Collective Detective Blog Archives

Have You Seen Our Thingies?

Collectivus

Collective Detective is happy to announce the first public release of Collectivus, a new social location experience where you can literally take it or leave it. While many social location sites focus on having people "check in" at a location, on Collectivus, people help tell the story of Thingies and check them in at stops along their journey.

Collectivus is about the unseen connections between people as they help Thingies get from place-to-place. It’s part game, part social discovery, part exploration and we hope very entertaining.

The adventure of Collectivus is what you make of it.

What’s a Thingie?

Oh yeah, Collectivus Thingies™ are items that travel around, encountering new people and new places. We’ve launched with Collectivus Rubber Duckie Thingies™ as our first series, many of them are on their way to a first encounter with someone, somewhere right now.

How does it Work?

It’s easy! Each Thingie has a unique code on the bottom of it. When you encounter a Thingie, simply enter the code on Collectivus site, tell us where you encountered the Thingie and a little about your encounter. That’s it.

You can also see who else is encountering Thingies and search to see if there are any Thingies near you.

But Wait, There’s More!

In follow-up posts we’ll talk more about the back story of Collectivus and talk more about some of the current and upcoming features. We’re just getting started, so please check back for more features, announcements, and news.

You know you have many choices when it comes to fun social location activities. We appreciate you checking us out. If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, please drop us a line.

BarCamp DC: CD Heads to Washington

On Saturday November, 14^th, we’ll be traveling south from the Collective Detective Compound to once again participate and attend BarCamp DC. It’ll be our second year back and we’re looking forward to it.

The DC/Virginia/Maryland tech community really knows how to put on a great non-conference, as well as how to order an insane amount of pizza. It’s a great opportunity to learn about exciting things going on in the Capitol area, meet new people doing interesting things, and over-indulge in pepperoni. It’s also a chance to catch-up with friends and peers face-to-face. Neither of these things you can easily do online in under 140 characters or in an email.

If you’re interested in technology and are in the area, come join us in DC. If Philly is a closer drive this weekend, we highly recommend you check out BarCamp Philly and a cheesesteak from Jim’s Steaks on 4^th and South. If you’re elsewhere, find the next BarCamp event near you.

Hope to see you there or at an event sometime soon!

Want to Work on Collectivus?

As you know, we’re a lean micro-business building Collectivus on the nights and weekends. Excitedly, we are closing in on the first release. However, we’ve assessed we need more people to help finish out release one as well as help gear-up for what comes next.

Looking for a fun side-project? If you’re interested, have any combination of the skills we need and can commit a minimum amount of time per week through the end of the year to help out with some short-term stuff, we’d love to hear from you. Yes, you will get paid, but be warned, it’ll likely be a sad and pathetic amount. We’re also hoping to find people who want to continue to work with us on the next part of the roadmap. Those gigs will resemble more of a normal paying type. We’re flexible; let’s talk.

The Business Stuff

Business Planning and Development

Work with us to refine the business plan.

Help us develop and execute a scaled funding strategy and revenue plan.

Help us develop and package proposals and presentations and correctly file paperwork in triplicate.

The Visual Stuff

User-Experience Design / User Interface

Review and revise the existing user-interface.

Color-palette and accessibility improvements.

Help resolve a specific work-flow issue around search and results.

Graphic Design

Punch up art assets used in UI.

Creation of a few icons and other graphics.

The Code Stuff

Client-side Development

Use your expert HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/jQuery skills to help code, tweak, and revise features.

Ability to integrate and work with third-party APIs and web services.

Python / Django / PostgreSQL Development

Solid skills or background in related framework and want to move into the awesomeness of Python in order to hook-up some features and build new ones.

Ability to integrate and work with third-party APIs and web services.

Experience with authentication systems.

Linux Server Administration / Infrastructure Operations

Code review of infrastructure and security

Scripts and processes for automated back-up, deployment, and maintenance jobs.

At a minimum, you’ll be one of the first to get more insight into what the hell we’ve been building all this time. It’s also an opportunity to be a part of something we’re very excited about and think people will have a lot of fun with. Please contact us via the Contact Page, email, Direct Message on Twitter or reach out on Facebook if you’re interested and want to hear more.

Thanks!