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So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

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Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#241

Post by kakarot »

newnewpdro wrote: post #232
kakarot wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone leases a building to me, and I turn around and let you live there under certain conditions, who is your landlord-- my landlord, or me?

Landlord generally implies (owner && lessor), not just lessor, AFAIK. I think you guys are just talking past eachother due to a disparity of definitions, and otherwise are actually in agreement.

I phrased my comment as a question because I was interested in OP's response. I'm not totally sure on the nomenclature here myself.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#242

Post by tomcam »

antt wrote: post #67
tomcam wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please write about your experience! Also, sorry you had to go through that.

Writing about it would drive you insane, here it is in image, gif and email form: https://runningahackerspace.tumblr.com shitnoisebridgesays.tumblr.com A high point for me was getting my site ddos'd and ssh brute force attacked when I decided to run a course in another hacker space after being stuck for committee approval for 3 months. The saddest part is that I knew it would happen and scraped the site into a static…

That's seriously messed up. thank you for sharing though. My heart's with you.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#243

Post by tomcam »

jurassic wrote: post #186
antt wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing about it would drive you insane, here it is in image, gif and email form: https://runningahackerspace.tumblr.com shitnoisebridgesays.tumblr.com A high point for me was getting my site ddos'd and ssh brute force attacked when I decided to run a course in another hacker space after being stuck for committee approval for 3 months. The saddest part is that I knew it would happen and scraped the site into a static…

Early in my career, I nearly quit tech because of a negative experience I had with some douchebros at a noisebridge javascript event. In retrospect those guys were just a couple insecure idiots and really not representative of the average tech man, but as a woman trying to break into the industry I thought that’s what I was going to have to deal with every day in every job. Nonetheless I persisted.

It really really bothers me this is happening in the 21st century. I hate hearing people like you having to go through this crap

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#244

Post by intended »

reneherse wrote: post #133
marchdown wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in seeing your list.

Yes, please share it.

Gosh I've tried to write this list 3 times now and I've never felt anything was comprehensive enough to put on HN.

So, hopefully the attempt will be sufficient -

1) Humor is being used to weaponize and radicalize people. A significant group of people who identify as alt right were first introdcued to the ideas via humor. Please be careful of off colour humor. You and me may think it is a joke with no bearing on reality. But there are people who think that its not a joke, and that the ideas behind it

2) Be ware whatsapp - I'm in India and there is a spate of lynchings in rural areas because of whatsapp forwards. People have been killed because they are suspected of being child abductors.

I've personally seen the videos and they are horrific, they include videos of a live child being gutted - but its a gang video from mexico. Another video depicting an abduction, is from a child safety video in Pakistan - theyre spread between maids, drivers, auto-wallahs and office workers.

An Indian state has tried to grapple with this problem by direct communication with the villages, by using drummers, warning people to not trust forwards. Tragically one of the people paid to inform people was himself killed, on suspicion of being a child abductor.

3) Increasing polarizaiton - What started out as mild jokes are expanding into massive cracks in the fabric of my world. A North/South Indian divide has grown from an occasional joke, to an often oozing wound. Online media carries no tone or body language; when people interact in this impoverished environment, our brains end up responding to the strongest emotional versions of a comment. Small fights end up creating lasting grudges.

So don't EVER forward anything mildly polarizing and divisive.

4) Dont trust emotions - almost ANY item which generates an emotional response in you, should be treated as suspect. The best way people have to get you to stop thinking rationally, is by making you think emotionally.

Other things that come to mind are fake news, and the nature of the media formats to keep people on it, and the entire behavioral science behind it. (Skinnerian conditioning, reward schedules, the network effect, responsive design, social approval and so on).

A good point to bring up is depression, and the fact that material on social media is biased, few people talk about an average day or a terrible day or embarrassing things. Humans were not designed to be seduced into believing that the world is great for everyone else and average for me.

----

For the normal person listening in good faith, any one of those points is sufficient to create a sense of discomfort.

But ultimately, the main driver is the fact that most people are already uncomfortable with social media and are sitting on a pile of bad experiences.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#245

Post by bsenftner »

fit2rule wrote: post #234
bsenftner wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were located "next door" to The Brewery, the world largest freelance artist community (35K freelance artists living and working in a former brewery compound near downtown.) The artists used us far more than the geeks we were tying to attract.

That location is pretty famous for having the worlds largest concentration of artistic freeloaders. In fact, LA is a very difficult place to do these sorts of things - every 6 months a new wave of drop-outs hits the scene to become 'the next new up and coming thang' .. so its not really a surprise. If you want to run a successful hackrrspace in LA, you've got to find a way to make the hackers contribute to the effort…

We were located inside the "Big Art Labs" compound, across the street from the UPS headquarters (next door to The Brewery.) Our specific location was great for not being attractive to the freeloading artists, because there were similar artist intended spaces at Big Art Labs, and they got those freeloaders.

Droplabs started as a web developers space centered around developers using the Drupal CMS. But it soon diversified. I myself was working on my own startup, a animation VFX tech startup. There were periods where the place was packed, but over all not enough to justify the effort. We were not trying to earn a profit, we were trying to create a tech creative community. Simple enough, during the period of Droplabs, the economy overall was not there to grant people that much free time or free income to be active in such a community.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#246

Post by lostlogin »

woah wrote: post #212
lostlogin wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Curious then why Starbucks doesn’t adjust. Poor quality beans and robusta are ‘hidden’ with a dark roast as the flavour moves to bitter. This also lasts a long time and doesn’t go stale for ages. As a general rule in coffee, light roasts have a variety of tastes and dark ones are just bitter. This saves a lot of money. Low quality arabica beans are less than half the price of good ones, and that’s for me, purchasin…

I find these Starbucks complaints interesting. They always have the character of a warning about a hidden conspiracy. Kind of a "wake up, sheeple!" vibe. Like, once a Starbucks drinker goes out and buys a heatgun to roast their own beans they will discover the truth that has been hidden from them all along. I always just assume that someone who drinks Starbucks regularly would be the most aquainted with how it tastes…

I’d always assumed people were after good coffee when they wanted a coffee. Thinking about it, this is probably wrong and there are people that actually set off looking for a Starbucks.

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#247

Post by sdinsn »

matt_the_bass wrote: post #229
sdinsn wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying 10k a day is low? That's 3.65 million a year- that's absolutely enough to support rent, part time employees, and a nice profit margin (~10 - 15% on average).

Yes (I’m guesstimating $10 per customer). That’s fine for a mom and pop coffee shop maybe. But does that support a Starbucks? I’d guess no. I’d guess that Starbucks needs 2-3x that to justify keeping the location open.

Let me again repeat this, which you ignored:

> That's 3.65 million a year- that's absolutely enough to support rent, part time employees, and a nice profit margin (~10 - 15% on average).

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#248

Post by cannonedhamster »

wiz21c wrote: post #197
cannonedhamster wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, I really enjoy helping people grow into their best selves. A lot of that means protecting them from politics and giving them the space to do their jobs effectively, make mistakes, learn and grow. It really isn't for everyone, because there's a lot less tangible rewards and the payoff can be pretty long tail, but when you can see potential in someone and then see them grow into that potential, it's a really fu…

I'm a manager too (my question was refering to a manager as a boss of a business, which is vastly different). What you say is very true, except when your team is a bunch of people who positively don't want to grow, they just want the paycheck and the minimum trouble possible. You're basically managing to make sure the comfort zone doesn't grow. And that's as tough as it is boring. I have nothing against the comfort z…

I'm someone who wants to find my niche as well and run a business, but I think that the reasoning is the same. When you see a problem and you build a solution, then you get to organize a group of people around that solution. Sure at first you're wearing a lot of hats, but if you can get talented people onboard for a mission that's worth getting up for every day, that's something special and I think that's what a lot of people really are working towards when managing a business. I can say this about a cultural issue. I work in a company where the culture can cause a lot of problems with motivation because I had two really poorly suited people above me that impacted large swaths of the company. Then we were purchased and for a while it was really worse. Since then I've been really lucky to have some of the most amazing management I could ask for. During the bad times I mostly protected the people I was responsible for as best I could.

What I can offer for those who aren't motivated are a few things.

1. It starts at the top. If you make yourself the top then it starts with you and you get to set the tone. A crappy boss can make a great job terrible. A great boss can make a crappy job manageable with some moments of happiness.

2. Find what drives them. Few people are okay with the status quo. This requires building trust with your people and regular communication. If you can find out what makes someone want to do more and grow you're golden.

3. If your job has growth and people just don't want it, find better people. Jobs like this typically have high attrition unless it's something like government, military, or some other rigidly structured role. If that's the case and you want more, look elsewhere. There's almost always someone willing to pay more for someone who multiplies their team's output.

Whatever your journey, I really do wish you a fulfilling and enjoyable life. A lot of times things, especially now, can seem fatalistic or just downright bad. A single candle in the dark can light the way for many others. :)

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#249

Post by wiz21c »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #248
wiz21c wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a manager too (my question was refering to a manager as a boss of a business, which is vastly different). What you say is very true, except when your team is a bunch of people who positively don't want to grow, they just want the paycheck and the minimum trouble possible. You're basically managing to make sure the comfort zone doesn't grow. And that's as tough as it is boring. I have nothing against the comfort z…

I'm someone who wants to find my niche as well and run a business, but I think that the reasoning is the same. When you see a problem and you build a solution, then you get to organize a group of people around that solution. Sure at first you're wearing a lot of hats, but if you can get talented people onboard for a mission that's worth getting up for every day, that's something special and I think that's what a lot…

Thanks for your very detailed answer. I work for a gov't agency on a project in maintenance mode. So I guess the agency have hired the good people for the job, except me :-)

Re: So You Want to Open a Small Press Bookstore/Artist-Run Space? A Cautionary Tale

#250

Post by rkuykendall-com »

biztos wrote: post #170

These two bits of advice really spoke to me: > Consider being a for-profit. and > If you’re going to have a public space, try to find a cheap place you can buy and own. I have, for a few years now, really wanted to start an art gallery, or at least something similar to an art gallery. I've looked into the local equivalent of a nonprofit, and I've considered renting a super cheap space and keeping irregular hours and…

What about offering to curate a local coffee shop or coworking space or something? There's got to be some place that would not mind free art in exchange for little labels or prices. I know this was very common in my home town. Plus, the relationship could be kept loose, since you aren't exchanging any money either way.
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