a community for citycita fellow members and groups blogs

Magical numbers

team — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:38:28 +0200

Some interesting thoughts on group's anthropology

Edward Hall’s “Beyond Culture,” "Fortunately, something is known both empirically and scientifically about the influence exerted by size on groups and the effect of size on how the groups perform. Research with business groups, athletic teams, and even armies around the world has revealed there is an ideal size for a working group. This ideal size is between eight and twelve individuals. This is natural, because man evolved as a primate while living in small groups…Eight to 12 persons can know each other well enough to maximize their talents. In groups beyond this size, the possible combinations of communication between individuals get too complex to handle; people are lumped into categories and begin the process of ceasing to exist as individuals. Tasks than can’t be handled by a group of eight to 12 are probably too complex and should be broken down further. Participation and commitment fall off in larger groups — mobility suffers; leadership doesn’t develop naturally but is manipulative and political."
The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000U6&topic_id=1

Around the world with citycita

team — Thu, 11 May 2006 12:15:47 +0200

Here some citycita.org reviews around the blogosphere: thank you all to spread the word

In chinese:

http://www.neweb2.cn/archives/475.html http://blog.iseeny.com/web2style/item_1817.html

In spanish

Hipertextual -bitelia//

Citycita, herramienta de organización para grupos de usuarios

In English

Emily Chang - eHub

TechCrunch » CityCita is jumping into the social organization jungle

MoMB: citycita

Smart Mobs: Citycita 'a way for local groups to get together ...

informatory » Snippet » CityCita is jumping into the social ...

Tailrank - CityCita is jumping into the social organization jungle

In french

citycita sur techcrunch fr

citycita par Jacques Froissant

Face Off

team — Wed, 10 May 2006 14:45:28 +0200

We can all agree that the internet is mostly an extremely good thing and has generally enriched our lives as a medium that has fostered a greater level of connectivity and interactivity between human beings worldwide. As a complementary tool to the burgeoning plethora of communication platforms – sms, mobile phone, videophone – it evidently enhances our capacity to interact with each other .

However, the problems start when we start to use the net as a substitute for physical interaction. Dr Thomas Lewis, with his particular expertise in neurobiology has used the psychobiology of emotion and human relationships to try and establish the relationship between the physical presence and the capacity to communicate precise and detailed information. Face-to-face communications, it seems, are the best way to get across intense information in business.

The main tenor of Dr Thomas Lewis's argument is that we are deluding ourselves if we think that text-based communications are as rich and informative as communicating a message face-to-face. He has amassed a lot of empirical evidence to support his proposition:

We never had to learn to process body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice. We evolved this capability...it's innate. But we had to spend years learning to read and write with any level of sophistication. The brain needs and expects these other--more significant--channels of information, and when they don't come... the brain suffers (and so does the communication). And the problem goes way beyond just an increased chance for misinterpretation.

Part of the issue they've discovered in research is just how crucial the immediate response is. In still-face effect experiements with infants, for example, they learned that babies become immediately distressed when their mother maintains a "still face" that does not show any response/feedback with what the baby is doing. This makes sense, but what's really interesting is when they experimented with video. In some of these variations on the still-face effect, mothers and babies were on closed-circuit monitors where they could each see each other in real-time, through a television monitor. The babies were much happier when their mother's face was responsive to their own... less distressed than when the mother was does right in front of the baby but maintaining a still face!

Dr Thomas Lewis then goes on to summarise his findings that, grosso modo, stress the importance of face to face encounters in terms of the responsiveness they elicit, the rich contextual nature of visual information that is exchanged as well as the almost primeval need to share the same physical space as other human beings.

Well, we at citycita couldn't agree more with the conclusions of this paper. In fact, the raison d'etre of our site, is to provide an interface that fuses the virtual world with the physical world. We believe that in our present era where we interact freely and openly on the net but don't even know our next door neighbour's name we can use the connectivity of the virtual world to lubricate the cogs of physical interaction that we have all but forgotten.

Fola

Never mind the Bollocks

team — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:14:39 +0200

Punk is perhaps the most overused word of our time whenever we talk about popular culture: punk rock, cyber-punk......not a day passes without some artist, musician or designer claiming to be influenced by the punk movement, setting him/herself up as the natural heir of the punk movement or describing him/herself as having that prized but oh-so-difficult-to-define trait -" punk attitude".

Why is this so? Well, I think the major reason why punk still remains a particularly pervasive, relevant cultural movement is due to the essential, absolute truth of it's central credo : self-organized, autonomous motivated groups can get together, challenge the status quo, ignore the establishment and blow away all pre-conceived ideas of how to be culturally active. This unleashed a tidal wave of cultural creativity that swept away the huge musical behemoths of the day ......and still reverberates to this day.

With this in mind, and in keeping with the cultural zeigeist, we at Citycita wish to place our cap too on the well-worn hat stand of the punk movement, if not in terms of style at least in terms of substance.

This is because Citycita was created from the seed of the following idea: creativity and blindingly new ideas come from autonomous,diverse collectives of like- minded, committed radical, self-organized individuals.

However, when all is said and done, it's down to YOU, Citycita's flora and fauna, to tell us if we're the Emerson Lake and Palmer of the net or the new Clash. Over to you, then.

Organizer Tips and Tricks

team — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:06:14 +0200

Although an organizer will normally try to attract as many members to his/her group as he/she feels comfortable with, be sure to identify and weed out members who are continually inactive. If they don't contribute to the group and don't tend to attend events, then maybe you need to consider whether those members are valuable enough to retain. At the end of the day, it's up to you, as the organizer, to establish your criteria for selecting and retaining members.To make sure you your group is a success and well attended, here are some tips:

Print out and distribute some business cards/group fliers to anyone you think is a good fit for your group. Give them to your assistant organizers and any willing members so they can distibute them too.

Make sure your group description is comprehensive and interesting as it the main reason why prospective members will choose to join your group. This is especially important for private, invitation-only groups, since this is the only thing a prospective member can see.
The more personalized your contact is with your members, the more they'll feel part of the group and the more active they will be. Ensuring that every member feels important and involved in the group will guarantee their active participation in the group. Your group should feel likean extended family - so post personal welcome messages to new members or send your members personal emails when appropriate.
It's also important to get to know all of your members personally so that you can determine what their needs and interests are, and then cater to them as best as possible.
Just because you are the organizer, that shouldn't mean that you have do everything yourself. Make sure you appoint assistant organizers and delegate tasks to them so you can concentrate on the major tasks. For example, your assistant organizer can be responsible for security issues or for monitoring which members are active or not. Don't be afraid to ask for help from your members too.

What do you do, as the Organizer, to get people to RSVP, show up, events? For a group to flourish, it must offer a range of activities and regular events for members to participate in. Events that you organize don't have to be related to your group-related topic.They can include family events, fitness events, hikes, beach walks,etc.

Only by communicating regularly with your group members will you ensure that they stay active and involved between events. Encourage members to circulate emails.The closer they feel to each other online, the easier it will be for them to venture out to an actual event.

Whatever the topic and composition of your group, it is always a good idea to ensure that all messages and emails circulated within your group are polite, cordial, and diplomatic. Any major bones of coontention can always be resolved in person at group events.
If you really want people to RSVPand show up to events, try to make sure that your events occur on a regular, predictable basis. That way, members s look forward to coming to each event and the consistency helps keep the group growing. Members know if they miss an event one month there will always be another next month.
Recommendations to organizers to help create a successful event include :

Preparing well for events. For example, check out your venue in advance, make sure it is big enough, ensure it has the right atmosphere. Is it too smokey? How much does it cost to hire out? Can you play your own music? Making friends with the bar manager and staff so that they know how many of you are coming and when is always useful. Ring up and confirm a few days before the event. to make sure there is ample food and drink and enough space. Be sure to introduce people to one another and get people mingling,
Be an active organiser. It is the organizer's responsibility to reply to members' messages, post new topics of conversation, encourage your members and reply to emails as soon as possible. Be sure to read members' feedback and respond to it where necessary. Displaying your photo so people know what you look like is always a good idea.
Be enthusiastic ! If the organizer is willing and able to attend to his/her group, then his/her memberswill want to come along.
Enjoy yourself !- If you as the organiser are having fun and talking to as many people as possible then others will enjoy themselves too. Remember that the whole point of creating a group is to meet new people and not to be an administrator.
A good tip is to create a separate mail account to receive Citycita group mails with your signature so people can always contact you.
A good way to ensure your group is successful right from the start is to encourage members from similar Yahoo/MeetUp/Google groups to switch over to your Citycita group. This gives you a head start over organizers who have to build their groups from scratch. If you have already created a Yahoo/MeetUp/Google group, then simply move them over to your CityCita group.
The quickest way for members to become disenchanted with your group and for your group to die is if people RSVP for events, then do not show up and don't call or e-mail later to apologize or explain. If this happens then send out a warning message to ofending members and, if necessary, remove them from your group membership if this continues.
Remember that you can always use other sites or media platforms to publicize your group and its events. For example, you can post your events to Craigslist. You can also publicize your events on websites that are relevant to your group. Why not submit details of your group (event) to your local newspaper too ? By fola

Citycita Press Release

team — Mon, 08 May 2006 21:00:14 +0200

Summary

Based in Paris, France, citycita is proud to present and provide a powerful group-organizing tool to bring people together for friendship, learning, activism and more.

We believe in the power of local groups formed around common interests to enrich people's lives and revitalize the democratic process.We also believe that the creative potential of the net can only be truly harnessed by self-organizing autonomous groups of like minded, committed radical individuals.

Just as importantly, citycita was founded on the belief that no one should be discouraged from forming such groups by fees.With a vision of user-powered development, the site was developed to fill the demand for free and low-cost online organizing services for local interest-based groups in the wake of Meetup.com's decision to charge for their similar service.

Founded by two open source and DIY advocates, Jamin Rubio, and Philippe Guillard, citycita will provide free online organizing tools for local interest-based groups.

citycita « The easiest way for local groups to get together online and meet face to face »

citycita is proud to announce its launch on june 2006 onto the online group-organizing market. Offering a fully user-friendly, low-cost service, citycita has filled the gap in the market for organizing local interest groups left by Meetup (expensive), Yahoo groups and Google Groups (technologically out of date), Myspace (no geo-localised groups) and other sites. With a vision of user-powered development, the site was developed to fill the demand for free and low-cost online organizing services for local interest groups in the wake of Meetup.com's decision to charge for their similar service

Meetup.com's initial popular success indicates an excellent market for online organizing tools for local common interest groups. citycita plans to tap into this market with a competitive list of features, including an RSVP feature for event listings and a members directory with profiles and photos. Group members can communicate via an email list, archived on their group page, and receive updates with the groups own RSS feed. Organizers can customize their groups name, subject, website address and about page and easily upgrade their groups account for more space and features.

The new site, due to open to the public soon, will be based on Open Source Technologies and Web 2.0 technologies (Ajax, Google maps, del.icio.us, flickr). This cooperative, non-proprietary method of site construction will accelerate citycita 's time to market, keep overhead costs low and make it easier for people to develop their own organizing tools.

We believe that open source standards are the future of the Internet. We are building citycita on these standards so that it can be easily customized to fulfill everyone' needs, managed by a small team, guided by community decision making, and organized non-hierarchically. says Jamin Rubio, citycita Inc. Founder. These are the values that we want to promote."

citycita strives to maintain a balance between advertising and the quality of users experience. They will tentatively offer a tiered pricing structure. Their free basic service will include access to essential features, and their "basic micropatron" account will include extra features, file space and customization options for 9$/month. They will also offer customized, dedicated services for medium to large organizations and businesses at a price dependent on features.

How does citycita 's offer differ from that of our competitors?

We offer value for money:
We only charge our organisers fees if they create more than one group . Otherwise it is free , unlike Meetup.

citycita strives to maintain a balance between advertising and the quality of users' experience amd so will offer a tiered pricing structure. Its free basic service will include access to essential features, and its "basic micropatron" account will include extra features such as ad removal, file space and customization options for $49/year or 9$/month.

You can customize your group's space:
Organizers can customize their group's name, subject, website address and about page and easily upgrade their group's account for extra space and features

You can arrange and fix a meeting place and time for your groups:
Thanks to Google maps, Yahoo Local and Mashup, citycita enables you to go from the virtual to the physical by facilitating the organization of specific meeting places and times for groups.

Very simple and user-friendly functionality:
We've managed to reduce the time and hassle of creating groups by 20% - i.e. 1/5 of the pages required by our competitors for the same functionality.

Flexible communication between members:
Group members can communicate via an email list, archived on their group page, and receive updates with the group's own RSS feed.

Built using open source:
In accordance with his philosophy of its founder, Jamin Rubio, citycita is based on open source technologies and Web 2.0 technologies (Ajax, Google maps, Del.icio.us, Flickr). citycita is determined to allow people to develop their own organizing tools.

If you require any further information or are interested in setting up a group, please send an email to citycita@gmail.com to contact us.

This guy is smart

team — Mon, 01 May 2006 14:47:58 +0200

Seth godin releases 3 free ebooks which focus on non-profit marketing issues .

A must read :
- Flipping the Funnel for Profesionnals
- Flipping the Funnel for Politicians
- Flipping the Funnel for Non-Profits