Geoff Lawton's "Cold Climate Permaculture" video now live

Jennifer Wadsworth wrote:Hey Dawn - thanks for your generous response! I hope you'll be joining us in the forum to discuss the Design Manual. Warning - it could degrade into silliness at some point (esp. if I'm involved). Really, I'm obsessed with buttock flow forms....

I digress.

Here's to everyone finding the learning opportunities that suit their tastes and budgets complete with appropriate music.....

LOL We'll be moving in to our homestead before New Years (should have moved today but our driver had his feet crushed by a truck yesterday ). And we have not yet receiver at final offer on our solar panels - I have no idea when I'll be able to go online for any significant time But I will try too keep up with the reading.

Jennifer Wadsworth wrote:@CJ -
ANOTHER GREAT FREE ACTIVITY!!!

Join us in reading Bill Mollison's seminal work, "Permaculture - A Designer's Manual" starting Jan 1st here on this site.

Jenifer, this is SUCH a good great idea -- thank you for the idea and the re-direct! I'd like to see how the group read & discuss goes -- maybe this is a whole new way I can keep my mind and body immersed in what really matters, and a new way -- at least for me -- of interacting with the Permies site. This could be a real eye opener!

I was not trying to be a wet blanket, since I really do have a great deal of respect for Geoff Lawton's knowledge and accomplishments, but his style is a huge turn off. The costs for me to take his on-line class were prohibitive; there was just no way I could even consider it, even if it turned out to be a great value. Along these lines, my 45 mpg VW TDI died about 9 months ago, so I have had to drive around (only when needed!) in my work truck, which only gets 18 mpg. All the comments about a new TDI, an electric hybrid or a used Prius are great ideas, but I can't afford to buy anything until I make a little more money, so I'm stuck at the moment.

Since I have a great deal of passion about the urgency of spreading information about Permaculture, Climate Change, Peak Oil, and the coming economic collapse, I have a hard time with people charging money to help save the world. If there's no money, do we all just stop trying? Seems to me the importance of the work is so much greater than the need for $$$, but I do acknowledge there are very real costs to pulling off such a course, and a better class that costs more is probably more valuable than a quick & dirty class costing less. Since I'm convinced this entire world-wide economic system is long overdue for an overhaul (and that it will soon collapse utterly anyway), I'm probably just too impatient about the need to exchange currency for goods -- but that is the world in which we live

Many thanks to you and anyone else involved in the PDC book discussion.

Hey Brad - glad you can join us. I DO hear what you're saying about costs and the necessity for getting the word out. And for me, supporting like-minded people with the money I DO have is where I want to be - it's my way of creating that alternative economy based on things that are important to me.

All that aside - Ann Torrence is the person responsible for the fabulous idea of a read-along of the Manual. If you're so inclined, go give her a "thumbs up" for her brilliance!

Brad Vietje wrote:
Since I have a great deal of passion about the urgency of spreading information about Permaculture, Climate Change, Peak Oil, and the coming economic collapse, I have a hard time with people charging money to help save the world. If there's no money, do we all just stop trying?

Brad, there may be other ways...

For example, I know you happen to live in a very Transition friendly state! Maybe you could convince your local Transition Town or maybe even your library (get on the board!!!) to pick up a set of those DVDs and/or the PDM you'd get like 75% of the knowledge from the PDC and certainly people on this site could help fill in the gaps. Or maybe you start a local Permaculture group and everyone kicks in $ to buy the DVDs as a group.

A good chunk of any PDC gets into these kinds of strategies...

Jay Peters wrote:As with Chris and others I find it very exciting and interesting to see Geoff looking specifically at a northern, 4 season climate and its really great to see some of Ben's place (I only just learned of him and what he's up to).

Though I do understand where Geoff is coming from with respect to the purpose of the videos...introductory at best; trailers designed to entice/ create curiosity in an uninitiated audience and ideally gain PDC students... I DO NOT think the production style/ values are helping the cause. My girlfriend cannot stand his pace and delivery...frankly neither can I but I suffer through it for the info with headphones on so as not to cause chaos. The website stuff is a bit Bobo BUT it works once you learn you can trust it...agreed though that the layout does not inspire confidence or clarity. The videos themselves I think with a little direction, COULD be far more successful. Maybe if produced with an aesthetic somewhere between the strict INFO DELIVERY of say a classic Paul Wheaton shakey cam video, and the artful yet lofi production of the Farmstead Meatsmith videos in mind it could actually be a desirable AND informative video to watch able to bait young and old alike into learning about this permaculture thing.

I have my own issues with the info delivery in the FS MS vids (particularly the white text is too hard to read) but they draw me in, and everyone I've shown them to was immediately compelled to watch more and in the end watched every FS MS video available then cursed them for not making more! Geoff's videos, though they are interesting for me, definitely don't seem to do a very good job of drawing in the uninitiated in my experience. Lose the over the top triumphant score, lose the ridiculous 'everything is amazing' tone of voice and stop lingering on the delivery of every single word! He's worse than Stuart MacLean!!! (Canadian Content Joke)

Don't get me wrong, Geoff clearly knows permaculture and I appreciate what he's trying to do here..but these videos need a more solid outside/directorial eye if they're going to capture the imagination of the uninitiated. As it is they come across as some guy (if I've never heard of Geoff Lawton) grandstanding and if you aren't looking close enough at the content it seems like a snake oil pitch or joke/segment on the Colbert report. Needs tuning IMHO.

Having said that I do really want to take a PDC with the man; any parts of videos I've seen where he's in front of a whiteboard explaining something are great. I just don't know if these vids as they are will convince anyone who hasn't heard of Geoff or Permaculture to buy in and do the same..or even get a complete view.

This is definitely a matter of personal preference. I find Geoff's pacing and delivery entirely satisfactory and would not ask him to change a bit of it. The camera work is likewise satisfactory and I don't know how I would improve on it.

As to needing "a more solid outside/directorial eye", I feel that part of what makes them work is that they are NOT over-polished slick productions. They have a genuine quality I appreciate. Geoff's more interested in talking to us about the work than in making a professional grade advertisement - and again, I appreciate that.

Are the folks in that audience eating POPCORN?

Please tell me that wasn't cement!

Haven't they heard of Netflix?

I thought Geoff's website might be worse from all the comments. It looks sort of like an online infomercial, but not too frightening. I've always thought that just releasing video content might make more money than protecting it, particularly for someone like Geoff who would instantly have a ton of subscribers. I can't count how many times I watched the greening the desert video. It's scary to make completely public and free what you're basing a large part of your livelihood on, but I think it would become much more far reaching than he could imagine. Plus he could post every inconsequential scrap of video and I would watch it.

It's frustrating to connect with a thread in it's title but have to sort through so much stuff that is irrelevant to the subject of this great video. That said, I'll be nice I agree with the comments about Geoff's site. When I visit Geoff's site, I do so through his email that he sent me. I have no problems with getting in. I was hoping this thread might been an extension of the comments on that video so that I could have even more insight as my place is actually colder zoned than this and I need all the help I can get in regards to cold zone temperate permaculture. I'm into rice growing and would like to try some in my zone 3 location at some point in the next few years. My permaculture site is currently under observation (and under at least 4 feet of snow!), and nothing has been done to it by me, except throw 3 gallons of service berries about to see what happens. I like this video a lot, but on Geoff's site I questioned his comments (when he talked about hugulkultur) that the decomposition in the cold temperate zone happens in the winter. That didn't make sense to me. In my mind, all biological decomposition happens when the temperature and humidity levels are high, not low as they are in temperate winter. Anybody want to comment on this?

Roberto pokachinni wrote:I was hoping this thread might been an extension of the comments on that video so that I could have even more insight as my place is actually colder zoned than this and I need all the help I can get in regards to cold zone temperate permaculture.

Roberto: You might starting a thread in one of the other forums to ask this specific question. Of the top of my head, this forum may be the most appropriate: https://permies.com/forums/f-22/great-white-north Posting there will draw the attention of others in the same or similar climate zones.

I've done a bit of web design stuff, and I can say that - while I personally find the need to repeatedly enter email addresses annoying - his setup is highly effective for harvesting email addresses.

It is a proven fact of sales that repeated exposure helps people to have confidence and eventually buy a product. Even if that "product" is something as ephemeral as a concept. Most casual browsers will land on his site, may enter an email address and watch maybe one video. By later mailing them out with occassional updates he draws them back in so they get a second (third/fourth...) exposure to his message. Highly effective for selling newbie on the concept and principals of permaculture.

Where they go next is another issue - I've not really been aware of a hard sell from Geoff, but his videos have certainly provided some inspiration for me.

It's in your face, but it works so I'm happy to put up with it for the broader benefits it brings through exposing more people to permaculture.

Thanks Jennifer. I just did a new post in the 'great white north' . I don't know how to put the video there as you did. I'm pretty much the low tech luddite type bumbling around on and scraping his claws on the keyboard here.

Roberto pokachinni wrote: I just did a new post in the 'great white north' . I don't know how to put the video t

I added the links to your other thread.

Roberto pokachinni wrote:Thanks Jennifer. I just did a new post in the 'great white north' . I don't know how to put the video there as you did. I'm pretty much the low tech luddite type bumbling around on and scraping his claws on the keyboard here.

Looks like the "ole claws" are doing ok! Now that the bait is set, all you have to do is lie in wait for others from that habitat to emerge with snippets of knowledge......don't make any sudden moves or they may startle ......

I'll post a link to your other post here so people can conveniently find it: https://permies.com/t/31754/great-white-north/discussion-Lawton-Cold-Temperate-Video

I totally get all the issues raised in this thread, but I think the diversity of delivery of Paul, Geoff, Jack Spirko, and others is important for more than a few reasons. Paul and Jack are gateway folks - those who break down the complexities of the permaculture world into snippets, vignettes, and fun experiments for the masses (and you need masses for an empire, right?). Once those folks get in here, dig around, and get a taste of what they've been missing in the outside world...they might go looking for a Geoff Lawton then. Most of them wouldn't be ready for the amount of info prior to that, nor would they understand the value of what they'd be getting in a Lawton PDC.

Value is subjective, though...for me, the value of a Lawton PDC was the hardcore, Mollison-direct, no metaphysics & no politics/socialism aspect of the course (and this is coming from a "metaphysician", mind you!). I didn't want drumming, rolling in the mud, or endless discussions about government that usually degraded into hippie monkey-chatter. I wanted information, and the knowledge of how to implement it.

On PRI's (Geoff's) end, these videos are the ramp-up to the big-batch PDC teaching that Geoff does (in addition to managing Zaytuna, traveling around the world on consult, etc.), and even though it's online, it does require a huge amount of his time over a period of months...so it's worth it to take this marketing approach to cram as many people into each class. If the cost of the course doesn't work for you, at least buy Mollison's design manual and do the read-thru with Jennifer's group. That book is worth its weight in gold, and after the PDC I even knew what the hell I was reading, lol.

I am endlessly grateful for the efforts of Paul, Jack, and everyone who helps to open the door of permaculture to another new mind. They have BIG roles translating this info for newbies. That type of diversity of info delivery will push everything much further in the long run.