Make Tyler Weird: new and old ideas

[Christopher Groskopf]

Hey everyone,

So I've been doing a lot of thinking about Hack Tyler lately. It has been hovering in a weird cognitive place for me--half passionate, half moribund. Without delving too deeply into my reasoning, I've basically reached the following conclusion:

Make Tyler Weird is the part of Hack Tyler worth continuing to devote time to.

To that end, I don't plan to put more time into the "data journalism" style projects unless something particularly takes my fancy. What I want to do instead is get more people more involved in MTW and focus on building community, rather than "hacking". If this all starts to sound a little nebulous, I'm right there with you. But the best things to come out of Hack Tyler has been meeting you fine folks and you fine folks meeting each other. The Maker Faire only served to encourage my belief that there are more fine folks yet to be met.

To that end, let's turn up the heat on MTW, shall we? What follows is a long list of ideas for how we might do that. Please comment and add your own. See something you want to do? Don't ask permission, just start doing. Let's make more weird.

Ideas for improving/growing/promoting Make Tyler Weird:

* A responsive design (i.e. mobile and tablet-friendly)

* Stickers (bumper, window or laptop)

* T-shirts (who pays? do we sell them? anybody got design ideas?)

* Business deals (mention MTW, get a free taco)

* Business reciprocation (indy businesses referring to each other, via MTW)

* Better maps

* Stamp of approval from: Chamber of Commerce, Black Chamber of Commerce, Restaurant association, etc.

* Better maps

* Better SEO (sitemap?)

* An API

* A mobile app

* Google keyword ads

* A proper Facebook presence

* A proper Twitter presence (Justin the Red already owns @maketylerweird)

* More photos on the site (interiors and exteriors)

* E-mail every indy business in Tyler asking them to link to us

* A press release

* Code of conduct

* Diversity policy

* Style guide

* Gather FB and twitter links for all businesses

* Volunteer gardeners for different sections

* Flyers or something else to hand out

Also, here is a list of ideas for topics that could have pages on the site:

* School issues (e.g. the TISD bond)

* The distinct Tyler neighborhoods

* Local government (esp. involvement)

* Elections

* Local media sources (Telegraph, Patriot, etc.)

* Local data (where to get it)

* Places to eat outside

* Places to get a drink

* More groups/meetups

* Notable parks (Faulkner trail, etc)

* Mama's Restaurant

* Topics we know nothing about! (If we add a "Gardening" stub does that increase the chances of somebody filling it in?)

* Music / local bands

There are also a lot of existing stub pages on the site that could be filled in.

Need more inspiration? Check out Denton WIki: https://dentonwiki.org/

What does everyone think?

Best,

Chris

[Justin]

Good ideas all around.

I can design the stickers and the tshirts using the logos that Jon so kindly made for us - maybe we can all chip for the stickers to get something nice - i've gotten a sample pack from sticker mule and they're good quality though not super cheap. Regarding tshirts maybe we could do something print on demand. Alternatively cierra and i could hand screen them in my garage - certainly weird and probably a lot cheaper, although more time intensive.

Re responsive design - I can work on this too although if my memory is correct it was a real hassle trying to access certain parts of the code. Perhaps a hack night is in order.

Better maps would be nice - i know there's some controversy regarding google maps use in open source but they really are hard to beat feature wise and i think the general populace is pretty familiar with them. Just my 2 cents.

Since I already own the twitter handle I am going to make a push on that front. I'm totally open to this being a group effort but not sure what the best way to handle multiple people tweeting from one account would be. Anyone have ideas regarding this?

A lot of good ideas here, and i think you're right - this is worth doing we just need to push a little harder to get it over the tipping point.

-J the R

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[Jacob Lindsey]

Sounds great Chris. I'm still trying to get some information from Historic Tyler but I plan on creating a Historical Preservation section soon. I can also work on adding in some of the lists you suggested above (outdoor eating, drinks, etc.)