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  • From: Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] NAPC: Scarcity?
  • Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 00:45:34 -0700

I guess I could have said all that much more concisely (concise is not my
middle name):

It's not good design to create a system in which "the disposable income in
the pocketbooks of our fellow permies," that is, a resource that we know is
very limited, is the primary resource for the system.

The other resource NAPC was designed to use was the spare time of crazy-busy
permies.

Other, vastly more abundant resources exist. How can we design an event that
is powered by those?

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


On Aug 9, 2014, at 12:28 AM, Toby Hemenway <toby@patternliteracy.com> wrote:

>
> On Aug 8, 2014, at 8:40 AM, loren luyendyk <loren@sborganics.com> wrote:
>
>> Every system has a limit, and to bring it back to the design of the NAPC
>> pricing schedule, this limit (price of tix) is defined by what the market
>> will bear- meaning "what will people pay to join a convergence"? We could
>> price it at $10K per ticket, but nobody would show. The market will not
>> bear it. The price of a ticket is only worth what people will pay. This
>> is a limit set by this system, which could change over time but as it is
>> now it may represent the reality of the capacity of the system- ie the
>> disposable income in the pocketbooks of our fellow permies.
>
> Okay, a lesson in systems thinking here.
>
> I've been trying, over and over, to point out a teaching moment on design,
> to get people to stop focusing on "what is the right price for the
> tickets?" but we keep going there.
>
> It's obvious that the ticket price could set a limit to many resources:
> income, number of attendees, quality of venue, all kinds of things. It's a
> potential choke point. So it is essential to design so that it is not. That
> should stand out instantly to any designer.
>
> Unfortunately, because numbers seem important, and we've all got issues
> around money, we're led to think that the ticket price is the place to
> focus.
>
> But we should quickly see that changing the ticket price will not reduce
> the number of problems. Make it lower and it causes problems, like cash
> flow, burnout, crappy venue, and too few workers; make it higher and it
> causes other problems: too expensive for many, only the rich attend, angry
> constituents, right? And we don't know for sure what price will have
> exactly what effect.
>
> Thus, a single-price ticket isn't a good solution. There is no optimum,
> only tradeoffs. Focusing on price actually creates the choke point, it
> makes a problem where none need be.
>
> The ticket price is what systems thinker Donella Meadows calls "tinkering
> with the numbers," like twiddling the faucets on a touchy shower when the
> problem is at the level of the pipe diameter, the water heater, or the
> length of pipe run. In her article "12 places to intervene in a system,"
> (required reading!!!!) she places tinkering with the numbers as #12, the
> weakest strategy. Change the rules, change the strength of the feedback
> loops, change the information flows, change the system structure, change
> the paradigm; change anything else, but stop focusing on the ticket price
> as the place where there is a solution. It's not.
>
> That's why I've suggested (and it sounds like some of this was considered
> but there wasn't time or staff to agree or do it) multiple tiers of ticket
> prices, finding donors a la Pc Voices, crowdsource, sell merchandise to
> raise money, and 20 other possible ways to do what we know we need to do:
> make the ticket price a non-issue. One way is to create other resource
> flows. We must design so that ticket price, the obvious deal killer, does
> not limit multiple key resource flows. Design an event to take advantage of
> abundant resources, not so it is dictated by constrictions like how much
> money the average permie has.
>
> The level to be thinking on is "how do we find the resources to run a great
> event?" not "how low a price can we charge?" There is enough money and
> labor in North America to provide for an event like this, right? We can
> make ticket price the choke point, but that proves that the biggest limit
> is our imaginations.
> Design it so that ticket price is not very important; a minor part of a
> multi-level solution.
>
> This is a design issue, not a ticket-price issue. We created a limit where
> one did not need to be. This specific issue offers us a general lesson in
> design that I think not everyone is getting. Substitute for "ticket price"
> any numerical parameter for a flow-limiting point in a system: annual
> rainfall, cation exchange, watt-hours, and it's probably easier to see.
> Don't let annual rainfall be the limit to yield. Make it so that a small
> amount is plenty. Design not to create choke points that starve multiple,
> critical functions. Money brings such a charge with it that we miss
> designing for it the way we would for rainfall or nutrients.
>
> I don't know how to say this--that the ticket price, in a good design,
> barely matters--any more clearly. I've seen it done. If someone else
> (Jason?) can say this in a way that more people grasp it, I'd be grateful.
>
> Toby
>
>





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