Before you start scrolling, read:
Why You Should Leave This Website
You should leave this website if you agree with one of the following claims:
"the management of our organisation think we need:
[insert any of the following]"
I made this webpage to tell you that:
I can help you with digital things, so you can focus on doing your job instead of wasting time dealing with unnecessarily sophisticated digital tools.
What do I do?
I am a kind of “system administrator” AND I’ve also spent a number of years helping businesses using digital tools to find new clients, grow revenue, etc. Some people call this “growth”7 or product marketing.
So, in other words, my job is to take care of the digital tools you need to do your work - so you can focus:
I keep things simple, I document what I do, and I use freely distributed software.
Why?
So you don’t become dependent on me, or on a vendor.
Once I’ve set things up, you can call me back if you need help, or you can hire someone else (or I can train your people).
My value proposition is that there is no vendor lock-in8; you are free to go, anytime.
What can I do?
These bullet points list examples of what I can do for you:
set up an emailing system (e.g. with a domain name of your own, on servers you have agency over)
set up your website so you can focus on work that matters, instead of spending time managing an unnecessarily sophisticated website9
help you with copy-writing so your message can spread word of mouth
help you understand how you can use GPG to encrypt emails, data and files
help you implement a password management policy, and train your people
help you manage “information as an asset” to support marketing, project management, et cetera
provide you and your people with laptops which you can own and control so you decide how to run your business (e.g. you don’t own Apple or Microsoft products)
set up your own end-to-end encrypted conference call system (e.g. I invite my clients to do calls on my system: https://talk.yctct.com, not on the servers of Zoom & co.)
and finally, transfer my know-how to you, or members of your organisation, so you don’t become tethered to me or other digital vendors.
I don’t want to lock you in10.
How do I do things?
I use freely (that is different from gratis11) distributed & copyleft-licensed12 software
I set up digital infrastructures to minimize usage of energy13
I set up digital infrastructures locally, or on remote servers which you have agency over e.g. servers governed by its users (e.g. as a cooperative)
I use programmes that have withstood the test of time14, so you don’t have to revamp your infrastructure anytime soon
I apply principles of digital accessibility & inclusivity15
Contact
You can contact me on (My PGP public key).
My PGP fingerprint is:
2E0F FB60 7FEF 11D0 FB45 4DDC E979 E52A 7036 7A88
We can work in English ou en Français.
-Roman
Postscriptum: I am in the process of publishing some documentation for others to replicate this agency model.
agency.yctct.com © 2024 by Roman Philip is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0.
This webpage is made using Markdown, Pandoc, Bash, HTML, 6 lines of CSS and is hosted on a virtual machine running the free GNU/Linux distribution Trisquel16 along with Nginx, on a shared server.
This webpage is a fork from https://plaintext.website.
Data collection policy17: logs are kept for four weeks; only looked at if there is an issue. No analytics, cookies or trackers are used on this website.
In other words, if your organisation is blind to the epistemic effect of technological usage↩︎
In other words, if your organisation can’t see that blockchain and the centralised hierarchically organised entity are oxymorons↩︎
In other words, if your organisation don’t know the adage “use old rule”, or is unfamiliar with the Lindy Effect↩︎
In other words, if your organisation is blind to solutionism (i.e. jumping at the implementation of “solutions” when problems have not yet been identified), or the concept of technological debt (i.e. more technologies leads to more complexity and eventually more problems), or if your organisation is blind to the idea of via negativa; more commonly known as “less is more”↩︎
if your organisation can’t see that what matters is to maintain the possibility to create what yet does not exist, (the improbable), but that your organisation think that they should be looking at data (what is already computed, thus belongs to the sphere of events that are probable) to make decision, how can they think “outside the box”? Will sticking to data-driven decision undermine the possibility for your organisation to create what yet does not exist? - thinking of AI - one question for the ones thinking that AI can help them create what does not exist: can AI (i.e. computers) generate (compute) what is yet not computed? Isn’t this question an oxymoron?↩︎
In other words, if your organisation can’t distinguish between the meanings of the words adopt and adapt, and the importance of distinguishing between the two↩︎
But what is the point of growing revenue if it means that we have to “run faster” to maintain the same level of income? In other words, what’s the point of growing revenue if your Return on Investment (ROI) is dwindling? I prefer to think of building businesses which ROI increases over time - meaning that one does not have to “run faster” to grow revenues. Digital tools I call digital glebes cause dwindling ROIs↩︎
From Wikipedia: “vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs.”↩︎
for example see https://plaintext.website (we can put photos etc)↩︎
Most digital technologies agencies nudge their clients to adopt tools provided by technofeudalists. By doing so, agencies prompt their clients to build their businesses or practices on the glebe (a territory where their agency is undermined). I don’t. I use software which are not tethered to any digital glebes or vendors. I use software which usage is free as in unrestricted, and which will remain freely distributed (i.e. copyleft-licensed).↩︎
See Free does not mean gratis: lexical clarifications towards digital literacy↩︎
Software which can’t become proprietary; conversely, free software which is non-copyleft licensed can become proprietary.↩︎
The sphere of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) consumes as much energy as the aviation industry; source: KDE talk at CCC.↩︎
FAQ: Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux are both composed of binary blobs, i.e. proprietary programmes.↩︎
There is no “privacy policy”, only Data Collection Policies.↩︎