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piw - Re: [pcplantdb] Re: [piw] hello from ANdy Goldring at the Permaculture Association (Britain)

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Subject: Permaculture Information Web

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl AT intrex.net>
  • To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb AT lists.ibiblio.org>, piw AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] Re: [piw] hello from ANdy Goldring at the Permaculture Association (Britain)
  • Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 00:27:06 -0800

Stephanie Gerson wrote:

Bear and I presented PIW to the small audience, and received wonderful feedback. While describing the project, I 'zoomed out' and noted that although what we are constructing is specific to ecological relationships (at this point), we will hopefully provide a useful model/tool for web-
making of any kind - whether it be social webs, financial webs, or otherwise. This definitely struck a cord with these networkers, as they immediately noted its potential usefulness for their purposes. One member of the audience humorously noted that each plant in the web could just as easily be replaced with a non-profit...

Or for for-profit enterprises, i.e. small farms within a local food
production network;
or small diversified farms within a local and regional marketing network
supplying
basic homeowner products: food, crafts, tools, furniture, pottery, textiles,
etc etc.

Which has been my secret wish from the very beginning. (Or not so secret? Can't remember now if I stuck that in the vision statement...) Anyways. It's happening. The paradigm shift from reductionism to holism. The turning point. Apocalypse. Whatever you want to call it. And we need tools with which to understand and design systems. Web-
making tools.

Prior to the meeting, I'd mentioned to Bear how hard it is for me to write letters of inquiry. They expect me to write our intention in only one page? How can I possibly explain Permaculture, the importance of ecological relationships, let alone talk about how we fit into this

paradigm shift...all in one page! But after Thursday, Bear mentioned the possibility of making this web-making-authoring-tool intention explicit in our grant proposals. Maybe? Don't want to throw us off track - of

Do it.

Plan ahead for the long term future of PIW. More fun this way.

course we must focus on our particular subject matter for now, and it is one of fundamental importance.

However, what we are creating will inevitably be applicable to other subject matters! And, as Bear said, perhaps we shouldn't hardcode the subject matter into this - instead, make it modular, adaptable to creating/visualizing other kinds of webs, such as webs of non-profits (as the fellow in the audience suggested).

Can't sacrifice adaptability for robustness, not that this would happen, but
to just
avoid that pitfall when envisioning PIW as a multi[purpose tool,
web-creating authoring tool for cyberspace.

This may seem somewhat tangential to Andy's message. But not at all. We must insert PIW into the existing landscape of informational resources the same way you would insert a plant into an emerging guild. And looking at the larger existing landscape - that of initiatives to create webs of something, anything - we could insert PIW into this larger landscape quite fruitfully. Plus, this would be a nice meta-level goal to include in grant proposals, and would help tie everything together in those painfully short letters of inquiry.

Good idea.
--
L.F.London
lfl AT intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech




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