evil empire building (podcast 099, one page permaculture, advocacy, a quick start guide to permacult

I pressed pause on Podcast 099 to write this post. Paul is doing a podcast with Jack Spirko and I got inspired to get a permaculture advocacy thing going and I am looking for any collaborators.

Paul started a brainstorming session about making it easy for people to get started in permaculture with out feeling like they are an expert. The brainstorming starts at 1:21 in podcast 099 "lessons from the forest" http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/620-podcast-099-lessons-from-the-forest/

My notes on the terms Paul and Jack were using:
"(permaculture) on one page and phone it in", "a recipe card", "single sheet of paper" (permaculture)

My thoughts:
You know the two manuals you get with your electronic gadget. The multilingual paper back novel sized one: "The Users Manual" and then the one you use: "The Quick Start Guide" with the big pics and steps all on one page. This is what I am thinking of: "The Quick Start Guide to Permaculture"

I think there could be many ways to make this guide. It could be quite literal and make several different guides according to the types of people, bio-regions and living type.

I am most interested in a sort of questionnaire-driven-online-custom-guide generator with slider fine tuning...a Q-DOCGG Huh?

Here is a rough sketch with a hypothetical wheaton eco level 2 person. (OK. its me answering the questions)

Are you?
1. with a garden
>2. without a garden
Do you wanna garden?
1. yes
>2. no
How much of your food is organic?
1. none
>2. 30%
3. 80%
4. 100%
Where do you live? City, State, Country or just your zip code
anycity, anystate, anycounty

results for an wheaton eco scale 2 person:
imagine a graphically-pleasing, print-ready page with:

1. A custom quick start guide to permaculture tailor made for this person
2. Slider controls to advance (or retreat) to the next eco level and see instantly how the results change (what is slider control? see image below)
3. Lists of local stuff, facts and other links
+list local permaculture groups
+list of local CSAs
+list of local farmers
+permies.com
+“how to do better than organic” article

What do you guys think?
Does this exist already?
Is it worth the effort?
Who wants to help?

I think this idea is EXTREMELY important.

The same idea was thrown around before with the "Plant Me a Damn Guild" recipe sheet tailor made for people's individual place. The two ideas could be done together, just by making a Tree-Plugin.

I think with the right input from people in very different climates could turn the thing into a full-blown recipe book where the user/reader just concentrates on what is pertinent to her or his situation.

We always say "it depends". Well, this would be a chance not to show (yet again) what it depends on generally, but lead an individual who doesn't know much about permaculture toward designing their specific system just as they want it, eliminating all the hullabaloo that "permaculturalists" typically focus on (even if for good reason).

I'd be willing to give feedback or do usability tests.

William

Looks like a great idea, would love to see it implemented.

I think this is a great idea, Troy. I finished the hot water podcast, then you spurred me into the 'forest...' and when I got to 1:20.... YEAH!! Finally, Spirko AND Paul, seem to appreciate Geoff"s near-desperation to SPREAD awareness of Permaculture as far and fast as possible. The which-color, ethics, not-REAL-PC, etc. nit-picking has to be relegated to 'committee meetings' and specialized threads. And blissfully digging deeper into books, PCDs, hair-splitting sweet minutiae, etc. (Eco 6-8-9-10s), however fun and necessary, does not meet the most critical, and apparently boring, challenge of 'selling/marketing/spreading' the notion of PC.

I think it's the 'earnest-but-clueless', and 'potentially trainable' (Eco 0-1-2's) who need to hear about PC - presented as simply, generically, quickly, cheaply, attractively, irresistibly, etc. as possible. Hence, a need for the word 'permaculture' to have a simple, generic and dynamic 'picture' associated with it (see my Meaningless Drivel post - 'selling').

And we need every attention 'hook' we can find: "PC is.....sustainable, regenerative, PROFITABLE, effortless, delicious, healthy, wildlife- habitable, earth-saving, time-saving, muscle-saving, water-saving, fuel-saving, atmosphere-saving, next-generation-saving, etc. Did I say profitable?" (Dale H ?) Why someone's interest is piqued is not as important as that it IS, and they 'see/get' a 'picture' of PC that sucks them in.

The 'here's how YOU can do it right HERE...with one hour -or twenty...$5 - or $100....with-or-without cardboard ;) .' with all the locale details, is very much needed, I think. I agree that, however true, the "Well, it depends; here's a book/$$$ course" response is inadequate.

So....the plug-in would be simple, easy, and invaluably informative - the go-to place for newbies. Could it be on permies? I'm a no/lo tech so I'd be little help.... how could the critical info be gathered from experienced PCer's?

Maybe an initially broadcast question could be "If you're an experienced PCer, what would you recommend to the earnest wanna-be as a least-intimidating, best-chance-of-success, 'start tomorrow' project? (The 'spend a year sitting in various parts of your property' part could be a later suggestion :) And where are you? zone?

So, for each area, we'd be fishing for most successful, simplest, most impressive .... polyculture? Then, what to add later? What would be the most likely 'weed' problem? how handled? Most likely species sharing your produce? How will PC help with that?

If a permie group could offer to take newbies on a 'tour' of local 'successful and good-looking :)' PC gardens (I'm thinking sub/urban) the 'seeing is believing' effect should kick in.

So...... ? I'm back to finish 'forest...' podcast :)

I WISH permaculture were "effortless" but I have to say, I think that is extremely false advertising!

I think you're right, Ludi.... I got carried away .... as usual; swept up in Geoff's desperation, Jack's urgency and Paul's frequent frustration, I guess.

I'm all for the idea of a program that would help a person with little knowledge and/or experience get a quick start on Permaculture in their own area. Personally, I've been setting here in NE Texas (no NOT DALLAS!) trying to figure out what kind of trees and what the best guilds would be to plant around them and getting totally confused and a bit frustrated. One thing I do know is I wants some Paw paw trees. Why, I dunkno! Maybe just so my friends can grin and say "down in the paw paw patch" when someone asks where I am.
Please hurry with that program. Glad someone thought of it. (whip cracking in the background, sounds of dogs barking, "Alright you techies! MUSH!")

Wow. Thanks for all the support. Right now, I would like to target a "quick start guide" for wheaton eco scale 2 people. I am one of them so I can relate. I will post a concept sketch and some research results, soon. I encourage everyone to think hard about how to make a "quick start guide" that they would like to see. You can just describe it here with plain old words. It would very cool to hear about it. Happy Holidays. Troy

I just watched the documentary "Home" by Arthus-Bertrand.... I think anyone who sees it would be ripe for a simple, short, comprehensible, "picture/story" presentation of the solution, i.e., permaculture. Now if we can do that as fast as possible - thank heavens for Paul, Geoff, Willie Smits, Allan Savory and the innumerable others who are broadcasting their success. Now, if the principle could be 'sound-byted' to ..... a TED talk, for starters? Anyone know of an effective presentation of pc at TED?

I really loved the Paul Stamets talk on TED. It really got my mind going on the possibilities of nature and led me to read Mycelium Running which led to a quest to learn all I could about Permaculture which led me here. 6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World

I was fortunate enough to take part in his Mushroom course on Cortes Island, BC last year and l think that mushrooms cultivation is an accessible and exciting way to get people starting to realize the possibilities of using locally resources to grow food or to make use. This TED talk will blow a mind or two.

I just listened to this podcast the other day and I loved this idea. This could be done very easily IMHO.

Create a couple of simple recipe cards for each USDA zone, it doesn't have to be all that technical or convoluted (KISS method comes to mind). A fruit/nut tree, vine, shrub, ground cover etc (i would include a support species plant and/or something that can chopped an dropped) plus how to care for this recipe. It would be helpful to have a diagram showing the location of everything with regards to the sun. I would think that something like this would be very easy to do for some Entrepreneur that has the required background.

Granted this would take someone with more Permaculture knowledge than I have, use the Plants for a future database (webpage) for reference.

------ Another option would be a website that is more advanced than the recipe cards ---------------------------

Personally I think the info in the PFAF db could be used to make a web site or an app that could help a person to get ideas for the types of plants they could use in their food forest/guilds etc. The plants/trees would be broken down into all the categories and layers and which side of the property to be put on....

Some other items that it would consider would be lot size, maybe a question that asks square footage available for planting.