changing the world

I seem to find myself in this weird state where the world needs saving. And I think, if I could get a few bits of knowledge into the brains of 10% of the world population, then we will start to see good change. And out of all the bits, what would be the first bit? I keep thinking "hugelkultur".

So with this video, I thought that I needed to put all my effort behind it. Promote it in all my normal channels, plus hit a bunch more. Cash in every coupon I have with every person of influence I can find. If I can get 100,000 views in the first 24 hours, then youtube will move it onto a bigger stage and then show it to millions.

The scythe video got 22,000 views in the first 24 hours. And that was more than a year ago. Before I had the daily-ish email. Before the podcasts. When my youtube subscriber count was half of what it is now. So with a good video and hard work, I think i can hit 100,000 in the first 24 hours.

We are closing in on the 24 hour mark and the view count is 4,497. About the same as the videos I pushed out and didn't put a lot of effort behind.

This is the same feeling I had with my colony collapse disorder video. I was sure that that would solve world problems and make the world a better place and after all the work to make the video combined with all the work to push it everywhere, it didn't get into the brains of millions - it remained with just a few thousand views.

For the last several months I felt like the mantra was something like "then I will work harder!"

For october 2010, permies.com had 101,410 visitors. October 2011: 469,366 visits. Growth of a factor of 4.7. October 2012 639,977. Growth of a factor of 1.4.

I think a lot of the reduction in velocity is corporate trolls doing what they are paid to do. They are very good.

Jocelyn said "If you want something to get a lot of views, you need to put a kitten in it." I added "with boobs. And on fire."

Not sure where I am going with this post. I guess it is to express something. A bit of "accept the idea of putting out 30 mediocre videos rather than 1 super video that you fantasize will get 100 times more views than the 30 mediocre videos."

Apparently i don't know what it takes to get a video on the big stage at youtube since I haven't done it yet.

So .... I think I need to shift my strategy back to the older strategy. 30 mediocre videos instead of 1 really good video. Each of the 30 will get about 4000 views in the first 24 hours, and over the next year will average about 20,000 more. Overall, that's about 750,000 views. Which is greater than the (maybe) 30,000 views that one good video will get in the same time frame.

My husband noticed the much higher quality of this video, and he says try to give it time, he thinks the higher production values will pay off in a little while. Anyway, I just wanted to pass on his positive comments.

What about only 0.02% of the population knows about hugelkultur. They will use the term in Google and find your video, the other 99.98% of people will look for "how to reduce irrigation" and find other videos but will never find out about hugelkultur. Perhaps the trick would be to get the word hugelkultur known to the broader permies. Just a thought.

I think your videos are excellent Paul.
This post reminds me of the anecdotes of authors who were not published by 116 publishing houses, but the 117th -- made it into a classic novel.
I am sure that doesn't make it any easier . . . but I think you are the author of some classic (video) texts.
I think your information is useful and will reach a large audience, I think it is just hard to predict timing, especially when dealing with people structures.
Personally, it may be that a lot of folks are distracted by large issues in politics/economy that recently happened or are "looming" (not trying to make political commentary, just sharing observation).
Maybe "gardeners" aren't searching for garden stuff right now since as it is Fall in this hemisphere? I don't know.
I have had an idea floating around my brain -- which I have no contacts currently to help make happen -- but I have wondered how it might be possible to get you onto Stephen Colbert's show to help reach a larger audience.
That is, if you care to --and that's a big task to achieve.
It seems to me you both have a similar sense of humor, and he could bash you for your "outrageous" ideas.
My 2 cents.

Thanks for all you do.

A kitten with boobs on fire.... That would definately get millions of views.

For what it's worth you are the person I credit for me learning about hugelkultur, sepp holzer, Fukuoka Masanobu, DE, and even got me using cast iron. Now I have read One Straw Revolution, and Sepp's Permaculture. I have seasoned my cast iron and built the first of many hugelkultur and am also trying to spread the word. It's not easy, but faith is infectus. I think you underestimate the impact you have. You do tremendous good for the Earth, Paul Wheaton, please keep it up.

Love the new video by the way.

I was reading permaculture news and found a link requesting article submissions. They are willing to advertize your site in exchange for reprinted content submissions, or pay for exclusive publishing. Perhaps you could submit your articles to help drive more traffic.

Here is the link.

http://www.permaculturenews.org/2010/08/18/get-paid-to-share-your-permaculture-passion-with-the-world/