Connecting with communities via printing on demand

How Printing on demand project can nurture learning and build communities of interests and skills

Fanstatic how conversations and people can motivate you to get on with little pet projects ;-)

I recently Met Graham from 'poet in the city' at an event hosted by 'The National Council of Vountary Organisations' (NCVO) which does so much fantastic training and support for third sector workers at the coal face of social change.

Graham nurtures inclusive poetry, embracing London's rich ethnic, language and cultural divercity. Poetry events are held around the city across various indoor and outdoor venues (as far as I can remember Graham).

Straight away I thought, wow...what about linking poetry to other groups who use 'poetry in so many ways'...

...but that's me thinking about bringing everyone together!

Why wear Nike when you can wear pride...?..imagine a remixed brand, by the people and for the people!
When I think of Merchandizing in the third sector, straight away I think of community generated designs, integration of self-taught artists, and gathering all of this potential, initially under Creative Commons. Then this pool of content can be farmed and remixed to produce fantastic original pieces that can be atributed to the contributors!

This is the creative bomb that imploded in my head as Graham said, "I'm thinking about merchadizing".

I thought, fanstastic!

...what if?

What if 'poetry in the city' where to create T-shirt poetry and artistic rendering on T-shirts driven by their audiences for their audiences?

What if they co-produced funky branded pieces?

What if 'people couture' could be the new 'visual poetry?

What if co-merchandizing could be a project to be shared at events?

What if initial contributors could be initially identified through a Flickr Group?

What if they checked out threadless and collarfree to get an idea of this fanstastic new people power?

Otherwise, chasing bodies for T-shirts makes any charity look like any other commercial setup, intrusive and only wanting your £ove when you pay by credit card!

If this opportunity was embraced - then the organisation could get closer to the audiences so they become contributors in the development and creation of brand merchandizing - a bit like threadless, and collarfree.

For more details about the Printing-on-demand providers, check out the PDF I did for you Graham. I looked at the most established and well known ones. Please make sure you do a thorough web check on complaints and your 'communities copyrights' so that you can all benefit from your effort and no other hijack artists get to piggy back on your hard efforts...that could be a separate project ;-) first fatten up the piggy bank.

Get your own - Open publication

Resource(s) Reference(s)

competitions...

PDF reviewing print-on-demand main contenders
http://issuu.com/williamdoust/docs/printingondemand

spreadshirt competitions
http://blog.spreadshirt.net/uk/category/competitions/

submit a t-shirt design idea (winner-exclusive print)
http://www.collarfree.com/

submit a t-shirt design idea (winner-exclusive print)
http://www.threadless.com/


opinions, reviews, tips about printing on demand contenders...

Cafe Press Complaints regarding print quality of T-shirts
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/t-shirt-fulfillment-services/t41579-2.html

blog about t-shirt designs & trends
http://www.cottonable.com/

Copyright issues about zazzle on techcrunch
http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/07/20/profile-zazzle/

5 Tips That Will Improve Your Online Store
http://www.cotygonzales.com/2008/10/15/5-tips-that-will-improve-your-online-store/

spreashirt blog...
http://blog.spreadshirt.net/uk/

self-promo & web - cafepress
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/learn/shop_promo

T-thirt forums
http://www.t-shirtforums.com/t-shirt-fulfillment-services/t41579-2.html

zazzle - rss
http://www.zazzle.com/sell/tools/feeds

zazzle - promo tools
http://www.zazzle.com/sell/promotion/tools

zazzle - referrals
http://www.zazzle.com/sell/incentive/associate

zazzle - promo tutorial
http://www.zazzle.com/sell/promotion/promotionbasic

even more about Ts
http://www.tshirtchat.com/

lenz on zazzle...about T-shirts
http://www.squidoo.com/zazzle101

Promoting your T-shirt designs..

Rumplo
http://rumplo.com/

about Rumplo
http://rumplo.com/help/general#1

Rumplo blog
http://rumplo.com/blog/ http://rumplo.com/help/general#1

Videos...
cafepress quick basic free store intro...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWJT4fUuP9w

spreadhirt - working with vectors...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9a14oWkESA

spreadhirt - designer views (preparing designs)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghzLk4j0wCU

spreadhirt - company indie tour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ5OBhlJEhQ

zazzle-intro (site & tour)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG4c7X_-ydk

zazzle - intro, about the company
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XdHfs3TyuM

World Aids Day Dec1st Draft Poster

CD4 Community Project Poster Work ;-) It's hard to give up your addiction to the 3rd sector. After doing my part-time work I spent two solid days and three nights collaborating with my wife to come up with a concept poster for Carlos Lopez G and his CD4 The Band.

CD4 The Band uses music as a vehicle to create awareness about HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Their collaborative arm CD4 Community project uses music workshops as a vehicle to share life experiences relating to HIV.

So if you're reading this please let others know about the Dec 1st event at the Spirit Club in Manchester where CD4 The band is playing. I've been ousted from the house PC so I've had to use the laptop to link to my wife's flickr account www.flickr.com/illustrationcoo - to get to the draft and not the latest version. Anyway, most of the elements are there about the message.

Build Upon one anothers work - The Creative Commons way

Share your creativity - enable people anywhere to re-use from your work, learn and recreate...or find licensed work to enrich your creations
In a recent post I discussed the licensing of the Outcomes star under creative commons. In this article I examine the more creative areas for your projects.

All of us in the non-profit/charity sector are looking to spread our message in as economic a manner with a greater impact. If you have to do the marketing and need to look for content for your next campaign, why not give and take?

Share your creative wealth and Set your work free to grow some legs & let it travel new routes with creative commons refined copyright license approach, or even find licensed work that you can integrate into your project to really make it fly!!!

It's free and you won't need to hire expensive lawyers, hurrah!

You select the flavour of the license via a click through process and voila, you get a link to the page with the corresponding icon, like the one I recently acquired at the top right hand corner of this page. If you are farming creative snippets go straight to the search section to find the type of media or content that is available. But before you do that find out more by watching the video and checking out the licenses below .

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uTjpghGjjfo



Six types of Creative Commons licenses:
(read below or go straight to the summary page -
http://creativecommons.org/license/)

1.Attribution
(Gents toilet like icon):
All creative commons licences require attribution, this means that others may share your work as long as the credit you.

2. Attribution ShareAlike
(Gents toilet like icon & circular arrow to left):
Adds to attribution the condition that any derivative works fall under the same license conditions as the original.

3. Attribution no Derivatives
(Gents toilet like icon & an equals sign):
Adds to attribution the condition that no derivative works can be made from the work. In other words, you could include and build upon the work without altering the original. Say you can a 'diagram' or 'chart' within a report as long as you attributed the work.

4. Attribution Noncommercial
(Gents toilet like icon & $ with a stripe):
Adds to attribution the condition that those reusing the work cannot do so in terms of profiting commercially from the work. The interested parties may have to contact the license holder to re-negotiate the license and work something out.

5. Attribution Noncommercial ShareAlike
(Gents toilet like icon, $ with a stripe & circular arrow to left ):
Adds to attribution the condition that those reusing the work cannot do so in terms of profiting commercially from the work and that the new work that has built upon has to be released under the same licensing conditions if the party interested in the work is to use it.

6. Attribution Noncommercial No derivatives
(Gents toilet like icon, $ with a stripe & an equals sign)
Adds to attribution the conditions that those reusing the work cannot do so in terms of profiting commercially from the work and that no derivative works can be made from the work. In other words, you could include and build upon the work without altering the original. Say you can a 'diagram' or 'chart' within a report as long as you attributed the work. And on top of that those reusing the work cannot do so in terms of profiting commercially from the work.

You can see as you go down the licenses the levels of restriction that you can
apply.

There are literally millions of people already sharing their work to be remixed.Check out the video about the general creative commons licenses.

Farming for content to use in a project?...well -you can search for it

If you are farming for content and looking to remix or be rmixed, then search the creative commons website. The CC search engine searches various platforms that have integrated CC licensing for their contributors to release works under the CC license.

If music is your thing (hey you fantastic guitarist from Rod/zio) go to ccmixter.
If it can be made to work for the music industry, as some artists are embracing,imagine what it could do for you? Check out the video, it even includes shorts snippets to video licensing.

http://www.youtube.com/v/1e2WMlL6jlI&hl=en&fs=1

What about a primer on the whole thing ?- watch the video

http://www.youtube.com/v/tBnJBKnibyc&hl=en&fs=1

You can also see a videos about creative commons in the following languages:

Spanish
http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=OUo3KMkOETY
[for my friend Carlos Lopez G & his victory over HIV]

Portuguese (brasilian)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=w9xPRFCk63Y
[for the talented brasilian guitarist from Rodzio - Northampton]

Apologies for the bias but these additional languages are for my native fellow south & Central Americans.

Reference(s) Resource(s)

Creative Commons website
http://creativecommons.org/

Outcomes Star - embracing the open organisation

Sharing an openly adaptable framework to assist service users on the road to final 'outcome' destinations

In my previous posts on engagement & trust and customer/client contributions to organisations' reach and wellbeing I sign posted various approaches that organisations and companies are undertaking to 'open' up their organisations. This enables them to open up their business processes so that they can be co-developed and co-shared with their various stakeholders, clients or service users.

Co-development, co-sharing expertise in a spirit of openess does a heck of a lot to engage those very publics and peoples whom you want to recruit to help transform lives. It all sounds quite far away and woolly when you can't see an example.

Outcomes Star Second Edition Released - keeping alive sharing & remixing under CC
Homelesslink has kept alive the spirit of an 'Open' organisation by maintaining the creative commons license on the Outcomes Star. This enables orgainsations and individuals to build on each other's efforts to create a better world so that knowledge doesn't become stagnant and is open to new creative possibilities.

The Outcomes Star in a nutshell
The Outcomes Star in a nutshell is an 'outcomes' framework that enables organisations to chart and measure the progress in terms of change (on a scale of 1-10) along several key dimension. These key dimensions are dictated by the sector for which it was developed. For example there are currently two flavours - homelessness and mental health.

Get your own - Open publication

Get your own - Open publication

Remix The Outcomes Star to suit your organisation
The Outcomes Star guides are released under Creative Commons (modify, attribute, no commercial profit) license. So if you can benefit from this, that would be fantastic.

About the Outcomes Star
Originally commissioned out to Triangle Consulting for its development to the London Housing Foundation. The mental health version, to my understanding, was co-developed between Triangle consulting and the Mental Health Providers Forum (MHPF). This mental health model, to my knowledge, still remains with the two mentioend before. The homelssness Outcomes star project has now been handed over - if you can put it that way, to homelesslink. There is an online system to support the Outcomes Star, and this has been developed by Jellymould Creative.

Resource(s)/Reference(s)

Outcomes Star - Main website
http://www.homelessoutcomes.org.uk/The_Outcomes_Star.aspx

Outcomes Star online System
http://www.outcomesstarsystem.org.uk/

homeless link - the new guardians of the Outcomes
http://www.homelesslink.org.uk/

Triangle Consulting - The research organisation hired to put together the star outcomes
http://www.triangleconsulting.co.uk/home/2008/5/8/recovery-star-published.html

Mental Health Providers Forum - Co-developers of the Outcomes Star Mental Health
http://www.mhpf.org.uk/

Creative Commons - open licensing for a co-constructive and creative future
http://creativecommons.org/