Creative Mashup! Design Democracy Teams Up with Design Community Twitter Hours (DCTH)

Two Fast-growing Communities Share Similar Goals and Vision

SOME OF US HAVE SOME GOOD MEMORIES OF SCHOOL. One of the most exciting times is the first few days of a new school year. You're a bit older. You might see how your friends have changed over a summer. You get a new teacher and so on. But sometimes, on occasion, you'll see new faces in your classroom. You might have thought to yourself, "Hm…that kid looks kinda cool." As the days pass, you interact with the new faces — in art, music, reading. But it's at the playground that you really cut loose and find out who the really cool kids are. Naturally, you gravitate towards the ones that have similar interests, hobbies, and personality. Then, as time goes by, you might find yourselves doing a lot of stuff together. As still more time passes and you've gone on your first "adventure" or your first bike ride together, you begin thinking of yourselves as best friends. No two friends could touch your friendship or even compare.
Well, that's sort of what's beginning to shape up for two of the Web's hottest design communities — Design Democracy and Design Twitter Community Hours (a.k.a. "DCTH").

The connection was first made on Twitter about 55 days ago, the new communication tool that's been heavily publicized (and used) by both mainstream and underground media. The founder of DCTH, Chad Engle, sent a request to make contact. Now Chad has made a name for himself on Twitter as a design community leader via DCTH. The group is around a year old and the official site launched earlier this year. Make no mistake, however, it is growing quickly.

What is DCTH?

DCTH is a set period of time where designers on Twitter come together for a group chat to discuss design topics — which "can include hosting, design, typography, web, encouraging critiquing and topics that will benefit more than one party". The group chat is conducted on TweetChat.com, their choice for honing in on other DCTH participants via the hashtag #DCTH. The format is very similar to a typical networking function — you come in, walk the room scanning, mingle here and there, then your attention is called to the "meat" of of the function which is a set of questions submitted by people in the community (either via email, @reply or direct message) to DCTH and shared with the entire community to weigh in. Afterwards, some folks hang around a bit more or head on over to another "joint" on the Web to continue chatting.

Though I'd popped in a few times before, I had my first real taste of DCTH last week when I actually showed up early and stayed for the entire duration. The experience was very engaging and rewarding as I was exposed to designers from all over. The benefits and value are obvious. There are a number of members on Design Democracy that are also DCTH members like Antonea Nabors (Twitter handle @antonea) and theCount (Twitter handle @countzeero), two very talented and interesting people you should definitely follow. Other members actively follow and chat with Design Democracy like Donald G. Wooten II (@hollagraphics).

So Why Connect?
Design Democracy and DCTH share an interest and vision for elevating design and growing communities centered on design. Whereas Design Democracy is a social network of people from various design and creative disciplines coming together to share and promote the value, ethics and inspiration of design, DCTH is focused on channeling direct engagement within the community. Instead of being mutually exclusive, the two actually overlap. It's the best of two worlds to create an even larger community using two very popular social media platforms — a Facebook-like network and an SMS-based Content Distribution Platform (CDP) as Twitter creator, Evan Williams prefers to call it.

What Do You Need to Do?
If you're not already a member of Design Democracy, get your free account now (while they're still free). Use it to invite and connect with friends and colleagues. Use it to post pieces from your portfolio. Write up an article on a relevant design issue that you want to share with the community. Get involved with a group (see sidebar right). It's your space.

If you haven't signed up for a Twitter account, I encourage you to do so. You can use your mobile phone to send and receive updates. Jump in and out of the Twitter stream at your convenience. You'll need an account to participate in DCTH group chats.

If you already have an account on Twitter, then be sure to follow:

Design Democracy
DCTH

The team behind DCTH:
Chad Engle
Robb Major
Mike Conaty
Mike Dawson
David Link
Rob McKay Rob MacKay (sorry about that, Rob)

Acknowledgments
I want to thank Chad Engle for reaching out to Design Democracy and bringing forth the idea to collaborate and share ideas. Looking forward to shaping the future of design communities with you and the awesome crew at DCTH!

Special thanks to Dave Mott of MonkeyWorks Illustration for the killer twitter icons and permission to use them. You rock!