So, many of us agree that defining coworking without experiencing it is extraordinarily difficult. In fact, I just finished a draft for a post on mashable to that point. But that's another story...
Prior to IndyHall opening, having a full blown website for us wasn't really practical. We started with a wiki, but most people didn't know how to use it. Gardening it was a pain in the ass, too. Having our own site wasn't practical for the main reason that I was busier out working the crowd, and my care for blogging outside of my personal site was minimal. The other thing was, MY perspective was important, but limited. The real value was finding ways for the community we were cultivating to be showcased. Tara's Coworkination mockups addess this issue the same way that I addressed ours: I built a very basic homepage that pulled in feeds from flickr, feeds from technorati about coworking and indyhall, and feeds from our google group. This showed constant activity from within the community to the outside community of newbs, and had a "always fresh" look without me needing to do any work. I STRONGLY propose this direction for two reasons: 1) once it's built, it's not very much work. Minor tweaking of feeds, etc. I suggest that there is some gardening because tag-based feeds WILL be exploited with spam and innappropriate stuff...it didn't take long for it to happen with us. But most importantly, 2) it addresses what I said in the first line of this email: explaining coworking is HARD. SHOWING what coworking is does a much better job. It's the hook. I personally love this direction enough to be willing to project lead the initial prototype. What I need from everyone else are the feeds that we should aggrigate. I'd like to start simple: all of the individual coworking site blogs should get pulled in, this google group, and flickr photos tagged coworking. What I won't let this becomes is a design-by-committee project. That's the biggest scare of approaching this project when the community has grown to this size. If anyone has suggestions for how to approach THAT issue, I'm open minded. -Alex -Alex -- ----- -- ----- Alex Hillman im always developing something digital: [EMAIL PROTECTED] visual: www.dangerouslyawesome.com local: www.indyhall.org On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 8:05 AM, Ryan Price <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Completely agreed, Nick. The uninitiated should be the first priority. > The blog and this list serve the people who know what's going on, for > now. > > Sorry to jump the gun, but Tara's whiteboard excited a part of my > brain that tends to run away with those solutions. > > I just want to list my support, and for what it's worth, my time. > > Peace, > Ryan > > On Nov 7, 2008, at 3:28 AM, nickf wrote: > > > > > Ok, my apologies. Somehow this thread got turned into "defining what > > coworking is" and "what features the website should have"... don't get > > me wrong, those are all great discussion that should happen, however, > > I want to take this thread back to my original point of a simple > > website that helps communicate coworking to the media and first time > > visitors, etc. People who don't have any idea what "coworking" is and > > want to learn just the basics. > > > > How we write the actual definition and content that goes onto the site > > is another discussion in it's entirety.. same can be said about what > > features or tools should exist for coworking... tho I would argue that > > those tools are not specifically something that should be introduced > > to first time visitors and the press. What we're starting to do here, > > I am afraid, is solutioneer... putting the solution before we fully > > explore the problem. The problem here has two parts 1) clarity in the > > concept to non versed individuals and 2) ease of use in finding that > > information. > > > > If we look at those problems in detail we'll get a little further > > along to defining the goals of such a website, then, and only then can > > we bring various solutions to the table for consideration and vet them > > against the goals of the site. If they don't match up then we need to > > consider a different solution. This will help us keep whatever > > solution we come up with down to a manageable and achievable size. We > > don't need to over engineer this or have some grandiose site with the > > worlds most perfect definition of what coworking is.. we just need a > > site that media and the first time users can use, read and understand. > > > > - Nick > > > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/coworking?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
