February 5, 2013 at 12:28The problems of attracting an audience at an early stage
Where to talk about your ambitious project, if you have only an idea on hand? Is it possible at the initial stage to find like-minded people and just interested people. The article will discuss the problems that you may encounter and ways to solve these problems.
At the moment, there are countless sites where you can declare your ambitious project in one form or another. News sites, blogs, twitter, videos on youtube, everywhere say that this or that project started - they invented a new type of solar panels, built a giant robot, jumped from the stratosphere. But how terribly it becomes for me to find out how people achieved this, what they went through, what difficulties they experienced! These guys have gained incredibly great experience, and many would like to see all the features of building a project from A to Z, but they usually don’t write about it, all this remains in the bins, unless the authors share information with the meticulous journalist, who will confuse everything and will write everything from his bell tower.
The result of any work is an iceberg, all sweat and blood, the joys of victories and the bitterness of defeat are under water. And this obvious truth is incomprehensible to the majority. People, looking at the end result, tend to say "It's easy", "It's easy," "Spit it out." Well, not for me to judge them. Problem number 1 is
looming - we, just interested people and professionals in our fields, want to see not only the result, but also the process of achieving this result. In English, this concept is denoted by the phrase "Making of".
Perhaps the ambitious idea of the project that you want to share with the world has been spinning in your head for a long time, but what to write on the blog? An idea? Yes, you may write 2 paragraphs, but popular resources need full-fledged articles, ideas, even very daring ones that nobody needs. Who is sure that you are serious? Such a post will most likely be passed by, and if they are interested, then how to monitor progress? You need to create a separate blog site in which to talk about progress towards the goal. An incredible amount of effort and money needs to be applied to advertise your site, and even in this case you will get a blog in which it is not clear to newcomers what this blog is about, because they will be out of context with the main goal.
Appears from hereproblem number 2 - the difficulty of telling about the project at the initial stage, the current progress is not visible (are you at the beginning of the path or are you already approaching completion?).
To solve these problems, we have created for you a convenient tool for publishing and achieving your goals - SmartProgress . It allows you to openly publish your goal and keep a diary as part of this goal.
The concept of “project” has been mentioned more than once. Immediately we want to make a reservation that we can talk not only about projects in the IT field. We put a lot more importance in this concept, it can be a product, invention, service. All this does not contradict the concept of SmarProgress.
1. Discipline and motivation.
Organizing yourself and your thoughts is an important point. It is much more difficult to quit what you started, having the luggage of the work done behind your back, and the more detailed all the stages are described, the more difficult it will be to tell yourself - “I have nothing”. Therefore, keeping a journal of your goal is a great motivator. As a result, you can always show your entire path (success story) to the goal from beginning to end, and this solves problem number 1.
2. A loyal audience at an early stage.
At SmartProgress, it’s easy to keep track of all the changes taking place in your project, users simply subscribe to goals that interest them and in the future follow the changes in their news feed. You can’t imagine anything easier. Newly interested people always fall first on the description of the goal and stages, and only then on the diary of this goal (not vice versa, as is the case with the blog). The diary is kept in chronological order, so it’s always clear what is happening, plus the progress in achieving the goal is clearly reflected, for this we entered the progress bar on the site. This solves problem number 2.
In addition to these 2 advantages, very pleasant bonuses come to light.
3. Communication with the audience
In the process of maintaining the goal, you can get a good feedback at the stage of idea or design. I know many examples where the final vision of a product / project has been radically revised over the course of its work. The posts periodically appear on the habr in the spirit of "they wanted to do this, but in the process they realized that it was necessary like this." The most interesting thing is that I know even more projects where the final product was made without regard to the real consumer. The project seemed to be completed successfully (from a formal point of view), but it turned out to be unnecessary to anyone except the developers themselves. Feedback can reduce these risks.
4. Attracting investors, sponsors and like-minded people.
If you keep a goal diary, then you are doing it and have not abandoned your idea halfway. Practice shows that such goals cannot go unnoticed.
In the case of crowdfunding, it seems to me that such a goal journal is an absolutely necessary thing. Real and potential investors should see how things are going on the project, and if the deadlines are postponed, then using such a magazine it is much easier to explain their cause. And simply, it would be very interesting for me, as a member of the same Kickstarter, to look at how this project for managing the color of LED bulbs implemented from a smartphone is implemented, say . Or how this project was made, to recreate the Carmageddon game . Well, about the creation of a plasma engine for spaceshipsI am ready to read at least every day (hello to inventors and scientists). When reading such things, sometimes there is a desire to participate in the project, and if you have the skills and experience, why not write to the author of the goal and propose your candidacy?
A detailed description of the stages in itself, plus the work performed during each of the phases, allows you to increase the chance of a successful completion of the project. At least PMI PMBok teaches us exactly this (I think there is no doubt about the authority of this guide). Good project documentation is one of the most important stages of work. From here, by the way, one more of the PMBok bases follows - having on hand the schedule of the previous project, you can evaluate the costs and duration of the current project. The so-called "evaluation by analogues." It doesn’t matter if you yourself made this project, or who else.
I suggest that you look behind the scenes to two small but interesting projects, the journal of which is being held on Smartprogress.
First project: Jappsy startup to create an Android application that predicts in advance such subjective parameters of a person as attentiveness, quick wits, well-being, etc. according to previous estimates. Used as special equipment - an electroencephalograph, and a conventional camera. Development is underway in Matlab. At the moment, the authors have completed the first stage of team building and moved on to developing a prototype and seeking funding.
In general, the project is quite ambitious. Suffice it to say that the authors are aiming at treating people with neurological diseases, for example, amnesia, paralysis, stupor and the like. In other words, those diseases when the body is functioning normally and there are problems at the level of brain networks. It is not a fact that the project will succeed, but it is interesting to follow it.
But the second project, to create a cartoon from children's drawings , has already reached the final stage. The project is logged quite actively and will be interesting to beginner animators.
At the moment, the script has already been registered, the drawings have been scanned, sliced, the basic animation performed and the voice acting recorded.
As mentioned above, both of these projects are based on the SmartProgress service.. Most of the projects posted there are for personal purposes, but there are team projects similar to those considered.
Join SmartProgress !
Problem number 1.
At the moment, there are countless sites where you can declare your ambitious project in one form or another. News sites, blogs, twitter, videos on youtube, everywhere say that this or that project started - they invented a new type of solar panels, built a giant robot, jumped from the stratosphere. But how terribly it becomes for me to find out how people achieved this, what they went through, what difficulties they experienced! These guys have gained incredibly great experience, and many would like to see all the features of building a project from A to Z, but they usually don’t write about it, all this remains in the bins, unless the authors share information with the meticulous journalist, who will confuse everything and will write everything from his bell tower.
The result of any work is an iceberg, all sweat and blood, the joys of victories and the bitterness of defeat are under water. And this obvious truth is incomprehensible to the majority. People, looking at the end result, tend to say "It's easy", "It's easy," "Spit it out." Well, not for me to judge them. Problem number 1 is
looming - we, just interested people and professionals in our fields, want to see not only the result, but also the process of achieving this result. In English, this concept is denoted by the phrase "Making of".
Problem number 2
Perhaps the ambitious idea of the project that you want to share with the world has been spinning in your head for a long time, but what to write on the blog? An idea? Yes, you may write 2 paragraphs, but popular resources need full-fledged articles, ideas, even very daring ones that nobody needs. Who is sure that you are serious? Such a post will most likely be passed by, and if they are interested, then how to monitor progress? You need to create a separate blog site in which to talk about progress towards the goal. An incredible amount of effort and money needs to be applied to advertise your site, and even in this case you will get a blog in which it is not clear to newcomers what this blog is about, because they will be out of context with the main goal.
Appears from hereproblem number 2 - the difficulty of telling about the project at the initial stage, the current progress is not visible (are you at the beginning of the path or are you already approaching completion?).
Decision
To solve these problems, we have created for you a convenient tool for publishing and achieving your goals - SmartProgress . It allows you to openly publish your goal and keep a diary as part of this goal.
The concept of “project” has been mentioned more than once. Immediately we want to make a reservation that we can talk not only about projects in the IT field. We put a lot more importance in this concept, it can be a product, invention, service. All this does not contradict the concept of SmarProgress.
We will analyze the points why engage in goal
1. Discipline and motivation.
Organizing yourself and your thoughts is an important point. It is much more difficult to quit what you started, having the luggage of the work done behind your back, and the more detailed all the stages are described, the more difficult it will be to tell yourself - “I have nothing”. Therefore, keeping a journal of your goal is a great motivator. As a result, you can always show your entire path (success story) to the goal from beginning to end, and this solves problem number 1.
2. A loyal audience at an early stage.
At SmartProgress, it’s easy to keep track of all the changes taking place in your project, users simply subscribe to goals that interest them and in the future follow the changes in their news feed. You can’t imagine anything easier. Newly interested people always fall first on the description of the goal and stages, and only then on the diary of this goal (not vice versa, as is the case with the blog). The diary is kept in chronological order, so it’s always clear what is happening, plus the progress in achieving the goal is clearly reflected, for this we entered the progress bar on the site. This solves problem number 2.
In addition to these 2 advantages, very pleasant bonuses come to light.
3. Communication with the audience
In the process of maintaining the goal, you can get a good feedback at the stage of idea or design. I know many examples where the final vision of a product / project has been radically revised over the course of its work. The posts periodically appear on the habr in the spirit of "they wanted to do this, but in the process they realized that it was necessary like this." The most interesting thing is that I know even more projects where the final product was made without regard to the real consumer. The project seemed to be completed successfully (from a formal point of view), but it turned out to be unnecessary to anyone except the developers themselves. Feedback can reduce these risks.
4. Attracting investors, sponsors and like-minded people.
If you keep a goal diary, then you are doing it and have not abandoned your idea halfway. Practice shows that such goals cannot go unnoticed.
In the case of crowdfunding, it seems to me that such a goal journal is an absolutely necessary thing. Real and potential investors should see how things are going on the project, and if the deadlines are postponed, then using such a magazine it is much easier to explain their cause. And simply, it would be very interesting for me, as a member of the same Kickstarter, to look at how this project for managing the color of LED bulbs implemented from a smartphone is implemented, say . Or how this project was made, to recreate the Carmageddon game . Well, about the creation of a plasma engine for spaceshipsI am ready to read at least every day (hello to inventors and scientists). When reading such things, sometimes there is a desire to participate in the project, and if you have the skills and experience, why not write to the author of the goal and propose your candidacy?
A detailed description of the stages in itself, plus the work performed during each of the phases, allows you to increase the chance of a successful completion of the project. At least PMI PMBok teaches us exactly this (I think there is no doubt about the authority of this guide). Good project documentation is one of the most important stages of work. From here, by the way, one more of the PMBok bases follows - having on hand the schedule of the previous project, you can evaluate the costs and duration of the current project. The so-called "evaluation by analogues." It doesn’t matter if you yourself made this project, or who else.
I suggest that you look behind the scenes to two small but interesting projects, the journal of which is being held on Smartprogress.
First project: Jappsy startup to create an Android application that predicts in advance such subjective parameters of a person as attentiveness, quick wits, well-being, etc. according to previous estimates. Used as special equipment - an electroencephalograph, and a conventional camera. Development is underway in Matlab. At the moment, the authors have completed the first stage of team building and moved on to developing a prototype and seeking funding.In general, the project is quite ambitious. Suffice it to say that the authors are aiming at treating people with neurological diseases, for example, amnesia, paralysis, stupor and the like. In other words, those diseases when the body is functioning normally and there are problems at the level of brain networks. It is not a fact that the project will succeed, but it is interesting to follow it.
But the second project, to create a cartoon from children's drawings , has already reached the final stage. The project is logged quite actively and will be interesting to beginner animators. At the moment, the script has already been registered, the drawings have been scanned, sliced, the basic animation performed and the voice acting recorded.
As mentioned above, both of these projects are based on the SmartProgress service.. Most of the projects posted there are for personal purposes, but there are team projects similar to those considered.
Join SmartProgress !