Let’s bring Soundcloud to the streets!

Hello Soundcloud! Along with my letter and my resume, which you have already received. I have written this blogpost about my ambitions as a member of Soundcloud community team in San Francisco. Welcome to my portfolio! Apart from this post, everything here is written in Dutch. But even in Dutch I think you can get a pretty good impression of who I am and what I do.

Hi, my name is…
My name is Iman Pieter Duin, I live in Amsterdam and I want to be part the Soundcloud community team in San Francisco. By the way, in the Soundcloud community my name is Imster. I’ve been using Soundcloud since the beginning of 2008 for sharing my DJ sets. I also have an account called DuinMedia which I use for sharing radio interviews and non-music sounds.

A cool and friendly community
The goal of the community team is that the community members experience Soundcloud as a cool and friendly community instead of ‘just using a handy online application’. It’s important that every member of the Soundcloud community feels that they are not only part of the community, but also the co-creators of Soundcloud. Without the users there is no soundcloud. So let’s get personal!

But how?
The following examples give an idea of how I want to contribute. Some of these ideas are new and some are already effectively used by Soundcloud.  Some are much easier to realize than others, but I just want to give you an impression of my way of thinking.

1) Online representation: Engagement, engagement, engagement.
2) Offline representation: Let’s bring Soundcloud to the streets!
3) Online and offline collaberation / Give soundcloud and its users a ‘real’ voice

1) Online representation: Engagement, engagement, engagement
The online representation of soundcloud is very good. As a user you can sense that the community team is really engaged with soundcloud and that makes it fun to be part of this community. As part of the community team I want to contribute to that with great enthusiasm and energy.

• Soundclouder of the day

I get to know new good music because of this, so I will enthusiasticly help and search for cool new audio that people are uploading.

• Fast, friendly and effective

I will support soundclouders with questions as fast as possible (within 24 hours) and make sure that their problem is actually solved.

• Keep an eye on the buzz about soundcloud

I’ll monitor what people online say about Soundcloud, for example on their blogs, on Twitter or on Facebook. When I read something that is useful to Soundcloud, I will leave a comment to that post: ‘Thanks for your post, this was helpful for us because… etc” I’ll be pro-active!

• Point out all the soundcloud possibilities

Using various social networks I will contribute in pointing out all the possibilities that Soundcloud has to offer to the community members. Obviously it’s not only about sharing music. I would think about giving extra attention to: interesting interviews, hilarious radio plays or the astonishing sounds of nature. But also how you can use soundcloud for promoting your ideas, your event or your birthday.

2) Offline representation: Let’s bring Soundcloud to the streets!
Secondly the offline representation is important, so let’s bring Soundcloud to the streets!

• Some inspiring sound involved projects in Amsterdam

Here are two very inspiring sound involved projects on the streets of Amsterdam. 

This wonderful girl, named Daria van der Bercken, played pieces of Handel on the streets of Amsterdam to promote herself.

Look at this guy! He’s is listening to previous recorded stories of people from the neighberhood.

Listening to previous recorded stories

Maybe soundcloud can take the initiative to organize similar things in San Francisco. Imagine these kind of projects with the orange cloud of soundcloud clearly in the picture. I would love to contribute.

• Soundcloud Events
  

Soundcloud meetups are cool, but it’s the community members who should realize them. I think it would be even better if soundcloud organizes these events. Let’s call it a ‘Soundcloud Party.’ I will search for possibilities to organize soundcloud events on which talented soundcloud users, musicians or DJ’s can get a chance to play their music for an audience. An audience consists of people who ideally are also Soundcloud users, but not necessary. Maybe some people start using Soundcloud after visiting such an event.

• Soundcloud is represented @

I will try to make sure that Soundcloud is represented at sound related events. Maybe even as a sponsor. I would think of:
- Music festivals
- Sound involved art festivals
- Museums
- News Networks

• Contact potential soundcloud users

The great advantage of sound over video is that the listener can do something else, open new tabs in his browser, while listening to the music or the message that a band or organization wants to share with their public. Therefore I want to contact different companies and organizations that potentially can become part of the community, but are not yet at the moment. Show them what soundcloud has to offer for them. I would think of contacting:
- News networks, for example, why doesn’t have CNN a soundcloud account yet?
- Government bodies
- Political Parties
- Event organizers
- Museums

• Why would these organizations want to have a Soundcloud account?

Museums for example often give their visitors the opportunity to listen to an audiotour while walking through the museum. It might be cool for the visitors if they are able to re-listen to these audiotours when they arrive at home. Or even better, listen to audio that is especially designed to promote the museum. You can also think of city governments, who want to promote their city.

Here is are a few examples of how city governments and museums can use soundcloud, by making (downloadable) city tours or audio information.

• Let’s make the orange cloud more visible

I want to find people who make similar things in and around San Francisco and ask them to join the soundcloud community and if they are already using soundcloud I want to use their example for other organizations who aren’t using soundcloud yet. The goal is that every major organization in California has not only a Facebook, Twitter and Youtube logo on their website but also the orange cloud of soundcloud.

3) Online and offline collaberation / Give soundcloud and its users a ‘real’ voice
What I think is a really cool idea is to interview soundcloud users about their uploads. We just give them a phone call.. Why did they make this piece of sound or this piece of music? How do they get inspired? What do they think of soundcloud? We record that conversion and we upload it, so that other community members can listen to this interview and contribute by leaving comments and telling us what their opinion is. We get really personal if we also contact Soundcloud users offline. It’s not only personal for the people that we actually contact, but also for everybody who listens to this interview, because they can easily identify with the Soundclouder who gets interviewed. This way Soundcloud and the Soundclouders get a real voice. If they live nearby we can also interview them at their homes and we make a video of that. I used to do these kind of things during my internship at Ondergrond.TV (Underground TV), the blog of the Dutch Newspaper, het Parool.

But… am I willing to move to San Francisco?

Last but not least
I want to ask everybody who reads this to contribute to this application. The milion dollar question is: What do you think is important for an online community team? Please share your ideas, many thanks for your comments!