Whew, did it get hot in here? (Cue Rodney Dangerfield loosening his tie) This thread is a perfect case study in one of a starfish organization's biggest weaknesses: collectively making a decision. I think the solution, therefore, is to avoid paths that would require the general consent of the starfish to proceed.
We can agree there's a need: some sort of landing page to help people understand what coworking is and how to get involved. Our best shot at addressing this need is to sidestep anything that threatens to spider the starfish, keep the features to an absolute minimum to fulfill the basic need, and use existing resources as much as possible. There are already lots of great resources on the wiki to introduce people to coworking, so we don't necessarily need to start from scratch. ... I just spent about a half an hour trying to write the next sentence, but can't quite word it right yet. I'll leave it at that for now and try to come back to it. T Rating: Read Reviews Rate This[image: Write a Review] On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Tara Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hey Nick, > All of this makes me scratch my head a bit. I've been one of the MULTIPLE > people behind this movement for three years now and, I think the others will > agree, the following questions don't really apply: > > - Who can I talk to about coworking? i.e. who is our press contact? > who is the subject matter expert?, etc. > - where can I find facts about coworking? i.e. when was it founded? > who started it? how many locations & coworkers are there world wide?, > etc. > - Where can I find the coworking press releases? i.e. when a new > location launches or an event is about to occur, etc. > > Why not? Well, for one - there is no CENTRAL press contact. You can > actually talk to all of us on the list about coworking. Most of the press > comes through individual spaces...and the people behind those individual > spaces, then, may loop some of the others in (depending on what the > reporter's angle is). There is no 'subject matter expert', really. No > experts...just a large group of people who are still trying to figure out > what works and what doesn't...and it's very individual for the region. > > As for 'facts' about coworking, that's debatable, too. I have my own > coworking story, I came to it through Brad Neuberg, who was running a part > time drop in space in the Mission about 3.5 years ago. He coined the term > Coworking for us. But it was Chris Messina who asked Brad if he didn't mind > us co-opting the term and taking it wider. We started meeting up, then > opened the Hat Factory with a large group (including Brad), then moved on to > open up Citizen Space. But it wasn't until people around the world started > opening their own space that we became a movement. And, that is only my > story. In fact, the Workspace people in Vancouver were ALREADY opening a > coworking space and THEN they found the group. John McCann in NYC had his > space for 9 or 10 years. There isn't really a single factual story, just a > collection of stories on how people found one another through the existence > of a meagre wiki, blog and this Google group. > > And press releases? That's so not starfishy. Spaces do their individual > press outreach and the HUNDREDS of stories done on coworking over the past > three years have come from: word of mouth, reporters stumbling across a > random blog post, tweet or youtube video, barcamp, conferences, etc. where > we hang out...blah blah blah. Not one single point of failure. Thousands of > nodes of goodness. > > We are now and, IMO, should always be a Starfish organization. Any way we > slice this, it will alienate someone. Check through the history of this > movement - we've had no issue with getting traction. And I don't really mind > the fact that we aren't super mainstream yet. Slow, steady growth means that > each of our spaces attract the RIGHT kinds of people. We've had very few > security issues because we grow through the community. > > That being said, I agree that the site could be more user-friendly. As > Patrick suggested, a self-hosted install of Wordpress would be an option. > The thing I don't dig about that option is: who pays for it? who hosts it? I > don't want to just give one person those keys as I've been part of loosely > joined groups for years and seen awful things happen when feelings are hurt. > We could also, in the CURRENT Wordpress hosted site, create static pages you > know. AND, we can use one of those static pages to be the homepage. Citizen > Agency (Chris and I) currently pays for the WP upgrades - which are nominal, > we also manage the relationship with PBWiki (a nice option because people > can come along and edit that themselves without too much permission) and > administer the Google group (which I've also deputized to a handful of > others to help with). > > So, let's try to think about this in terms of working with what we have. > Even my ideas on Flickr were NOT supposed to be hosted at coworking.info, > I bought the separate domain, coworkination.com, because I am cognizant > that, tho I'm an early founder, I do not OWN this group and should not be > able to make decisions willy-nilly on the behalf of the group. I > merely shepherd it at times and serve it at other times. > > Okay. That's my piece. > > Tara > > On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 2:28 AM, nickf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> >> >> >> On Nov 7, 6:09 pm, "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > I've been loosely involved in Île Sans Fil, a free wireless community >> > group here in Montréal for a few years and just the few messages I've >> > seen in this trend remind me of what happened there for years. As >> > Nick's second message to the thread higlights, were are already >> > diverging into multiple discussions and if we aren't careful it can >> > quickly get worse and we all lose interest and/or run out of available >> > time to deal with it. >> >> Exactly... lets keep it simple. If we see such a demand for some >> features after it launches then we can add those later.. for now I am >> thinking a handful of pages and links to the blog and wiki in a very >> carefully detailed content plan. >> >> >> > What I would suggest is: >> > >> > - If the blog is on wordpress.com, switch it to our own install of >> > WordPress on a shared host space. >> > - Come up with a simple minimalistic design, something that's nice and >> > clean but not too flashy or in too radical a design direction, so has >> > to maximize our chances to agree on something. >> > - Configure that new WordPress to have the blog on a subpage and a >> > "static" frontpage. >> > - Start wiki pages or Google docs to write up and collaborate on a few >> > pages, Nick's outline is a very good start. >> > - Once the design and new WordPress install are ready, integrate the >> > content using WordPress pages. >> > - That's it. Quick, rather painless and that way we don't mix up too >> > many discussions about direction, features and semantics. I think such >> > a site would be a big improvement on our first impression making and >> > can super easily be edited if we want to keep fine tuning our content >> > and the way we present the movement. >> >> Perfect. And good idea about Wordpress. And I think that others on >> this thread have already voiced similar approaches. We all seem to be >> on the same page here right? >> >> > In a phase 2, then, we can get into longer discussions about other >> > features and more detailed content. I think something like Drupal >> > could then be envisioned, with planet like aggregation, member >> > profile, space profiles, mapping of spaces based on those profiles. >> > (The member and places profiles can also serve for the visa program.) >> >> Oh no.. you used the "D-Word" ...oh my.... well, so long as I never >> have to deal with it or use it, i don't mind :P Anyway, a discussion >> about which CMS to use if we should do a 2nd phase of the site is, >> well, a 2nd phase discussion that can happen later. :) >> >> - Nick >> >> > > > -- > -- > tara 'missrogue' hunt > > Book: The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your > Business ( > http://www.amazon.com/Whuffie-Factor-Capital-Winning-Communities/dp/0307409503?ie=UTF8 > ) > Company: Citizen Agency (http://www.citizenagency.com) > Blog: HorsePigCow: Marketing Uncommon (http://www.horsepigcow.com) > Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/missrogue > phone: 415-694-1951 > fax: 415-727-5335 > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. 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