are there any "active" next steps for us in the coming weeks?

[Kristine Johnson]

Hi Team,
Thank you Mike for setting up this google group and the drop box, I'll
organize my files and get loaded up in the coming days.

I wanted to see if there were any "active" next steps we should be
working on or thinking about in the coming weeks. I would love to
participate as much as possible, but since AIGA Seattle takes a chunk
of my time I need to visualize tasks in advance to stay ahead of them.
If you have a good idea of items that we can be working on or steps we
need to take to keep the momentum going, please document them so I can
plug them into my calendar/workload.

Also, I will do my best to check this gmail account, but my
cognitionstudio email is attached to my hip all hours of the day and
night and is guaranteed the fastest and most appropriate way to reach
me with a response from me. Is there a way to streamline my email over
to kris...@cognitionstudio.com?

Thanks and enjoy the snow (if it ever arrives!).
Kristine

[Danielle Fillmore-Storlie]

Hi Kristine and Team,

Hope you are all enjoying this amazing winter snow day!!! 

I have been thinking about how to continue the moment we started after last weekend. I would love for us to utilize the opportunity to use the Hub for the 3 months that we have it and possibly meet up on Wed evenings after work, maybe every week or every other week - If that works for everyone. Please feel free to let us know if other days work better. After that time expires we can find another location :) But we'll cross that bridge when we get there. 

In thinking about this and the possibilities it brings, I thought of a way to build a revenue stream, not to generate profit for us, but to cycle money back into StreetCode. That way we don't have to rely on donations, but instead we have a business model that fuels the non-profit, while utilizing the same back end structure we developed for StreetCode. I would LOVE to share it with you all, as I am super excited about the prospect of making this idea come into fruition and know it would be impossible to do without the amazing dynamic we cultivated during Startup Weekend. 

If Wednesday works, lets start next week or the week after next. Or if another day works for everyone else, feel free to toss it out there. Once we are set on a day I will send out a google invite so we can get it on the calendar. 

Lastly, I would like to thank everyone for the amazing weekend! It was such a blessing and experience to work with you all. 

Cheers,

Dani

[Sheikh Shuvo]

Team, 

I second Dani's sentiments - I'm fired up to keep working on this! Next Wednesday (12.25) works well for me, as well. I'm down with anytime after 4pm. 

 

In terms of next steps, I think a focus should be on working to validate the idea and do a ton more field work. Our general vision is a strong one, but I'm sure there are tons of things we aren't considering. Connecting with the staff at various shelters, homeless organizations, and academics should yield useful information. I'm happy to start setting up meetings with some of the contacts that Dani and I collected on Saturday. Before doing so, hashing out a list of specifics to inquire about would be great. Mike and Andre also originally suggested reaching out to the Seattle developer community to get more feedback on our technology. 

And Kristine, to answer your questions on design, I'm not sure what the next active steps would be at this point. I think we have a good starting point in terms of what to present to people to explain the idea. It might be helpful to start thinking of types of convincing collateral we can develop to continue presenting to folks. As we validate further and collect more specifics, we should get a better idea on direction. Thanks for launching the conversation.

Sincerely,

Sheikh 

[Kristine Johnson]

Team,
Wednesdays are my best day of the week, so that is good for me! (AIGA
has me most Tuesday and Thursday evenings). I can meet anytime after
5:30pm and can work late as needed. I agree with meeting weekly,
starting next week.

For the design, I would like to go back and map out the full user flow
and how the functionality for partner org admins will work (database
management) and how general donors admin section work (user profiles)
-- user research will really help with this section as we haven't
really touched it yet.

Sheikh, I think having a written flow, along with a nicely designed
sales pitch showing the functionality of the tool, will help you in
talking with people, get their input and dive deeper as you do field
research. I'm on board for creating this so you can have something in
hand when you hit the streets.

Maybe we can talk about a controlled usability street study as a way
to gather data and test some hypothesis, functionality and design.

I also would love to look at how this can be applied in other key
targeted cities here in the US (like NYC, Chicago, SF, Miami) and if
that changes any core features of the tool. [with my clients we are
always talking about "what does gen 2 look like?"] but I also don't
want to slow down launching a gen 1 as quickly as possible.

I'll do some documenting on what next steps are from a design/user
experience perspective and see how it streamlines into what you all
are thinking as it sounds like we are in line with each other.

Does anyone know if we need to be writing press releases or hitting
social media in anyway or is that a bit premature? From my
perspective, strike while the iron is hot, we are getting press
already from geekwire and on twitter and it would be great to push
early, even if this is still research phase as it will help our
momentum and help with early press/early adopters. Mike do you have
thoughts/experience on this?
Kristine

[Sheikh Shuvo]

Kristine, 

All that sounds great - a written flow and usability study would be incredibly helpful. As Mike mentioned, there are student groups at UW and other orgs we might be able to tap for resources.

As for our media presence right now, I think something helpful would be to have a simple website up that covers our goals and a little bit about the team. Maybe using the basic design elements that went into our mockup and taking away the fake user info? Getting our video up there would be great, too.

Let's discuss as a group next week! 

Sheikh

[mckoss]

Wed at 5:30 works for me - you should receive a meeting request from
me.

Would you all mind if we continued to meet at StartPad conference
room, instead of meeting at the Hub?

[Andre Huertas]

I'm down for Wednesdays too; count me in. Don't have a preference where we meet.

- Andre

[Andre Huertas]

Actually, I take it back, I just realized that my Wednesday nights are
booked. If no other day works out for the majority of the team please
sign me up for any dev tasks that need to be done. My Wednesdays will
be free again in four weeks.

- Andre

[Danielle Fillmore-Storlie]

Andre: That's a bummer that we can't have you with us till later - If we cannot do another evening then we'll anticipate having you with us in a month or so. 

Mike: I am down for the StartPad conference room again. It will be like our home away from home, again :)

Kristine: Awesome! is the only thing that come to mind with all that you mentioned. For UX/UI design getting some documentation together to streamline that process would be great. Feel free to loop me into any mobile work, I love to get my hands dirty in UX/UI mobile design work. 

In terms of any press releases I agree with Sheikh's suggestion. Maybe wait till we have a website up and are effectively moving in forming partnerships or experimental runs with the mobile web application, QR codes and website management system. We'll schedule that out when we meet up. In terms of getting the word out around social media outlets - let's get rocking on that now! :) People love to follow the process and it is a great way to build hype. We can set that up when we meet on Weds too. 

I think the most important thing we have to figure out is the payment system and distribution of donations to the people they are supposed to go to, after that everything will be a piece of cake. Another important element would be finding one partner willing to work with us and help us make this happen. Once we have a successful partnership formed and they are up and running with the implementation, it will be an easy sell to other non-profit organizations.  

I guess we can hash all this out when we meet up. Bring ideas, contacts, documentations, enthusiasm, smile, joyful hearts, and excitement :oD 

Oh, one last thing - I read over what I wrote earlier... this is a blanket apology for any grammatical or spelling errors, plus any future errors. Typing gets messy for me when I am juggling several things at once.

[Mike Koss]

I think our group should be able to be primarily a "distributed team" - our weekend in-face meetings will help solidify our commitments and keep up the momentum.

I would encourage everyone to set up a user account on GitHub.com - this will be the "public face" of the distributed team of people working on StreetCodes (I'm now using the plural form to match our domain name, streetcodes.org).

Let me know once you have your GitHub account set up so I can give you write-permission on the Wiki.  For the non-developers you'll want to primarily use:

• Wiki - A place to publish our public specs and notices.
• Issue Tracker - Place to keep track of bugs and feature requests.

BTW - not sure if you noticed, I wrote a much more detailed scenario from the point of view of the users of the system:

https://github.com/mckoss/StreetCode/wiki/Scenario

And if anyone is free, but can't make the sojourn to StartPad on Wed nights - I'd be happy to setup a Google Plus Hangout so you can video feed in (it's pretty slick now as you can share both web-cam or screen).

Mike Koss
StartPad.org
Seattle Software Development Offices
(206) 388-3466
Twitter: @mckoss @startpad