I have a weekly assignment in my Intro to Interactive Media class that requires me to spend 4 hours on a pre-approved, self directed project. I actually began this blog after setting up server space for another project. But I digress. my idea for this coming week is to start a forum for students at the Art Institute of Portland. I enjoy forums and post frequently on a few and infrequently on a few more and think it’s a great way to exchange information among groups with similar interests. I know of an open source forum server app written in PHP that I think will work great for this.

I’m jazzed about the idea for two reasons: as a member of other forums I am interested in understanding more about how they work and I feel like the student population is lacking a good online place to call home. There are some people on Facebook, some on MySpace but I have yet to find one place where any group discussions take place (aside for some very stale Facebook groups). I’ll need to do some guerrilla marketing on this as getting people talking will be my biggest hurdle. I know that if it gets some exposure and gets some people talking that it will take off.

Keep an eye out for more on this subject.

Edit: After further thought on the subject I’ve renamed this post (originally titled AiPdx Forum), I still want to target students but affiliate it with my design site DrivenByObsession.com. That will also lesson any concerns about possible confusion over whether the site is affiliated with the school, as well as help develop my “brand”? I’ll set up a real simple index page at the main address and link through to the forum.