My subject line is pretty long, but what I'm trying to do unfortunately requires a few lines... because it doesn't exist yet.
I am looking for others to work with me, or others I myself can help. I'm a little desperate, but not crazy (not as much as it may sound like at least).
I started letexa.com, which at first glance seems to be a website that offers (few - so far) multimedia courses (Flash). However, my intention is much larger. What I'm really after is creating a community (or joining one! I just couldn't find one!) where not just CREATION of stuff is accomplished. I would instead like to join (or build, if possible, necessary) a community that extends the project to make money! And even that isn't all. It is soooo hard to say what I really want, because there are so many layers and I KNOW to quite a few people it sounds like I'm nuts or very naive. I'm neither, I'm pretty good at what I'm doing and I already own a small but successful business. I also know that the majority of people on the Internet are at least strange, to say the least. Just today I had someone send me an email on Ebay (for the 10th time in 7 years I sell something) only to tell me he thinks I want too much money for shipping (why didn't he just go somewhere else?).
And yet, with all the spammers and crazy people out there I think it should be possible to not just build a Linux, Apache, Wikipedia, Mozilla or other open (source) project together, but extend the community method(s) to build an entire BUSINESS around it.
I chose to start trying by creating multimedia learning content. That's because I think multimedia is hot (with all the bandwidth available to more and more users), and learning is too. I also think most stuff learned/taught today is if not the wrong choice so at least not the best one. Instead of more math and facts, how about teaching people how to work together, how to resolve conflicts, how to make friends, etc.? I think this CAN be done. Okay, I myself started creating tech content because that's easier - for now.
So anyway, to stop wasting those people's time who read thus far, at a minimum I'm looking for other projects to work together with or contribute my own stuff and work to (if necessary), or to work with me on what still is MY project but what I would like to give away in the end. I'm quite good with multimedia development by now, better than can be seen from my few examples on letexa.com actually - for example, I couldn't use any video so far because my host is a $9.89 shared hosting account. It has 150GB, nice for so little money, but shared hosting is not a multimedia content delivery network... besides, writing even simple scripts is quite a lengthy process and I would be quite a lot more productive if I could WORK WITH OTHERS.
So, does anyone know any sites that I could be interested in, either trying to get their owners cooperation or work for them instead of my own (thus far) lonely cause? Or would anyone be interested in cooperating with me?
Ideas for how money could be made of such a project are on letexa.com in the "About" section, and others can be found. I don't see difficulty in making money at all, but in trying for the first time to make this an open process, earning enough, and establishing a structure and processes that prevent the usual causes for failure of such "communist-capitalist" ideas, like individual egos, individual person cults, lengthy discussions about non-issues (and very short ones about tough subjects that require actual knowledge and thoughts), etc.
Wouldn't it be a challenge YOU would like to try to take on???
You know, we're all doing thousands and more thousands of tiny individual projects. Wouldn't it be better to BUNDLE our efforts and (also) create a project together that advances us in a completely different and new way? Imagine something like Google - okay, that's the high-tech example, but a much simpler non-Internet biz would serve just as well! - not owned by share holders (and most of them some large ones) but by a community? Sure, how such a community could be organize to actually WORK is a VERY delicate and lengthy trial-and-error process. Anything that exists know, including current mindsets, probably would lead to failure. One couldn't hand over such a huge firm to "a community" right now overnight without complete and utter failure. This has to be built slowly from the ground up. But I'm just so sure it would work...! So, what else do YOU live for? In the end you die anyway, why not have some fun TRYING?
TIA,
Michael Hasenstein
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some URL references...
HP: http://hasenstein.com/
PROJECT: http://letexa.com/
BIZ: http://mbe-nuernberg.de/ (horrible homepage, but that MBE business doesn't need one at all anyway)
PLANNED BIZ: http://euramer.com/ (temp. site in progress - GERMAN: multimedia services)
HP I made: http://hacienda-saalfeld.de/ (homepage for Mex. restaurant of friends of mine, in exchange for free food