This weekend was spent working on The Freehacker’s Union website and getting the mailing list all organized and working well. We held an IRC meeting, laid out how things could go, and started working on getting all the locals that are interested going.

We are now at 68 subscribers on the mailing list with 163 messages since Saturday. I believe about 20 cities are represented. New York, Boston and Austin seem to have the most, but that was when we had 24 people on Saturday. For all I know there could be more in other cities, there could be less.

You can subscribe to the list yourself and join in the fun if you like what you read and think you can hang.

There hasn’t been an actual meeting just yet, but there’s been plenty of people talking online and getting things going. I’m planning my first meeting in NYC either before or after Labor Day weekend. We’ll be running our first meeting curated by me and inducting as many newbies as possible from as many different cities on the east coast as we can.

We’re also going to get all the FU Locals to record their meetings and give us audio or video for a podcast. People can subscribe to find out what’s going on in the locals around the world, and share ideas about how to run things and great projects. It’ll also spread the shows out to a wider audience.

I really like this idea of recording and podcasting the meetings as a religious part of how FU operates. Part of the problem with starting a group like FU is that we have enough people for a large meeting in one city, but we’re spread out all over. If people live in a city with only 3 friends, then they’ll be alienated and alone mostly.

However, if they can record their meetings and share them with everyone else in The Freehacker’s Union around the world, then they’ll get a sense of connection. They do their locals, but at the same time they’re part of a group that has other cultures, different ideas, and strange customs. That kind of exposure is bound to make people think of interesting things.

The Bootstrap Problem

Usually when you start a group you get together with some friends and you four plan it. My problem is I didn’t really want to do this group with my friends. It’s sad to say, and I love them, but they’re steeped in the very world I’m fighting with this group. They’d mostly be too afraid or busy to come.

However, I spent many months thinking about the problem and researching what was going on. Identifying the problem and articulating it clearly for others is bootstrapping the idea. By giving what I want to do a name, and then helping other people understand my idea, I can work with others to make it happen.

Think of it this way: In just a few days I’ve turned a single blog post into a global movement that has enough people and cities to grow quickly. We’ve got a website, active mailing lists, and an intelligent IRC channel people actually chat in. Hell, we have rules that were organized via a quick meeting in IRC.

I like this way of getting things going, because even if I can’t get a meeting to happen in person, at least I ran into many people online looking to help make it happen.

To think, all I wanted was 10 people who think like me to show up and share their gear. This is much more fun by comparison.