In the year 2000.....

[MRE]

Hi all..

In accordance with a request by Akiba of the admins, here is my vision of the future for THS. I hope everyone will provide feedback.
Are we on the right track?
Suggestions to streamline it?
Some task you are willing to take on?
OR are we all just bat-shit crazy?

I should note that the primary goals are:

• Build in the short term
• In the medium range, move to Akihabara
• Long term, take of the world!!!  (or at least, be highly respected and well known in the hackerspace community ;)
  

Big picture (long term goal) - 3 years:
What:
THS will be sustainable, with some larger GROUP projects to our name, similar to Blinkenlights, et al.  A project that is well known within the HS community, by which most people say "ahh! Yeah. THS did that. So cool."

Why:
People would not have only heard of THS, but would be shocked to hear that their friends in Tokyo are NOT involved. Like "are you crazy? Go there. NOW!"
Name and fame alone would promote THS and draw membership and donations, on its own momentum. We need only maintain and feed the beast.


Intermediate goal (3 to 6 months):
THS is in a space which is both conducive to a wide variety of projects and members. This means not only will technologists find something useful and interesting about the space, but so will artists.

Conducive to projects implies that

• THS has both the tools and the ability to use them,
• OR has a solid lead on where a member can go to do so,
  
• AND contact within that other space such that it is reciprocal, and considered the norm to collaborate.

Eamples:

• A THS member's discount at FabCafe for using the laser cutter.
  
• Storing welding gear at a metal fab shop, school etc. Members can call the day before and work in the shop during their normal business hours.
• Collaborating and building an interactive display for an Akihabara business or group, in exchange for some service by them (such as artwork for fliers)
  

This kind of space is the birthplace of that longterm goal.


Living in the hear and now (While still in Shibuya):
Many of the Short term stuff is to set the stage for those sorts of personal connections, while the moving plan set the stage for the physical connections.

What can we do to set ourselves up for both the medium and long term goals? How can we prime that pump?

1. Put together step by step plan by the end of this year (with some steps already in motion, such as the hunting and leg work you have been doing) to move by, say April.
2. Put together a FINANCIAL plan with the same deadline to support this
3. Capitalize on the foot traffic of new people afforded us by being in Shibuya. Grow membership, even if it means a reduced membership rate for casual usuers.
4. Maintain and GROW the name and level of respect for THS that currently exists by continuing to offer classes and activities.
5. Support point 4 with things like MAKE, Barcamp, 2.0 kawaii redo, etc
6. Think of and execute some smaller group projects that can get the stamp of THS all over it, and promote the success.
7. Clean up our financial reporting. We are almost there. Just a few more details to iron out, and we will start to see very reliable predictions of our finances BEFORE the month ends.
8. Clean up or relaunch our web site.
9. Mikele has been rocking hard on photography and promoting how awesome Tuesday nights can be.
10. Snack bar has routinely caused the donation box to EXPLODE coin all over the floor. This is a good sign.
11. SALES! Webshop, promotional kits, kickstarter. These are big effort items, but if we accomplish several of the above, and just one or two from #11, we will be on firm footing for a long time to come.
    

So, improve what we can improve while we can improve it. (thats here, now, in Shibuya)
Plan for and execute on what we want to accomplish in the future.

[Nava Whiteford]

> *Big picture (long term goal) - 3 years:*
> *What:*

> THS will be sustainable, with some larger GROUP projects to our name,
> similar to Blinkenlights, et al. A project that is well known within the
> HS community, by which most people say "ahh! Yeah. THS did that. So cool."

> 6. Think of and execute some smaller group projects that can get the

> stamp of THS all over it, and promote the success.

Does anyone have ideas for big and small projects?

Even replicating Blinkenlights would be awesome. Or how about Blinkenlights HD?
Make each window 9 or 16 pixels?

> 8. Clean up or relaunch our web site.

My suggestions would be:

* The THS logo should be on every page.
* We have an additional Wordpress blog with regular project updates.

I don't mind doing this, but there maybe better people around (I'm not a webdev
but know my way around Wordpress).

[lauren shannon]

one project that we could document and work on would be the High-low
tech mural with conductive paint etc. in my new school cafeteria. I
have two artists onboard now we need the Hardware software help.
Anyone interested? we can do the work together and do a big unveiling.
including lots of PR for ART-SCHOOL-STUDENTS-HACKERS-FOOD People all
working together!

Lauren

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Try my catering company at
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and our restaurant and wine bar
www.kimonowinebar.com

[James Andrews]

>    8. Clean up or relaunch our web site.

I could help with this on the development side, but I am not a designer.  My suggestion would be if THS are going to use wordpress for the "blog" then it may as well be used for most of the site (minus the wiki).  WP has lot of benefits.  Good community support, easy to update and maintain, do not need to be a developer to do so once it's set up properly.   The current site runs on Drupal if I am not mistaken.  While powerful, there is a steep learning curve for drupal.  So much so that I dropped it after a day of investigating it for a project and went with Symfony (my preferred php framework).  

Once I get paid for my current project I am working on I'll have some money to start my membership, so I am aiming for January 1 for doing that.

James

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Nava Whiteford <n...@sgenomics.org> wrote:

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[Nava Whiteford]

> one project that we could document and work on would be the High-low
> tech mural with conductive paint etc. in my new school cafeteria. I
> have two artists onboard now we need the Hardware software help.
> Anyone interested? we can do the work together and do a big unveiling.
> including lots of PR for ART-SCHOOL-STUDENTS-HACKERS-FOOD People all
> working together!

Do you have, or know where to source the conductive paint used in the MIT project?

I've been working with captouch sensors for the Kickstarter geiger counter
so could potentially help out there.

btw, this looks great too:

http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=2286

[Akiba]

MIT Media Lab's High Low Tech group generally uses LessEMF. At least when I
talked to Leah, she said that it's usually where they source that kind of
stuff. http://www.lessemf.com/paint.html

The conductive paint is actually used for electromagnetic shielding. It's
not available commonly in Japan, at least from what I've seen. However you
can also get the same effect by using copper foil with adhesive backing. It
will probably be more expensive, but you can make it touch sensitive by
calibrating it against the touch sensor IC.

Akiba
FreakLabs Open Source Wireless
Web: http://www.freaklabs.org
Shop:http://www.freaklabsstore.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/freaklabs

[lauren shannon]

was this the one they used
CuPro-CoteTM PAINT
the copper particle one?

Lauren

[Akiba]

I think you could use the Y-Shield or the CuProCote. Both are conductive.
Copper is generally a good conductor. The Y-Shield comes in a nice black
color.

[MRE]

>    8. Clean up or relaunch our web site.

My suggestions would be:

* The THS logo should be on every page.
* We have an additional Wordpress blog with regular project updates.

Good ideas.
We have started a webfest group to overhaul the site and start building up a wordpress replacement to the current Drupal site.
Keep your eye on the calendar for the next meetup.

[MRE]

Should be a fun time. You know I will help any way I can.

[MRE]

wow.
90 bucks per liter

hmm.. yeah.. depending on what you want to do and where, copper sheet might end up being cheaper.

[MRE]

Or maybe textiles?
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=376

[MRE]

or DIY: http://www.instructables.com/id/Conductive-Glue-And-Conductive-Thread-Make-an-LED/step1/Make-Conductive-Glue-Conductive-Paint-and-Conduc/

[Nava Whiteford]

> We have started a webfest group to overhaul the site and start building up
> a wordpress replacement to the current Drupal site.
> Keep your eye on the calendar for the next meetup.

ah ok, sounds like you guys already have a plan so I'll leave you to it.

[Richard Frankum]

It's by no means planned! We need the help, if you could come to the
webfest to give some specific requests it would be very helpful.

--
--Richard Frankum

[Nava Whiteford]

> It's by no means planned! We need the help, if you could come to the
> webfest to give some specific requests it would be very helpful.

I can't really commit to coming to webfests.

But if you need someone to help configure or theme Wordpress drop me an email.

[Lauren Shannon]

You could Skype in

Sent from my iPhone

[MRE]

Yes.
And we can give you an account.
With many working together, it will come together faster.

[James Andrews]

If you aren't already using version control you should make sure to set up a GIT account so that everyone can work together on it without breaking things.

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[James Andrews]

I would personally also like to see the website use a responsive CSS framework like Twitter's Bootstrap.  That way it looks better on mobile devices.

[Nava Whiteford]

> I would personally also like to see the website use a responsive CSS
> framework like Twitter's Bootstrap. That way it looks better on mobile
> devices.

Bootstrap is awesome! Are there good WP themes using it yet?

http://320press.com/wpbs/ looks nice.

[AbH Belxjander Draconis Serechai]

If anyone needs any non web coding...
I can help a little bit...

you can catch me using the username Belxjander pretty much everywhere except for in game character names...

IRC as well sometimes...

once I can tether my Amiga with my Android I will be happier to connect that way

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[James Andrews]

There are some.  Though we could use my website as the base, the theme is using Bootstrap, and it was developed in a way that I could use it as the "bootstrap" for other themes.

http://www.jamesmandrews.com/

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[Nava Whiteford]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 08:01:07PM +0900, James Andrews wrote:
> There are some. Though we could use my website as the base, the theme is
> using Bootstrap, and it was developed in a way that I could use it as the
> "bootstrap" for other themes.
>
> http://www.jamesmandrews.com/

Neat, I'm currently using it for my one page site. Bootstrap carousels are kind of fun.

http://www.sgenomics.co.uk/

[Nava Whiteford]

> And we can give you an account.
> With many working together, it will come together faster.

I've nothing against working together, but would only really want to allocate time to working on it
asynchronous. So if you've already got some people who want to work on or discuss it at the same time in a webfest
that's cool, but I don't think I can join that right now...

[Benjamin Davis]

Seems like it wouldn't be impossible to both have webfests and asynchronous targets as well. Do we have a few "next step" targets for the site?