On Monday 30 March 2009, H. Kurth Bemis wrote: Technology is wonderful and all, but it has created a growing disconnect between the physical and virtual worlds. A hub does its small bit to bridge that gap; and the more it can provide by way of tech the better. This hackerspace, by any other name, seems a bit like a 'social-club' hub to me; but whose product can become greater than the sum of its parts, specially if it can combine the best of the 'work' and 'fun' worlds. > > Not be the downer of the party, but there's a lot more to it then just > getting some office space and a net connection. At Foulab we're > constantly trying to recruit new members, which in a city the size of > Montreal is still proving fairly difficult. There's a lot of folks that > would "love to have a space" but are not/not able to pay for the space.
Payment seems directly relative to the 'who' and the 'what'; who joins, why and how. I suppose you|we|somebody would have to decide how this thing is organized (consensus is nice). But find a way to make the hub have added-value that has broad appeal (a game room?) and meaning (nevermind) and I'm sure the means get easier. If the squat is is for techies only it may be more difficult to get started and stay running, but if it's supported by the widest, broadest population that it can (reasonably) reach then it has a chance to maintain momentum. In prior context, the spectrum included computer geeks, possibly accepting "envision the Burlington Hacker (DIY/Maker/Innovation/Technology/OtherNonHackerTerm) Space" as a starter definition of whom it attracts. Perhaps to mean ad-hoc, loosely-knit, fringe but cutting-edge, science/tech and art/craft sub-groups (religion and politics free) who need a place to congregate and communicate. But us/we, the face of free/open-source movement don't need much of any space; a cool closet for a rack some comfortable place to sit, a conf room. A screened out big space with cubes only where necessary (a cone-of-silence?). And lets not forget the work bench. > > A hackerspace is really a shared workshop, so office space is generally > unadvised. Also, it's a workshop, so office space isn't really where > you want to be setting up a space, IMHO. Also, office space is > typically expensive, while warehouse or basement space is generally not, > or not as cheap. A place to hang is what comes to mind through its name; more comfortable digs than an office. My wish-list includes videoconferencing and streaming > > The other issue I see with a space in Vermont is the lack of centralized > population. Sure, Burlington is a fine place to have a space, but is > nearly inaccessible to anyone living outside of the northwest part of > the state, which will make it harder to build a sustainable base of > members with will be required for long term growth of the space. I'll defer the prior matter of "who would want to drive/bike/walk to this place" be it in Burl,MontP,Barre,Richmond, or anywhere to another post; but I would suspect that any narrow field would be incapable of self-sustanence. That's why typical hub Bplans for anyplace are somewhat generic: 'tele-centers' for anyone who needs connectivity. I wonder if orienting a tele-center into a "social-center' is the 'added-value' that can make it a success? I know that's what Paul's BOSSE and teen-center has been aiming for. Did I mention ambiance? > > Speaking of members, a good space has a wide diversity of knowledge within > it's members. I guess, to this point, the subject of membership is the key to success; attracting bodies and traffic. As others have noted, for all the .org's out there with potential for affiliation, their space limitations may be deal-breakers; the crash collective notwithstanding. What we (computeristas) have in our favor to pull this off (theoretically), lies in the combination of greater numbers of knowledge-workers, your "diversity of knowledge", who use and depend on what we (can) provide, a means to deliver the computing and the communications tools that allow them|us and their|our work|projects to be shared. By way of extreme example, I suppose that if a beerbrewer or herbalist knew he|she could stream an infomercial to an audience of faithful followers world-wide by booking the conference room for low-bucks that it could be quite an inducement to join up. In short, it might be that tech tools and toys is what differientates this space from going to muddy waters. > At Foulab, nearly all of us know one or two > programming languages, many of us have electronics and microcontroller > experience, some of us are more artistic then technical, and finally > some are just there to learn. Getting a bunch of geeks together for > playtime might be fun, but generally the real purpose of any hackerspace > is to further the spread of knowledge between it's members. Also, a > diverse group will produce many more feasible and interesting ideas and > concepts then s handful of one kind of geek. which, and thru this thread, brings up the function of the space. One focus has been on groups who would see the benes of having their events there. Beermakers to beekeepers I suppose would be welcome? Or would it be more selective than that? And since more than a few have stated that "going to a hub' to do their own work (teleworking) is just as important as what might be on the event calendar, implies a lot of potential co-existance. But if this sentiment (an inexpensive place to hook up to a decent pipe and good company) is shared by other knowledge-workers, archeticts, media designers, stockborkers (only kidding:), etc... then the hackerspace hive looks more and more to me like a conference room and another sub-dividable space; a telework central with a really, really cool sub-net/intranet in the closet. Maybe some user-friendly laptops plugged into a wifi dmz scattered around. Maybe a corner display running a presentations and some bling to take-home and try. Although, events aside, I wonder if bandwidth is directly proportional to the distance someone may be willing travel to hang there. just my .02 > > Foulab met weekly at a local cafe in Montreal for several months before > enough interest was formed to pursue a lease for suitable space. While > it is simple enough to throw a space together, building a sustainable, > long term space is a bit more involved. My poor french notwithstanding (hooray for latin and esperanto) Foulab looks like an impressive endeavor and your activities are a great guidelines. A hard-core group of home-brew techies Curious, does any of the McGill, ubuntu and/or LUG energy come your way? > > If anyone is interested, I invite any and all of you to visit our space > in Montreal. It's pretty easy to get to and there's plenty of beer and > pizza to share. We have our weekly meetings Tuesday nights, which are > generally open to interested parties. You can also check us out our > Facebook group[3] and our IRC channel ##fou...@freenode. > > ~k > > [1] http://www.foulab.org > [2] http://hopetracker.donthax.me/torrents/2600%20-%20The%20Last%20HOPE% > 20(2008)%20-%20Building%20Hacker%20Spaces%20Everywhere%20-%20Your% > 20Excuses%20are%20Invalid.mp4.torrent > [3] http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=144161830009&ref=ts >
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