2021 w16: interesting experiences
Futureland is in a unique state right now. It feels like we’re quietly packing up for a longer ‘trip’ than we’ve ever taken.
It’s been over 2 months since we started ‘part-time’ collaborating with friends on Futureland. This started with @pirijan at the end of February and we hired @christian last week. A few experiences have caught my attention so far. None of this happened ‘on purpose’.
1
@pirijan essentially redesigned Futureland working 4 hours a week, every Friday. We never had a single meeting about it. We still haven’t. I had never even ‘talked’ to him until over 4 weeks into his work. He's very talented, but still it was a bit surreal to see that happen(ing). Everything is orchestrated through a combination of Futureland’s journals and Kinopio's spaces. He designs live every Friday at 11AM EST, while our community shares real time feedback and @lucas implements during the week. This cycle repeats itself. We have no specific ideas as to what will happen each week.
2
@christian started working on Futureland last week. In his first week, he shipped a new feature: “the ability to pin entries to journals”. Again, we never had a ‘meeting’ about it. I had never talked him on the phone or through video chat before this. We just trusted the way he thinks by reading what he writes on FL.
3
Our current ‘default to part-time’ work flow with collaborators is interesting. In a lot of ways, I’m surprised it’s working as well as it is. Most people we want to work with have independent projects that they care about. So our question was, “can we design Futureland in a way where working on it is a lot of fun but also enhances one’s ability to realize independent work?”. There’s a lot to build on here but so far three focuses 'seem’ obvious: (1) Make getting paid super easy, (2) No ‘meetings’ (3) Work and share feedback through Futureland’s journals.
4
Because we share our process in almost real time on Futureland, we get very quick feedback. I see our work evolve on the same surface as our users. Since our users are seeing so much of our process, they can give us more informed feedback. This ‘shared observation’ seems to reduce the amount of coordination needed to ship things. If you'd like, you can observe and participate in our design process: https://futureland.tv/vin/futureland-design
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Now here’s a few journals to visit:
I started working on a series of new onboarding videos for Futureland. They begin to describe what Futureland is, how you can use it for little things like drinking more water and bigger things like making software with your friends. A lot to tune in, but here’s a preview. <3
@ethan recently gave each of his garden design projects its own ‘daily journal’. There’s 🐈️ Webster, 🌊 Pacifica and 🦃 Walnuts. In these journals you can see him working through design projects at the intersection of plants and architecture. There's often videos of him walking through outdoor spaces thinking out loud, it's very inspiring.
‘Book 04: Lo—Tek’ by @dan explores his thoughts while reading the book “Lo—Tek: Design by Radical Indigenism” by Julia Watson. A central theme in his notes (informed by the author) seems to be a curiosity of what might be possible with a deeper understanding of indigenous philosophy and infrastructure. @dan connects these notes with his own life experiences.
In ‘intermittent fasts’, @jetheoriesynth shares and logs progress while naturally working towards continually more advanced levels of fasting.
ty for everything <3
We’re distilling our experiences on Futureland (FL) into weekly emails. If you ever want to chat or hang out, just reply to this email. Your input helps a lot on independent projects like this. 🌀
