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  • Community Collaboration: Share your pain points and blockers for co-creation.

Hey Community!

I’m excited to share an idea that’s been on my mind for quite some time, inspired by the fantastic collaborations I’ve seen in our community. Many members have brilliant ideas but lack some skills to bring them to life, while others have the required skills but struggle with innovative ideas. To bridge this gap, we want to explore ways to boost co-creation to a new level, allowing members to connect, collaborate, and co-create projects together.

A few months ago, I had an idea to develop a carbon footprint app for the Nothing ecosystem. However, it wasn’t easy for me to reach out and find the right person in our community who could visualise it in my realm. We already have outstanding community projects and some excellent collaborations on the platform, but we should make collaborating even easier. 

Also, I believe co-creation can extend beyond technology to include music, art, filmmaking, and more, all within the Nothing ecosystem of products. Imagine making a short film using a Nothing/CMF Phone, all while sitting in various places around the world, yet making it a reality. Imagine creating a music composition with a catchy glyph composition made by someone in the community or developing a product concept art inspired by a great idea from a community member that broke your creative block. The possibilities are endless. 

How can you help:

  • We would like your input to identify the challenges you face in co-creation. What’s blocking collaboration for you?

  • What challenges do you face when trying to collaborate on projects?

  • What features or tools would make co-creation easier for you?

  • Any other suggestions or ideas you have for this initiative?

After collecting your insights, I’ll develop a detailed plan in partnership with the Nothing Community team, and we will take you along the journey.

Best regards,
Rohit Pakalapati
Community Board Observer

    Related discussions

    A very good initiative indeed. At the moment our biggest challenge is to implement the Glyphs for Nothing devices on N Dial app. I have been in touch with the team via email and have been providing with what they require. I even tried the debug mode, but to implement that within the app we need an API key or an access to SDK so we can have it in N Dial. I would really appreciate if that can be possible. Most of our users are owning a Nothing phone so it really affects the community. Thank you for putting out such initiatives. Cheers!

      It’s an amazing initiative, @RohitPakalapati . One of the biggest problems I faced while working on collaborative projects is maintaining long-term motivation. I have worked in many teams and led some of them during hackathons. One issue I frequently encountered was that, after some time, the team lacked motivation during the creation process due to various challenges. If this initiative manages to make the process more engaging and fun along with mentorship from Nothing’s team, it would be great.

      RohitPakalapati I really like Nothing’s vision of putting people at the centre of co-creation both with the brand and among community members

      I have several concepts posted in the community and for some of them (cmf watchface and nothing community edition project) I collaborated with other designers. So far they have been people I knew IRL or people I found on X and we got on well working remotely

      I also come up with too many ideas but often due to lack of time and some missing skills they end up staying in my notes

      I think one of the main obstacles is to find people with complementary skills to me to realise the ideas. It would be interesting to have a system that allows you to find members of the community based on their skills (artist, designer, developer, producer..etc) or at least tags in your profile

      Surely having deadlines, if there are official contests by Nothing helps to finish projects and realise ideas more easily.

        I love this. Personally I am a one man team for my field (android development): from the app icon to the finished product, so I don’t find a particular problem with co-creation (well, time is a big challenge).

        But I understand that some one has specific skills that may help other people with complementary skills, so the introduction of a tag in the profile or a database where to collect profiles by role could be helpful.

          Mirko_ddd It would be great to have skill tags as you suggested, along with the ability to indicate availability (open to collaboration/currently unavailable).

          Additionally, I believe some guidance from Nothing would be helpful. For example, a basic UI library for designers would be beneficial. Many apps resemble Nothing UI but lack consistency. Providing consultancy availability or short video lessons on how to approach different skills, as the Nothing team does, could spark new ideas and inspire people to create and learn from you.

            I think finding and reaching out to people for co-creation is the most challenging thing.

            Like others said, Maybe having a profile tag for all community members to indicate their skills (e.g., Android developer, UX designer, music composer, etc.) would be nice.

            The ability to pin certain posts to profiles would also help showcase what I’m interested in and my work.

            Together, as a Community, we are strong.

            As others have said, everyone has their niche, their skillset, their passions.

            For myself, my creative talents lie in live events and crafting theatrical performances. So I am not the most adept at 3D modelling software, or artistic design in general.

            This being said, I do find myself having ideas left, right and centre. But not necessarily the skillset to execute or explore these further. I feel like collaboration would be a great way to explore these ideas.

            Another point to mention, is that collaboration has to be just that, collaborative. Whilst it would be great to reach out to others in the Community, I feel that having a familiarity with those I work with, helps the common goal.

            I am often a guarded individual, so I wouldn’t want to be forced or pushed towards others to collaborate for collaborations sake. I feel that whilst an open forum may work for some, having those people who would be open to work together, yet not be publicly apparent with this, may need to be considered.

            To hark back to my opening line. Together, as a Community, we are stronger. Whether this is collaboration for projects, or a bunch of users providing feedback. This Community helps and drives this company forwards and I am excited for what projects may come to fruition, or gather more traction due to this initiative ❤️

            Thanks for putting it out @RohitPakalapati 🙌

            My pain points and blockers would be finding and managing time from work. Massive respect for the community members who work in different domains and balance their time for nothing 🤩.

            Further to what @Rahul and @Ealesy101 shared, I would add a few more points:

            • If anyone wants to start a collaborative project, would be great to put it out at the concept stage and build the team before the project begins.
            • There is a lot of potential to these concepts and provided done right and get inputs from member’s experience, we can maybe get the projects production ready.
            • This way we filter out our skills and get in touch according to our area of interest. Could get messy but at least allows us to know some good potential in the community.

            I was working with @Ali Fakhruddin for the Ndial app unfortunately, because of work commitments could not contribute much but grateful for the experience. I learned a lot from the short time I spent working with him and the team, would appreciate more of such opportunities.

            Maybe we can make this a project to discuss a community LinkedIn 😅

            As everyone is saying this is indeed a great initiative. I think we can add a separate space or a tag on this forum called “Co-Creation Call-outs”

            For example one member puts up an idea there. Other members who feel like there skills can be an asset to that idea can chime in.

            It would look like this

            I created a post on CCCO - “Got a great idea for a CMF marketing campaign but need visual artists ? Anyone willing to help ?” Members who are interested can comment and this will become a thread for all ideas associated with the project.

            Threads like that should also be marked with progress statuses - “Ideating”, “Developing” “Completed” etc. so that relevant members can know at what stage a certain co creation project is at.

              flo_rahil

              That would be really helpful and the collaboration would be off the charts. So many ideas, if channeled in the right way, they add up to something cohesive.

                Lovely thread and some very helpful feedback here - co-creation is a challenging nut to crack. Thanks everyone for inputting!

                I don’t have any suggestions or ideas as of now, but can definitely share a story around that.

                I am a designer, and I greatly appreciate the Nothing design language which got me to try my hand in UI/UX designing like 2 months ago. I was always into that, but never got enough motivation to get my hands deep.

                And now, from creating a concept for notifications panel, to designing a full fledge rewamp of weather app and now, almost ready to launch my first app (will share when it’s ready), I have come a long way.

                In all of this, when I started I didn’t even know if the idea I had could even get to life, until @Ali Fakhruddin offered to collab with me on my Discord thread for the weather app after he finishes his current project. (Appreciate it, mate)

                At this point, I thought why wait, and let’s see if I can do that myself. After alot of research, internet digging, low code tool and lots of AI tool use for fetching me the right code. I finally manage to build something.

                Is it what I had in mind? No, but pretty close, almost.

                Can it be better? Ofcourse, a person who knows how to code would do a much better job.

                After all this, what I realized about me when it comes to collaboration is the flow, which I feel is the biggest roadblock for me if it breaks. The reason for that is when I am into something, I put my heart and soul into it until it’s done. And I feel collabs are mostly async, as everyone is busy with their personal work, which very unlike to how I work.

                  anoobav I feel really thankful that you guys have found a way to follow your passionate projects and dreams. I intend to support whoever Is out there and wants to make a difference. If only I had say enough funds or a full running company. But we are on to something and only time will tell. But I wish you and all the passionate designers developers out there, the best of luck and support for the projects. Cheers!

                    Genuinely curious. What exactly is the point of community collaborations outside of official nothing competitions like the community project ?

                    This seems like a good way to let the community make stuff for free for the brand. At the end of the day what do they really get ? A shout out in a quarterly update youtube video ?

                    I understand making stuff out of passion, but there has to be an end goal here - right ? Otherwise a person will spend their entire life making software products for the brand and get nothing (pun not intended) in return.

                    I see so many talented people in the community and I feel like their talent should eventually surpass the brand into their own thing instead of being limited to this bubble. That’s a proper definition of individual growth. Even the brand can be proud of that knowing their platform launched other people’s careers.

                    So yeah… maybe do something in that direction ?