see parts of thread from #infrastructure below (i snipped out what I thought was not relevant). but basically, ask yaks a small number (1?) of questions and generate an answer to question "what is happening now"
and then we have a general picture of what is happening or can happen in YC and/or in outside world
Venkatesh
A bit of discussion on the heat-map variable for individuals and projects would be good. This is trickier than it looks. There is current state = number of live projects you're already contributing to. For example, I'm contributing to 1 project, but that project is sort of in suspended animation rn due to Siva being out ill, so my current heat-map state is actually 1*0.5 = 0.5. If I declare I can take on one more project, I'm 0.5 willing to go to 1.5. So there's actually 2 variables to show here: current state and current limit. There is also willingness to take on individual gigs or paid projects, but not volunteer (which I think is a legit state we should accommodate -- people might be under cash stress and willing to make time for paying opportunities, but not for more volunteer commitments).
So individual lifecycle state is pretty rich and the challenge is to probe it minimally on a biweekly tempo to generate the most useful overall weather map.
Nathan Acks (UTC-6)Yesterday at 10:25 PM
my inclination would be to keep the question on a single axis, but then give people the ability to update past information. maybe something like...
You're currently involved in [3] projects (update?):
Project 1
Project 2
Project 3
Are you interested in joining another project right now?
(No, no time right now) (I have some time, but no more big commitments) (Definitely interested, hit me up)
Right now, you're currently interested in [paid work only|paid or volunteer work| volunteer work only] (update?).
basically, keep the question super-simple, but remind people of context + make it easy for them to update.
Venkatesh Rao (US Pacific)Yesterday at 10:40 PM
That's a very good design principle (keep it simple, remind people of context). I think that's basically a good starter template for the alert email already.
Venkatesh Rao (US Pacific)Yesterday at 10:48 PM
Just adding the current global heat-map to that prompt email completes the situation awareness picture... and we can always add an arbitrarily rich state if we just hide most of it behind a "More..." link and have a good scheme for setting and propagating defaults. More link goes to a Knack form (? is that how it works) where you can also reset city, skills list etc etc etc
Jenna Dixon (EST | GMT -4)Yesterday at 10:56 PM
(re Knack question, my picture: for a member with a profile in Knack, we would link to the login page, then they’d see a page of their current info with a button to hit for updating; then the robots :robot: push the new info along)
Maier (U+3)Today at 9:22 AM
circling back to heat-map. i think we only need to ask yaks how busy they are with work. the implied "so do something for YC" need not be stated. if they want to do more, they can always volunteer.
i agree we should remind them what their current obligations are, but i think it should be done using a graphic trace, so they can also see their past involvement.
see parts of thread from #infrastructure below (i snipped out what I thought was not relevant). but basically, ask yaks a small number (1?) of questions and generate an answer to question "what is happening now"
and then we have a general picture of what is happening or can happen in YC and/or in outside world
Venkatesh A bit of discussion on the heat-map variable for individuals and projects would be good. This is trickier than it looks. There is current state = number of live projects you're already contributing to. For example, I'm contributing to 1 project, but that project is sort of in suspended animation rn due to Siva being out ill, so my current heat-map state is actually 1*0.5 = 0.5. If I declare I can take on one more project, I'm 0.5 willing to go to 1.5. So there's actually 2 variables to show here: current state and current limit. There is also willingness to take on individual gigs or paid projects, but not volunteer (which I think is a legit state we should accommodate -- people might be under cash stress and willing to make time for paying opportunities, but not for more volunteer commitments). So individual lifecycle state is pretty rich and the challenge is to probe it minimally on a biweekly tempo to generate the most useful overall weather map.
Nathan Acks (UTC-6)Yesterday at 10:25 PM my inclination would be to keep the question on a single axis, but then give people the ability to update past information. maybe something like... You're currently involved in [3] projects (update?):
Are you interested in joining another project right now?
(No, no time right now) (I have some time, but no more big commitments) (Definitely interested, hit me up)
Right now, you're currently interested in [paid work only|paid or volunteer work| volunteer work only] (update?). basically, keep the question super-simple, but remind people of context + make it easy for them to update. Venkatesh Rao (US Pacific)Yesterday at 10:40 PM That's a very good design principle (keep it simple, remind people of context). I think that's basically a good starter template for the alert email already.
Venkatesh Rao (US Pacific)Yesterday at 10:48 PM Just adding the current global heat-map to that prompt email completes the situation awareness picture... and we can always add an arbitrarily rich state if we just hide most of it behind a "More..." link and have a good scheme for setting and propagating defaults. More link goes to a Knack form (? is that how it works) where you can also reset city, skills list etc etc etc
Jenna Dixon (EST | GMT -4)Yesterday at 10:56 PM (re Knack question, my picture: for a member with a profile in Knack, we would link to the login page, then they’d see a page of their current info with a button to hit for updating; then the robots :robot: push the new info along)
Maier (U+3)Today at 9:22 AM circling back to heat-map. i think we only need to ask yaks how busy they are with work. the implied "so do something for YC" need not be stated. if they want to do more, they can always volunteer. i agree we should remind them what their current obligations are, but i think it should be done using a graphic trace, so they can also see their past involvement.