lydialaurenson

+1 for ADG, which is an amazing meetup, one of the best in the city!

Thanks for reading!

Almost forgot to tell you all -- I wrote a followup and FAQ on one of my blogs here: http://lydialaurenson.com/my-new-article-in-vice-about-san-f...

(For those who haven't seen my previous comments, hi, I'm the article author! Thanks for reading!)

Thank you :)

+1 for Journey. It's awesome. The person who runs it, Thomas Lotze, was also a Society member and is quoted in my article.

That's awesome. I was an early tester on Book 2 and I really wanted to take photos, but I didn't because I wasn't sure if it was against the rules. Really glad to hear that you added this detail so carefully!

Thank you! :)

1) Honestly, it never occurred to me to not go through with it, even when I was nervous. :) I guess I was just really pulled in by the beauty and drama of it. As I wrote in the article, there were many people who didn't go through with their first appointment, so the secretive appointment was certainly a filter. Whether it was a negative filter, I couldn't say.

2) My partner had a descendant who tried to steal one of the books from the library, hahahaha. He got chased down by one of the Nonchalance employees.

That's a good question and I don't know the answer. Rebecca Power, CEO of Quixote Games, is currently an Artist in Residence at SFMOMA. I'll mention it to her (and I bet if you sent her fan mail asking her to write about what she's up to, that would be exciting for her).

It may have been controversial, and I never investigated it thoroughly as a possibility, so I can't be sure. But the Latitude did a very good job of making members approach and think about the city of San Francisco differently, in an arguably artistic way. There are funders and orgs that are interested in that sort of thing (for instance, SFMOMA has a recent interest in games as art, and has placed immersive game designers as artists in residence).

MIT Sloan has a great article about converting visitors into subscribers that I think is arguably relevant here: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/turning-content-viewers-i...

I think that if you're trying to build a product that you want to charge for, then it's worth signaling that aggressively from the beginning (building what they call the "ladder" in that article). That said, Latitude did send some signals (e.g. the Marketplace section on the website, etc). But of course, it was challenging to balance that with the whole invitation-only "you are special" mythos.

I think that it would also have been possible to announce the monetization plan differently, with more tiers of engagement, and more explicit levels of "earning" a free membership. There was only one paid membership option, which was hundreds of dollars.

The company could also have pursued a totally different plan -- like finding a fiscal sponsor and applying for grants. Nonprofits have a higher survival rate than startups, and their art was so unique and beautiful, I think it could have had potential for major grant support. This would have required a major shift in approach though (and probably staffing, too).

Hi! I'm the article author. AMA :)

She. She talks about it. ;)

Hi! I'm the article author. Praxis events were held in the same building as the slide, receiving room, etc. So I got the photos later, months after my initial Latitude experience.