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HackerSpace

On 24C3 there was one lecture, that has striken me in particular and made me recall some things I learned in here. It’s the Building a Hacker Space. There is a recording (asf) or part 1 and part 2 (wmv) from this talk available.

What they do is basically a SaturdayHouse, only a limited to hackers and technology geeks. They mention a number of organisational patterns and antipatterns that they learned when creating their HackerSpace in Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Fascinating. I wish I had learned those patterns and antipatterns a long time ago.

The last half of the 2008-01-16 “Off The Hook” radio show http://www.2600.com/offthehook/2008/0108.html

discusses “… hacker spaces are popping up like mushrooms all over the world …”

Alas, they seem to have overlooked SaturdayHouse :-/. And TechShop? ( Guy Kawasaki: "TechShop: Geek Heaven" ).

I am jealous, because I don’t know anyone doing anything like this in Tulsa Oklahoma or Wichita Kansas.

I do know someone in Tulsa that is thinking about putting together a coworking http://coworking.pbwiki.com/ location in Tulsa, somewhat like citizenspace http://citizenspace.us/ in SF.

Is it better to keep 2 completely separate dedicated locations?

  • one location for “making money in a business, while saving money by sharing a facility with other small businesses”
  • another location for “gathering a bunch of creative people to build random stuff because it is cool, play games, write open-source software … also a place to store donated stuff.”

Or, since it’s going to be basically the same group of geeks at both events, should I push to have both activities in the same location? (perhaps at different times – business stuff mon-thurs, creative stuff fri-sat ?) Something like Microsoft "Hack Day" or Google's 20 percent time.

SpaceForMetaDiscussionDoOcracyCommonCauseOrganizedCultureCollectiveIntelligenceOpenSpace

Personally I have no experience with it, but the guys were pretty explicit about it in their talk: make it independent, don’t make it attached to any university, corporation, workshop, laboratory or eccentric millionaire – because sooner or later you will be forced to attend the needs of that organization, instead of following the hacker sense. It makes sense to me – the members can still do all sorts of things to rise funds – but outside the HackerSpace. Then they can decide to donate these to the space. At least that’s how I understood it.

DavidCary – the HackerSpace idea is different than the BarCamp idea is different than the SaturdayHouse.

The BallardSaturdayHouse just began, and it is off to a healthy start. I look forward to next weeks session. There is talk of recommending SaturdayHouse practice to all ScAlloPs as well. This may be a Seattle-wide phenomenon before it spreads to the world, should it spread. :)

An essential difference between HackerSpace (and their genre) and the SaturdayHouse, is that a HackerSpace has a “no tourists” principle. A HackerSpace is dedicated to work and practice. A SaturdayHouse has the option of work, but it is not a requirement. I wouldn’t dare say that one was better than the other; Rather, I consider the spaces separate and for different manifestations of the spirit.

I wouldn’t say that one must work and practice in a hackerspace. It’s totally fine to come and hang out. The idea is to bring a positive contribution to the group. It’s fine to be a tourist, tourists bring their own ideas and often leave with new ones. ioerror 2008-01-29 11:33 UTC (Hi from Noisebridge)

I really, really beleive of these ideas floating around CommunityWiki fit together into an ecology of useful applications.

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