Mitch's Example Noisebridge Tour

As part of figuring out how we're going to implement Greeters, Mitch gave an example Noisebridge tour, to show us all how he introduces new people to Noisebridge.

There's video of this at http://youtu.be/D6Ea_jCQEFg

This is a full text transcript of that video:

My name is Mitch. Welcome to Noisebridge. I’m a founder but I’m a member like a lot of people. Noisebridge is a hacker space. Have you been to a hacker space before? Hacker spaces, including Noisebridge, are supportive community for people to explore and do what we love. We don’t all know what we love, but hacker spaces are a place to explore that and hopefully do what we love and that’s really diverse. All hacker spaces are unique. Noisebridge is very unique. It’s very diverse. Would you like a tour? I could show you around.

So anyway, let’s walk around and I’ll show you what Noisebridge is about and some of what it’s not about. Right now we’ve for the last month been putting stuff together. Plans, a budget, master plan, a budget, people putting things together, art on the wall, that happens all the time. All this happens at Noisebridge without any leaders at all. We just do things in anarchy. In the best sense of anarchy where people come together to self organize to make things happen.

We have one rule and only one rule. Anyone know what that is? We should be excellent to each other. As long as you follow that one rule you’re welcome here at Noisebridge. This is a place where people can benefit greatly from all we have to offer. The tools, the classes, the community. But it only works if everyone contributes. So that’s what’s considered excellent here.

Here’s our library. See all the books? And art? And murals? But yeah, it’s also a chill space, a hangout space, lounge area.

We’ve got free internet for everyone that works well most of the time, so feel free to come use that. As long as you’re in town you’re welcome to come here.

We also have a 3D printer area and a laser cutter and over there I’ll show you our machine shop. Here’s our sewing and crafting area and here’s our pile of chairs that will be spread out again shortly. And there’s our electronics area. These tools are always here. But we have classes and workshops on these and electronics. All these things and many more are on our website. So check out our website. There’s all kinds of listings of our workshops and events.

Noisebridge is a non-profit. The only way we make money is from member dues and donations from individuals, so there’s no obligation but if you feel like donating that’s our donation jar and we also have t-shirts for a minimum $15 donation.

Here’s more electronics and there’s a lot of electronics geeks here. Plus a lot of other kinds of geeks.

That’s one of our ancestors, Tesla.

This is normally on. It’s an electronic game of Life, which is an old computer science project that is now something that actually comes to life. That was a piece of garbage. Well at one point it was a display, then it was a piece of garbage, then it was a collaborative project where a whole bunch of people at Noisebridge started doing it. One person figured out what hardware to use but didn’t get it going. He put all the info on a wiki.

Our whole website is a wiki, by the way. Anyone in the world can change it and everyone’s welcome to. If it not so cool it will get changed back because there’s a lot of people looking at it. That’s indicative of the way Noisebridge works. It’s a collaborative project. Collectively we can do so many things that we can’t do as well on our own.

And this is another case in point. That person put all the info on the wiki, and then someone else picked up the project later and got some help and they put more info on the wiki and the 3rd group of people actually got it going.

And right next to it is our one and only rule.

Here’s our machine shop. People have made lots of amazing things in here. Right now it’s still in process but we’ve got dangerous things in here and no one has ever gotten hurt because we all look out for one another. And we teach and train and learn from each other. So anyone can come in here and learn and if you don’t know how to do it you can ask or take on of our classes. We’ve got mills, saws, drills, milling machines and all sorts of things for making anything with wood, plastic and even some metal.

We’ve got a big and a little classroom. Here’s our little classroom named after another one of our patron ancestors, Alan Turing.

Here’s just a work/play space that can be used for whatever.

We’ve got a dark room for people who love film and that’s actually quite active here.

This used to be a full kitchen here but now it’s just going to be a café, coffee, tea, snack place for people to take breaks.

Here’s someone making a laptop actually work well.

Here’s our big classroom.

So, quite often we’ve got musical event here, too. People make their own music, own art, toothpick sculptures, acrylic paintings, all sorts of sculptures and art and we even have musical events here. Sometimes there’s even standup comedy during our fundraiser parties. One of the ways we raise money, too.

That kinda gives you a little taste of the overview of Noisebridge. One thing that we did not see is DIY do it yourself bio, which has happened here at times. Now it’s not happening but if people want it to happen then people will come together and make it happen. That’s how things happen here. That’s the only way things happen here. People come together and making it happen. We call that do-ocracy.

Our official decisions are made with consensus where 100% of all the members have to be okay enough with the proposal for it to move forward. That’s worked well for us for the last 7 years.

So that’s pretty much the physical layout of Noisebridge and some of the cool things that go on here.

If you are just visiting feel free to come during our open hours. Noisebridge is open as long as there’s a greeter at the door like me. Right now we’re thinking between 11 in the morning and 11 at night and come anytime. If you want to come after that just ring the buzzer. If there’s a member here who wants to take you on as a guest they’ll let you in. If there isn’t just come back when we’re open for a class or workshop.

Like I said, Noisebridge is for people to come play and learn, teach, share, explore and do what you love individually and collaboratively. Make your life better. Make the world better. It’s a really cool place. I kinda like it.

Noisebridge is a place for people to work and play together in community and if you can contribute to the community you’re totally welcome here. If you just want to take a class once and leave that’s totally fine, too. That contributes in it’s own way.

Noisebridge isn’t a place just to take. Take some of the energy. Take some of the things. The things here are all donated. 100% donated. And if you take them away then the shared resource is diminished. So that’s not very excellent.

You all said you can follow our one rule. I think you can. So as long as you can come and contribute and follow our one rule please come as much as you’d like.

One thing I also should mention. We have a Code of Conduct so that everyone is safe here, not just physically but emotionally. So we are totally intolerant of intolerant people and we all think that’s a good thing. So anyone here who says anything disparaging against women or gay people or transsexual people or people of color or any kind of minority, political or otherwise, is not welcome. That’s considered way not excellent.

That’s usually pretty easy for sane, sentient beings like ourselves. If you do anything people think is excellent it will be pointed out. If you do anything people think is unexcellent that would be pointed out, too. And we get to work it out and what is and isn’t excellent is subjective purposely so we have to keep talking about it. That is one of the things that keeps the culture of Noisebridge alive.

Thanks for coming to Noisebridge. Got any questions?