As someone with programming experience, I think it’s important to have flexibility to decide if if a problem should be solved with software. Focusing on only addressing problems with software is limiting and leads to ineffective low quality solutions.

Making pun sharing website as entertainment

I have been focusing on addressing the problem with a lack of accessible public spaces known as third places. I want to drive up demand for third places by showing people how great they are, and by encouraging other people to get involved in promoting them.

I have been trying a variety of things including working on two non-commercial open source software projects. One is a JavaScript framework for building websites that facilitate interactions in third places. The other is a decentralized platform for hosting in person events. However, most of my success has come from in person interaction.

Problems

I have been hosting regular Sunday board game events in third places since 2021. Until recently, many of my events had challenges with people not getting along or disagreements about what to play. I had tried many solutions with mixed degrees of success, and decided to make events more focused.

I labelled the events as “High Interaction board games”, and decided that longer games should start later in the afternoon. During the first hour of an event, quick social games would be played while people ate lunch. Later, I narrowed down events to focus on 1-3 hour high interaction resource management game.

Afterwards, things started to improve. Events stopped having constant issues with people not agreeing on games to play, and personality conflicts largely disappeared. Also events started having a more consistent and predictable experience. Playing a more predictable set of games meant that teaching was easier because other people could help, and I could get good at teaching the same game by playing it repeatedly. Nowadays, 10-15 people typically attend, and they will help run events.

Due to help from others and fewer problems at events, hosting has become easier. The events have also become places where people will share information about other third places, and regulars are now far more likely to become friends. These events also demonstrate to other people that third places are great for hosting events for things they enjoy.

In person conversations have also given me great feedback on how to promote third places and take action.

Notes about tech industry.