Meeting with Mayor Kitty Piercy Notes

General ideas:

Our presentation should Include a little packet on who we are some pictures of what we've done and who our members have been.

Notes:

Kitty's interests include:
- Sustainability and climate change.
- She supports EMX so if EMS is close to EMX that's a plus.
Quotes from her page: http://www.eugene-or.gov/mayor
- "Eugene will continue to recover from the long recession and move forward energetically."
- "...triple bottom line of economic prosperity, social equity and environmental stewardship."
- "...we recognize the important role played by all of our community partners, volunteers and neighbors."
- "...identified and implemented economic development strategies that create more jobs and opportunity in fields such as advanced manufacturing, food, and educational technology."

Talking Points:

EMS is a large and growing pool of talent
Without commercial pressure, EMS attracts a wider range of Makers.
- Piotr has a talking point on how he wouldn't go to the RAIN incubator it's not a good fit for him.
We are a true and transparent non-profit, i.e. our fees are minimal and are waived as need be.
Our collection of tools and very low barriers to entry attract bright minds with synergistic multiplying effects.
We are a cohesive group of people with knowledge and experience
Help us grow to the next level so we can help Eugene innovators do the same and the funnel business accelerator pipeline.
- For us to thrive we have to have: Space, A Good location, A lot of members.
- We would do more outreach if we had more resources.
Something about our list of sample tools.
It's important for people looking for new skills, work, or ideas to meet face to face.
- See: http://www.ted.com/talks/hilary_cottam_social_services_are_broken_how_we_can_fix_them/
- For a great talk by a woman who has spent time researching the problem. Skip to 14:35 for this topic.
- She developed a new way to network people, but not like social platforms do.
- She underscores the importance of bringing people together face to face and connecting them with each other to build real relationships.
- Our vision of EMS is to be that place where people come to learn new skills and find projects and ventures to work on. We are already doing this.
- If we were bigger, than we would have more resources to support small commercial ventures.

Create a space that provides education and training. A place to get your feet wet. Feed CC and the Uof O, RAIN etc. wet your curiosity. move on to other things.

Talk about farm construction set helping the counties. http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs/

Hemorrhaging talent.

Need to foster critical mass not lots of splinter groups

we are a Democratic non-profit org. if another group joins us then they will have an equal vote. what are their requirements and can we make some adjustments. Less restrictive large resource pool of talent Low overhead, Handles more people

Bright minds synergistic multiplying effects.
____ group of people with knowledge and experience

Outreach:

As a 501(c)(3) EMS is committed ed to public outreach here are some hi lites:

Several EMS members have attended the SPICE Science Nights held at the University of Oregon. This event was geared towards young children.
EMS members went to the Eugene Public Library to host a fun event for children ages 3-7.
EMS has worked with The Science Factory each year to hold Eugene's annual Mini Maker Faire.
Each year EMS organizes the annual Punkin' Chunkin' competition, held at the Science Factory.

Notes from Piotr:

I mentioned that we have to have consistent language and understanding of what we are trying to present ourselves as to the city. Here are some reasons why they want us to succeed:

We provide a place for Hackers of Eugene to meet in a place away from work, school and home.
We offer a place to meet other bright minds of the community to meet, talk and innovate with each other without economic pressure, as we are a non profit.
We provide the tools to try out ideas without having to commit to it fully.
- (means we provide the computers, 3d printers, machine shops and so on that people would have to rent or buy otherwise)
Out of playground ideas there grow commercial ideas, that can help the Eugene community to create exportable products.

If the city realizes that it is in their interest to help us bridge the gap between a smaller space and a bigger space in better location. We will be able to attract more members and continue being sustainable while providing a bigger benefit to the Eugene residents. And this should be our business model here. The bigger we are and the more resources we have to offer to the members the more members we will have that will help us finance the operation. Simple right?

File:SmiliesPlugin.biggrin.gifBut do not forget, people are coming for the nice toys but staying for the community, the people and interesting projects. At least that is my experience in all non profit organizations and hacker-spaces that I have been involved in the past.

Notes from other meetings:

Describe how we attract new members, and how we need more resources to do so. Talk about building community and an outreach facilitator?

Have paragraphs followed by bullet points that repeat slightly to help things sink in.

We provide a space with a lot of helpful people to brainstorm with, which is important for product development.

Economic development is not targeted at service based sector. More towards companies that will ship outside our sector.

We are complimentary to RAIN and the Uof O by helping to generate strong candidates for the RAIN accelerator. We need to be a larger organization and shop to help keep their pipeline full.

Piotr talked about the distinctions between:

a Maker space, (Traditional workshop including traditional tools)
a Hacker space, (Comfortable digitally-centric commons area )
a Fab lab (Modern, "clean" digital manufacture equipment)

We have aspects of all three, mostly the first two but we have grown to where they impinge on one another. Our Fab Lab aspects are important but more nascent, and with the proliferation available 3D printers, Library, UO, Ferti Shop etc it may be an area where we are more supportive than leading.

What was that application process that several groups from Eugene applied for but no one got because they were not working together? This is a key point! (...that would be RAIN), thanks for the hint but no, Dean told me. It was a STEM Hub grant for $5M no one in our area got it because two departments at the Uof O applied and didn't even know about each other, I think RAIN, or some similar group did also apply. The result? No one got it.This is a good example of how splintered Eugene is. We need to come together to reach critical mass.

Show James bond footage.

Others leaving for bend and Springfield. We're still here!

Short list of sample buildings that we might like:

EWEB warehouse at Ferry street bridge.
Piotr Mentions that we should suggest the Willamette Stationers building, at 510 Oak St: Link
Or the old NORVAC building.

pictures of:

Open houses
Open hack nights
pumpkin chunkin

Past clients:

include kids.
Robot teams.
Contact Saul.

Oil Ex Tech: http://oilextech.com/

Other Notes:

One challenge of bringing multiple spaces together is lots of rules for different spaces to agree on.
Greg has done outreach in the past.
Do they know of any grants we should apply for?

Links:

-- Main.ClifCox - 28 Oct 2015