[Imc-tech] Re: IMC, & a void...

[Sascha Meinrath]

On Tue, 21 Jan 2003, rosemary braun wrote:

> Hey Sascha -- this is probably an old idea, but:
>
> There's two problems in CU right now.  One is that, with the demise of
> the CityView, there is no good weekly comprehensive calendar of events.
> The other is that there's a whole heap of people out there who aren't
> going to the IMC website or picking up the public-i because, well,
> it's those crazy hippie kids and what could I possibly have in common
> with them?
>
> I think that if the IMC produced such a comprehensive calendar, it'd solve
> the first problem and might draw more people in who won't come otherwise.

yes, absolutely -- we've talked at length about getting a better calendar.
i've been negotiating with some university folks about using one of
theirs, but they haven't decided whether to make the code open source (and
i suspect it'll take the university another 3-years to come to a decision
on that).

> The webified community calendar is a start, but the problem with that
> is that it relies on the artists/venues to populate it and so it's not
> terribly comprehensive.  If the various venues/galleries/theatres/cinemas
> could be convinced to fax in a schedule of their events for the week,
> or if someone could get on the phone with them and write it all down,
> and if some poor sod could take the time to compile them, that'd be a lot
> more useful to the person who's bored on a Friday night.

a large group of former cu-cityview staff are meeting regularly to discuss
options.  i think there are two situations -- the first is that there
needs to be a weekly calendar; the second is that there should be a
central on-line place to look for shows info.

> Print would be nice, too.  I know that the IMC doesn't have the resources
> to churn out a public-i on a weekly basis, but how about a flier, with
> just a schedule grid for music (like the old Octopus one) on the front,
> and Art/Theatre/Movie listings on the back?  I don't really know what
> these things cost, but such a listing -- in terms of effort -- could be
> produced more regularly than a full paper.  I know that distribution can
> be a nightmare, too; it'd be nice if people could find it in the places
> that they're used to finding the Octopus, theoretically.
>
> But at very least, a comprehensive weekly webified calendar, well-
> publicized, could really do the IMC -- and CU as a whole -- a lot of good.
>
> Whaddaya think?

i couldn't agree more.   one possibility is to create a web-calendar that
uses a fairly good content management system and that could be output to a
flyer directly.  more realistically (perhaps) is to create a calendar
program that is easy to use, "pretty", easily accessed, etc. and start
using our connections in the community to point people to it.  this
wouldn't be too much of a hassle -- but what we're missing is someone with
tech skills to coordinate the effort.  you're definitly right, we have a
tremendous opportunity right now to fill a major void; all we need is a
volunteer.

--sascha