[Noisebridge-discuss] noisebridge vs. techshop

[Patrick Keys]

My final comment on this for awhile:
I agree with you.  But what makes Noisebridge really great for me 
personally is that we empower people to do things they wouldn't 
otherwise be able to do.  The extent of our ability to empower people 
that can't afford to go to TechShop or don't know any TechShop members 
is the amount of resources we have available to use, which includes our 
community at Noisebridge and not just our physical tools.

Even Sean's comment of "Any Noisebridger is welcome to tag long with me 
(and I'll help you use any of the equipment you may need) for a few days 
to do some projects." speaks to the great-ness of what we have to offer 
just by going through Noisebridge.

Whenever somebody is empowered to do something at Noisebridge that they 
wouldn't otherwise be able to do because of a lack of money or lack of 
knowing somebody with a TechShop membership, that's when I personally 
feel most proud of my involvement with Noisebridge.


Patrick



On 2/18/2011 7:11 PM, Dr. Jesus wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:07 PM, Patrick Keys<citizenkeys at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> Speaking from two economics classes in college (macro and micro), as
>> well as being a business major, it's a matter of efficient markets
>> ("steak and potatoes economics").
>>
>> No, Noisebridge can't compete with those gigantic friggin' tools that
>> they have at TechShop.  We simply don't have the room or infrastructure.
>>
>> Yes, Noisebridge absolutely can compete with the resources for smaller
>> projects available at TechShop.
>>
>> If Noisebridge focused on the smaller projects, including closing the
>> gap of smaller tools only available at TechShop, then both Noisebridge
>> and TechShop are better off.  Noisebridge gets more traffic for smaller
>> projects.  TechShop gets more traffic for larger projects.  For us, more
>> traffic means more donations and memberships to stay operational.
>>
>> Another benefit of the wiki page is helping people efficiently plan the
>> time and resources for their projects.  For example, somebody might say
>> "well I can do step 1, step 2, and step 3 all at Noisebridge.  Then I
>> only need to do steps 4 and steps 5 at TechShop."
>
> It is almost impossible to predict in advance what tools will be
> required to act on a creative inspiration.