I have some thoughts on what we should call ourselves, but I'm not going to mention my opinion on that right now.

I do want to say that it's okay if we ask our membership what we should be called.

Riley

I'm in with most everyone else here so far. Twin Cities Maker is the group name, Hack Factory the space. If there's no recognition of Twin Cities Maker in the greater hackerspace world, that's our fault, and we need to make Twin Cities Maker more prominent:

• It's just "Twin Cities Maker." Not "Twin Cities Maker @ the Hack Factory."
• "Hack Factory" should come off of any identifying material -- brochures, cards, stickers, etc.

I understand the business entity name is "Hack Factory of Minnesota"; we should file a DBA for "Twin Cities Maker."

Already done, actually, Hack Factory of Minnesota, Inc. has an Assumed Name registration for Twin Cities Maker.

I don't have the same perception of our name recognition. I would say "Twin Cites Maker" and "TC Maker" are far, far, more recognized, or at least visible, in the online world. I have also in my real world communications with others identified myself with the Twin Cities Maker group, far, far, more times than identifying my group as "Hack Factory." Actually I think Michael did Google queries to test the online presence and found the same for that realm. If a vote is intended just to satify the perceptions of a few, or their preference, the membership ought to know the momentous consequences of making such a change and the ominous work responsibility ahead to make such a change. On a personal level, I have put in hundreds of hours of time for graphics work and documentation to establish the Twin Cities Maker brand and I'd feel very thwarted if that all went out the window.

I think the point of a vote is to satisfy the NOT few.

Current crude tally

4 Leave it as is.
1 Leave it as is but if pressed TC Maker.

No Change, No vote needed.

Right. I was speaking to the point of having a vote in the first place to satisfy a few opinions, as I have not heard this expressed by a large number of members as a big issue. I agree of course that the point of a vote is to satisfy the many. It's not unreasonable to undertake a full member vote based on a sincere request by even one member, if a genuine concern impacting everyone, but any general member vote should be done with good member understanding of the potential cost/benefit outcomes. As far as board involvement, I think it proper to allow the board to express an opinion on the whole idea of undertaking any general member vote, based on the board's charge to provide guidance.

I just wrote a very long post, and then removed it. Here's a short one.

We're going to ask all of our members what, if anything, they want to do regarding this.

Anyone have an issue with specifically that?

Riley

Nope, it sounds like a good idea.

I suggest ranked voting:

[ ] -- Hack Factory
[ ] -- Twin Cities Maker
[ ] -- Twin Cities Maker at the Hack Factory

If there's no majority, the item with the least number of 1st place votes gets eliminated, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_voting