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Yet again a decadent collective?

Published by on 09 January 2009 at 22:13 in Collective. 1 Comment Tags: , .

If you want to know where the next CS collective will take place, just follow one of the CS bunnies. For two months now Pinkfish, has been traveling (with her expenses paid?) in a tropical wonderland, scouting a place for yet the next ‘collective’…

I’m traveling around in Costa Rica at the moment, in search of the perfect location/house for our next CS collective.

It makes you wonder, as you might think that after the CS leadership team settled down in San Francisco, they would be focusing on getting things done. But… on the contrary, they yet move again.

Changing the world, one decadent collective at a time.

A Non-Profit Award for Couchsurfing?

Published by on 05 January 2009 at 12:17 in 501c3, Casey Fenton, Corpganization and volunteer coordination. Closed Tags: .

Somehow, I always think it is funny when CS defines itself, knowing that whatever it says about being so wonderful and inclusive, doesn’t count for the organisation itself.

By the very definition of our mission, we have a commutation solution that is 100% inclusive. We invite everyone everywhere into the community: old, young, conservative, liberal, east, west, black, white, gregarious, introverted, rich or poor. The beauty of addressing a communications challenge of this nature—bridging cultural differences and building understanding between people around the world—is that the more diverse our membership base is, the more fully we will achieve our communications goals.

This excerpt is from the submission of Couchsurfing Inc. for the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), where Couchsurfing won the Award “for Excellence in New Communications” for Nonprofits November last year.

We operate on a shoestring budget. This has required us to become experts in distributing our workload to a large, often remote, volunteer work force. We currently only have four paid staff members. We have two approaches to make this happen: sophisticated online volunteering tools that allow hundreds of members to easily perform needed tasks such as individually greeting every new member, and responding to every member inquiry

If you feel like ranting protesting, comments go here.

Uncoordinated Couchsurfing

Published by on 01 January 2009 at 23:44 in Casey Fenton, couchsurfing, employees and volunteer coordination. 8 Comments Tags: .

We are just fresh in 2009 and CS finally launched its new feature: ‘News Channels’, one overview for all organizational communication towards all CS-member. It not only features the latest news from the organization and tech-news, it even hosts the earlier announced member-stories about hospitality experiences and also the news-letters that are supposed to arrive in your inbox soon again.

But what a completely uncoordinated launch this is. We’ve been anticipating this new features since a long while, and now that it is finally ready, you just have the feeling something is still not going right at the CS Basecamp. The only launch-news shown, dates back to news which is 4 months old, August and September 2008, and the thread on the communications channel that catches my eye the most is still the infamous ‘do we have a team?‘.

It could be just a simple lack of coordination but the impression you get from this launch is that volunteers are still not supported in the work they do. Imagine: you work hard on implementing a new system – or enthousiastic about writing news for the CS-members – but somehow you just don’t get the feeling you are receiving support from some key people to get this launched professionally. At the same time, while older volunteers are tired from their effort, there is a lack of empowerment of new volunteers, no news has been written, or the editors didn’t have access to the tools. Really, sometimes you just feel pity for the people that still work for Casey Couchsurfing Inc.

Anyway, let’s see how quickly this new feature will be used and how it will run. I just hope that somehow, the first news item will be a BIG apology from Casey himself about the 14,000 e-mails that got deleted corrupted while upgrading the messaging system last month, and an honest explanation why this took 3 days instead of an hour. Followed the next day by news about the 501c3 status, news about BaseCamp on the third day, new hires on the fourth, expenses and income of the past quarters on the fifth, and support for the OCS-campaigns on the sixth. Now that would be communication.

And the winner is…

Published by on 23 December 2008 at 14:56 in ambassadors, couchsurfing and Uncategorized. Closed

To many people’s surprise – especially supporters of the OpenCS campaign  – CS appeared on the list of nominees for the Open Web Awards. CS was nominated mostly because of the efforts of Ambassadors. In the end -after a voting round of 4 weeks – CS didn’t win at all though. Out of the three finalists CS ended up… last.

For those who feel disappointed now, don’t worry… there might be another chance coming up soon for a another award. Some people even want to get CS nominated for the Nobel Price of Peace….

Drupal Communities meet Real Life

Published by on 10 November 2008 at 17:49 in Uncategorized. 11 Comments Tags: , , , .

I just read midsch’s posting about his helplessness in the hospitality exchange scene… He described the different situations quite good. However, my view on it and the possibilities connected to it are not as dark than his are…

It does not matter if CouchSurfing, HospitalityClub, GlobalFreeLoaders, BeWelcome… hospitality exchange pages have numerous times been described as the most useful sites in the web as they bring people together in real life. Since then numerous new hospitality exchange communities popped up to establish their own community.

But why establish your own community in times of Facebook APIs, Open Social and Drupal? Why not connect all those different communities together? Why not develop a Drupal module (http://www.drupal.org) that
offers all those established communities the possibilities to meet each other in real life?

I started a project on Amazee.com (as I have been around there when I wanted to bring the thing on paper), devoted to the development of a Drupal module for decentralized hospitality sites. Let us continue to learn from each other – here in the web, but also in real life. So why not spent our energy in this way?

http://www.amazee.com/drupal-communities-meet-real-life

CS Inc $600k revenue in 2008?

Published by Callum on 30 October 2008 at 13:53 in Uncategorized. 18 Comments

If I read the 2008 CouchSurfing Inc finances (citation) correctly, CS Inc is on track for income in excess of $600’000 USD this year. Contributed support for 1 Jan – 31 Mar is listed as $155,616.73.

Web/ Internet/ Host Fees – $ 2,960.59
Telephone & telecommunications – $ 2,208.03
Equip rental & maintenance – $ 13,923.46

Salaries of Professional Staff – $ 19,384.68
Payroll Taxes – $ 1,955.63
Office Expenses/ Supplies – $ 3,195.01
Rent, Parking, and other occupancy – $ 4,777.81
Meals/ Groceries – $ 10,895.37

Total cost of running the site around $19’092.08. Total salary bill (payroll plus taxes) $21’339.63. Total expenses related to “staff” around $40’207.82. A total of more than $10’000 spent on meals / groceries!

The total “staff” cost is more than twice the actual hosting cost. Yet since the organisation has added so many “professional staff” I see little difference in the actual site. Few new features, little increase in stability. Certainly no change in transparency or solving any of the “we’re too busy to publish details” problems.

CouchSurfing might well have an income in excess of half a million dollars this year. Looks like it’s becoming a viable business opportunity.

Quo vadis hospex?

Published by on 25 October 2008 at 17:24 in General Info, networks, Open Source, Participation and Proactive Action. 6 Comments

Short and cynical comments on some could-be-existing networks:

  • * Caseysurfing.com – Easygoing consumerfriendly network run by a bunchfull of burning men buddies with no strategy for the future at all. As they eat up an amazing amount of donations and the market for virtual social networks collapses with the international cashflow a simple sellout isn’t an option anymore. When the fun is over, I won’t share the hangover.
  • * Veitclub.org – The google-ad homebase of a single men gathering people who don’t mind censorship in communication. If the communication system is working at all. Estimated 2 years behind reality. Hard to signup for newbies and without technical improvements a living dead.
  • * Senil.org – Surviving from the stoneage of postwar hospitality exchange still not yet at home in the digital age but muddling through anyway.
  • * BeBehind.org – Some core volunteers still suffer from restrictive mindsets (courtesy of Veitclub.org), so progress in really opening up the network is small. Restrictions are still restrictions even if the code is GPL. The open source rebuilt of a common hospex-software is probably to slow to really suffer in the decline of big hospexnetworks, but may offer some software for other experiments (still a shitload of work).

Short but nevertheless also cynical theses for the future of hospex:

The hospitality exchange scene is and always was diverse. This won’t change, no, in the future the number of networks will probably rise and the importance of each one for the whole scene will shrink. I see two main future options / possibilities:

  • * Hospex as a gadget/plugin in other (commercial) networks like f**kbook, MyShit, soon T-Couch, iHospex, MacSleep, Sleepbucks and others – nothing I’d really care for, but something that would definetly keep some idiots out of things I like. There’s nothing wrong with it, but please leave me alone.
  • * Hospexnetworks with very specialized communities like gay boyscouts, polite gamblers, frustrated florists … A disadvantage of this kind of networks is the absence of bigger diffences within them, as there is always a common interest / category. So somehow it’s a bit limiting and cultural exchange simply fails with out differences. A solution could be megasearches between open parts of these networks, profile transfers and easy access. Besides smelling like violating privacy all over the place, it’s all theory right now.

And why this ranting?

I’ve spent and still spend some of my free time to volunteer for hospex networks, but from time to time it’s good to reconsider engagement. Right now it feels like being stucked between something halfdead, that is still working from an user-only point of view, and a luck of ideas/projects to improve/develop things.

So maybe it’s time to look for something useful to do in other areas?

Future of Hospex in Couple Wang’s eyes

Published by on 24 October 2008 at 03:20 in networks. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Future of Hospex in Couple Wang’s eys

What would you like to see the future of Hospitality Exchange Network ?

Scenerio 1.
CS have a lion’s share,say take 70% market
BW,HC,GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com and others have the rest 30%
CS do what ever they want
members without verifed and donation can’t
a. see the whole group members,(you want to do something else beside couchsurfing eh)
b. have unlimited email
c. have unimited search

Scenrio 2
Casey Fenton act as Frederik Willem de Klerk, give out some his power, and CS become ‘user/volunteers/members-driven’ organisation.

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=6841&post=1596123

and everything is transparent
CS take 45% market share
BW,HC,GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com consolidated take 45% market share
the rest take 10% market share

Scenrio 3
CS take 30% market share
BW,HC consolidated take 30% market share
GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com consolidated take 30% market share
the rest take 10% market share

http://www.hospitalityguide.net

if you like to see the Scenrio 2, 3 let me know, and tell me how much you need to develope a website like CS,
I WILL
1. TRY MY BEST TO RAISE MONEY FOR YOU.
2. convert some Xinger to Hcer
Xing have 6 million member now, 30% are freelancer, if we can convert 30% Xing freelcaner to Hcer, blah blah….
there should no conflict of interest,
some of 70% biz Xinger will use best offfer

https://www.xing.com/bestoffers/

70% of the 30% freelacne will user their own network, friends, realtives.
3. bring/match elderly/physically-challenged and EMIGRANT, Working holiday visa holder, Students from the Second/Third World to small/medium cities

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=14699

for time being, my suggestions are
1.Set “ net watch” with you friends, if you find someone profile deleted,
please record and repor at
Member’s profile issue(deleted, missing,dead etc) forum

https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showforum;id=244416

2.Compare
Thailand ,
Alaska(Participant list gone, I saw once,but unfortuneately not saved you can find some clue here http://blog.couchsurfing.com/alaska/alaska-csc-talent-show-video)
and SF Boot camp participant list,
and tell us how many Americans and White male there.

http://www.couchsurfing.com/collective.html

No later than Apr 2009, CS will reach it 1 million members
what you would like to see
A .CS 1 million members celebration
I created on Sep 22, 2008

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=14492

B. CS is the only hospex website reach a million member historical with volunteesr(“treat your volunteers as shit”)

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=1720836#post1753030

Casey sell CS
or start treat members differently , see Scenerio 1
Is Casey qualifed to be a House of Representatives that time?
and what Veit will think?

http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/veit

If you like Scenerio 2, 3 happen, let me know
I can be reached at

https://www.xing.com/profile/Jingtao_Wang/N17.8265.29f125

Internet belong to everybody, but no body can control it
the only 2 ways on Internet are
1. justice,transparent
2. if do something wrong, apologize and correct immidiatedly
But, Casey and CS would like to demonstrate the third way like delete members profiles without warning, and dare to delete my wife’s(onlinezhao),
ok, dude, let see what will happen then

this article I am going to send on Oct 31 in
https://www.xing.com/net/couchsurfing/ newsletter
I will be appeciate If you can polish my English and send back to me
stay tuned.

T.G.I.F

couple wang

FYI
History replaying in Couchsurfing.com

https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=14603632;articleid=14603632#14603632

“It has to be made clear that all power eventually resides with Casey, and none other. It has to be made clear that volunteering and donating money are most welcome, but don’t entitle you to any influence, irrespective of one’s importance for the organisation.”

https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=14603624

“If you don’t want democracy, you can’t build on volunteers, and you must run the organisation as a business, non-profit or not. You need to have a business plan that says where money is going, and coming from. You have to pay for most labour, and create the necessary revenue by either charging for services, or by using the worth of the community to get commercial sponsors, who expect to profit from members. You may still have some volunteers, or internships, or other low or unpaid labour, but you can’t expect highly qualified work to be done by two people sitting next to each other, where one is paid a market wage, and the other nothing.”

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=328661#post328710

“this group of coordinators would be part of a structure that is organised bottom-up, in a way that the group of coordinators (not leaders!) would be rotating every 1 or 2 years, where no-one can tell others what to do, where there is no such thing as “diplomatic” internal politics (“if you say something I don’t like, I consider that as flaming and you’re out of the group”)

http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=1720836#post1753030

“Although incorporated as a not-for-profit, CouchSurfing International inc. is not a charitable organisation. Not-for-profit status only means that the company cannot pay dividend to its owners (i.e. Casey); the company and its assets still are his, and his alone. Casey can do with it whatever he wants, whenever he wants it”

http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/zak0r

The Couchsurfing culture of party-hosting

Published by on 22 October 2008 at 03:03 in couchsurfing. 67 Comments Tags: , .

With CS getting more mainstream day by day, the culture of hosting might also be changing. Christopher Culver raises this interesting issue on the hitchhiking forum on Couchsurfing. “Does anyone else get the impression that the CS hosting community is becoming less friendly to hitchhikers? I was shocked when two of the hosts I stayed with this summer expressed their disappoval of hitchhiking, considering it ‘freeloading’.”

Chris also puts forward the question: “what experiences have you had as the Couchsurfing hosting community is shifting from a bunch of freespirited wanderers to everyday people with strict schedules and expectations?” And subsequently he concludes: “It feels like we are being forced out of our own community.”

This might be a very valid point. Couchsurfing, Bewelcome or Hospitality Club for that matter, are these still the networks of travelers supporting fellow-travelers? There are still lots of great hosts and travelers around, but somehow – due to the popularity of the network – it is also becoming more and more a network of people that are just looking for entertainment, other people to ‘party’ and get drunk with. Further to that, it does not necessarily has to be a coincidence either that the news-wire of CS has been full with party-events in the past couple of months.

But then again – on the others hand – CS still provides you a pool of lots of different people, which means you just have to be selective in picking the right host. Or like Sanne says in the same forum, “I guess my conclusion is: it’s not bad that ‘normal’ people are hosting, it’s just different. I think it’s a good thing that couchsurfing is turning into a thing for everyone. And yes, that means that you do have to put some more effort in selecting the right host for you.”

A Couchsurfing Career Life With Benefits that Money Can’t Buy

Published by on 15 October 2008 at 22:59 in Collective, Corpganization, couchsurfing, employees, Matthew Brauer and volunteer coordination. 4 Comments Tags: , .

Have you always wanted to be a “Ambassador Management Coordinator” or “Safety Systems Coordinator” for CouchSurfing? Now you can! CS published their “career openings“, or “couchsurfing careers“. Since these openings are not even linked from anywhere on the CS-website yet, you might stand a fairly good chance (it got posted!) to get one of the 14 full-time jobs, and become part of their family.

You may wonder why so many talented people volunteer for CS when they could have high paying jobs in the corporate world. The reason is that CS provides benefits they can’t find anywhere else. We live and breath CouchSurfing, and we are all a family.

Although you have to pay your first travel to the “Couchsurfing Base Camp” yourself, CS provides all full-time volunteers and employees “with free housing and meals”. In addition, each full-time staff member “has the opportunity to live abroad for several months of each year at one of our amazing Collective locations while maintaining a home and life in the San Francisco Bay Area”.

If you are the lucky enough to get one of the 14 listed full-time jobs, you will first have to go trough a three month trial period, after which you will be rewarded with “travel tickets, travel expense reimbursements and eventually paid salaries”. However, you will have to consent to your bos(ses) (“supervisors”) and keep yourself to the following social rules, meaning that you shall

- maintain positive references from other surfers or hosts.
- treat your team supervisors and other volunteers with respect.
- follow standards and procedures established by teams you work with.
- follow priorities and objectives established by the team supervisors.
- communicate in a calm and compassionate tone (‘thou shalt not flame’).

So what are you waiting for, go and apply for your role! Current (as per 1st of November) “openings” include:

Administrative Assistant; Ambassador Management Coordinator; Database Administrator; Developer, Events Coordinator; Human Resources & Personnel Coordinator; Marketing Coordinator; Member Communications Coordinator & Writer; Safety Systems Coordinator; System Administrator; Gardener / Landscaper; IT Assistant; Trainer, Educator, Coach, or Expert.

Note that there are currently 14 full-time positions available, while there are only 15 people supposed to stay and live in the Couchsurfing Base Camp. At the moment though, according to Matthew, there are already 15 people living there…