Organizational Conference Call 3/5/2006

Participants:

Ted Tagami

Jay Dedman

Chris Messina

Jeffrey Osborne

Action Items:

• Let’s assume the Ritual Working space is possible.
  • Focus on making it a reality.
• We need to deal with organizational structure issues; and I believe we agreed it would be best to plan on a nonprofit foundation being the lead tenant.
  • Who will this be?
  • What are the conditions?
• Fundraising/Membership drive.
  • How soon can we double our current list of financial participants?
  • Each of us can recruit a couple other members.
• Partnerships
  • Chris to contact Speakeasy
  • Jeff to contact vc and angel groups to solicit interest.
  • Chris mentioned a connection to a lawyer named Kathy Hawkins.
• Next Meeting; Face to face sometime in the last week of March, close to the 27th, hopefully before the 30th.

Discussion:

A portion of everyone’s rent money will go to support the public space. A portion will go to support their use of private space.

Chris’ idea:

- Ritual space; what would be a good complement to that?

Semi fluid zones for those folks. Pay by the hour.

Other area is reserved in advance.

- Alternative is just a bunch of us who show up and shared independent consultant place. This is less interesting. Sustaining it means that there is a real benefit if you show up during your hours.

Ted thinks a group of us should fork over the cash and we subsidize a common area. If you pay for space and you don’t show up, you lose it.

Chris mentioned that we're providing a good value: we’re making sure that it’s a clean healthy environment for collaboration.

Chris could organize five developers and make the software tool happen.

People want to have a space that they can operate from on a regular basis. Small percentage of the overall space. 30% for small private office environment.

Currently we have a need to identify the emergent behaviors, and the emergent root structure for support.

Flexibility is key. Even down to the architectural elements. Patterns of use are expected to change as the community responds to the potential of the space.

Software tool is significant.

Weighted usage rights based on where the money is coming from.

We initially talked about the need to identify a few space options. By the end of the conversation this idea was discarded in favor of focusing our energy on making the ritual space successful.

The model does need to be dependent to some degree on location. The community in the area is going to have a big role in the type of place that develops.

There are a couple of absolutes; environment plays a role. Social usage needs to exist in the location.

We’re waiting for Eileen to come back from Argentina this week. Chris is traveling for the next two weeks.

People feel like a fairly flat and simple structure to get it going. Node 101 could be the conduit through which we act. Their 501c3 is still pending. It will be getting done soon. If not Our Media, and we put out a plan that says insert non-profit foundation there.

Someone who will support it, but give us the freedom to build it the way we’re talking about. Diffusing ownership too much is a risk.

VC firm starts it and they’re looking to use it as a different model of incubator space. This could be good for an angel too.

What is the risk? 3-5 year lease.

Is the landlord willing to lease the space? Is he willing to manage leasehold improvements.

We should be oversold with 150% subscription base. We just need to start doing it and people will show up.

Would be great to see 3-5 sites under review. Functional from an economic perspective.

Start up costs will be higher if the space is not connected to a café or restaurant.

Get more financial commitments. Maybe we need $4,000 or $5,000 per month to make it viable.

We could make the Ritual Working space function if we had 20-25 people involved as financial partners.

We counted that Ritual holds about 50-75 people. People would probably be willing to spend $50-$400 per month.

Sponsorship dollars are perpetual and involvement is critical from a branding perspective. This would go to our ability to hype it. Value of attaching their name to a hotbed of new ideas.

Ritual is willing to extend their brand. We’re going to need to factor in connectivity. Maybe we get a deal with someone who provides access. Chris will contact Speakeasy to discuss that point.

Focus on that space. If we put our hearts into it, even if we start failing, people will step up.

The sooner we can start developing the software, the better. It makes it more real. It’s useful all over.

Chris thinks it’ll be good to organize the spec. Subscribe to the change list. Airline seat reservation style system on the wiki.

There is also a place in the wiki for proposed service structure notes.

The wiki is RSS enabled for tracking changes.

Graphic artists, students, find some more permanent tenants who would be willing to chip in for a year.

Tail end of March we’re going to get together.