[Noisebridge-discuss] Priorities

Paul Böhm paul at boehm.org
Thu Jan 17 23:35:23 UTC 2008


Hey Folks,

Greetings from Metalab Vienna! I love this project, and i hope it's
fine i join your discussion, despite being in Europe!

Don't let a flew flames discourage you - even within the established
hackspaces you get regular flamefests on mailinglists. It seems to be
inevitable.

What i think is important is this: There's 30 People in the irc
channel already. That's impressive!
When we got our location, after a year of preparation, we only had 40
members total! (we're at 120+ now).

What i'd suggest to do next is to make weekly meetings, and schedule
jobs like scouting for locations or raising funds at these meetings.
Make a info-folder explaining the concept. Create a "Corporate
Identity". Give updates and protocols after _every_ meeting. Make
photos. Show people there's progress, whether they participate or not!
Show people there's a core of people who's really committed to making
this happen.

Make a business case. Calculate how many people would need to pay 30$
or 40$ a month to finance the location.
Guesstimate the revenues from selling drinks (double the prices). Set
up a list where people can commit to pay $X, if N other people sign
too and a location is found. Discuss a pre-financing plan (paying a
whole year's membership fee in advance). Find sponsors who can
contribute a one-time cash infusion to get you started.

By the time you've done your homework, simple time economics will have
forged a team that can actually deliver what they promise. You'll
automatically have implicit leaders at that point. None of them will
require any special privileges. View the Chairman/Director/... of
whatever organization you create as a moderator and executive organ,
not as a decision maker.

If you have disagreements, always make it really easy to cast a
mistrust vote against your official organs or moderators, or the
specific decision. This is actually empowering to them, since everyone
knows they're in their position because people want them there, not
because they cling to it. Never pay officials, or they have incentive
to start clinging! If there's no clear majority on an issue, the
moderator should either help mediate and get people to come to a
compromise/agreement, or ask for a vote.

This works, because every decision will be legitimatized that way.
After getting over the initial political games, people will be quick
to realize that no voting is neccessary, majorities are fairly easy to
guesstimate and agree on at that group size. We had a single vote in 2
years, and that was just because some people wanted to play power
games (some actually only became member to force complete prohibition
of smoking in all rooms - no smoking room allowed - without ever
coming to the location before or after the vote).

Complete openness - offering to vote and argue on every issue, instead
of forcing decisions, is probably the core leadership principle of
hackerspaces. You need decisions, and there's someone who can make
decisions if all negotiation fails, but it's really easy to get rid of
that person too, if neccessary.

Also keep politics out of the lab - make it an infrastructure-only
provider. People can have different opinions. E.g. Some lobby against
DRM, some might develop it. Make sure those people are respectful and
can talk to each other. It's better to have both groups there! There
shouldn't be an official policy or doctrine of truth for the
hackerspace.

Don't accept donations that tie you to anything or anyone. Get your
own independent location. Finance only using membership fees and
selling drinks. Donations are for one-time use only (renovation, fees,
equipment, ...). Without independence, you'll never get the feeling of
actually owning the place.

And finally: NEVER, NEVER, NEVER try to solve problems before they're
actually there.

Paul

On Jan 17, 2008 11:05 PM, Al Billings <albill at arcanology.com> wrote:
> Good point. I won't be at Tuesday meetings for a couple of months but I
> agree.
>
>
> Matt Peterson wrote:
> > I'd suggest flipping 3 with 1 in terms of chronological order.  If we
> > don't accept the offer for the NoStarch space, we'll likely need a
> > much more organized front to secure a lease.  Typically commercial
> > leases are atleast a year and generally require formalities like
> > insurance, bills to be paid (trash, recycling, water, gas), etc.  It
> > would be nice to have to atleast have a ballpark answer within this
> > realm.  Maybe this should be the focus of the next meeting, again with
> > a clear agenda and time to allow input from folks who can't attend?
> >
> > --Matt
> >
> > On Jan 17, 2008, at 1:35 PM, Al Billings wrote:
> >
> >> 1. Permanent space
> >> 2. Connectivity (once we have #1).
> >> 3. Organization (formal or informal, incorporated or not, etc.)
>
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