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This is a guest post by Joe Anderson, co-founder of Chisel.
Do you remember the day you started or joined your first Ning community? When you took a brave step and said “I need to find my tribe.” If you could find people who believed in similar things, who wanted to change things for the better, and enjoy each other's company, there would be something there. So you worked tirelessly, recruiting, creating good content, and fostering a healthy community. Some days things didn’t go so well. Some days you might even question why you do it. Then there are little sparks of change that keep the fire lit.
You’ve seen the potential in how the messages you share can move people towards action, connection, and closer to their destinations. You’ve seen how one person can change how a person feels in that moment, minute, hour, or day. Our website, Chisel, will help you amplify that. Ever since we have been “digitized” our messages have started to lose their emotional touch. No more handwritten letters. No more crazy scrap book collections. Just quick text messages and photos. We set out to change that.
An image alone is worth a thousand words, but an image with words magnifies those words tenfold. It’s like a laser shot into a persons inner psyche and desire. A message you make using Chisel can inspire and connect to your audience on a deeper level. Each image you create has a shot to get them to relate and make their own meanings depending on where they are in life. Think back to why you are involved with communities in the first place. As we are inspired and work together, we can only create greater outcomes.
Chisel is a web tool where we provide beautiful photos to enhance your messages to share with your audience and friends. When we first started I had just taught myself how to code and design. It was rough. When you design or create it always feels like something is off. It’s a feeling that comes with being a maker. We thought, what if we could make the creation process simpler. What if we could simplify it so much that all a person had to do was write some text and literally turn that into a work of art? It took us months to give people the ability to turn plain text into an image.
Every day we work on the project and run into issues with the code or design, we’re reminded of how hard it is to make something like this happen even knowing how to code. That is what we are trying to change. You should be able to create in an easy way regardless of where you are from or how much you know about computers. As people continue to enjoy consuming content presented this way, we want Chisel to empower you to move others with what you make. You can use it to make inspirational quotes, or messages to share. How about creating a quote of the day box for your Ning group? That could be a great place to start and would give your members another awesome reason to check in with the community everyday. We look forward to seeing what you make with Chisel!
Joe moved to San Francisco to start Chisel with his co-founder Erik. Joe and Erik believe that rich media and expression on the web is still in its infancy. If you look at posters, television, and movies, you'll see techniques that have yet to come to the web. Once these forms of creativity and expression can be democratized in a simple way, they believe the world will become more connected and inspired. You can find Joe on Twitter and Chisel.
