[hackerspaces] How to promote hackerspace inventions

[Simon Clark]

> Have you guys thought of sending out press releases to local news organizations about the amazing things you are doing at your hackerspace... including this Great Kit(TM)!! 

We're working on that. We got a bunch of press lately for our container house and santa claus parade float, but 1 reporter seemed interested in the codeshield story. I'll chase him up.

> Can you tell us the name of the product/link - so we can start promoting it to G+ Communities/Pages/MAKE Magazine.


Yeah. thanks for asking. http://www.diyode.com/codeshield/

> Sell i3detroit a few kits, and we'll build a class or just a tinker session around it. Our blog has decent readership, and the more places are talking about it, the better. 

Absolutely. We can do wholesale pricing for any hackerspace for 5 or more kits. That puts it at $15 each plus shipping.

> Publish the design files. Make sure to put some diyode blurb in the silk. When the Chinese copies come out, they'll reproduce that just like the bogus "made in italy" on the arduinos. See it as free promotion!

Great idea. We've open-sourced the whole thing anyway. I'm currently trying to convert the EagleCAD files to upverter, as I promised them I'd host the design files there. It's taking longer than I anticipated though, and I got distracted by something else shiny.

> Kickstarter-whore for a production run of a few hundred kits or whatever. It started as a funding platform, but I think people are realizing that it's an advertising base, as well. Why not ride that? Also, this will force you to collect a bunch of photos and documentation and actually tell the story, just pixels away from the "click here to transact business" button, which is something a lot of projects founder for the lack of.

I looked at kickstarted to begin with, but they don't work for non-US folk, and at the time, 'an indie-go-go' campaign just wasn't getting the same traction as a kickstarted one, as we could do without. I could do a kickstarter campaign to have the curriculum properly developed, perhaps? other ideas?


Simon Clark
Zebra Spot Design - simon at zebraspot.com

AIM:siatdfi, Skype:zebraspot, Twitter:simon_clark
111 Edinburgh Rd. N., Guelph, Ontario, N1H 5R2
+1 (519) 822-6788



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20121215/f63458e3/attachment.html>