Problems of attracting an audience early
Where to talk about your ambitious project, if you only have an idea? Is it possible at the initial stage to find like-minded people and simply interested people. The article will discuss the problems that can be encountered and how to solve these problems.
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Currently, there are countless sites where you can declare your ambitious project in one form or another. News sites, blogs, twitter, videos on youtube, everywhere they say that this or that project started - they invented a new type of solar panels, built a giant robot, jumped from the stratosphere. But how terribly it becomes to me to find out how people achieved this, what they went through, what difficulties they experienced! These guys have an incredibly great experience, and many would like to see all the features of building a project from A to Z, but they usually don’t write about it, it all remains in the bins, unless the authors share information with the meticulous journalist, who will eventually confuse everything and write everything from his bell tower.
The result of any work is an iceberg, all the sweat and blood, the joy of victory and the bitterness of defeat is under water. And this obvious truth incomprehensible to the majority. People, looking at the end result, tend to say "This is easy", "This is simple", "Spit". Well, not for me to judge them.
The No. 1 problem emerges - we, simply interested people and professionals in our fields, want to see not only the result, but also the process of achieving this result. In English, this concept is denoted by the phrase "Making of".
It is possible that the ambitious idea of ​​the project that you want to share with the world has been spinning around in your head for a long time, but what should you write on the blog? Idea? Yes, maybe you will write 2 paragraphs, but popular resources need full-fledged articles, ideas, even very brave people are not needed. Who is sure that you are serious? Such a post is likely to be missed, and if they are interested, how to monitor progress? You need to create a separate website-blog, which talk about progress towards the goal. You need to put an incredible amount of effort and money to advertise your site, and even in this case you will get a blog in which it is not at all clear to the newcomers what this blog is about, because they will be outside the context of the main goal.
From here comes problem number 2 - the difficulty to talk about the project at the initial stage, the current progress is not visible (are you at the beginning of the path or are you already coming to an end?).
To solve these problems, we have created a convenient tool for you to publish and achieve your goals - SmartProgress . It allows you to openly publish your goal and keep a diary as part of that goal.
The concept of “project” is mentioned more than once. At once we want to make a reservation that we can talk not only about projects in the IT field. We put much more meaning in this concept, it can be a product, an invention, a service. All this does not contradict the concept of SmarProgress.
1. Discipline and motivation.
Organizing yourself and your thoughts is an important moment. It’s much harder to quit, having the baggage of work done behind your back, and the more detailed the steps are, the more difficult it will be to say to yourself - “I have nothing”. Therefore, keeping a journal of your goal is a great motivator. As a result, you can always show your whole way (success story) to the goal from the beginning to the end, and this solves the problem №1.
2. Loyal audience at an early stage.
At SmartProgress, it is easy to follow all the changes that are taking place in your project, users simply subscribe to goals that are interesting to them and continue to monitor changes in their news feed. Easier you can imagine. New interested people always get first on the description of the goal and stages, and only then on the diary of this goal (not vice versa, as is the case with the blog). The diary is kept in chronological order, so it is always clear what is happening, plus the progress in achieving the goal is clearly reflected, for this we have entered the progress bar on the site. The very problem â„–2 is solved.
In addition to these 2 advantages, very nice bonuses are revealed.
3. Communication with the audience
In the process of leading the goal, you can get a good feedback even at the idea or design stage. I know many examples when the final vision of the product / project was radically revised during the work. At Habré, posts from time to time appear in the spirit of "they wanted to do this and that, but in the process they understood that this is the right way." The most interesting thing is that I know even more projects where the final product was made without regard for the real consumer. The project seemed to be completed successfully (from a formal point of view), but it turned out to be useless to anyone except the developers themselves. Feedback allows you to reduce these risks.
4. Attracting investors, sponsors and like-minded people.
If you keep a diary of a goal, then you are doing it and have not abandoned your undertaking half way. Practice shows that such goals can not go unnoticed.
In the case of crowdfunding, it seems to me that such a goal journal is a necessary thing. Real and potential investors should see how things are moving on the project, and if the deadlines are postponed, then using such a journal it is much easier to explain their reason. And simply, to me, as a member of the same Kickstarter, it would be very interesting to look at how this, for example, this project for managing the color of the LED-bulb implemented from a smartphone is being implemented. Or how this project was done, to recreate the game Carmageddon . Well, about the creation of a plasma engine for spacecraft, I am ready to read at least every day (hello to inventors and scientists). Reading such things sometimes there is a desire to participate in the project, and if you have the skills and experience, then why not write the author of the goal and offer your candidature?
In itself, a detailed description of the stages, plus the work performed during each of the phases, allows you to increase the chance of successful completion of the project. At least PMI PMBok teaches us exactly this (I think there’s no doubt about the authority of this manual). Good project documentation is one of the most important stages of work. From here, by the way, one more of PMBok bases follows - with the schedule of the previous project in hand, one can estimate the costs and duration of the current project. The so-called “peer review”. It does not matter if you yourself did this project, or who else.
I propose to look behind the scenes for two small but interesting projects, the journal of which is maintained at Smartprogress.
The first project: a startup “Jappsy” for creating an Android application that predicts in advance such subjective parameters of a person as attentiveness, intelligence, well-being, etc. according to previous estimates. It is used as a special equipment - an electroencephalograph, and a regular camera. Development is underway at Matlab. Currently, the authors have completed the first stage of collecting the team and proceeded to the development of a prototype and the search for funding.
In general, the project is quite ambitious. Suffice it to say that the authors threaten to treat people with neurological diseases, for example, amnesia, paralysis, stupor and the like. In other words, those diseases when the body is working normally and there are problems at the level of brain networks. It’s not a fact that the project is completed successfully, but it’s interesting to follow it.
But the second project, to create a cartoon from children's drawings , has already reached the final stage. The project logs quite actively and will be of interest to novice animators.
At the moment, the script has already been registered, drawings have been scanned, cutting has been performed, the basic animation has been completed, and the voice acting has been recorded.
As mentioned above, both of these projects are based on the SmartProgress service. Most of the projects located there belong to personal goals, but there are also team projects similar to those considered.
Join SmartProgress !
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Problem number 1.
Currently, there are countless sites where you can declare your ambitious project in one form or another. News sites, blogs, twitter, videos on youtube, everywhere they say that this or that project started - they invented a new type of solar panels, built a giant robot, jumped from the stratosphere. But how terribly it becomes to me to find out how people achieved this, what they went through, what difficulties they experienced! These guys have an incredibly great experience, and many would like to see all the features of building a project from A to Z, but they usually don’t write about it, it all remains in the bins, unless the authors share information with the meticulous journalist, who will eventually confuse everything and write everything from his bell tower.
The result of any work is an iceberg, all the sweat and blood, the joy of victory and the bitterness of defeat is under water. And this obvious truth incomprehensible to the majority. People, looking at the end result, tend to say "This is easy", "This is simple", "Spit". Well, not for me to judge them.
The No. 1 problem emerges - we, simply interested people and professionals in our fields, want to see not only the result, but also the process of achieving this result. In English, this concept is denoted by the phrase "Making of".
Problem number 2
It is possible that the ambitious idea of ​​the project that you want to share with the world has been spinning around in your head for a long time, but what should you write on the blog? Idea? Yes, maybe you will write 2 paragraphs, but popular resources need full-fledged articles, ideas, even very brave people are not needed. Who is sure that you are serious? Such a post is likely to be missed, and if they are interested, how to monitor progress? You need to create a separate website-blog, which talk about progress towards the goal. You need to put an incredible amount of effort and money to advertise your site, and even in this case you will get a blog in which it is not at all clear to the newcomers what this blog is about, because they will be outside the context of the main goal.
From here comes problem number 2 - the difficulty to talk about the project at the initial stage, the current progress is not visible (are you at the beginning of the path or are you already coming to an end?).
Decision
To solve these problems, we have created a convenient tool for you to publish and achieve your goals - SmartProgress . It allows you to openly publish your goal and keep a diary as part of that goal.
The concept of “project” is mentioned more than once. At once we want to make a reservation that we can talk not only about projects in the IT field. We put much more meaning in this concept, it can be a product, an invention, a service. All this does not contradict the concept of SmarProgress.
Let us examine the points why engage in maintaining the goal
1. Discipline and motivation.
Organizing yourself and your thoughts is an important moment. It’s much harder to quit, having the baggage of work done behind your back, and the more detailed the steps are, the more difficult it will be to say to yourself - “I have nothing”. Therefore, keeping a journal of your goal is a great motivator. As a result, you can always show your whole way (success story) to the goal from the beginning to the end, and this solves the problem №1.
2. Loyal audience at an early stage.
At SmartProgress, it is easy to follow all the changes that are taking place in your project, users simply subscribe to goals that are interesting to them and continue to monitor changes in their news feed. Easier you can imagine. New interested people always get first on the description of the goal and stages, and only then on the diary of this goal (not vice versa, as is the case with the blog). The diary is kept in chronological order, so it is always clear what is happening, plus the progress in achieving the goal is clearly reflected, for this we have entered the progress bar on the site. The very problem â„–2 is solved.
In addition to these 2 advantages, very nice bonuses are revealed.
3. Communication with the audience
In the process of leading the goal, you can get a good feedback even at the idea or design stage. I know many examples when the final vision of the product / project was radically revised during the work. At Habré, posts from time to time appear in the spirit of "they wanted to do this and that, but in the process they understood that this is the right way." The most interesting thing is that I know even more projects where the final product was made without regard for the real consumer. The project seemed to be completed successfully (from a formal point of view), but it turned out to be useless to anyone except the developers themselves. Feedback allows you to reduce these risks.
4. Attracting investors, sponsors and like-minded people.
If you keep a diary of a goal, then you are doing it and have not abandoned your undertaking half way. Practice shows that such goals can not go unnoticed.
In the case of crowdfunding, it seems to me that such a goal journal is a necessary thing. Real and potential investors should see how things are moving on the project, and if the deadlines are postponed, then using such a journal it is much easier to explain their reason. And simply, to me, as a member of the same Kickstarter, it would be very interesting to look at how this, for example, this project for managing the color of the LED-bulb implemented from a smartphone is being implemented. Or how this project was done, to recreate the game Carmageddon . Well, about the creation of a plasma engine for spacecraft, I am ready to read at least every day (hello to inventors and scientists). Reading such things sometimes there is a desire to participate in the project, and if you have the skills and experience, then why not write the author of the goal and offer your candidature?
In itself, a detailed description of the stages, plus the work performed during each of the phases, allows you to increase the chance of successful completion of the project. At least PMI PMBok teaches us exactly this (I think there’s no doubt about the authority of this manual). Good project documentation is one of the most important stages of work. From here, by the way, one more of PMBok bases follows - with the schedule of the previous project in hand, one can estimate the costs and duration of the current project. The so-called “peer review”. It does not matter if you yourself did this project, or who else.
I propose to look behind the scenes for two small but interesting projects, the journal of which is maintained at Smartprogress.
The first project: a startup “Jappsy” for creating an Android application that predicts in advance such subjective parameters of a person as attentiveness, intelligence, well-being, etc. according to previous estimates. It is used as a special equipment - an electroencephalograph, and a regular camera. Development is underway at Matlab. Currently, the authors have completed the first stage of collecting the team and proceeded to the development of a prototype and the search for funding.In general, the project is quite ambitious. Suffice it to say that the authors threaten to treat people with neurological diseases, for example, amnesia, paralysis, stupor and the like. In other words, those diseases when the body is working normally and there are problems at the level of brain networks. It’s not a fact that the project is completed successfully, but it’s interesting to follow it.
But the second project, to create a cartoon from children's drawings , has already reached the final stage. The project logs quite actively and will be of interest to novice animators.At the moment, the script has already been registered, drawings have been scanned, cutting has been performed, the basic animation has been completed, and the voice acting has been recorded.
As mentioned above, both of these projects are based on the SmartProgress service. Most of the projects located there belong to personal goals, but there are also team projects similar to those considered.
Join SmartProgress !
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/168341/
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