Participating in Shanhaiwu#
In the last week of the one-month offline pop-up community event Shanhaiwu, I finally arrived at Beidahu, Jilin, surrounded by mountains and grasslands. It was similar yet different from my previous experiences participating in the zuzalu event in the Adriatic Sea or the dweb event in the California redwood forest.
Most of the core contributors of Shanhaiwu are already 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 and create truly useful products. This aligns with the PCF (Product Community Fit) that my dDAO community has been advocating. Web3 projects should be integrated with the community! I was immediately interested and felt that I must participate. However, I was busy with my own project until Autumn DM'd me and asked when I would come, which prompted me to immediately arrange my trip.
As soon as I arrived at Shanhaiwu and put down my bags, I was greeted by Mxx and invited to the lobby to chat, saying that everyone was there. It was the usual greetings 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 event.
Because one of the themes of the last week was the WBF event and hackathon, I had intensive conversations with many participants of creative projects that had just emerged. We discussed possible scenarios that could be combined with our Nom.land project.
Hackathon#
Hackathons have always been the most attractive part of community events for me. Deadlines are the first productivity boost! With a deadline, you can accomplish tasks in a few days that may take months to complete otherwise. Hackathons are also the best way to promote community collaboration. It's always better to get involved and do something satisfying rather than just watching.
After listening to so many presentations and seeing guests come and go, as well as exchanging ideas with new friends, I realized that we need to take advantage of the momentum and move forward. This is the starting point of deep collaboration.
I must celebrate a little here. Nom.land achieved third place in this hackathon. (In the previous zuzalu hackathon, our team's other project also won third place. When will we be able to get first place?) I also hope that Nom.land can serve more communities and members in the future and grow together with the community.
Suggestions for pop-up events#
I am happy to see more pop-up communities being organized in different places 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 forms of collaboration and co-creation, and also gaining a better understanding of themselves.
However, we have also noticed some shortcomings in this event. We didn't have enough food!!!
As a person who stays up late, I had to set an alarm every day for lunch, living in constant 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 a pop-up shop. We can also 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 during the zuzalu event, and I also miss gathering around the pizza oven late at night during the dweb event.
Activities that last for more than two weeks should allow participants to establish a comfortable routine according to their own lifestyle, so that they can settle in and stay longer.
Thoughts on the community#
Although I joined the Shanhaiwu community late and missed a lot, I also saw some new sprouts emerging.
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 Shanhaiwu. These seeds will scatter and take root, bringing about changes.
However, there are also regrets. Apart from reviewing and summarizing, more information could not be preserved as community assets to have a longer-lasting impact. Perhaps next time, we can do better and provide more mature ways to provide ongoing guidance to projects within the community. We can also have better tools to help participants record their contributions to the community, not just attendance proof, but also richer content. We can 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 finish collaborating with old friends in one cafe and then go to another cafe to join interesting conversations and meet new friends. We can wander along the cafe street, collaborate and create here, and also gain inspiration and relaxation. This is the most beautiful vision I can think of for a community.
I look forward to the second edition of Shanhaiwu, and 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 environments, perhaps making it easier to discover what they truly desire.
Just as Audrey said in the group, "Come with a purpose and leave with a light heart." This may be the greatest achievement and significance.