We figured that some sort of organization was the way to go, to help fellow alumni the moment they left college. We thought about how we could pass on and exchange knowledge and experience, so we started thinking about how we obtain these things through CSM. We agreed on that crits and interaction with our fellow students is what makes CSM such a learning environment, and began playing around with various ways to explore this online. Some obvious ideas included tutorials, seminars, a monthly/quarterly magazine. But then we started thinking a little more freely, and came up with online video-meetings, mentoring as well as online collaborative mind maps.
The mind map seemed like an interesting idea to explore, as we couldn’t find any existing ones online. We thought that if one could create a personal mind map on a website by setting a topic and writing down one idea in the middle, it could then be saved to a website and other people could pick it up and respond by video, text, images, drawing and sound. We also thought about tracking, as all of these ideas could be potential memes. Even though the core idea itself is an altruistic meme; to pass on knowledge and experience to others. But we liked the idea of being able to track these ideas, in terms of authorship, duration, how long an idea can stay alive etc, all at the same time. That led us a little away from the mind map idea (at least in terms of looks), as we started to look at all these ideas as little particles, or stars if you like. We imagined an online interface where all these particles would float around in the same space, each one would be someone’s core idea. If someone had a new idea, they could simply click an icon; set a topic, write some lines/post an image/video, include some keywords, and just deploy it. New ideas would vibrate or pulse, so users would see if there was any activity. If a user clicks a floating idea, it will stop, and expand to show something similar to that of a forum post, docked to the particle. This will contain the core idea, and the responses. The users will have the option to respond by text, image, video, sound or drawing. Each post has a potential lifespan of one week; whenever a user responds, the time is renewed. This will keep pressure on authors to encourage response on their idea, as well as keeping the concept of a crit alive - where you have a certain amount of time to present your idea to the others.
As for the social aspect of it, we know that literally no-one wants another social networking account, so this will be more of a tool with some social networking attached to it. We thought that people could use Facebook Connect to log on, which will allow us to display their names, and location, and include these in a search function too.
We will also have a quarterly publication for sale (free to members). It could present the finished result of selected ideas, or articles on selected topics that have been popular on the site. Further along the road we will host annual exhibitions and/or talks.
Response to Sadhna:
The project focus lies in sharing and exchanging knowledge and experience, thus creating progress and breathing new life into our network. In terms of what concept we are exercising with this, it is first and foremost altruism; “Helping a friend in need will result in that friend appreciating you more and wanting to spend more time with you. By doing so, he will imitate you more than his less helpful friend, so your helpful meme will spread to him. He will become more helpful to his friends, and so the meme will gradually spread.” According to the article Share To Make Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky, “Creative professionals should take every opportunity to communicate new ideas broadly, seek feedback, and develop a sense of accountability.” From a more general memetic view, especially when it comes to online memes: this tool lets us track the origin and the lifespan of an idea, and potentially how long it takes before it “dies”. In terms of testing out research, it will be an ongoing process from when the whole thing is live. As none of us are programmers, we are looking to create a proposal explaining all the features and aspects of the website. We are, however, checking the possibilities of creating a small light-weight version of this, maybe letting people deploy an idea into a “pool” and respond to other peoples ideas by text only. We will also design the publication, and include documentation of the process there. So we are looking to create: a proposal for the site, a light-weight version, and a publication.
*****TLDR*****
Idea:
A platform for exchanging knowledge, ideas and experience, in the form of an interactive website. An intuitive forum that also serves as a meme-tracker. It will let the user browse ideas that are floating around in the same space, interact with them in terms of response as well as to deploy new ideas and getting feedback on them. Potentially this could draw links between professionals and students - a social network for ideas.
Design:
We imagine this as a cluster of particles or stars, floating around in the same space. Each particle/star is someone’s initial idea and when clicked, it will expand to show the whole post, with the other users individual responses. Every new post can be tagged with keywords. Peoples responses automatically contain the same keywords, as well as potential new ones.
Possible Features:
- Discussing ideas
- Hint and tips on technical aspects of design (software, type tips etc)
- Hint and tips on other aspects of design (how much to charge etc)
- Logging on through Facebook
- Posting via e-mail
- Responding with text, video, sound, images and drawing
- Tracking ideas by keywords
- Tracking activity by adding orbiting objects around the core idea/particle
- Tracking duration/lifetime. Ideas fade as there isn’t any activity, so after awhile they will be completely gone and moved to an archive (good ideas never die).
- Viewing “dead” ideas, and the possibility to revive them and sending them back into the system
- Tracking newly added
- Tracking where people are
- Lunch webcam meetings?
- Priority system
- Ideas attract each other according to keywords, as well as clicking on them.
