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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] electronic and membership discussion

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  • From: Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] electronic and membership discussion
  • Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2008 05:59:04 -0500

Amen, brother.

I think we have to remember that the people who provide the core value of NAFEX are the people who have some land (in many cases in the boondocks where it is cheap), actually do stuff with plants and spend their spare time doing *that* kind of thing, have collections of uncommon cultivars, have been around for a long time, have learned a lot of stuff but probably have not invested a lot of effort in information technology.

They probably make or made (if retired which is often the case by the time they develop of lot of knowledge useful to NAFEX) their livings sin ways that do not provide a really high income.

IT is about manipulating information and getting the most leverage from it, but it does not create the information that is the core value. Paper and electronics can record some information, but the crucial information is in living plants and the "tacit knowledge" of the people who are close to the plants.

People like me who are not in this "core-value" group are kibitzers, parasites. users of the value created by the core-value people. The users, mostly people who grow and eat fruit and appreciate quality, are essential to the organization, but they do not create the core value.

The organization is needed to connect the people who create the core value and to make it easy for them to do their work as well as to share their knowledge and material and apply it - the audience is important to the art as well as the performers. The creators of our core value are always going to be, by and large, conservative and backward regarding information technology. They are plant people not IT specialists - or writers. Now, able plantspeople are always interested in good tools, and information technology is certainly a tool - but it is never going to be their primary interest and it is usually going to get a minimal amount of their time.

The inplication is the the information technology we use has to be convenient for people who create our core value and don't have a lot of time to spare transmitting information or learning specialized techniques to do it. There are and will continue to be exceptions, but I think we have to build our organization with the above points in mind.

Doug Woodard
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada


mangodance wrote:
tanis cuff wrote:

Please keep it simple! Whatever works on older & slower computers.
I have yet to meet a gardener or orchardist who wants THE lastest
computer & associated graphics. And who can afford it? I use
friends' & libraries' mostly older computers. Too many new websites,
and "improvements" of older websites, don't work well or won't
download at all on them.

This is paramount. Web stats and surveys show that while many folks have broadband, the majority do not. Add to that that most rural areas are on dialup or have shared slow service and it is clear than bandwidth hog websites might be pretty, but they quickly cut off most of their intended market. We'll be going for easily maneuvered content primarily. We'll make other stuff available for folks who have broadband and those who don't mind waiting, bu there will definately be no splash pages, few java applications, no animations, etc. Additionally, it should work a simply as possible due to software issues as well. While many of us do have newer software packages (me included), many of us do not like the resource hogs newer software versions have become (me included) and for no real good reason. I'm not a person who favors bells and whistles when they don't make sense and detract from site usability.
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