we — the creators’ community.

#step1

Since you may be new to we I will try to recapture my first posting. Nevertheless, to fully understand the motivation behind we — the creators’ community please read my original call first.

Recapturing the ignition

My professional background is in music, technology, language and a tiny bit of design. Hence, my life is about creativity.

I’m born and raised in Germany, as my parents were. Despite of that I have been stateless for more than thirty years. This, and thanks to the awesome social education I enjoyed by my parents’ and family I am *very* aware of social and political issues.

The current political situation in Europe (and beyond) made me want to act. To take a stand against nationalism, against the fragmentation of Europe. Finally, the Brexit ignited my decision to turn „wanting“ into „doing“.

I decided to launch a project in creativity and support. I know pretty well this can’t be an instant cure. But it’s something much more people can relate to than politics.

Creativity in itself is communication. We are working with other creators from other disciplines, and from other countries. We are communicating with like-minded people and with their works. We learn, we socialise.

In a nutshell, this is the motivation for we — the creators’ community.

Basics: What are the prerequisites for .we.?

Maybe even more than with other projects we is to focus on

- transparency
- communication
- hands-on spirit

Also, let’s keep it real. Down to earth. Simply human. we is about talking from me to you.

Transparency

Let’s start being frank: Right now, I’m still the team’s only member (how about sayin’ hello?). But I see people following. I hear people encouraging me. This is reason enough not to stop. As Jeremy Silver said: „awesome [..] and much need“.

Whatever is going on, it will be posted on the new blog. This article will be the first to be posted there. One caveat though: Issues must be validated. No speculation. So if someone goes „WHOAH! Let me support this! I give you crazyshitmegatons $$$ to fund it!“ then we won’t shout it out. Well, not immediately.

Communication

Sure, I have other things I’m working on. You won’t believe it but I’m even for hire. But not taking the time, and not telling the creative community about we, not chatting about what we’re doing is just like killing we.

Postings might be very short at times. However, updates are more relevant to keep we alive than the beauty or performance of the homepage. Chatting and meeting is more important than a presentation at a conference.

Hands-on spirit

Any project is only as good as its prototype. You may convince a number of people at start. But to prove your vision and to keep people interested you need a prototype. You need to demonstrate that it works. It is about grip. Even if it’s not the whole thing, even if performance is bad — you need a kick to believe.

For a few months now I am coding the backend to something else which is in the works (a music related web project). I’m pretty sure actually that I can tweak it to match the basic requirements of we. Keep fingers crossed and give me a few weeks.

Goals

Another thing I’m going to add to the site is some kind of progress bar. Because we need to have goals, and we need to have milestones. Finally, all of us want to see what we have achieved and what is yet to come.

As long as we don’t have that visualisation, subscribe to the newsletter, and follow us on Twitter or Facebook.

Roadmap

Since we don’t have that progress bar yet here’s the roadmap:

„I’m searching for XYZ, and I’m offering ABC“
Enabling online contact and some basic agent layer for exchange of services. To do so, a backend prototype is to be developed & deployed.

„Meeting time!“
Setting up first meetings in person. I’m looking to stage one in Cologne during c/o pop convention, and another one in Berlin (hopefully in August). Please contact me for more locations!

„Shout it out!“
Tell your bandmates. Talk about we in your co-working space. Tell the people you’re working with. Show the site to fellow designers and tell them how the design makes you cringe (and how you both could improve it). Discuss with other journalists whether writing more wittier posts than me would help the community (and if it does then send me those posts for heaven’s sake!).

I think you got it. Tell anyone who doesn’t wanna know.

we is creatives swapping support, knowledge and creativity. Our goal is to pass the ball and to have fun.

#creative #social #noncommercial