Sndbox Challenges – My suggested roadmap
Introduction
In case you have missed the latest community challenges by @sndbox check its introduction here. Hell just go and check the whole @sndbox blog, you won’t regret it.
In the internal @sndbox chat the challenges had been discussed. The founders wanted to know our opinion. From my point of view the challenges are one of the possible ways how to get to know the people of @sndbox better. @sndbox’s main aim is to promote good content (individual task) AND to support and promote various projects that are yet to be born from the inside of the incubator. Those will though not be individual tasks, but rather collective ones. If we want to come up with good projects together, we first need to know something about ourselves, so we can contact those with similar aims, or find those with necessary skills.
My opinion was (is) following: “I think its awesome way how to get to know the @sndbox members better...I do not see behind the curtain but you should make sure that you set up a goal to aim for with those challenges...what i mean by that is that it would be unfortunate if you ended up with random info about everyone that would have no use whatsoever together...you need to make sure that all the gathered info together can be put to good use...imo favourite place to write at stands close to not valid when working together on something is the aim...”. The answer to that was that according to the founders I struck their main concern. Striking it is one thing, but not nearly enough compared to coming up with a real plan that could be used. And that will be the aim of this article.
Setting up the goal
Before diving into full-brainstorm-mode it’s absolutely necessary to set up a goal of those challenges. The premise on which this whole article will be built on is that its purpose is to get to know mainly the members of @sndbox better, or those that are willing to join us. When I say get to know I don’t mean what they like to eat or listen to, but what are their skillset, knowledge, what do they strive for, etc. Basically the challenges are there to gather knowledge about what can individuals bring to the table when talking about collaborative projects.
I do feel the need to stress the premise, because I may be biased concerning the aim of the challenges. In my first feedback I said that @sndbox needs to get to know its members better in order to assure a working place for collaborative projects. Soon afterwards the challenges were introduced, and it fit my description pretty well, therefore I take the challenges as means of getting to know the information.
The roadmap
I’ll try to tackle all the necessary information one has to have about another individual in order to decide whether he/she is a good material for a mutual project. I’ll try to come up with possible challenges that could help us gather that information. Keep in mind that this is just a brainstorm. I will more than welcome any additional ideas/corrections.
Interest in projects
The first thing that needs to be known is whether the person is even interested in working on projects. This might sound a bit tedious, but is actually super important. MOST of the people aren’t actually interested in doing projects. Inside of the @sndbox “most” is maybe not the right word, but who knows. For all we know some on the people in there might be there just for the easy cash and haven’t really read about the @sndbox’s aim. Or they might be short on time right now, or expect to be in near future. Those are all factors that influence whether taking part of any project is even possible, or the role that can be bestowed upon the user in any particular project.
Possible challenges: “Have you ever worked on something creative with some? Did you enjoy it?”, “What kind of project would you want to be a part of if you could choose?”
Field of expertise
The other thing that has to be known is what the person is actually good at. What the individual can bring to the table. First of all “theoretical skills” like finished universities (while not too relevant for me, it might be for others), fields that the individual is ACTIVELY interested in, some of the life goals that could be compatible with a vision of a project. But also “practical skills” like what actually have the individual been/is interested in while studying the university, what kind of projects had he been already part of and what was his role there, what kind of job is he doing and whether there is any particular skill that can be put to good use even in a project and more…
Possible challenges: “Tell us about the universities you’ve attended.”, “What do you study on your own?”, “What are your life goals?”, “Have you been part of any project during your university studies?”, “What do you do for living?”, “Have you been part of any project up until now?”
Polarization
Now that we know that a person is interested in projects and we have a rough idea of what he’s good at, we need to start targeting the right project. For this purpose a first internal brainstorm about projects ideas would have to be finished. Once we have a list of projects that would be run if there were enough people to run it, a comparing of the skillsets with projects could be done. I think that this would need to be done internally.
The right job at the right project
We should have all the relevant data in order to find the right project for the right person. There is one thing left. We need to precisely target the right job for that person. Since we should have the list of the projects with the things that need to be done for the project it shouldn’t be too hard match the skillset with the job that needs to be done for the project.
Possible challenges: “What do you think you could do for project XY?”, “What would your vision be if you were on a position X in project Y?”
Hmmm... so you are taking a very business-oriented mindset to it, trying to use challenges as a way to discover what makes people more productive &/or seeking opportunities to get work done.
Allow me to play devil's advocate..
I could perhaps see it a different way, where we use the challenges more for the fun of it. Learning about people's interests, what makes them unique... less of the hardcore "achievement" side, and more of the "fun stuff that makes life worthwhile" side.
Examples of this might be:
(1) Who are your favorite band? Tell the story of how you discovered them.
(2) What's the strangest fun thing that ever happened to you?
(3) What is your weirdest hobby and why?
I'm interested in digging deep in the strangeness of the human condition - those odds and ends that make us all who we are. Just another idea about it. :-)
Devils advocates are the best;). I think that it all comes down to the premise I have set up. Both ways are equally correct depending on the desired outcome, whether it is fun, or a way how to start compiling those projects together:)
I like both ideas. I think that your topic questions could be useful in the business mindset as well. Getting interesting questions that act as conversation starters will provide the opportunity for more people to get interested, I think. As it is, I need to go check out sndbox now lol
This is a very productive counterweight to @heymattsokol's suggestions. We're looking to incorporate both in a 2-pronged approach, establishing more deep social activities to motivate professional 'collaboration' and vice versa. I agree 100% on having a roadmap or at least a few foreseeable steps. The trick is how to choreograph or at least lay the foundation for those projects amongst such diverse backgrounds and disciplines.
As I sketched out, I think we need to initiate an internal brainstorm about some ideas some people have. Maybe wait till we have more people, maybe try to gather some info beforehand, but i think that internal discussion about this topic is the only solution how to "lay the foundation".