Autism, aspiration, enterprise.

I've been thinking about this on and off for ish a year I guess.  I've come to the conclusion I'm not very good at working for norms in a norm environment.  They can't understand how I think and the fact that it's always me that has to do the adjusting is, shall we say, sub-optimal health-wise.  Also, they way they seem to want to structure their environments - e.g. no written down agreements, make everything up randomly as you go along, open plan offices etc. etc. etc. really don't work for me and I suspect that's the same for most ASD peoples.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if I want to have a happy work-life where I feel I'm contributing something as a valuable human being then I really need to be doing something for myself and with a group of people of similar mind where we:

* all have buy-in to what we're trying to achieve,

* actually work together to achieve things rather than everybody doing their own thing and either:

- try and do as little work as possible, or

- just end-up competing and nobody helping anybody because there's no incentive to do anything other than let other people fail since you want to make sure to look better than them.

I have an idea for something I'd like to do, it's really just the getting going bit.  I was thinking some sort of social enterprise model since I think that would work best for the idea I had in mind.

Windscale,

Like yourself, I too have some interesting ideas around the social enterprise model but have no idea about how to get it going.  Fortunately, these ideas are focused around my areas of interest, so that's something at least.

I have tried straight self-employment in the past but really suffered when trying to land new business etc.  Once I got the business, I never had anyone leave to go elsewhere etc, but getting that new business...  Well...

I know that not all ASD's - diagnosed or otherwise - have issues with social interaction etc, so I find myself asking, what would be the possibilities of like-minded people getting together and sorting this sort of thing out for themselves?  Even possibly creating an umbrella-type organisation with individual social enterprise efforts based around the individual's area(s) of interest underneath with everyone having an equal say and an supporting each other....

Still, just an idea...

My thinking has been going in a similar direction.

Straight self-employment is a tough option. It's rare for one person to have all the necessary skills. In successful enterprise 'collectives' people's talents and resources are combined. 

A Community Interest Company could be established to function as the umbrella organisation, supporting and connecting a wide 'spectrum' of ASD entrepreneurs.

There would be potential for a range of shared services (market research, web development, marketing, bid writing, accountancy, virtual PAs).   

Self-employment is a good option for many of us and this approach would help more people get established. There would be scope for some interesting collaborations too.  

Just ideas...  

It might be worth exploring what advice support and funding the Co-operative Hive can provide, see: https://www.uk.coop/the-hive/ 

Richard Wolff talks about the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain.  You can find info about them on google - richard wolff mondragon.  But there's still a co-operative movement in the UK as well.  I think co-ops might provide capitalism the competition it needs to keep it honest.

Richard Wolff talks about the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain.  You can find info about them on google - richard wolff mondragon.  But there's still a co-operative movement in the UK as well.  I think co-ops might provide capitalism the competition it needs to keep it honest.

It might be worth exploring what advice support and funding the Co-operative Hive can provide, see: https://www.uk.coop/the-hive/