Permaculture Information Web

[piw AT lists.ibiblio.org]

Hi PIW list,

my name is Andy Goldring and I am the cordinator of the Permaculture
Association, and involved in the development of our website -
www.permaculture.org.uk - spoke to Rich Morris the other day, who suggested
I join the list and give a bit of background to what we are doing...

our website is basically written using an access database and asp, but we
have plans to migrate to open source - probably mysql and php in the next
6-12 months

we are not yet very interactive, but this will be coming in next 2-4 months.

very keen indeed to see how the main pc websites can start to collaborate in
significant ways - have been inspired by www.takingitglobal.org - which as
far as I know shares a database with 6 or 7 other international youth
websites / organisations.

feel permaculture could do similar things and start to reduce duplicated
effort, provide more consistent and accurate info and assist groups with
less resources to still be able to provide a brilliant web service. Just
having up to date contact details for groups available would be a great
start.

Spoke to Rich today and he asked "what is a web hit worth", which is an
interesting point, taken further I think this becomes "what can we make it
worth?" Crucial to this is providing a way for people to move from web realm
of permaculture interest in to real world personal action, interaction and
involvement - so linking websites to real people and places seems essential.
It is interesting that having an interactive site is not in itself enough
for ensuring people interact - so finding ways to key in to existing
networks and get them participating is important, and hopefully I can help
to key in some of the UK permaculture network into the piw work - would be
keen to discuss your thoughts and suggestions in this area.

Anyway, I could go on for ages about all that, and would like to see how we
can use pc principles as part of the emergent design. i am aware that you
are concentrating for now on piw - which looks great and seems to work
well - and almost certainly don't want new people coming in saying "you
should do it like this, or like that" and that is not my intention

main intention for joining the group is because it would seem to me that you
are at the cutting edge of permaculture web development and I would like to
keep up to date with where your thinking is, offer perspectives and support
and ensure that we are collaborating, or at least making conscious decisions
to go different ways and try different approaches. ALso keen to ensure that
all the work we have put into our site is made best use of  - we have
hundreds of links, contacts etc and would be a shame to see all this effort
duplicated elsewhere, would much rather see collaboration and data sharing.

Enough for now

Best wishes

ANdy G

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Permaculture Association (Britain). Charity number 290897.
Postal address: BCM Permaculture Association, London, WC1N 3XX.
Tel / Fax: 0845 4581805 / 0113 2307461
Email: office AT permaculture.org.uk
Web: www.permaculture.org.uk includes information about courses, groups,
projects and much more