how do I get the hugelkultur article into the brains of 50 million people

Well for good or ill I asked my HOA (i know, I was young and wanted a home) if we could start a community garden in some unused property that we collectively own. I'd been talking to some neighbors about maybe starting one some day since I had just started gardening this last year and thought it was wonderful. Well my neighbors suggested I should go to the monthly meeting to ask since they also knew of some people who were interested. Long story short, when I asked about it they voted me into being in charge of it on the spot. Since then I did a write up to go into our renewal statements for dues and have gotten at least the word hugelkultur into about 150 new minds.
My plan for this year is to build regular looking raised beds with a ton of wood buried underneath so they look nice and orderly and we won't have to water since bringing water to the location would be a chore. If it goes as well as I hope I may get as many as 20 participants this year. It's no 50 million but it's the best I've been able to do so far.

On a side note, when I first heard of the idea on the survival podcast it struck me as "well DUH! why didn't I think of that?" Living in the NW I've seen allot of nurse logs and the like over the years and it just makes sense.

just a few ideas, I am sure some of them are already covered.

In terms of most trade magazines they are often produced by small teams who will work next week on a totally different trade magazines. Most of them will be looking for content to fill them up. If they can get someone else to do this it's all the better for them and the can get on with there real job of selling advertising space. It means that if you contact them, they will first try and sell you add space but if you can get past that and possibly get them to see how big your empire is and how a link to them from you could help them that may change there tone.

On a completely unrelated area I had big success with getting something out to police officers by placing a small add in their year book. This was in Ireland so it was more manageable (one book covered the whole country, in the US that may be totally unmanageable) maybe the fire service has an year book and a hugelkultur artical slanted to talk about the fire risk reduction benefits could have a knock on effect


Training packs, teach the teachers. I am not sure what the extension people you talk about are. I am guessing some kind of agr. advisers but they will get training somewhere. Find that person and develop training packs for them to use. I am sure there are other trainers you could target people with more local knowledge could come up with a list.


Don't get too focused on Hugelkultur. This weeks visit from Toby was a huge success. The forums and podcasts on all the different topics bring in lots of people, many of whom would never have clicked on a link that said hugelkulter, but once they are here they can't help but trip over hugelkultur. All general ways to build your empire also promote Hugelkultur. You are doing a great job, celebrate all the successes you are having on the broad range of topics rather then measure everything as falling short of this artbutory 50 million

Lastly I have to say I switch off when I see threads or podcasts from you about the whole light blub thing. Thats fine, it's your thing. But I am dissinclined to listen or read something that has moved up a level or so to ranting. I hope your focus on Hugelkulter doesn't reach that peek.


good luck

C.J. Murray wrote:Holy Smokes, Jackson, your t-shirt ads are following me on the internet already.

Cool! I mean, sorry...

Well here's what I did before I read this..https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hugelkultur-Log-Based-low-to-NO-Water-Gardens/192188357546360 a facebook page. I am insane over this..I feel like one of those door to door evangelical preachers ... I am spending more time today adding to the page... I also am trying to get our local slash crews to read your article. I just received a letter telling us to expect the burns to begin for fuel reduction in wild fires..So.OR is plagued by fire yearly.. I kid you not when I say I would die a lot happier if I could get this into the forest service methodology.

Posted to Chris Martenson "Definitive Permaculture thread".

Liked your FB page, Paul, and the new page just posted.

Remember, FB, people, "Shares" are great, but "likes" are good too..

http://www.ftpf.org
This is a nonprofit run by David Wolf. He might be a good person to connect With. he's very well-known

C.J. Murray wrote:If the term Hugelkulter is going to be the draw with very little context given at the same time then it needs to in front of more people to give them the option to search for it specifically if it sounds interesting to them. How about stickers, bumper or otherwise to be given away at various events? It may be possible to get some or all of the cost underwritten by waste disposal companies. Even though they money disposing of waste they don't like heavy stuff unless they are being paid by the pound to dispose of it. Thus the average garbage hauler prefers not to have heavy wood in their waste stream. Additionally many waste companies like to appear as if they are encouraging less waste and recycling. Seems to me like it would be a a win-win for them to put a sticker on the inside of the lid of their garbage cans in the normal course of distributing new cans. I don't think they would put it on the outside. They may be willing to put it on their trucks. Especially since it's not a commercial ad but rather a gardening technique which reduces waste, recycles and enrichs.

Got Hugelkultur?
Dead Wood IS The New Green!
www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur

I'm willing to chip in some cash to get the first 10,000 printed. Anyone else?

I'm willing to approach the 3 commercial/residential waste disposal companies in my area.

Wow. That would be really excellent to have bumper stickers for garbage trucks and the like. So cool.

After the recent t-shirt thing, I have to admit that I am kinda backpedaling on the "moichendizing" aspect. And, at the same time, it does seem like a path that could have positive impact.

I'm willing to chip in my images and stuff for the project if somebody else will take it on. Especially if there is a mention of the article on the bumper sticker.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I believe that quality photos and video of real hugel beds at peak production are needed. Most of what is available on YouTube and elsewhere are fanciful drawings or how to stuff. Great for those of us who are already sold but not totally believable to Joe public. Nice drawings are used to sell many far fetched schemes. Real photographs are used to sell things that are real.

Eye popping photos trump literary value in causing the casual observer to click. I'll bet Mr Holzer has plenty of good pictures to share. My beds are just mud and log piles. The newness of the practice in North America means most of us simply don't have beautiful finished product to display.

I'm working on it (along with a thousand other things).

Jo York wrote:Personally, to get a large following on facebook, I would start pages named Hugelkultur Permaculture, or Rocket Mass Heater, or something along those lines. Then post only the subject matter related. I know it would amount to a lot of pages to maintain, but, people will add you as a friend from all over the world that way, and it increases your network. It would be good if you could get regular pages for those, instead of fan pages. If you have friends instead of fans, you can give them feedback, post comments, and cultivate relationships. With a fan page you can't.

I continue to be utterly baffled by facebook.

Anymore, I use it like a driveby shooting. I get on, post my stuff, get off. As fast as I can.

It seems like the moment I get on, it must send a message out to a thousand people that says "paul is so bored that he's on facebook, don't you want to do the chat thing with him to help him pass the time?" when the reality is that I'm not bored at all. I'm overwhelmed with trying to satisfy 25,000 people per day and figure out how to get that to 250,000 people per day. The people that think I'm bored want to talk about "do you think I should take this tree out?" or "Will you ever be coming to the L.A. area?"

So - I am open to the idea of you all figuring out what is best on facebook.

Marianne West wrote:

Dale Hodgins wrote:I believe that quality photos and video of real hugel beds at peak production are needed. Most of what is available on YouTube and elsewhere are fanciful drawings or how to stuff. Great for those of us who are already sold but not totally believable to Joe public. Nice drawings are used to sell many far fetched schemes. Real photographs are used to sell things that are real.

Eye popping photos trump literary value in causing the casual observer to click. I'll bet Mr Holzer has plenty of good pictures to share. My beds are just mud and log piles. The newness of the practice in North America means most of us simply don't have beautiful finished product to display.

Go to Sepp Holzer's website. This is a link to his projects http://www.krameterhof.at/index.php?id=projekte/
If you click on the tab Ausbildung on the left, you see pictures of a bunch of the courses he taught. The writing is in German, but the pictures speak for themselves.

I have permission to use stuff from Sepp's stuff for my stuff. If you see some pics there that will help the hugelkultur stuff, then please point them out.

Jackson Barnett wrote:

C.J. Murray wrote:... How about stickers, bumper or otherwise to be given away at various events? ...

That got me thinking... I made a quick "graphic" and put a bunch of hugelkultur products on my CafePress shop. You can see them here.

What the hey, it's another channel for the meme... This OK with you, Paul?

I hereby give you permission to do that.

At the same time, I think there are some people here on permies that have uber skills in the tshirt world that can whip up something far better than any cafe press stuff.

Marianne West wrote:this is a link to daily good. http://www.good.is/the-next-big-thing/

i submitted the article as a suggestion, but you might want to contact them and submit as the author.

another good one:

http://wakeup-world.com/

posted it to their Facebook page, but in the mag would be better.

This sounds very promising!

Excellent - I didn't know about either of these!

The first one appears to get about 50 times more traffic than the second one.

Any guesses on how long until your suggestion might show up?

paul wheaton wrote:

Marianne West wrote:this is a link to daily good. http://www.good.is/the-next-big-thing/

i submitted the article as a suggestion, but you might want to contact them and submit as the author.

another good one:

http://wakeup-world.com/

posted it to their Facebook page, but in the mag would be better.

Any guesses on how long until your suggestion might show up?

No idea. I never submitted anything before to either of them. I know that the wake up world on facebook has 12000 + fans, but to reach people there it is often a matter of reposting often... And a good idea if more than just one person does it.

John Crawford wrote: and have gotten at least the word hugelkultur into about 150 new minds.

Good work!

ronan Watters wrote:

In terms of most trade magazines they are often produced by small teams who will work next week on a totally different trade magazines. Most of them will be looking for content to fill them up. If they can get someone else to do this it's all the better for them and the can get on with there real job of selling advertising space.

Very interesting.

I think this comes back to the "press release" thing.

And it seems now would be a very good time to start amassing a list of contacts for the press release when it is ready. Maybe a publication for arborists?

possibly get them to see how big your empire is and how a link to them from you could help them that may change there tone.

Or, if they can get me a mention, i will make sure to make a link to them (in the forum) and give them a mention in my daily-ish email (currently going to 3100 people).

If somebody else will carry the message to the organization, I will stand behind this. (the only caveat I have is that if the publication reaches only 50 people, I'm not sure how interested I am in doing this).

Don't get too focused on Hugelkultur.

I debate with myself about a dozen times a day whether I am too focused on item, or not focused enough.

The bottom line is: this should be pretty mainstream knowledge by now. And it isn't. And as I look about and think "why?" I get the impression it is because I didn't push it hard enough. So it's high time I got this "50 million" thing figured out.

You are doing a great job

Well, thanks. And, at the same time, as long as people continue to hold the CFL as the environmental king instead of hugelkultur, my work is seems pretty weak.

Lastly I have to say I switch off when I see threads or podcasts from you about the whole light blub thing. Thats fine, it's your thing.

NO

The light bulb thing is not my thing. The problem is that this greenwashing is lulling people into a fucked up stupor so that they ignore the real stuff.

Since it is not being adequately unravelled, then this is yet another disgusting, dirty job that has fallen to me. If somebody else will pick up this torch and run with it, I would be all too glad to let it go.

Roxanne Sterling-Falkenstein wrote:Well here's what I did before I read this..https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hugelkultur-Log-Based-low-to-NO-Water-Gardens/192188357546360 a facebook page. I am insane over this..I feel like one of those door to door evangelical preachers ... I am spending more time today adding to the page... I also am trying to get our local slash crews to read your article. I just received a letter telling us to expect the burns to begin for fuel reduction in wild fires..So.OR is plagued by fire yearly.. I kid you not when I say I would die a lot happier if I could get this into the forest service methodology.

I did the "like" thing for the page.

I think making the connection to the slash crews is a big one! Maybe the read some magazine, or having a mailing list or something?

Jackson Barnett wrote:Posted to Chris Martenson "Definitive Permaculture thread".

I think that's the way to go. Hit all sorts of interesting spots and make links.


FYI: 98 people came to the hugelkultur article from your link.

Marianne West wrote:http://www.ftpf.org
This is a nonprofit run by David Wolf. He might be a good person to connect With. he's very well-known

Could you contact them and mention hugelkultur?

I'm going to record a podcast today with Jocelyn on the topic of the problems I have had with pushing my own stuff. The greatest success I have had is with other people suggesting my stuff. When I attempt to push my stuff, some people see that as just spamming. So the most effective path is to have help.

I will try to create a press release and a blog that can be "guest blogged" on a thousand blogs. And I will depend on your all to find these things a home.

FYI:

The hugelkultur article was getting about 100 visitors per day.

On jan 12th I said "how do I get it to 50 million?" and posted some stuff to facebook asking people to reshare. And people did reshare.

1138 visitors.

On jan 13th I sent out the email asking people to re-forward and re-forward ...

jan 13th: 1848 visitors
jan 14th: 1921 visitors

So I spent all day plastering every page with any loosely related subject..promoting the article, while being signed in as the new page. Water Preservation sites etc.. I had to like them first to comment on there page so you can see where I have been so to speak, there were more.
Also Trying to contact BLM in my area, they contract the burns I hear. I tried to contact them on line, wrote a nice letter with links to the article and Step's films on youtube...pressed send..page not found. Guess what? none of there email works for the Dept of the Interior either. Guess I have to go walk in!
Anyhow letting myself follow the trail and dropping bread crumbs along the way. Hopefully I got close to my goal of 1000 new folx to look at your article yesterday, back at it today.

Wow! Roxanne! That's some real legwork!

go to Office Depot or the local equivalent of Office Depot/Kinkos, whatever, and get a self inking stamp. Should cost no more than $20 bucks or so...stamp should read:

WTF is HUGELKULTUR!?!?!?!
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

or:

What IS this hugelkulture!?!?!?
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

or something more clever but similar, then stamp every dollar bill that goes thru your hands with the message.

Ask everyone at Permies.com and Richsoil.com to do the same.

Fl Sunshine wrote:go to Office Depot or the local equivalent of Office Depot/Kinkos, whatever, and get a self inking stamp. Should cost no more than $20 bucks or so...stamp should read:

WTF is HUGELKULTUR!?!?!?!
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

or:

What IS this hugelkulture!?!?!?
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

or something more clever but similar, then stamp every dollar bill that goes thru your hands with the message.

Ask everyone at Permies.com and Richsoil.com to do the same.

My concern with that is that is could get us into some sort of legal trouble.

Paul, I first heard of Hugelkultur last night through a blog I read every few days. It linked to a thread where others were discussing their success, tips and ideas on hugelkultur. I spent 2 hours reading and skimming through 17 pages and made up my mind to try it in my own small garden, on a much smaller scale. I only grow herbs and veg, I do not have much room and want to try to do more with the space I have. I love the name, it's intriguing and old world and speaks to me of my European farming ancestors. I came back this afternoon and read more and signed up to join this forum because of the wealth of people and information and ideas - and the general good attitude of folks in here. I will be sharing this with sustainability, urban homesteading, organic gardening bloggers I check in with both on their sites and on Facebook. I will share this will all my gardening friends, my local AG Extension office and local conservation organizations - there's one in my town. Our state just held our Farm Show week in the capital and I wish I had known about this yesterday when I was there, I could have brought it up with the farmers. The folks at The Farm in Tennessee must know about this already and Plenty should also know. I have some emails to write.

If one person could be turned in less than 24 to try it and share the information, then you will get your 50 million...it only take a while.

Ah, and I agree with you about the effing lightbulbs and the greenwashing of Joe and Jane Public.

Jen

Awesome Jen!

Welcome to my empire of stuff!

My question to you at this moment is: do you think hugelkultur in the brains of 50 million people qualifies as "saving the world"?

paul wheaton wrote:

My concern with that is that is could get us into some sort of legal trouble.

I would not worry to much about it. They have been doing it with where's George for years.
Teach Crunch. Where's George

have you checked out donateyouraccount.com yet? that will allow not just your hugel post to go out, but almost anything you post. talk about getting it out there!

-steve

A few tidbits of information.

1) The hugelkultur article had 2153 views yesterday!

2) Somebody at reddit posted a picture of their cabin. And then somebody else said "hey, you know what would be good in there? A rocket mass heater." with a link to my RMH article. The article received 4065 views in one day from that one link. My point is, that you never can tell when a little link is gonna pay off pretty big.

3) I want to get the hugelkultur article into 50 million brains by mothers day 2012. I also want to win the lottery, and get a piece of really good huckleberry pie. My point is that it is good to want things, even if they might not happen. (note to self: I'm never gonna win the lottery if i don't buy a ticket) Mothers day is when a lot of the country plants their tomatoes. I would like folks to be aware of hugelkultur before then. So we have three and a half months. About 14 weeks.

4) I like the ideas about the extension offices. I think it would be good to create a thread here in the tinkering forum that explains how one might go about finding their local extension office. And then we need to come up with a document that that can either be sent and used by the extension office, or it can be printed, carried in and handed to the people there. Or maybe a stack of 40 could be brought in and then handed out (sorta get things rolling). Once we have the thread all set up and ready, I will announce it on the daily-ish email.

5) In a similar vein, I think it would good to start a thread about meetup stuff. How to find them, get (respectfully/appropriately) connected and then make a link to the hugelkultur article.

6) Maybe yet another thread can be started to do something like this for transition towns.

7) Maybe we need to start creating a list of stuff that we can do similar to 4, 5 and 6.

steve berthiaume wrote:have you checked out donateyouraccount.com yet? that will allow not just your hugel post to go out, but almost anything you post. talk about getting it out there!

-steve

I looked at it a couple of months ago.

And now I am looking at it again.

I dunno .... it just seems .... invasive. Or something. Somehow, when I look at that, something just feels off.

Jo York wrote:Not sure if this is an acceptable answer, but the lady on this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_un6cNbBPg tells about writing press releases and then using this site: http://www.prweb.com/ to get exposure in the media. It's a service that you can pay for or use free on a minimal basis.

I'm gonna work on this today.

I'm gonna put together something press-release-ish. It sounds like I'm gonna shell out $250 or so. Ouch. Hopefully it will be worth it.

I posted it on my facebook page and my friend and I will be making a bed in her backyard.

last night I posted a picture, a snippet, and the link to: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/entry.php?523-HUGELKULTUR-Bury-wood-in-your-garden!

117 people saw the post, not sure how many linked over.

Posted a link to the hugelkultur article at ChrisMartenson.com the other day. Today Ireplied to *another* post there, linking to Paul's article.

Little by little...

joe pacelli wrote:last night I posted a picture, a snippet, and the link to: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/entry.php?523-HUGELKULTUR-Bury-wood-in-your-garden!

117 people saw the post, not sure how many linked over.

Total traffic from ronpaulforums yesterday: 0
today so far: 1

Every link is a gamble. You can never tell ahead of time which one is gonna bring 5000 people.

Jackson Barnett wrote:Posted a link to the hugelkultur article at ChrisMartenson.com the other day. Today Ireplied to *another* post there, linking to Paul's article.

Little by little...

Total traffic from chrismartenson yesterday: 487
so far today: 138

Nice!

paul wheaton wrote:

Jo York wrote:Not sure if this is an acceptable answer, but the lady on this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_un6cNbBPg tells about writing press releases and then using this site: http://www.prweb.com/ to get exposure in the media. It's a service that you can pay for or use free on a minimal basis.

I'm gonna work on this today.

I'm gonna put together something press-release-ish. It sounds like I'm gonna shell out $250 or so. Ouch. Hopefully it will be worth it.

Dang, I used to frequent a free, online press release grader tool that has now been retired. It was excellent at improving press releases by identifying spambot and gobbledy-gook words and maximizing SEO. Does anyone know of something like this that's still available?

Instead of spending money at prweb.com (or in addition to) you might try the good ol' AP Bureau. (Apologies if that was mentioned already and I missed it.) Though admittedly, most publicity experts recommend developing a relationship with a particular reporter instead of sending in anonymous submissions to the press.

here is another one: be a presenter at the Mother Earth fair. http://www.motherearthnews.com/fair/home.aspx

there also is a place for people to request what they like to see. So, everybody, request Hugelkultur

paul wheaton wrote:

joe pacelli wrote:last night I posted a picture, a snippet, and the link to: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/entry.php?523-HUGELKULTUR-Bury-wood-in-your-garden!

117 people saw the post, not sure how many linked over.

Total traffic from ronpaulforums yesterday: 0
today so far: 1

Every link is a gamble. You can never tell ahead of time which one is gonna bring 5000 people.

Yikes.. Well it makes me feel a little better because I just spent all day today creating a hugelkultur bed and adding the final photo to that link.. its not pretty but I think it'll do well.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us


I want to thank you Paul for the inspiration. Feel free to use the above picture in the 50 million person quest.
Joe Pacelli

Couple of items:

1. I've had this in my head for several days now and I finally remembered the name of the song. I kept hearing the beginning as "HUGekultur, HUGA HUGA HUGekultur... Anybody talented enough an up for a remake?

2. from finder.good: "Congratulations, your GOODFinder submission has been approved and is now live on the main feed!

"A hugelkultur is, basically, a raised bed with wood in it. It removes
waste wood and storm debris from the waste stream and conserves water."
http://finder.good.is/9979-a-hugelkultur-is-basically-a-raised-bed-with-wood-in-it-it"

So everybody go comment on it!

Paul, what do you think of a daily-ish email of new/updated outside links to the article so all your minions can go swarm them?

Be well, everyone.

Jackson Barnett,

Great work!!!

I registered and commented:

"We have tried this on a small scale,,, It really works... It will amaze you... Lots less work long term and nature really rewards you.We are converting our entire 145 acre timber / farm to this... Lot more info at permies.com and richsoil.com"

Regards
Monte Hines
Hines Farm Blog
hines.blogspot.com