My Name Is Otis!! My Neighbor's Name Is Otis, Too!! How Do We Find Skippers??

   
I told my neighbor about the SKIP program and Otis said, "Looks like a scam to me.  All these people pay for classes and work to learn skills and they have no way to contact us property owners. No way we can see their qualifications.  We should be able to have a database so us Otises could look through their pics and qualifications and see if we want to contact them."
    I am 55 and just building my farm, but eventually I will be looking for someone to help and eventually take over if I can't find a wife with a qualified child.  
Otis up the road is in his 60's and has more physical limitations than me.  Otis up the road is ACTIVELY LOOKING.

I am a long way from an expert on the topic, but I do think I can address some of your concerns.  No one has to pay for classes, because no one is required to attend them. Classes are offered from time to time, but many people earn badges without ever attending a class.  There is no master list specifically identifying Otises out of concern of people showing up on the door step of a potential Otis and demanding title to their property.  It is up to the Otis to decide whom he/she wants to give the property to.   As for  how an Otis might be identified, I will leave up to others to explain.

Hi Jeff, to answer a couple of your neighbor's questions:  
The vast majority of SKIPpers never take a class.  Yes they learn lots of skills.  They can't easily contact you because in the past Otises have been pestered by unworthy people just hoping to cash in.  You can see their qualifications and we do have some organized ways to see their stuff.  Please keep in mind that the program is free so we don't have an office full of people to make it run smoother.  Here are some excerpts from an email I send to Otises:

I'm maintaining an email list of Otises so that we can start to send them notices when SKIPpers get to major milestones.  I do like to list a few Otises anonymously in this thread, there are more than that in my personal records: List of Otises

If you wouldn't mind sending me a blurb for that list, I'd see about putting it in there.  

In general, if you're an Otis, you encouraged to watch the SKIPpers as they complete BBs and badges and see if any catch your eye. Here's a list of ones that have advanced a fair way down their PEP journey: List of Skippers and Peppers

Another way is to watch the Leaderboard.

You could also post publicly that you're looking for a SKIPper.  You may get lots of attention from people who aren't particularly qualified.  One subtle way is to reply in this thread that your site is available for people to do SKIP work.  Locations to do SKIP.  A more obvious way announce that you want SKIPpers (and untold others?) to contact you is to make a post in the Skills to Inherit Property forum

For your general reference, here's the starting place for a lot of SKIP information: All about SKIP, PEP, Badges, BBs and more!

Jeff, I'd suggest that you and your neighbors consider trying a few of the SkIP badges, particularly ones that are for tasks that are "little used skills" and are useful for your homesteads, as that will give y'all a feel for what it is all about.

Yes, some of the badges are dead easy in an effort to suck people in to learning more difficult skills. We have a lot of young people who've never gone camping and had to wash dishes by hand, or who's attitude about a rip in their shirt is to toss it in the trash. We're trying not only to prepare people for future Otis consideration, but also prepare people for when supply lines are struggling or when there are natural disasters that they need to be able to cope with (this from someone who lives in earthquake country!)

As a member on this site, you can take names from that leaderboard Mike linked to, and contact members through the Purple Moosage system, however, I also like the suggestion of sharing a bit of space for people to practice their skills on your land.

Do remember that this program is pretty new in the grand scheme of things. Will it generate the number of young people with genuinely strong skills that you and your neighbors want? That's hard to say just yet. But I'm not aware of any other programs out there that will. I've been just reading Dirt to Soil by Gabe Brown. His comments about how he had to forget everything he'd learned at college in order to turn his farm into a soil building, profitable, "recovered" farm, were interesting to read. His comments about how he had to change his attitude about what really mattered, and what his goals *really* needed to be (ie long term instead of short term) to create a Regenerative Farm, were also worth noting.

Permies staff might be missing the deeper design issue at hand here.  The entire website and Skills To Inherit Property links and pages and pictures etc are not designed primarily with the user experience of Otis in mind.  

Imagine this idealized flow:
Otis goes to permies dot com -> Clicks on link for Otis/SKIP -> Clicks on FAQs and learns about the program -> Registers via a simple form or calls a real live person to sign up -> Begins to follow current SKIPpers and PEPpers

Here's what I mean about the current user experience:

Imagine you are another one of Jeff's neighbors, and imagine you've never been to permies.com.  You're perhaps 60, 70, 80 years old, living in a rural area with your land and hopes and dreams, but no younger kin to share or pass it along to.  Jeff tells you about SKIP.   He describes that an "Otis" is someone kinda' like you.  He says that it's on this website www.permies.com.  You agree that you might be an Otis, and decide to check it out.  You go to the Permies homepage.  

You, as a potential Otis wrote: I don't see anything about SKIP or Otis on this site.

Otis didn't grow up with highspeed internet, let alone a smartphone welded to his hand.  Otis clicks randomly on FORUMS to look for "Otis" or "SKIP".  Do you see it now?

Slightly annoyed potential Otis wrote:Woah, a lot going on here.  Let's see.  I don't see no "SKIP" or "Otis" stuff anywhere.  Maybe if I scroll a little...

**time passes**

You, as a moderately annoyed potential Otis wrote:maybe it's not here after all.... Ah!  There! it is.

You end up here: https://permies.com/c/skip.

You, as a slightly hopeful potential Otis wrote:I don't know what I'm even searching for here...  ah there's a thing about 100 Otises!

https://permies.com/wiki/161178/skills-inherit-property/List-Otises
You go there and begin reading.

Somebody, not sure who wrote:This will be the list of Otises and Otessas.  Their information will be kept as private as possible so they aren't pestered.  This isn't a place to find your Otis and chat them up, it's mainly a place to show the variety of Otises that are out there to inspire the PEPpers/SKIPpers.  

Otises can send a posting to me by PM (letter icon at the top right of your screen) or PM me for my email address and they can then send it via email.  PMs are rather private but higher level staff people can read them.

You, as a confused Otis wrote:What is this PM posting stuff, and who is even writing this?  I don't see a name anywhere.  Where is the FAQ section?  Ah, maybe here...

For much more information about the SKIP program, Click Here

*clicks on link*

https://permies.com/wiki/skip-pep-bb

You, an annoyed potential Otis wrote:My internet ain't fast enough for YouTube unless I go in town.  Hmph.  Trying to sell me a book? *sigh*  Ah. Here we go. "The Story Of Otis"

A crucial aspect of SKIP is the story of Otis. Otis is a fictitious person representing all the hardworking farmers who have no one to care for their farm after them, and wish they had someone responsible to inherit their farm and manage it well. You can read the story of Otis here. Paul has a podcast all about Otis here. If you think you might be an Otis, you can get registered here. If you're wondering about the legal nuts and bolts of being an Otis, we have a thread to discuss them here.

You continue reading.  You think you might be an Otis, so you click to "get registered here"

https://permies.com/t/141383/skills-inherit-property/Otises

You, no longer interested in being an Otis. wrote:I clicked on that link, and I still don't see anything about registering, or any FAQs, or where to find folks to will my land to.  I see other people posted down below that they are Otis.  I don't want anyone pestering me, scamming me.  It's getting late.  Forget it.

*break break, back to reality*

I'm going to be blunt, the current design flow doesn't come across like it cares deeply about shepherding Otis or Otessa to success.  It took me at least 10 unique actions (typing, clicking, scrolling) to get somewhere that implied "registering" to be an Otis.  And if I had done so, it would have exposed me to the public as a potential Otis!  I bet you could get the number of unique actions down to 3, and save yourselves a lot of time herding folks currently scattered about the forum.

I recommend:
   1. Create a single "Otis" landing page, geared directly toward them specifically, not geared toward Skippers/PEPpers.
   2. Create a Google Form or other homebrew registration form for potential Otis-es to fill out and be contacted.  Include this in 1.
   3. Create a homepage banner link to SKIP, (or even better, to Otis).  Bring the SKIP forum up to the top of the menu bars and web-pages.
   4. Create an "otis" sub-forum, specifically geared toward them with story, FAQs, registration info, etc.  Disable comments so that Otis' privacy doesn't get burned. Link to these threads from the landing page FAQ section.  Be sure to include a page linking directly to a PEP leaderboard so Otis can find their number one.

I think George Yacus makes a good point. And I suspect that's the same issue Jeff was taking aim at.

As for a database, it's a challenge to build it and yet maintain everyone's privacy. Once published, it lives forever -- somewhere. It's a tricky business.