I can place myself in the context of life, and try to maximise my efficiency by noticing my flow of ideology in the various spheres. For instance - I have a love of predicate and “semantic” logic, and that permeates my political ideas of human rights, my religious ideas of comparative religion, my technical ideas of software/web development and my business ideas of organisation structure. I’m certainly not saying that everyone should have these exact ideas, because they may not fit for everyone, but the idea that an abstract ideology flows and permeates every aspect of life is certainly an important and universal concept.

Footnotes

1. For instance see the book The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style and Your Life by Thomas W. Malone. Also see a rather interesting book called “The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
   “, which also details how software development is similar to (or at least should be similar to) the guild system.
2. Interestingly the Queen, in Scotland, is the head of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland - which is different to the Anglican Organisation in Scotland which is called the Scottish Episcopal Church. I don’t believe that this causes any arguments, and generally the Anglicans/Episcopalians, Presbyterians/United-Reformed-Church and Methodists get on well with each other in England, Wales and Scotland.
3. No doubt, this demands another blog post, but I’ll try not to get too political on my technical-orientated blog *wink*

I have recently started to become interested in the Livery companies of London (most notably the “Worshipful Company of Information Technologists” (WCIT)), and how they evolved from the Guilds of yesteryear. The livery companies seem to do a great deal, not only for London and the rest of the UK but worldwide too, primarily through charitable doings. The more practical/vocational livery companies, such as the WCIT, not only do charity, but seem to further develop their industry through schemes such as the Journeyman Scheme (i.e. pairing up a new member with a full member (aka “Freeman”) who has plenty of industry experience).

Now, one of the bigger differences between Guilds and Livery Companies, is that Guilds were primarily made up of self-employed members. Livery companies on the other hand have an intake of employed and self-employed members, and often work in cooperation with companies. So we could see the Guilds of yesteryear a little bit like loose (and pre-socialist) co-operatives.

In the early 1900s, when socialism in the United Kingdom and Europe started to boom, there seems to have been a few socialists who were also fans of the old Guilds. These notable socialists included: Arthur Penty, G. D. H. Cole and S. G. Hobson. The early 1900s saw the birth of what was called “Guild Socialism”, which although similar seems to be distinct from the (pre and post- socialist) “Co-operatives” and the socialist “Trade Unions”. [1]

This is where business hooks into politics. There are references out there which state that both Adam Smith (of Capitalism fame) and Karl Marx (of Marxist Communism/Socialism fame) were very strongly against the creation of Guilds, however, supporters of all political camps (Conservatives, Liberals, Socialists, Greens, etc) can be seen as supporters of Guilds, Livery Companies, Co-operatives and Friendly Societies [2]. This also happens to be the case with Freemasonry, which some say derived from the Medieval Stonemasons Guilds [3] - various people of all political camps are against it, and various other people of all political camps are for it [4]. Guilds are therefore non-political, yet political theorists have taken Guild ideas and applied their ideologies to them.

This ends part one of two posts on “Business, Technology, Politics and Religion”. This post has focused primarily on business and politics, and my next post shall focus more on technology and religion - and will bring everything together (hopefully coherently).

Footnotes

1. One thing that I have not yet found out is whether the early theorists of “Guild Socialism” were members of any of the Livery Companies (or any existing Guilds) - or, indeed, what they thought of it. If anyone reading this has any idea then please do let me know, I would be very interested in hearing about it.
2. Yes, Friendly Societies do appear too. Many Friendly Societies were born out of industries, as mutual benefit societies to help their members. Somewhat similar to Guild ideology don’t you think?
3. I don’t necessarily believe that Freemasonry came from Stonemasons Guilds, although many people do believe this to be the case - However, it is certainly the case that the old Guilds put on “Mystery Plays” which were related to their industry - and these Mystery Plays may have inspired modern Freemasonry. Other people also believe that Freemasonry came from Rosicrucianism and/or the Knights Templar. The history is vague, and I haven’t made my mind up on it yet, it is quite possible that it was inspired from all three (Stonemasons Guilds, Rosicrucianism and Knights Templar)
4. Politics is not allowed to be spoken in English Masonic lodges (i.e. UGLE based/related lodges) as it can cause disharmony in the order. However, many early English Speculative Freemasons were in favour of a protestant government and monarchy. Many Speculative Freemasons took part in the American and French revolutions. But one must note that English Freemasonry itself is not a political organisation, and the noted revolutions aren’t themselves a product of Freemasonry.

Comments

Please do comment on this post. Maybe you can answer any or some of these questions:

1. What do you think about Guilds, Livery Companies, Guild Socialism, Co-operatives, Trade Unions and Friendly Societies?
2. Do you think that any of the above societies/groups have a place in contemporary society?
3. Research question: Were the early Guild Socialists involved with any Livery Companies (see Footnote 1 above).
4. Is there anything that you would like to see in the next part to this post? Or would you like me to mention anything that I may have missed?
5. Do you have any other thoughts/feelings/suggestions/comments in addition to this article?

[UPDATE]

Part two on £Business, Technology, Politics and Religion” is now available.