Finishing Phase One

After a hectic month and a much deserved vacation, it's time to finish phase one of the project.  I pushed myself to the limit and delivered the best possible content in my tutorial.  It was tough pulling it together at the end, but with exception of mismanaging the time,  I think I delivered the content I thought my audience needed to hear.

Perhaps to a fault, I focused my entire effort on delivering the best quality content possible.  I wanted to stress that too many open source projects were failing because of a lack of resources, that non-profit status could help projects find those resources, and that the lean startup methodology was a viable path for finding users, developers, and customers.

Some attendees loved it, some hated it.  Which according to Kathy Sierra is where you'd rather be than stuck in the "meeh" zone.  I reached out to one face I remember from the class and I got some frank commentary.  I'm glad I did, because I learned a lot. 

As I had done through out the week, I bounced my ideas off people to see what resonated with them and what didn't.  In the end, each conversation was an iteration that I now need to fold back into the project.  And finally, I am once again blown away by how important market research is in any project.

According to the Lean Startup methodology, I built something, measured it, and now it is time to reflect on what was learned.  The challenge now  is crystallizing the essence of each encounter into improvements (bug reports) and start the next build cycle.

Final Tutorial Slides Are Done

Ready for #oscon, well almost...

Over the weekend, I uploaded the final slide deck for my OSCON tutorial.  For anyone registered for the conference it's available on my "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects" tutorial detail page. I also uploaded it to my SlideShare Profile Page. A link is also available in the side bar section "Top Downloads."

Call for Feedback

If anyone has some free time, I'd love to get some feedback on my slide deck.  I think it's a pretty tight set, but with a few more tough edits, I think the flow and continuity could improve.  All feedback is welcome. Thanks ahead for your cooperation.

As long as we are on the subject of social network metrics, I've got 1,740 views on SlideShare.  We'll have take a peek at that number in a month or so.

Kickstarter Stats - Project Success By Category

Popular crowdfunding site releases project statistics page.

The first thing I did with the new Kickstarter data was to throw it into a spreadsheet and generate some graphs. This graph is an analysis of project success rate by category. It's clear from the graph that some categories are much harder to achieve success in than others. (Click on the image to get a bigger image).

Of keen to most everyone is that technology and publishing are below the average by more than 10% points, each with 28.8% and 31.86.  In simpler terms only 3 out of every 10 technology and publishing projects succeed.  I think it's fascinating that theater and dance have significantly better success rates out of all categories.

Kickstarter Stats

Why (some) Kickstarter campaigns fail.

Is 20% the Magic Number?

Seth Godin recently announced his entrance into the crowdfunding market with a new project "THE ICARUS DECEPTION: WHY MAKE ART?" It's no surprise that the project is already funded at +550%; meaning, the project succeeded in meeting and surpassing their $40,000 project goal. As usual, Seth did his research before launching his 1st project, in a recent post, he suggests that any project reaching the 60% is almost certain to hit 100%. Great job Seth!

According to the Kickstarter Stats Page, I'd say that most projects that fail, only raise between 0 and 20% of their goal; 83% of the failed projects never pass 20%. So I'd say if you can hit 20% of your goal, chances are. your project will be a success.  


I would assume, however, if you did hit 20% that you were executing well on your online marketing plan, extracting the most value possible from social media.  Every Kickstarter failure analysis I've read cites misuse of  social networking, or, to quote Seth, Failure to build a "bigger/louder/more influential tribe."

Collecting, Compiling, & Comparing Foundation Data

"Follow the evidence."

Which foundations raise the most $$$?

I've come to a critical juncture of my class preparation.  One of the things some reviewers expressed interest in seeing was an apples to apples foundation comparison.  So I've already collected the financial data for six popular free culture foundations, now I've got to compile them into a database so I can graph and compare them.

I've seen most of the data when I collected it, but that was only briefly.  I still have to plug everything in and produce the graphs.  I'm certainly hoping the story I saw in the data is confirmed by the data.  I'll borrow Gil Grissom's famous line "Follow the evidence," except in this case it's "Follow the data."

In order for graphs or any type of visual statistical analysis, without the raw data, they are almost meaningless.  Unless I can grab the data and reproduce the graphs myself, it's only a hypothesis.  The evidence, the data,  must agree with the hypothesis.

Banner Bling

What's that? Oh yes, yes it is some new banner bling atop the homepage.

I've added one of the banners O'Reilly provides speakers to help promote their session. Many thanks to the entire conference management team over at O'Reilly.  It really is an honor to work with such a supportive organization.  Together, I think we'll make this year's O'Reilly Open Source Conference, the best ever.  Enjoy!

Call For Participation

I just placed this call to action on the O'Reilly Broadcast Blog: "Call For Participation."

For anyone who has already registered for this year's OSCON, and have selected my tutorial "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects," I cordially invite you to self-identify yourself so we can work together to make the tutorial everything you need it to be.

How to Connect

Dig in on the project's newly completed website, where you'll find out the status of the "How to Organize and Fund Free Culture Projects" tutorial and a multitude of opportunities to become involved. For instance, the first section of the slides are already available over on SlideShare. I'm wrapping up the second section of slides and then I'll be be able to start sharing more of the key graphs from the tutorial. It's going to be pretty active up until July 16.

Don't forget to join the Financing Freedom project to stay abreast of all the latest news.