Craig Jackson, Daniel Braun and Chris Rempel had a dream - they wanted to unite boardriders from across the globe and create a community where likeminded people could share ideas. From this dream grew The Ongoza Project, an online network of snowboarders, surfers and skaters born only months ago and already growing worldwide. We spoke to Craig Jackson to find out more.
Q. When and why did you start Ongoza?
A. The official launch for Ongoza Was May 1st, 2006. However, the idea was created long before, when I drove 4000 miles across Canada in early June of 2005 to meet up with Chris Rempel, someone I had only talked to on the phone a handful of times.
At that time Chris was the sole owner and operator of CRlongboards as well as the growing website the LongboardDirectory.com. My role in the beginning was to come to Kelowna and help Chris meet the rising demand for his soulful handcrafted longboard skateboards, by helping in the production process. However that quickly changed as we began to see the difficulties and constraints associated with manufacturing and selling longboards.
On a trip to the Pacific Coast, Vancouver Island, where we were to meet up with our third partner, Daniel Braun, for a couple days of surfing, Chris and I began to throw around ideas of creating an international community of longboarders, which soon led to a broader view of creating a global network of board-riders.
Over the next year, we were at a loss of how to go about creating and tackling such a huge project. We would come up with numerous strategies and ideas of how to gain momentum towards our goal only to be left at square one when things didn’t pan out. These however were important set backs and stepping stones in the creation of The Ongoza Project as they allowed us to mold our vision for the project into what it is today.
We are now in the launch stage of Ongoza and have pinned down exactly what we want to do with the project. Basically we want to create an online social networking site for the boarding industry. This refined idea came to mind after spending countless (guilty) hours on myspace.com searching out new/old friends, looking at peoples pictures and reading blogs. With the multitude of people, companies, musicians, and artists with myspace.com profiles it can be difficult to navigate through the 80 million pages and find the ones that you are interested in. This was especially true when it came to finding people who surfed, skated, snowboarded and so on. I wanted to see who was out there that shared the same passion for riding as I did.
As I began to look at the number of sites on the web that pertained to boarding it was overwhelming. There was no end in sight. I felt that there must be a better way of organizing the industry than just using Google to try and find what you are looking for.
Ongoza aims to create an area where boarding enthusiasts, companies, already existing online communities, artists, musicians and anyone else who associates in some way to the boarding culture can join, start a profile and help organize what’s going on in the global boarding scene. We don’t want to be competition for existing online communities and are more than happy when they sign up for a profile and plug their site as the best place to find info about a certain sport. We want to create a corner of the web that is just for the boarding culture. A place where users can log on and easily find the information that they’re looking for, as well as, be able to interact with the companies and organizations they support on a more personal level.
Q. How many members do you have currently?
A. We currently have 385 members. 20 of those are company profiles. It’s growing at about 5% per day organically, but we haven’t really rolled out our main marketing push yet…
Q. What are your future plans – how would you like to see Ongoza evolve?
A. Our future plans include launching Ongoza 1.0. This will be the ‘real’ Ongoza site and will replace our temporary script. The 1.0 version is being custom created by our fourth (silent) partner, Ben Clarke.
Ben has been a friend of mine for a couple of years and his ability to create a site capable of organizing an industry is real. He is a skilled programmer and has numerous projects under his belt.
The 1.0 site will be more organized, visually appealing and easier to navigate. Not to mention more space for media such as pictures, videos, images, and music. We will also have various layouts for profiles depending on what type they are: For example, individual, company, organization, not-for-profits, and so on will have unique profiles.
I would like to see Ongoza become the MySpace of the boarding culture: A place where people interact and meet new friends who share a similar passion. Also we hope to see a significant number of companies having profiles within the network. They can use the network as a means of keeping their customers and supporters up to date with current news, pics, blogs and so on. It’s another avenue for companies and company owners to interact with their customer base on a more personal level. The ease of updating a profile page compared to a website is beyond compare.
Q. Is Ongoza involved in any events/projects outside the main website?
A. Yes. One of the main drives behind the project is to draw upon the resources (people) of the site to accomplish great things in the boarding world.
With Ongoza we are striving to create a more informed and interactive boarding community and work closely with the charities, organizations and individuals whose primary goal is to make a difference in the lives of others who may not have the opportunities that most of us take for granted. (This could be something as simple as being lucky enough to own a snowboard.)
Recently, the Ongoza Project has teamed up SurfTech and Shayne and Shannon McIntyre from the Fuel TV show “On Surfari”. Shayne and Shannon recently departed on a trip to Central America where they will be visiting local care homes (The Gabriel House) for children with disabilities and various youth rehab centers to help encourage and inspire kids that have gone through difficult times. The plan is to get the kids in the water having fun, laughing and sharing in the experience of learning how to surf and the excitement of catching their first wave.
For this, SurfTech has graciously donated 10 surfboards for Shayne and Shannon to bring with them as they go to share and inspire locals while filming their next episode of “On Surfari”. The Trip began June 17 and is scheduled to air on FuelTV in late August. “We can’t wait to here about the trip and the kids reactions to the new surfboards; but for now our focus is to find the next project and ways in which we can help out”, said Daniel Braun, one of the 4 creators of the Ongoza Project.
Q. Do you feel that there has been a change in the industry over the last three years, and is that change positive?
A. There have been many changes over the past few years some positive and others negative.
One that I can think off is the recent shifting interest from short/street skating to some of the other not as well known disciplines of skateboarding. i.e. slalom, downhill, longboarding, sliding ect. These disciplines are starting to grow in popularity, I feel, due to the saturation of the street skating market. Skateboarding (like surfing and snowboarding) is big business and there is money to be made. The ‘Big Players’ in the industry have, for the most part, focused primarily on one aspect of skateboarding – street skating. This narrow approach is going to be a serious downfall for these large corporations in the coming years.
It seems like kids are getting tired of the ‘badass’ motif associated with street style skateboarding and want to experience something more through skating. So now we see kids getting back to the roots of the sport, taking up slalom on their dad’s old 1960’s sidewalk surfers, longboarders are everywhere I look right now with riders from all ages getting out and cruising. The old rippers are finding their love for the ride again and getting out and rocking the flats or even doing some downhill. Heck, I was in a heat at Danger Bay 5 (largest DH race in the world, held this year in Pender Harbour, BC) with Cliff Coleman, he’s 55, and the founder of sliding. There’s not too many 55 year olds out there doing feebles down a 12 set, it’s just too dangerous at that age. I feel like it’s too dangerous at my age and I’m 23. Not to take anything away from street skating, those guys are unreal and continue to blow my mind with the extent of their abilities, but for regular Joe’s like myself the soulfulness of carving on a longboard or the excitement of hitting speeds upwards of 80km/hr keeps me stoked. And I think other skaters are catching on as well. If you’re tired of trying flip tricks and other technical moves at your local park get out on a longboard and try carving down a nice smooth hill, I guarantee you’ll be stoked at the bottom and running back to the top for more.
That’s just one of the major shifts I see the industry taking in the next few years. I could go on and on about the commercialization of sports such as surfing and skateboarding. It’s great to see industry leaders dropping out of the competitive surf scene to reunite themselves with the joys of surfing for pure pleasure. That’s what board sports are all about. Not Money, Not Fame, but self-expression and growth.
Q. From a digital perspective, how open to blogs do you think the actions sports industry will be?
A. I feel that the core demographic of the boardsports industry (16-25) is becoming increasingly familiar with social networks such as Ongoza. They understand the idea of blogging, posting pictures and are comfortable making new contacts online. The difficult part will be getting the companies and already existing web communities on board. From a traditional marketing standpoint many companies are just looking for banner adds and link trades, but a profile within a targeted network can be so much more valuable.
Creating a relationship with potential costumers and interacting with them is much more significant than a rotating banner add or increased search engine rankings. That’s what Ongoza will offer companies: a means of getting out into the scene on a more personal level, instead of just pushing adds on people they will be able to establish relationships with potential customers and become a more “personal” business.
The core demographic is very familiar with computers, the Internet and blogging. They understand the idea of a profile page and social networks, which is a good thing for Ongoza.
As a result of this, a small part of our mission is actually to educate the companies in the boarding industry about how to market themselves more effectively using non-traditional forms of advertising and buzz creation.
To check out The Ongoza Project click
here.