Community | dashPunk

Rebuilding a community

November 11, 2009 in Tribes by Eric

This entry is part 5 of 11 in the series Follow Your Bliss

: Image by Krypto via Flickr

Every group goes through 5 stages of group formation:

Coming together
Defining the Task
Unrest
Cohesion
Interdependence

These stages do not always occur in the same order, and they often loop back on themselves, but the first 4 have to be completed for the community to enter the final stage: Interdependence.

1. Coming together

The first stage is the most difficult. Starting from nothing, we have to find enough people who share a common interest in the project to make it possible. When starting something new, there are few places to go to gather these people from.

This is why the first and the second stages form a symbiotic circle.

2. Defining the Task

As we discussed earlier, nothing brings people together like a shared dream. The group leader needs to start defining tasks for the group to accomplish. These tasks should be simple and doable.

The group cannot wait for members to rise up to accomplish these tasks. The leader as well as the others who have already signed up for the task need to start work. Nothing gathers a group like success.

3. Unrest

Unrest is natural. I have had many people sign on the Project: Shadow Manifesto, start working with us, only to either become disillusioned by the magnitude of the tasks before us or get frustrated by my focus on what’s best for the community.

There is only one way to handle unrest when it inevitably comes. Listen to the criticism, do your best to answer it and choose the best course of action moving forward. If schism is inevitable, allow it to happen, but try to make appropriate compromises.

The well being of the community is more important than the ego of the leadership or existing group. Be ready to apologize or stand your ground, which ever is the most necessary.

4. Cohesion

Cohesion is a worthy goal. When the community sees the goal, and begins accomplish its goals, it will begin to move as a unit. Individuals will start to see tasks that are not on the agenda, and working on their own to achieve the community’s goals.

This is the most dangerous stage of group development. As new leaders emerge within the community, they will be tempted to set out on their own. If the group does not understand that it is only through working together that their goals can be accomplished, it will fall apart.

5. Interdependence

If the group survives this stage, then they will begin to rely on one another, and success is within the communities grasp. All they have to do it keep their eyes on the goal and values the group has established for itself, and keep moving forward.

Pursuing a Dream

November 10, 2009 in Blogging, Tribes by Eric

This entry is part 4 of 11 in the series Follow Your Bliss

: Image by David Paul Ohmer via Flickr

I think a lot about how to find and follow our dreams. At times, I feel like a self-help writer, and I wonder if I am really saying anything that matters.

The Problem with Self-help

American society is rooted in the idea of picking ourselves up by our bootstraps and achieving impossible dreams. We are a frontier nation, young enough to remember the struggles of our founders and frontiers men and women, but finally old enough to start grappling with some of the realities of forging a new world out of one that existed long before we got here.

Our real problem is the stories we grew up with about people who set out on their own to create a life for themselves. It was all a lie. None of these people did anything alone. They only accomplished what they did with the help and support of their community.

Unfortunately, this self-made person myth infiltrated every part of our cultural psyche to the point where we have entire industries built on the lie that if you get your act together, then you will be able to do anything. The truth is, only when we build a community around ourselves will be we able to accomplish anything.

Dreams Unify

While many of us believe we are alone in our dreams or that we have to achieve our dreams on our own, we are never really alone.
Thousands of people want to write a book, or make a movie. The trick is to find other people who share your specific dream.

Blogs and podcasts have helped a many people, but the means is not important. What is important is the connections we make to keep our spirits up, share our knowledge, and support us through the lows and the highs.

Without a strong connection with like minded people, it is difficult to navigate the treacherous waters between us and our goal.

Never Alone

The path to our dream starts with us sharing:

What do you want to accomplish?
What steps do you see between where you are to where you want to be?
What mistakes have you made, and what have you learned from them?
What are you doing right now to achieve your goals.

When you start to share, you will find others willing to share with you their experiences.

Following your dream

Now, you need to make you steps know, continue to share your experience, and work with others to achieve your goals.

Start a Blog over at Project: Shadow, and let’s get the community together. As a group, nothing can stand in our way!

Fandom Today #437 “Chuck 6, Jonney 5”

October 30, 2009 in Podcasts, Speculative Fiction Today by Brian Logee

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Podcast (speculative-fiction-tody): Play in new window | Download

“Need Input.”

Community and Belonging

Being a part of something special makes you special (via dashPunk)
Groups in Project: Shadow

Wuxia

Jackie Chan heads all-star ‘Shaolin’ epic (via Kung Fu Cinema)
Some Stills from Journey to the West (via Wu-Jing)
Yuen Wo Ping to Direct Garnet on the Golden Sand in Summer 2010? (via Wu-Jing)
Netflix

Looking Ahead

V Poster (via Project: Shadow)
Syfy plans an American version of Being Human (via SCI FI Wire)
J. Michael Straczynski Penning Video Game Adaptation Shattered Union, Still on Paul Greengrass Project (via /Film)
Paul Blart: Mall Cop Director to Helm Short Circuit Remake (via /Film)
Audible

The Best, The Worst, and The Odd

Best
- Champions Online Free This Weekend (via GayGamer)
- Relax: Hulu to Stick With Free Ad-Supported Content (via /Film)
- NBC Adds Six Episodes of “Chuck” (via Slice of SciFi)
Worst
- Cara Promo Picture Legend of the Seeker (via Project: Shadow)
The Odd
- 1390 – First trial for witchcraft in Paris (via wikipedia)
- J.R.R. Tolkien earns $50 million a year while still dead (via SCI FI Wire)
- Great White Shark bitten nearly in half by an even BIGGER monster (via Mail Online)
Comments
- A reply to yesterday’s song Christian Death – Venus in Furs (via Project: Shadow)
- a reply to yesterday’s song Velvet Underground – venus in furs (via Project: Shadow)

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Being a part of something special makes you special

October 29, 2009 in Tribes by Eric

This entry is part 1 of 11 in the series Follow Your Bliss

: Image via Wikipedia

Community is a base essential. Even loners like to pride themselves on being part of a proud tradition of mavericks. We all want to belong. The question is: Belong to what?

There are two schools of thought:

Belong to something popular
Belong to something meaningful

Often, we feel like we have to choose one or the other.

Belonging to something Popular

The easiest choice to make to sign up for what your friends are doing. I read a lot of blogs that discuss techniques bloggers can use to create this sort of peer pressure among your readers to bring their friends in. The whole Web 2.0 phenomenon centered around this idea.

All my friends are on My Space, so I should be on My Space
Now the majority of my friends are on Facebook, I suppose I should join that.
Wow, all these people I want to keep up with are on Twitter. I guess I need to join that

On and on it goes. Each of these sites give us metrics to make us feel popular: Friends/Followers/Subscribers.

The problem with fame is that the more you have (real or imagined) the more you want. It is a drug. Social acceptance is the souls most addictive narcotic. Like with any addiction. Our priorities start changing.

My breaking point came when I was promoting Shine Like Thunder. At one point, I was “participating” in 19 separate social networks on a weekly basis, and 7 more every other week. Add that to my blogging, podcasting, and I didn’t have any time left to write… You know, the reason I started this mess to begin with. I had contact with a lot more people, but made few friends.
I was hooked on the drug. I fed the addiction while letting my passions wither.

Belonging to something Meaningful

All I really want, and I think all any of us really want is the sense that we are a part of something meaningful.

A meaningful community feeds us with enthusiasm and purpose. That is the cost of popularity.

My favorite band, Kiss, and my favorite show on TV right now, Glee, understand this. They preach and practice the celebration of difference. We need to do that too!

Personal Checklist

I realized that in my personal life I need to ask myself some basic questions:

What am I doing that fills my life with a sense of purpose and meaning?
How can I better connect with people to make friends and not just followers.

Social Checklist

And on a broader field:

How can I push the social networks I belong to work together better?
How can I be more social and less promotional and vain?
What can I do to fill my own life with more meaning and purpose?

I am still working on answers to these questions, and I am sure I missed quite a few that should be on the list. What did I miss? Do you have any suggestions?

If I Close My Eyes Forever

October 11, 2009 in Fandom by Eric

It’s funny how music can touch you in such a deep way. I was sitting at my desk listening to music, and “If I close my eyes forever” by Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne came on. I know what the song is really about, but it resonated in me intensifying my feelings of confusion, and focusing me on the future.

Is it love that’s on my mind or is it fantasy?

Baby, I get so scared inside and I don’t really understand
Is it love that’s on my mind or is it fantasy?
Heaven, is in the palm of my hand and it’s waiting here for you
What am I supposed to do with a childhood tragedy?

The future is the topic de jour at the HQ lately. We have a lot of plans, hopes and dreams, and we are trying to find ways to make them a reality.

I have written stories since I was in the second grade. In fact, when I was in the third grade, I wrote the third and fourth grade plays. I even wrote the commencement for my fifth grade graduation. In sixth grade, I started my first novel. I wrote my second and third in high school, and my fourth after graduation. Liquid Sky was my sixth.

I know what I want to do with my life. I always have. I know a lot of you feel the same way. We talk in email about your dreams and ambitions, and how to achieve them. That is the real problem.

Heaven, is in the palm of my hand

That line is literally true for me. Writing is my heaven! I fall into my stories. I feel the characters highs and lows. It might be impossible for me to call myself a great writer, but the letters I get about my books show me that they do the most important thing: They connect with readers.

Isn’t that what we are all wanting?

To connect with others.
To feel like we are alive.

We need to find ways to help each others dreams come true. To keep our dreams alive!

Sometimes, its hard to hold on

: Image by Rampant Gian via Flickr

Sometimes, its hard to hold on, so hard to hold on to my dreams
It isn’t always what it seems when you’re face to face with me
Like a dagger you stick me in the heart and taste the blood from my blade
And when we sleep would you shelter me in your warm and darkened grave?

It isn’t always easy to hold on to our dreams. The reality of what it takes to achieve our goals can be daunting.

If I had known when I started writing I would be plunged into convention politics and foisted into a position of leadership in a GLBT fan group, I probably would have stopped. Honestly, sometimes, the thought still overwhelms me.

I have to remember: this is about more than just me. The group needs an advocate, and if it is not me, then who will it be?

Realizing our dreams/following our bliss is a full-time job. Most of us already have one of those, and it is not easy to add on a second. We have to remind ourselves that we are worth it.

Taste the blood from my blade

The harder it is to live our passions, the more important it is to do!

Life thrives on the survival of the fittest. When we get knocked down, we can either stay down, or bounce back fighting. Stand up, laugh at the pain, taste the blood on the blade! That is your life blood. No one can take it from you without a fight.

Be proud of your dreams! They course through your veins for a reason. Passion is life. If you feel like you have lost your passion, you are wrong. Someone took it from you. You need to take it back

Would it all remain unchanged?

If I close my eyes forever
Would it all remain unchanged?
If I close my eyes forever
Would it all remain the same?

If you close your eyes, and leave your passions to the mercies of others, don’t be surprised by the vacuum it leaves in your life.

Wake up! Find some friends who have opened their eyes too (or help them to open theirs) and start moving forward.

The one who leaves the pack is always the one the predators come for, so build yourself another pack. If your friends put you down, find new friends. Find a community where people will support you. You deserve the best life has to offer. Hunt it out!

Wipe the cobwebs from my eyes

: Image by ANDI2..too sad to flickr via Flickr

I know I’ve been so hard on you
I know I’ve told you lies
If I could have just one more wish
I’d wipe the cobwebs from my eyes

Standing strong, we have to move past the lies we told ourselves. It is time to walk forward. We can get where we need to go together.

With eyes wide open

What is your heaven?
What challenges do you face?
How can we help?

Genre: lita ford, ozzy osbourne

Free Ebooks boost Sales, but How?

June 5, 2009 in Books, Featured, Headline, Writing by Eric

: Image via Wikipedia

Victoria found this interesting Fact about giving away a free eBook of your novel.

… a doctoral student, John Hilton, is collecting data on the sales impact of ebook giveaways…

…While four of the five Random House books Hilton identified showed an uptick in sales post-e-version, 20 of 24 Tor titles showed a decrease. Why the difference? “One possible explanation is that by making the free books available for only one week a different dynamic was present [for Tor] than when the books were made permanently available [by Random House],” Hilton says. “The opportunity for word-of-mouth to spread about the free book may have been significantly diminished in the model used by Tor (Writer Beware Blogs!).”

Permanently Free= Word of Mouth

The study is finished but the difference between permanently giving away a free eBook increases sales while a limited time free eBook didn’t. The trick to building any audience or community is word of mouth. My question is, how much do you giveaway? I am not talking about whether or not to give away the whole book or just a sample, I am more interested in when is a good time to start giving away the book.

Writing in public

I have been toying around with the idea of writing a book in public. I am in the process of developing a new novel, and I have been thinking about making the development and the writing public. The question for me is how. I can see a couple options:

Set up a free blog and allow anyone to read and comment on the ideas, outlines and drafts.
Set up a paid blog and allow anyone who preorders the book to read and comment on the ideas, outlines and drafts.

I like the second model best because it would weed out people who do not like my work at all, and it would allow my fans to be a part of the the writing process. I do not usually release hardcovers, so maybe I could make a signed hard cover the preorder book. Maybe I could even set up a gold membership that would offer an exclusive copy of the prewriting in print too.

What do you think?

Speculative Fiction Today #382 “X-Men Done Right”

April 28, 2009 in Podcasts, Speculative Fiction Today by Brian Logee

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Podcast (speculative-fiction-tody): Play in new window | Download

Culture

‘Yowie not to blame for death’ (via Northern Territory News)
Fan Built Batman Forever Batmobile Replica (via /Film)

Movie

DVD Releases: April 28th, 2009 (dashPunk)
Tales of Tomorrow (via Hulu)
Wolverine To Have Multiple Secret Endings (via /Film)
Gambit Won’t Appear in X-Men: First Class (via /Film)
Ridley Scott is Considering Alien Prequel/Reboot (via /Film)
Roberto Orci confirms Frank Welker will voice Soundwave in Transformers 2 (via SCI FI Wire)

TV / Series

Review: Dollhouse 110 Haunted (dashPunk)
Dollhouse: November’s Identity File (dashPunk)

Music

Hulu To Add Music Videos Soon? (via Podcasting News)
Martin Luther King Sings (P:S HQ)

Book

bookthesequel.com (via Suvudu)
Out this week: Legacy, Adventures, KOTOR (via Club Jade)