Participating in Shānhǎiwù#
In the last week of the one-month offline pop-up community Shānhǎiwù, I finally arrived at Beidahu, Jilin, surrounded by mountains and grasslands. It was similar to my previous experiences participating in the zuzalu hackathon in the Adriatic Sea or the dweb in the California redwood forest, but also different.
Most of the core contributors of Shānhǎiwù are old friends. When chatting with Jiang, he mentioned that many hackathon projects end without any follow-up, and a good hackathon should be integrated with the community, solving specific problems and helping projects continue to iterate to create truly useful products. This coincides with the "PCF - Product Community Fit" that I have been advocating in the dDAO community. Web3 projects should be integrated with the community! I was immediately interested and felt that I must participate. However, I was busy building projects until Qiūqiū DM'd me and asked when I would come, so I immediately arranged my trip.
As soon as I arrived at Shānhǎiwù and put down my bag, mxx greeted me and asked me to join everyone in the lobby. It was the usual greeting from old friends and the process of getting to know new friends. The difference this time was that there were many young and fresh industry newcomers at the scene.
Because one of the themes of the last week happened to be the WBF event and hackathon, I had intensive conversations with many participants of creative projects that had just emerged. I also discussed possible scenarios for our Nom.land project with many people.
Hackathon#
The hackathon is always the most attractive part of participating in community events for me. The deadline is the most productive force! With a deadline, you can accomplish tasks in a few days that may take months to complete. The hackathon is also the best way to promote community collaboration. Watching is never as satisfying as rolling up your sleeves and doing something.
After listening to so many presentations, seeing guests come and go, and colliding ideas with new friends, it is really necessary to take a few steps forward while the ideas are still fresh. This is the starting point of deep collaboration.
I have to brag a bit here. Nomland achieved third place in this hackathon. (In the previous zuzalu hackathon, another project from our team also won third place. When will we get first place?) I also hope that Nomland can serve more communities and members in the future and grow together with the community.
Suggestions for pop-up events#
I am very happy to see more and more pop-up communities being launched after zuzalu. (Did anyone participate in the muChiangmai event in September?) More and more people are rediscovering and experiencing communities, being supported, inspired, and participating in different collaborations and co-creations, and also getting to know themselves better.
But we have also seen some shortcomings in this event. Not enough food!!!
As a person who stays up late, I have to set an alarm every day for lunch, otherwise, I live in fear of hunger (🥺). On the day of the hackathon demo, I didn't have lunch and only had a cup of (self-brought) coffee to barely complete the demo.
I suggest that next time, we can invite interesting food and beverage brands to collaborate and open pop-up shops, or we can provide a communal kitchen for everyone to cook their own meals. It would be more enjoyable to eat, drink, and chat at the same time. I miss going to other people's homes for food and drinks at zuzalu, and I also miss eating pizza around the pizza oven late at night in the dweb and then sneaking away.
Activities that last for more than two weeks should allow participants to establish a comfortable routine according to their own lifestyle habits, so that they can settle in better.
Thoughts on the community#
Although I joined the Shānhǎiwù community late and missed a lot, I also saw some new sprouts breaking through the ground.
Based on events like WBF and hackathons, participants have come up with various interesting ideas. Perhaps many people are experiencing this unique form of collaboration for the first time at Shānhǎiwù. These seeds will scatter with them, land, and change something.
But there are also regrets. Apart from reviews and summaries, more information was not recorded and turned into community assets to have a longer-lasting impact. Perhaps next time, we can do better and have more mature ways to provide continuous guidance to projects within the community. We can have good tools to help participants record their contributions to the community, not just attendance proof, but also richer content. Help people and creations stay connected and spread. Can there be more integration and connection between distributed communities?
I hope more people will love communities, and everyone can find various communities that suit them. Just like cafes, we can have conversations with old friends about collaboration in one cafe, then go to another cafe to join interesting conversations and meet new friends. We can wander on the cafe street, collaborate and create here, and also gain inspiration and relaxation here. This is the most beautiful vision of a community that I can think of.
Looking forward to the second edition of Shānhǎiwù, if conditions allow, I hope to participate more deeply. I also look forward to more diverse pop-up events, where more people can have different experiences and change their environments, perhaps making it easier to discover what they truly want.
Just as Audrey said in the group, "Come with a purpose and leave with a light heart." This may be the greatest gain and significance.