Organizational Objective Ideas
Contents
The Objectives
- Provide a workspace/workshop
- For who?
- "Makers"
- 1/3rd of our members are "starving hackers"
- How much of this is shop space and how much is office space?
- This is something unique to each community. Some hackerspaces seem to focus on crafting (artisan's asylum) and others seem to focus on programming/co-working. Hacker Dojo is heavily focused on programming/co-working because they're in silicon valley.
- For who?
- Provide classes/lectures
- This is what surveys say the most people want from hackerspaces.
- Increases membership and provides direct benefit to the community.
- Potential revenue source (see RX/TX in Houston).
- Provide tooling which our users would not be able to afford or store individually
- This would be things like a Mill, CNC Router, Laser Cutters
- Tooling increases membership, we've had quite a few people join just because of the laser cutter.
- Provide a valuable community
- A community of what?
- A community of people interested in the same things as you, people you're more likely to get along with (than the rest of the general population).
- "Noisebridge isn't just about Arduinos and giant fricking lasers. We come here to support each other, especially in our darkest times, and we work to support the wider hacker community."
- http://blog.hackerspaces.org/2013/09/27/redefining-hackerspaces/
- Individuals involved in strong communities can experience an increased life expectancy.
- Helps retain people, or the community can scare them away.
- A community of what?
- Expand number of persons served
The Objectives Are Not Independent
- You can't have tooling without enough workspace.
- You can't hold classes unless you have classroom space.
- You can't do anything unless you have a community or a really rich dude funding it all.
What are our priorities?
Balance each of the objectives, and focus on which objective can bring us the most benefit.
Have we been prioritizing?
- Arguably this is in our minds each time we made a decision. Examples:
- Expanding the space
- increases workspace
- increases storage space to help keep the workspace usable
- expands capability to hold classes by increasing classroom space
- could expand community by offering more quiet workspace, something we weren't offering enough of previously
- Expanding the space