BrnDmp

Collaboration in loosely organised distributed teams

Since I wrote my post about the boundary between your private and professional life I reflected on my own life and work and how that post applied to it. I had to admit that, while I was enjoying my life and work, I didn’t really put all the potential productivity, creativity and enthusiasm of myself into something tangible but neither that of my  friends. Reading an interesting career renegade article on changethis.com and reading Charles Handy’s The Age of Unreason confirmed my thoughts and ideas. So I decided to live by my own motto:

life is easy, just do the things you like with nice people

Luckily, since I changed jobs, I am filled with tons of energy and a massive amount of ideas flooded my brain. I decided to start setting up projects and ask my friends if they would like to join. So far it has been a great success.

Here’s a short overview of the projects I set up and am working on right now:

Geospatial mashups and usability website

No name yet. The idea is to do mini-projects related to the use and abuse of GIS and geo-spatial data in organisations and institutes, the web and the government. We will write about how to make nice maps, how to improve crappy maps, how to use open source software for your mapping needs and how geo-spatial data can increase the usability of your organisation’s website or service. I do this project with my way back friend who is working in a GIS job for the Dutch government.

www.bikes-r-us.nl

In my spare time I like to ride around on a bicycle (race,CX,MTB,fixie,SS, whatever). This site will host tutorials and how-to videos on how to repair your own bike. Aside from that we will give our own comments on the recent biking news and events and scandals. I do this site with my crazy friend from the biking club.

Secret project X

The guy which replaced me at my previous job in Stoas is such a nice guy that I thought it was a shame we never worked together. But hey, It’s not 1986 any more, there’s the internet and since when does the guy that’s paying you decide who you collaborate with? So we thought of a great idea and currently we’re implementing it. I can’t discuss any details for now yet but when we’re in beta I’ll write a nice post about it.

www.janjanssenclassic.nl

Major biking event in July in the middle of the Netherlands organised by my biking club. I will rebuild the site using Drupal and it’s e-commerce modules.

www.tcw79.nl

The site of my biking club. I will rebuild it using Drupal, integrate with our existing phpBB and provide a richer internet experience for my club mates.

www.keru-korosu.org

I registered this url somewhere like 6 years ago but never did anything substantial with it. Liking the tumblr.com idea very much I’ll make a Wordpress mashup on that. Topics include why you shouldn’t go to Starbucks or McDonalds, music I like, guerilla art and subversive poetry. Some of my friends are contributing content.

www.burntheforest.org

Having been employed in the tropical forest monitoring business for about 6 years, you get really cynical and sarcastic about the void between the political and the real world. This site will be dedicated to all the blabla lobbyists and conference junkies. Expect serious politically incorrect content.

enryo.redcube.nl

The  blog of my wife which I maintain and sometimes write for. For the new year we plan to do Japanese cooking videos! And we’re thinking about making a ‘field-survival-guide for gaijin in Japan‘.

brndmp.redcube.nl

On this blog (brndmp) I will write about these projects, which tools I use, how the project teams are set up and how we collaborate.

www.redcube.nl

and last but not least, the site of the RedCube Foundation itself. RedCube are just a bunch of friends who do some here and there consultancy and web development. I’ll work on the site if I can find the time.

So there you go. Some of the projects already started and I must say it’s really rewarding to be creative and productive. I love learning new things and I find that being productive is a major catalyst in my personal learning.

Reflecting on the title of the post: that was one of the questions which occupied me the last year or so. I see all these creative and nice people around me; how to collaborate and make them productive and actually do something? I defined this problem as ‘collaboration in loosely organised distributed teams’. Distributed because you don’t share a physical location. And loosely organised because there is no economic or professional incentive which ‘forces’ you to collaborate.

The above projects are my answer to the problem. The coming year will tell me if the answer was correct and if I can continue to the next round. I the meantime I’m gonna have lot’s of fun.