Permaculture Information Web

[Martin Naylor <martinwnaylor AT yahoo.com.au>]

hi

have you considered corosponding with www.biomimicry.net, they love investigating and copying nature.

martin 

piw AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Thanks for the message, Andy.

Yes, I completely agree with you. As everyone on this team well knows, I
seek to mimic the ecological relationships our database will portray in
_all_ aspects of PIW - the way information is organized, stored, and
retrieved in the database (how does nature organize, store, and retrieve
information?); the manner in which information is presented (using a web-
like visual interface, such as a Graph Based Interface); and, as you
mentioned, the relationship between PIW and existing resources/
oganizations (parallel to that between organisms in an ecosystem); among
other metaphors I could draw...

Essentially, I'd like the message to match the medium.

So, Bear and I attended a PlaNetwork gathering on Thursday. (For those
that don't know, we received a grant from the Threshold Foundation in
July of 2004. Our reviewer from the Foundation was Jim Fournier, the
founder of PlaNetwork, and it was definitely thanks to his understanding
of our intentions that we received the grant.) PlaNetwork hosts monthly
networking gatherings in San Francisco, the East Bay, Seattle, and now
New York for people/organizations doing some form of networking for
social/environmental justice to network (networking for networkers, yes).

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...

After the presentation, many people approached us to congratulate the
project. Bear talked tech (kind of like Czech, but tech) with a bunch of
folks, and there was a mutual understanding of the need for a web-making
authoring tool.

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
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).

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.

Finally (just one more thing, sorry I usually don't write such long
messages - right guys? But it is refreshing to get into the heart of our
project versus discussing logistics), I wanted to reiterate a point Andy
made about us being on the 'cutting edge.' I think this is fantastic.
Bear and I were talking with someone (was it Jim?) about how most plant-
Loving folk tend to be technophobes, and what a pity that is, considering
the unbelievable parallels between plant relationships and what the
internet has become for us ('twas a more complicated conversation, but
for purposes of brevity). So I just wanted to congratulate us for being
at the intersection of plant-Loving and tech-literate. Like any
intersection in nature, there's fertility here.

Alright, finito. C'est tout. C'est la vie. Oui.

peace
*Stephanie


------ Original Message ------
Received: 02:04 AM PST, 01/20/2005
From: piw AT lists.ibiblio.org
To:
Subject: [piw] hello from ANdy Goldring at the Permaculture Association
(Britain)

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

_______________________________________________
piw mailing list
piw AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/piw




+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson AT stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


____________________________________________________________________


_______________________________________________
piw mailing list
piw AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/piw

---

Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.