We Have Moved

The new site is here.

Mobile Kitchen Pictures

Fifth Business

Fifth, Five, Pentagon

We’re Back

And the animals are helping. We have put a deposit on a 22′ Trailer with a Mobile Kitchen. We are looking for a double deep fryer – propane powered.

Us Now Film

Found from the P2P Foundation Blog:

And from the Us Now Film website:

Paul Miller from the School of Everything states in his interview that citizens are going to start “going around the side (of) government” to achieve the outcomes that they care about.  In this vien, his project “School of Everything” sets out to facilitate an education system from outside government.  The project won the New Statesman’s  ”Inform and Educate” prize.

Couple of Posts on Social Media / Community Managers

via Read Write Web:

A community manager is someone who communicates with a company’s users/customers, development team and executives and other stake holders in order to clarify and amplify the work of all parties. They probably provide customer service, highlight best use-cases of a product, make first contact in some potential business partnerships and increase the public visibility of the company they work for.

and from the comments on the above post something from onlinemarketerblog.com.

Even more illuminating is this excerpt from a TreeHugger article:

Yet, there is a bigger story. The law has been rendered out of date because the Internet facilitates new modes of production and organization that enable thousands of people to connect, share and work together in ways that were previously limited to larger, well-organized and well-funded companies. As scholars such as Yochai Benkler and Clay Shirky have persuasively argued, these modes of production provide great promise.

Ride sharing is an obvious example. Before the widespread use of the Internet, small scale ride sharing organization was possible, whether through ride boards in schools or announcements at community events. Those methods hardly posed a threat to established bus services, however. Once thousands began to connect online at virtually no cost, a parallel, community-created ride-sharing service emerged that now challenges established firms for market share.

Many businesses that have relied upon their ability to aggregate and organize as a competitive advantage now find themselves facing similar challenges. Whether it is the remarkable success of Wikipedia as a peer-created online knowledge sharing site, the emergence of Craigslist as a dominant, free classified advertising marketplace, the viability of user-generated content to attract massive audiences, or the use of social networking sites such as Facebook for advocacy purposes, the network economy offers as an “industrial scale” organizing tool at a fraction of the conventional cost.

BC Ferries.

I had an interesting conversation here today with a friend of mine.  He is great at brainstorming ideas to make money but doesnt follow thru with them. (Fifth you should talk to him more) He mentioned about promoting Horseback adventures for folks who would like to ride their horse from say the Lower Mainland up the Sunshine Coast and even as far as Texada.  I thought this would make a great opportunity to promote “enviro friendly” holidays. As the customer would be riding their own horses there would be no cost to us for insurance or anything, but we could plan their trip and take care of the little hassles for them.  For a small fee of course  lol. So thinking along these lines, I got on the phone to BC Ferries and was informed that no one can take a horse on board unless it is in a trailer.  I replied that I have seen many people take pets aboard and there doesnt seem to be a problem with that.  I said I would even be willing to pay the motorcycle fare for the horse as it is my mode of transportation.  They are looking into that for me.  I will re-post when I hear back from them.  Let me know what you think.

Google tightening its belt.

Wow this financial crisis has hit everyone  it seems. Although with revenue up to $5.54 billion dollars and Net profits at $1.35 billion dollars, I really dont think they are hurting that bad.

WASHINGTON — Internet search king Google Inc. plans to tighten its belt amid slowing revenue growth, cutting back on spending and new projects, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

 

“We have to behave as though we don’t know” what’s going to happen, the newspaper quoted Google chief executive Eric Schmidt as saying.

 

The Mountain View, California, Internet giant will curtail the “dark matter,” Schmidt said of projects that “haven’t really caught on” and “aren’t really that exciting.”

 

Schmidt told the Journal that Google is “not going to give” an engineer 20 people to work with on certain experimental projects anymore. “When the cycle comes back,” he said, “we will be able to fund his brilliant vision.”

 

The newspaper report came as Trip Chowdhry, an analyst for Global Equities Research, said he expects Google to post revenue of $15.71 billion US this year, $15.23 billion US next year and $14.57 billion US in 2010.

 

“Our research indicates that the challenging macro-economic conditions continue to worsen Google’s advertising driven consumer Internet business,” Chowdhry said.

 

Google’s share price has fallen more than 50 per cent over the past year, finishing at $275.11 US in New York on Tuesday.

 

The Journal said online advertisements connected to Internet searches still accounted for 97 per cent of Google’s revenue but products such as Google Checkout, a Web payment service, and Google TV Ads, which sells television advertising time, haven’t generated significant revenue.

 

Last month, Google announced it was ending its virtual world experiment, Lively, at the end of December as part of a bid to “prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business.”

 

It also cancelled experimental search results website SearchMash.

 

Earlier this year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin announced plans to “significantly” reduce its workforce of some 10,000 contract workers.

 

Google has also been looking for new revenue opportunities.

 

Last month it began running ads on financial news website Google Finance and the Journal said it plans to soon run ads on news aggregator site Google News.

 

The Journal said “top priorities” for investment include display ads, advertising on mobile phones and online business software.

 

Google is known for its benefits, such as a free cafeteria and other perks, but the Journal said those may be cut back as part of the belt-tightening.

 

Google’s third-quarter profits beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts. Net profits rose 26 per cent to 1.35 billion dollars while revenue, at $5.54 billion US, was up 31 per cent from the same period of 2007.

In response to cry baby,

I didn’t think of this sooner  but I guess I should explain the name change from Nagivator to Loosey.

It all started after the trip for Fifths School Reunion trip.  After a long and really hard weekend  (hahahahaha) we finally made it back to Texada. Of course we could not make it home without stopping for a celebratory drink at the local pub. While we were there we ran into Mike the Mechanic, he said that I remind him of Lucy from Charlie  Brown, always pulling the football and making Charlie fall. Fifth and I looked at each other, obviously we were not recovered sufficiently from our trip, and had to change the spelling from Lucy to Loosey.  Apparently  it stuck for now  but after this weekend there might be a new name.  It could be a tuff weekend.  LOL

Measured Architecture

was interviewed this morning on CBC Radio.

It was the first time I heard an architect talk about sun, wind and trees. From their award winning design:

Given these parameters, the objective was to derive maximum benefit from the sun and the site, so orientation to the existing trees, to the sun, and to cool breezes from the adjacent valley were carefully considered.

From sunrise to sunset the sky is a constant presence, making everyone aware of the character of the day. Electric lights are needed only at night, and the house can be heated even in the deepest winter using just the wood stove. In the winter the house is very social, with all of the action happening in the main room. In the summertime, when the doors are open, it’s as cool as sitting under a tree, and the light reflected off the dried grass outside is warm and even.

I guess I am wanting to take the same approach with the development of T’a’grarial. It has taken living there for several years to attune oneself to the light, wind and natural landscape. Our ideas continue to evolve.