Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Shared survey: what does your community use?

[Corey (corey.birnbaum]

Thanks for the feedback Fred. I view Mosaic as "custom software" which is
an option, but in all other questions I provided an "other.." field where
you can insert what you use if it wasn't mentioned (already there are a lot
of options that I felt could be too much). If there are questions that
don't apply, I made many of them optional (ones without the red asterisk).

I want to mention that, besides Mosaic (by Sean Davey who is also on this
list) there is also Gather by Tom Smyth (http://sassafras.coop/) that is an
online tool for coordinating common meals, ledger, and reservation system.
Those are the only two custom-for-cohousing solutions I'm aware of, but
would love to hear about any more out there.

Thank you everyone for your answers so far! This is really fascinating
stuff and I have to admit I'm mostly surprised by just how large these
communities are (most answered 50+!). If you have suggestions on how I can
improve it too, please let me know.

Some other insights I'd like to share:
- Most communities use email as their primary medium for not just
communication, but event coordination as well. However, a solid number of
you do use shared online calendars.
- People seem ambivalent towards their current solutions (seems very few
are happy with email) with the only exception being their financial tool,
which most people listed as QuickBooks. There's also satisfaction with how
consensus building is done in general.
- Most of you use Google Drive, but only a few of you pay for cloud
services, the most popular being Dropbox.
- You're mostly iPhone users.

Overall, everyone seems to want better solutions for most aspects of
community life, but are unwilling to pay for them. That certainly makes
things tough for those like Sean and Tom who have great solutions, because
nothing is free--the cost (hosting, time, skill, etc) has to be absorbed by
someone.

Please continue to share this survey! For those of you who want to view the
results for yourselves, you can always see them at this address:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfRpTfkYzr_
AANdnbSWT7pm7VA7b7yqmcpcex_cuWI1iV5DbA/viewanalytics

On Fri, Aug 4, 2017 at 6:36 AM, Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

>
> Corey (corey.birnbaum [at] gmail.com) wrote:
>
> >Hello everyone! I've created a short survey that asks what you and your
> >community use to help organize your daily community lives, with a focus on
> >software/services. Everyone can see the results after they submit a
> >response!
> >
> >https://goo.gl/forms/24KHN1bgVa9DT1C82
>
> I regret that you did not include Mosaic from https://cohousing.site
> "websites for communities" which has features for the functions
> your survey covers.  I wonder what people's experience with Mosaic
> is.
>
> BTW one shortcoming it has, IMHO, is it's name which is to general as
> to be meaningful.  I think I'll call it "Coho-mosaic" for clarity.
>
> FRed
>
>
> --
> Bassett Creek Cohousing, Minneapolis  http://mn.cohousing.org/bcrk/
> Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
>      Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
> My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org
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