November 22, 2010: Online Work Bee

Ben ... bit of a headache ... may not need more ibuprofen ... been out in snow a lot (1/2 inch) ... still coming down
Shelley ... six more days and counting on wards ... currently have won the game (zero census: no patients left) ... feeling good
Sequoia ... sleeping ... teething going better tonight than last night
Brandon ... has a big meeting tomorrow for the Oregon FTW project, very excited about it ... will be up pretty late tonight working on it ... tomorrow is also his birthday
Gus ... here I am ... starting on a book project (Silverton history) ... contracted to do it, primarily pictures and stories coordinating with local historical society ... working with the Grange on garden project with rainwater catchment, using sustainable-project grant and lots of data acquisition

<s>Brandon ... reach out to Gus to see if he will attend a work bee call ... by next call
Brandon ... talk to Gus, Mathew, and Kevin about scheduling for Seed 2011 ... by next call</s>
Brandon ... write 500 words on the SolSeed book ... by next call (did work on it quite a bit)
<s>Brandon ... print out the current version of the SolSeed book ... by next call
Brandon ... organize date with Shelley to read book and discuss (perhaps on Thursday on way to Eugene) ... by next call</s>
Brandon ... upgrade MediaWiki on the SpaceWiki website ... by next call
<s>Shelley ... ping Meg, Laura, and Heather about scheduling for Seed 2011 ... by next call
Shelley ... plan phone service ... by Sunday
Shelley ... look for photos to go with the Craigslist ad ... by next call
Shelley ... post the Craigslist ad ... by next call
Ben ... copy the notes to the wiki ... by tomorrow
Ben ... ping parents about scheduling for Seed 2011 ... by next call
Ben ... update Media page with explanation of the Book of Life ... by next call
Ben ... put together a draft of the November newsletter ... by next call</s>

Outreach:
Green:
<s>Go to one conference or convention</s>
Get one more person contributing on the work-bee calls ... have one person trying it out (Gus)

For the SEDS chapters that contribute most to the vision of SpaceWiki
Time frame: December and January ... judging: week of February 1
Prizes: First place will be $600, second $300, third $100
The national SEDS officers talked about it at their last meeting ... we think they'll do it
We need a page to tell people how to contribute

Redirecting to http://typewith.me/SolSeedBook so we can have all the text in one place and easily do collaborative editing
Deleted content on the wiki pages for now so it doesn't diverge

What we've been up to lately:

Last month, Brandon quit his job and started the first SolSeed business! He's helping large groups of people come to a consensus on difficult decisions using an online process (I'd give you more details, but we have to keep our trade secrets). Our first three-month contract with the Meyer Memorial Trust is off to a good start. No consensus yet on a name, though; maybe something like SolSeed Consensus Consulting or SolSeed Collaboration Works.

Ben and Brandon took our SpaceWiki sign-up-and-get-a-free-caricature table to SpaceVision 2010, the only student-run space conference, and the attending students were really into our irreverent style. We got over a hundred new members and discovered some opportunities for future collaboration with the sponsoring organizations.

The mini-SolSeed Services are continuing on a weekly schedule, and we're now up to four participants. It feels like we're practicing for space travel because we're using futuristic videoconferencing technology to bring us together. To participate, email shelley@solseed.org.

Coming up soon:

The Longest Night Festival! Join us to celebrate the Winter Solstice, 6 pm to midnight on Tuesday, December 21 at the SolSeed EcoVillage, 1824 SE Oak St in Portland. Bring your kids to enjoy a Yule log, great food, songs, and more.

Self-publishing our first SolSeed book! Literally, just one book, a test copy of Happy in the Sun to see how it looks before doing a full production run. But we should have plenty of copies by the end of the year, so let us know if you'd like one.

Requests:

We're looking for one more person to join our weekly work-bee conference call and help us move forward on our many projects. It's usually Mondays at 8:30 PM (Pacific time), and we're very careful to keep it no longer than an hour. Let us know if you're interested!

We just published a Craigslist ad focused on the SolSeed EcoVillage, so if you or someone you know would like to help us establish this new community, let us know that too!

By default, we'll pick February 5-7 unless additional constraints come in.

Guy who founded seems like similar values with potentially different emphases
Talks about environmentalism and humans as part of the tree of life a little (but not big focus)
Star Trek future or some generalization as "what to strive for"
Makes people wrong a lot
Big focus is "tree of knowledge" ... the cool thing that humans do
Basically separates us from animals ... a few other species may have a small ToK, but we keep adding to ours
Brandon knows one of the officers, Robyn, who also works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Stuart Brand and others started the EFF in the mid 80s, along with the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link), precursor to the Web

Shelley ... repost Craigslist ad ... after it expires
Shelley ... send out the solstice invitation (use SolSeed.org to create the pretty invitation and copy paste it into gmail and invite Carol and Steve and Judy) ... by next call
Ben ... add SolSeed to SpaceWiki About page ... by next call
Ben ... add a contest page describing the vision and how to contribute good material (look at Community portal page) ... by next call
Ben ... consider who we'd like to invite to Solstice and send list to Shelley ... by Tuesday
Ben ... prepare phone service ... by Sunday
Brandon ... start a consensus poll about church vs. non-profit ... by next call
Brandon ... start a consensus poll about "what is a solseed business" ... by next call
Brandon ... consider who we'd like to invite to Solstice and send list to Shelley ... by Tuesday
Brandon ... add logistics stuff to the SEDS contest page and send link to Rick ... by next call
Brandon ... remove Gus's non-Mars-Underground emails from the list, and verify that he's on the newsletter list ... by next call
Gus ... look at the Big Book and provide feedback ... by Monday
Gus ... read our first children's book, Happy in the Sun ...