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This is one of the most common questions asked of me about CR4; asked only slightly less than "What does the name CR4 mean?" The latest request about this came in on Saturday. So, I'll take this opportunity to "officially" answer both questions as well as specific ones asked in the post. Keep in mind this goes back nearly four years so some of my reminiscences may seem rosier then they really were.
CR4 as a concept dates back to about October of 2004. GlobalSpec, Inc., the parent company of CR4 was receiving lots of questions from its users about technical questions related to engineering projects, theories, concepts, ideas….stuff like "how do I build a robot for Battlebots" and the like. In fact, many of the early challenge questions come from users searching for answers. While many of these questions were outside of the realm of our business mission, they were fun to answer and it felt great to help our users. Unfortunately, the more you answer such questions, the more that you receive – and there are only so many hours in the day to get your work done; and worse, sometimes even with all our experience, we just didn't know.
At this point, a number of us came to the conclusion that as a group, our GlobalSpec user body had infinitely greater experiences than our team. "So is there a way to tap into this knowledge base?" A few of us were involved with entertainment or hobby/affinity online communities and we thought, "Hey that just might work."
With a growing work load, time was of the essence, so we tested a number of software platforms looking for a good mix of forums, social networking tools and blogging in hopes of launching something quickly. We settled on open source software called Slash, which is a low powered version of the software that runs the site Slashdot and began testing it in-house in December of 2004.
By late March, we felt we had worked enough bugs out of the system for it to go live, but we still needed a name. Now, if any of you have tried to name something in late Web 2.0 world, you know that just about everything that means anything is taken/copyrighted. Don't believe me; check out this quiz: Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character.
Anyway, we spent a number of days trying to come up with a name to embody the site that we envisioned. Our original concept was a relaxed place where you could be part of the action or just watch the world go by. Sort of like a Starbucks, but less caffeinated. One night, after bouncing this around a bit and getting a bit punchy as it was getting late, we started thinking about other places that us "corporate types" hang out and chat. The lunchroom in front of the water cooler, the corner office…. This lead to such creative names as "The Engineering Water Cooler" and "Engineers Corner" (I think that's where Pooh and Eeyore went to build things).
Eventually, the conversation turned to meeting rooms from jobs that we'd worked previously. Quickly, we had the mythology of the room with the plush chairs, furthest away from the bosses office…you know the one…where there's always a box of donuts, where your buddies can always be found discussing obscure concepts like how to make a ship out of ice. So we settled on the "Conference Room" idea. But you can't just call it "Conference Room" its got to be something Conference Room or Conference Room something. Well, how about a number:
Conference Room 1 – "No, it sounds like we're trying too hard."
Conference Room 2 – "Why would we want to be two – one is better"
Conference Room 3 – "No that's worse than two."
Conference Room 4 – "Yeah, that works."
Unfortunately, Conference Room 4 (along with almost all the low number conference room ideas) was already trademarked. So we abbreviated it to CR4. Why? It's mysterious (as I said it's the #1 question asked of me) and it's vaguely technical and cool.
I'm getting very long winded here, so I'll continue tomorrow with the launch of the site and its growth over time.
Also, while I have your attention, if you are interested in online communities and how your company can use Web 2.0 techniques to improve your relations with your customers, I urge you to attend Community 2.0 2008. It's in May (12-15), it's in Las Vegas, and I'll be presenting my paper You Won't Be Myspace: How to Manage the Expectations of Your Executive Board While Creating the Most Practical Community for Your Company. More on that later in the week….
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Re: What is the History of CR4? Part 1
