[hackerspaces] (no subject)

[William Macfarlane]

It's also the case that, at least initially, the size of the set of people
you hit with your outreach has more to do with the size of your initial
social network/interested cadre than with the size of your city.  And has
to do with what the nerd-organizing infrastructure in your city looks like
(do you have a dorkbot, do you have universities, do you have users groups,
etc etc.)




On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:18 PM, matt <matt at nycresistor.com> wrote:

> A fundamental problem is that different spaces have different populations
> regardless of geographic locale.
>
> Some of the other vectors are, type of space... maker versus software.
> Heavy Industrial versus light...
>
> Size of space will impact overall population.
>
> Culture of space will influence overall population.
>
> Hours / location in the town of space.
>
> Food areas in vicinity of space... sounds odd, but if people need to keep
> leaving to get food...   could be mitigated with a kitchen, but that may
> change the entire culture of the space.  =P
>
> I think your best means of predicting a population is to host some
> pre-space acquisition events.  Maybe some coffee shop organizational
> meetups.  Get an idea of what your culture is going to be like based off of
> your core team of contributors.  And then get an idea of how much interest
> is guaged in a few meetups.  Who are repeats... how many new per event...
> see if you can find out from how far away they are coming.
>
> Also be aware that you can't predict which hidden little communities you
> may end up tapping into later on.  But there's nothing wrong with growing
> when you need to.  It's the shrinking that will kill yah.
>
> -Matt
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Alan Fay <emptyset at freesideatlanta.org>wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 3:54 PM, Joshua Pritt <ramgarden at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> You would be able to do this with GIS if you had some sort of "nerds per
>>> capita" data.
>>> Perhaps there's some info to be found in the ESRI census data?
>>>
>>
>> census.gov is actually a great resource for this.  Oh it's shutdown
>> right now and I have a sad.  :(
>>
>> Of the couple of hackerspace surveys I've seen, I think I recall 40-60%
>> of members identify themselves as people 25-40 years of age with high
>> income (>$75K/year).  So, locating in an area with those characteristics is
>> helpful - but I don't think strictly necessary to ensure good membership
>> numbers.
>>
>> My personal experience is that the offerings of a hackerspace and its
>> community are what trump price, location, and square footage.
>>
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>>
>>
>
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>


-- 
-Will
www.partsandcrafts.org
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