Author Archive for robino

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Hospitality Club Dictatorship

Published by robino on 2 years, 6 months ago in Hospitality Club. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Seriously, since the beginning this is one of my most important dogmas for the HC: no official structure for decision taking. I will always discuss issues openly with the people involved and with knowledge to come to good decisions that are the best for the network. But the final decision will always be with me.

This excerpt is from an e-mail by Veit Kühne (dated, 19 Jan 2005) as an answer to a Hospitality Club volunteer discussion. It has now been published on Wikileaks. According to Wikileaks’ “Latest Leaks and Censored Media”, Hospitality Club founder Veit Kühne planned organizational dictatorship for life and the e-mail “describes his plans for the power structure of the club: a benevolent dictatorship for life”.

Three and a half years after writing this e-mail, Veit also publicly gave away his strategy for taking over BeWelcome, the democratic hospitality exchange network that was started as a result of Veit’s ignorance towards members and volunteers of Hospitality Club.

Read the full e-mail “HC democracy and strategy” at Wikileaks.

Death of Hospitality Club

Published by robino on 2 years, 11 months ago in Hospitality Club. 8 Comments Tags: .

You could pretty much figure out by Veit’s unguided flame against BeWelcome last year, that his income through adds on Hospitality Club was already dropping. But now it appears that there are hardly any volunteers left at HC: these days it takes more than 4 months to get your profile approved after you sign up to become a new member. Nice one if you plan to travel the next day and just found out about hospitality exchange.

Greetings new member. We have just accepted you as a new member of Veit’s Club. It took us more than 4 months to have you approved but finally you (if you still remember us?) can connect with Hostility Club, one of the most friendly clubs on the internet and in the real world. – Slighly adapted welcome message that new members receive.

It might be sad to see Hospitality Club, the first online hospitality exchange service that we shared but also the one that is well known for its censorship-issues, ceased to exist beyond a plane website. But such is life if the so-called leaders simply don’t respect their members and volunteers.

Couchsurfing The Movie

Published by robino on 3 years ago in Casey Fenton, Corpganization, cult and Transparency. 16 Comments Tags: .

What do you want to do with your life? What is your mission? This is what Casey and Heather ask you in the marketing video “Couchsurfing The Movie”.

We will choose three Missions and CouchSurfers to star as the subjects in our documentary “Couchsurfing: The Movie” (expenses paid! sic). This journey isn’t just about sightseeing, it’s about traveling with a purpose!

Maybe the idea seems good to the regular couchsurfer, but the status and funding of this project is completely unclear. The website is hosted by Entrip while the project is co-produced and created by Alexandra Liss, also the owner of the websites. In her CS-profile she explains it a little bit herself:

I met Casey Fenton, who recently commissioned me to create the feature length documentary “Couchsurfing: The Movie,”– loving life right now and all the possibilities that this journey will lead to…

In her profile she also mentiones that she is busy with raising sponsorships. It is unclear though what type of expenses and funding are related. Casey mentions in the video that flight-tickets are fully paid, but do people also get some pocket-money? And what if you go hitchhiking? It is also pretty insane to see Couchsurfing Inc. promoting unsustainable forms of traveling such as flying – by the way. And how much community money is actually going into this project?

Let’s see when this project is to start though. First deadline was set for December 15th but now it is January the 15th, according to csthemovie.com. Still, the site is not ready yet and you cannot signin, upload or for example “Rate Missions and Vote”. (See also the beta-site which is a bit further developed).

The video is great though. It makes you laugh, guaranteed.

Yet again a decadent collective?

Published by robino on 3 years, 1 month ago in Collective. 1 Comment Tags: , .

If you want to know where the next CS collective will take place, just follow one of the CS bunnies. For two months now Pinkfish, has been traveling (with her expenses paid?) in a tropical wonderland, scouting a place for yet the next ‘collective’…

I’m traveling around in Costa Rica at the moment, in search of the perfect location/house for our next CS collective.

It makes you wonder, as you might think that after the CS leadership team settled down in San Francisco, they would be focusing on getting things done. But… on the contrary, they yet move again.

Changing the world, one decadent collective at a time.

A Non-Profit Award for Couchsurfing?

Published by robino on 3 years, 1 month ago in 501c3, Casey Fenton, Corpganization and volunteer coordination. 0 Comments Tags: .

Somehow, I always think it is funny when CS defines itself, knowing that whatever it says about being so wonderful and inclusive, doesn’t count for the organisation itself.

By the very definition of our mission, we have a commutation solution that is 100% inclusive. We invite everyone everywhere into the community: old, young, conservative, liberal, east, west, black, white, gregarious, introverted, rich or poor. The beauty of addressing a communications challenge of this nature—bridging cultural differences and building understanding between people around the world—is that the more diverse our membership base is, the more fully we will achieve our communications goals.

This excerpt is from the submission of Couchsurfing Inc. for the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), where Couchsurfing won the Award “for Excellence in New Communications” for Nonprofits November last year.

We operate on a shoestring budget. This has required us to become experts in distributing our workload to a large, often remote, volunteer work force. We currently only have four paid staff members. We have two approaches to make this happen: sophisticated online volunteering tools that allow hundreds of members to easily perform needed tasks such as individually greeting every new member, and responding to every member inquiry

If you feel like ranting protesting, comments go here.

Uncoordinated Couchsurfing

Published by robino on 3 years, 1 month ago in Casey Fenton, couchsurfing, employees and volunteer coordination. 8 Comments Tags: .

We are just fresh in 2009 and CS finally launched its new feature: ‘News Channels’, one overview for all organizational communication towards all CS-member. It not only features the latest news from the organization and tech-news, it even hosts the earlier announced member-stories about hospitality experiences and also the news-letters that are supposed to arrive in your inbox soon again.

But what a completely uncoordinated launch this is. We’ve been anticipating this new features since a long while, and now that it is finally ready, you just have the feeling something is still not going right at the CS Basecamp. The only launch-news shown, dates back to news which is 4 months old, August and September 2008, and the thread on the communications channel that catches my eye the most is still the infamous ‘do we have a team?‘.

It could be just a simple lack of coordination but the impression you get from this launch is that volunteers are still not supported in the work they do. Imagine: you work hard on implementing a new system – or enthousiastic about writing news for the CS-members – but somehow you just don’t get the feeling you are receiving support from some key people to get this launched professionally. At the same time, while older volunteers are tired from their effort, there is a lack of empowerment of new volunteers, no news has been written, or the editors didn’t have access to the tools. Really, sometimes you just feel pity for the people that still work for Casey Couchsurfing Inc.

Anyway, let’s see how quickly this new feature will be used and how it will run. I just hope that somehow, the first news item will be a BIG apology from Casey himself about the 14,000 e-mails that got deleted corrupted while upgrading the messaging system last month, and an honest explanation why this took 3 days instead of an hour. Followed the next day by news about the 501c3 status, news about BaseCamp on the third day, new hires on the fourth, expenses and income of the past quarters on the fifth, and support for the OCS-campaigns on the sixth. Now that would be communication.

And the winner is…

Published by robino on 3 years, 1 month ago in ambassadors, couchsurfing and Uncategorized. 0 Comments

To many people’s surprise – especially supporters of the OpenCS campaign  – CS appeared on the list of nominees for the Open Web Awards. CS was nominated mostly because of the efforts of Ambassadors. In the end -after a voting round of 4 weeks – CS didn’t win at all though. Out of the three finalists CS ended up… last.

For those who feel disappointed now, don’t worry… there might be another chance coming up soon for a another award. Some people even want to get CS nominated for the Nobel Price of Peace….

The Couchsurfing culture of party-hosting

Published by robino on 3 years, 3 months ago in couchsurfing. 67 Comments Tags: , .

With CS getting more mainstream day by day, the culture of hosting might also be changing. Christopher Culver raises this interesting issue on the hitchhiking forum on Couchsurfing. “Does anyone else get the impression that the CS hosting community is becoming less friendly to hitchhikers? I was shocked when two of the hosts I stayed with this summer expressed their disappoval of hitchhiking, considering it ‘freeloading’.”

Chris also puts forward the question: “what experiences have you had as the Couchsurfing hosting community is shifting from a bunch of freespirited wanderers to everyday people with strict schedules and expectations?” And subsequently he concludes: “It feels like we are being forced out of our own community.”

This might be a very valid point. Couchsurfing, Bewelcome or Hospitality Club for that matter, are these still the networks of travelers supporting fellow-travelers? There are still lots of great hosts and travelers around, but somehow – due to the popularity of the network – it is also becoming more and more a network of people that are just looking for entertainment, other people to ‘party’ and get drunk with. Further to that, it does not necessarily has to be a coincidence either that the news-wire of CS has been full with party-events in the past couple of months.

But then again – on the others hand – CS still provides you a pool of lots of different people, which means you just have to be selective in picking the right host. Or like Sanne says in the same forum, “I guess my conclusion is: it’s not bad that ‘normal’ people are hosting, it’s just different. I think it’s a good thing that couchsurfing is turning into a thing for everyone. And yes, that means that you do have to put some more effort in selecting the right host for you.”

A Couchsurfing Career Life With Benefits that Money Can’t Buy

Published by robino on 3 years, 3 months ago in Collective, Corpganization, couchsurfing, employees, Matthew Brauer and volunteer coordination. 4 Comments Tags: , .

Have you always wanted to be a “Ambassador Management Coordinator” or “Safety Systems Coordinator” for CouchSurfing? Now you can! CS published their “career openings“, or “couchsurfing careers“. Since these openings are not even linked from anywhere on the CS-website yet, you might stand a fairly good chance (it got posted!) to get one of the 14 full-time jobs, and become part of their family.

You may wonder why so many talented people volunteer for CS when they could have high paying jobs in the corporate world. The reason is that CS provides benefits they can’t find anywhere else. We live and breath CouchSurfing, and we are all a family.

Although you have to pay your first travel to the “Couchsurfing Base Camp” yourself, CS provides all full-time volunteers and employees “with free housing and meals”. In addition, each full-time staff member “has the opportunity to live abroad for several months of each year at one of our amazing Collective locations while maintaining a home and life in the San Francisco Bay Area”.

If you are the lucky enough to get one of the 14 listed full-time jobs, you will first have to go trough a three month trial period, after which you will be rewarded with “travel tickets, travel expense reimbursements and eventually paid salaries”. However, you will have to consent to your bos(ses) (“supervisors”) and keep yourself to the following social rules, meaning that you shall

- maintain positive references from other surfers or hosts.
- treat your team supervisors and other volunteers with respect.
- follow standards and procedures established by teams you work with.
- follow priorities and objectives established by the team supervisors.
- communicate in a calm and compassionate tone (‘thou shalt not flame’).

So what are you waiting for, go and apply for your role! Current (as per 1st of November) “openings” include:

Administrative Assistant; Ambassador Management Coordinator; Database Administrator; Developer, Events Coordinator; Human Resources & Personnel Coordinator; Marketing Coordinator; Member Communications Coordinator & Writer; Safety Systems Coordinator; System Administrator; Gardener / Landscaper; IT Assistant; Trainer, Educator, Coach, or Expert.

Note that there are currently 14 full-time positions available, while there are only 15 people supposed to stay and live in the Couchsurfing Base Camp. At the moment though, according to Matthew, there are already 15 people living there…

Couchsurfing Base Camp

Published by robino on 3 years, 4 months ago in Censorship, Collective, couchsurfing, Leadership Circle and Matthew Brauer. 5 Comments Tags: , .

“I live at the CouchSurfing Base Camp with 14 other people in the heart of downtown Berkeley. It’s close to lot’s of great food, shopping, entertainment, and student life. I’m still just learning about Berkeley myself. Base Camp is busy day and night as the home and office for much of CS’s full-time staff. It’s fun to see how CouchSurfing is run, but not a good place to hang out during the day”, says Matthew Brauer on his CS profile.

The base-camp was already announced in the latest post of the CS Alaska Collective. “Currently, our very talented scout, Pinkfish, who found our dream location in Pai, Thailand, as well as this amazing house in Homer, Alaska, is searching for a living and office space to house fifteen full-time volunteers and staff for the next 12 months in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.”

What a surprise to read though that the Base Camp is already there, while it was clearly communicated on August the 20th that “before we move in, we’ll post the available volunteer roles at Base Camp and at the next Collective that will most likely begin in November. Maybe one of these roles has your name on it!”

- No.