New year, new plans. The rapidly approaching end of year is often a catalyst for people setting out plans for how next year will be different, and we - Tom Watson and Tom French - are certainly one of those cliches! We have a plan to set out to you here, as well as explain where it came from and how you can be part of it...
And so, here we are, launching...
<aside> 📢 Open Makers Community: Collectively exploring no-code tools to build and openly share things for social purpose
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Starting in January, we are going to be hosting some events which we hope are being created in response to what people told us they wanted.
We will be hosting:
<aside> <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/1-circle.png" alt="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/1-circle.png" width="40px" /> Monthly 1 hr How To Showcases - where we, and guests, will talk through a specific tool or application that has been created, exploring how it was built, what it is for, and sharing some templates or guides.
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<aside> <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/2-circle.png" alt="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/2-circle.png" width="40px" /> Quarterly Community Builds - where we come together around a specific need or use case, and collaboratively build a solution in a set time, and share it openly. We plan to do some of these online, and some in person with real people (so if you have an idea for a venue please let us know!)
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<aside> <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/3-circle.png" alt="https://img.icons8.com/ios/250/000000/3-circle.png" width="40px" /> Monthly 'AMA' sessions - 45 minute sessions in the evening where you can ask questions and we and others try to answer them.
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We will be hosting a whole range of templates and things that have been built on a platform for anyone to take and use, and will be putting some recorded content and guides up as well.
But how do we know this is something worth pursuing?
We've been dabbling in this area for probably the last 12 months, making things, openly sharing them and giving them away. We did a few #Doitmakeitshareit days on Twitter and, although people quite liked the concept, it was hard for people to commit to it unless there is some definitive time or feeling of accountability. So we decided to do something a little more formal...
We had the idea for a no-code community build, where interested people could come together to address some potential need(s), make something in a set time and share it. We started by asking what needs people thought a no-code solution might help with, and took in contributions via an online form. We gathered around a dozen. Then we set a date, asked if anyone wanted to join, and made a rough plan.
We held the event on 24th November and a bunch of people game together to explore no-code tools and hopefully make something which could be shared. It was messy, as all good experiments should be, but things happened and it gave us a platform to learn from. You can see what we came up with here on **a Notion page,** with some templates and guides.
Following the event we asked people for some feedback and we found that:
