Open sourcing eco-innovation

There are more than 100 million tons of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean alone. It's always great to hear of groups reaching out to collaborate in ways that allow fore innovation to target this sort of "dirty-clean resource"...

For instance:

Method teamed up with local beach clean-up groups and volunteers to collect plastic debris from the beaches of Hawai'i to use for our ocean plastic bottles.They "use innovation not only to try to solve a problem but also to bring greater awareness to a problem".

Working to develop compostable packaging solutions, OCS2 believes that "the best way to address this significant challenge is the open source our work. Nearly every company is trying to accomplish a similar goal, and by working together, we have the chance to drive an industry shift toward a planet friendly approach."

The smallest of details

Lots of discussions lately seem to indicate a feeling that there is an ever-growing need to bring greater focus to "things of nature" and "things of spirit".
  
There seem to be many people getting more and more distracted, but who also seem to have within them at least the subtlest sense of there being something more...  

In trying to envision ways to work with people in this space, what I keep coming back to is a sense of there being a ‘way’ within each of our lives, and it is for each to define and offer. Everything that exists began in someone’s imagination. Our lives are not unlike other artwork, there is a message in all form of creativity...

What we do every day, in the smallest of details, creates the artwork of our existence.

Bringing children together - to sing!

People approach the vastness around us in many different ways.

Many times we take vast things for granted.  Mountain ranges, forests, oceans.  As if our inability to grasp the seeming infinitudes causes us to place the inability within a mindset that there's a bigness that we might not need to consider any further than to acknowledge that it is, yes, a lot of bigness.

Many times we find ourselves tending towards concern, alarm, even despair, of aspects of these vast spaces that are being challenged, possibly destroyed.  

Maybe there is a tendency towards distraction, even as there is always the hope that there is a tendency towards greater awareness.

Sometimes we celebrate this bigness, this vastness, which has the possibility of allowing us to acknowledge, potentially to respect, potentially to place ourselves there within it in an attempt to discern some particulars.  

Maybe it really doesn't matter what particulars.  A simple moment of wonder.  A breath of fresh air.  The feeling of stinging cold upon our feet when we step into cool clear water.  The discovery of a beautiful rock, or bug, or depthless crevass.  The sound of crashing waves or wind through pine needles.

Sometimes we share photos or videos or poems.  Maybe we write research articles or blog entries or diatribes in the comments sections of online news articles.  Maybe we organize groups to go hiking or paddling or snowshoing, or to take trips to natural history museums or to watch movies about nature's beauty or about attacks on nature's beauty.  Maybe we go sit in a park or go hang out on a beach and relax.

We do what we do, we do what we can.

Ocean Beat is a group that is working to connect schools to sing together via the internet, as a way to celebrate one of the vastnesses - oceans.  It is working with organizations and schools around the world, including the South Africa, Paraguay and Indonesia – to share music and dance.  

I've been corresponding with Dixie Belcher who is trying to identify a platform that allows for a dynamic of a real-time virtual concert in high quality sound.  Today we happened upon the coolest interface - artmesh.  Unlike google hangouts or skype, this is a complete management interface designed for creating cd/dvd quality stereo audio production of simultaneous recording from various places around the world.

As Kenneth Fields - who heads the project - writes, artmesh is "a new protocol for live P2P [peer to peer] network music performance between multiple cities with live broadcasting on Youtube." 

It's exciting to think that this can happen!  Good luck Dixie"

There was a time

There was a time
when I did not feel
compelled
to accept every moment
of every day
as a precious gift,
to wander shorelines
streets
wilderness
landscapes of
happiness, depths of despair
confusion
joy emptiness hope calm
with utmost awareness
to bring everything within
as much as anything
is within
in order to share it out
whenever possible
as much as there is
possibility.
There was a time
when I did not have
daily cravings
for giving up
my sense of self
to the smell of seaweed
to the sound of ebbing tides
to the feel of wind on my face
cold warmth pain sense of loss
sense of being lost or being found
or finding my way or losing my way
or to complete and utter
immobility transfixed on beauty
of the simplest things
to memories of smiles
giggles
laughs
and sometimes
just easeful nothings,
a glance away,
a glance my way,
a rustling of the urge
to explore
out beyond everything
I myself would ever
be able to imagine
like the slightest of spring
breezes
whose destination
absolutely no one knows
a complete forgetting
of me
as I believed that
there was an inner belief
that
it could be because
I would always be there.
There was a time
when I did not have children.

Remembering my place

I headed out from the edge of the water along the Eastern Shore in Nova Scotia, thinking I was going to beat the ice from reforming.

I just made it back.

Just imagine...

Imagine being a child who has the whole world around them to be explored with a whole depth of imagination and wonder.  Imagine how the ways we introduce those children to things is constantly and consistently focused on the natural environment around us.

Imagine an outdoor classroom where children spend the day hunting for bugs, learning bird songs and baking the ultimate mud pie - where lessons have a natural magic: instead of counting marbles children collect and count acorns; to learn colors, geometry and fine motor control children use paintbrushes to spread pollen between flowers and record the color, shape and number of petals to share with the class; and with a pile of leaves and twigs they build sculptures and art that reflect the wilds of their imagination.

Imagine a child's favorite thing about preschool being “running up hills” or to “be quiet and listen to birds — crows, owls and chickadees.”

Imagine preschool children learning about the cycles of nature, of life and death, food and waste as they learn about self, family, community, beliefs, values and their place on this earth.

Imagine a preschool where children "grow up wild" through a wide range of nature-based activities for building school readiness skills.

Imagine a kindergarten that triples recess time so children can play outside more.

Imagine a whole network created to connect all children, their families and communities to nature through innovative ideas, evidence-based resources and tools, broad-based collaboration and support of grassroots leadership.

Imagine a whole movement dedicated to becoming more connected to the natural world where even people living in wild, nature-rich places can develop a more thoughtful connection to nature and to each other as they face social pressure to acquire more material goods in the pursuit of a popularized Western lifestyle.

Imagine a whole "no child left inside" curriculum based on the premise that children need to become more environmentally literate so that they can be wise stewards of the very environment that sustains us, our families and communities, and future generations.

That which cannot

To bring ourselves within a space of awareness of things around us, there might be a tendency towards trying to allow more of a self-reflective mood that causes us to acknowledge that we as the physical bodies we are might do well to expand out beyond the ways we have come to recognize as how we do things, towards a way of simply being where we are if only for a moment, amid that which cannot be articulated any more than to be moved within.

Claude Debussy once wrote, "To feel the supreme and moving beauty of the spectacle to which Nature invites her ephemeral guests! … that is what I call prayer."  But how do we define prayer?  It doesn't necessary have to be about religion?  If there are elements of self-reflection within our moments of peace and calm, they might bring us into a space not of asking for things but of being more appreciative of what is there before us - before us as in there before we were ever there and before us in the sense of right there in front of us within the smallest of details. We encounter the physical world with a combination of senses, sometimes with all of them intact, sometimes as "other abled".

It may be all we can do but to witness and when witnessed, possibly shared through the various means we have to communicate with others - inevitably, it seems - since we live within communities of understanding that have us comfortably grounded in consensual reality that we draw upon as naturally as breath, participating in uniformities of perception, expression and a complacency of knowing even as we acknowledge that this causes the world to narrow down to commonplace experiences that so often tend towards precluding wonder...

But to effect that wonder?

The magic of that next island

The next island
the next corner
the next thought
hope
imagined work of art
call to a friend
tentative step
looks back at you
waiting
to be happened upon
you by it
it by you
a bend in the road
a distance
beyond the borizon
a heeded glance
an acknowledged nod
towards that
direction
a thought forgetting
to hold its own hand
because it knows
it is it that is there
if only to break free
to take a peek
at you
before slipping off
beyond
that next island

I began a project that I envisioned as becoming a quite tangible "thing" - if only within the virtual space of the internet - where people would celebrate nature through sharing and where the sharing would become a space in itself.

I reached out to the world, in my own limited naive way, to ask for help.  I received help in many ways and was humbled by generosity.  It wasn't money so much as insights, ideas, suggestions, comments and just plain encouragement.  And I have been given 138 dollars, which I hold as precious, as a responsibility to something I can hardly define but which tends towards a responsibility to make good with the trust that has been placed in me, much like I place trust in myself when I head out onto the water towards that next island.

There are times when I don't get out past that next island; there are times when I don't even reach it.  Paddling alone, I have a certain mindset of testing myself, exploring my limits even as I place myself within boundaries of thoughts and understandings, deals I make with myself, hypotheticals, announcements, bottom line decisions and sometimes just plain and simple no.

I know why I do it.  I feel comfortable with myself, with my whining and hesitations out on waves that I don't really know if I feel like contending with on that particular day, or hitting winds or currents or cross-currents or fog or some deep-seated sense of unease that I've come to learn I should listen to.  And that next island always, always maintains its magic of being there for me in its quiet insistent existence.

A fine wine

In the calmness of it all

I don't know how much more alive I could have felt than when I was out talking with those waves today.  They were big, but not so big.  The wind was strong, but not so strong.

I had peeked out in to the open water, there was wind starting to gust, there were waves beginning to swell.  I tried to gauge my direction to anticipate when I would be returning so that I would have the wind at my back upon the return to ride the seas.  There were islands, lots of them.  I could have gone on and on, I could have continued so far that there would have been no turning back.  The winds were picking up and I could see the whitecaps forming but I went out around that one last island before the endlessness, and prepared for nature to hit me, but she didn't hit me, she caressed me, she held me close, she whispered to me you are not alone out here, there are rhythms, there are flows, there are your memories of every single time we have been together, you know me, even though you sometime try to fool yourself that you might not, you know me, but you will never know me, but you will be able to talk with me.  And so we talked.  There were the strangenesses of chop, there were the rocks emerging in the swells that I needed to keep track of, there was the wind's push upon my intentions and my thinking, yes, there, no, not there, yes, go into that lee, yes, keep going with that flow, yes, move with those waves, yes, head towards that rock cluster, yes, dead reckon beyond and you'll pass right by, it was always about yes, never about no, and then when it was time to turn, and I counted, I found myself counting, one two three and I was almost there, I continued to pull into the wind and to prepare, prepare, and counting until I was ready, until that one last crest of wave and then turn away and then I turned, in smoothness, in joy, in grace, in wonder because it is always wonder, I hope it will always be wonder, to turn upon all of that amazing dynamic and then I was racing with it all and remembering, remembering, keep the angle and ride it on, and then it got fun and before I knew it I was past the last point of land before everything tapered out and i was once again just moving on.

It was like savoring a fine wine.

Calmness to-do list

- just be

- revel in the smallest minute detail

- get out in a kayak :)

- allow my body to feel cold pass right through it without resistance

- allow my body to feel warmth pass right through it without resistance

- lose myself as often as possible - paddling, walks, carving, projects, sitting, piddling about...

- try not to think about it

- try not to believe that anything needs to be articulated, explained, or even brought into the realm of reason, ration, logic or explanation in any way

- imagine that the world "out there" is accessed not from my brain but from my heart - not from an acknowledgement of or seeking of understanding but from a sense of  love

Rewilding

There are an astounding number of projects going on around the world to "rewild" areas

ewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

rewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

rewilding is a critical step in restoring self-regulating land communities,” they claim two non-scientific justifications: (1) “the ethical issue of human responsibility,” and (2) “the subjective, emotional essence of ‘the wild’ or wilderness. - See more at: http://rewilding.org/rewildit/what-is-rewilding/#sthash.rCmrboDI.dpuf

• Aim: The project aims to collaborate with local people on the land to assist the trend of abandoned lands that are in the process of rewilding, and to promote sustainable development through rewilding in the islands as well as the adjacent area of the marine protected area.
• Vision: To bring back natural ecosystems on land and in the sea by restoring marginal areas, protecting wildlife and providing alternatives to pressure on land and sea through carefully planned organic agriculture in the regions' existing agricultural lands.

Anticipatory proximities

There are many many activities going on relating to environmental awareness, celebrating nature and trying to do little things to care for this planet.  Many of these activities criss-cross upon a landscape of our physical wanderings.  Many times we do not know who has crossed what points of our paths and trajectories.

There are many technological solutions to "place" information within physical space.  This has been going on long before the internet.  Geocaching has been happening for centuries - people placing boxes with messages in certain locations for others to happen upon.  Cabins in the wilderness have had log books where people write a bit about their situation, their reason for being in that place at the point in time they're there.  Along the way, people have started to anticipate discovering these logs, and it has become a game of sorts.

And there are activities of placement that it would be interesting to layer - to take the points of intersection and be able to "indicate" them on a map.

Take for instance The Whale Trail - it winds along the west coast shoreline pretty much in some of the same areas where Coastal Cleanup activities are happening- not always necessarily upon the exact same beaches our lookouts, but sometimes within walking distance, and sometimes within an anticipatory proximity - meaning that there is the possibility, the potential, for people who go whale watching to realize that there is also the possibility to clean up the beaches upon which they are walking if only because there is a placement of that awareness of cleanup activities right about in the same place as there is that awareness of the ability to watch whales.

And yes, it might be said that we should be cleaning up the beaches anyways - or rather, we should not be throwing things onto the beaches.  But a lot of what is on beaches has washed up, and sometimes people call cleanup beach combing.  But there is an element of raising awareness that there is the possibility to do that one little thing along the way - where you are anyways - to do something that can help make that space you're moving through a bit better, a bit healthier, a bit more beautiful for the long term.

Maybe there's some activity to have people share information about a particular location - ice formation, rain or other weather conditions, or maybe the emergence of plants in spring or maybe the data has already been collected for instance about the health of the apple you've brought with you.  No one can know the ultimate value of information when it is being collected - but the collection of information is a first step.  It might leads to surprising insights, new awareness about changes or no change, and maybe even provide background for policy decisions.

There is "value of observation in terms of our being able to
inform policy, to inform decisions and to reduce uncertainty, and the observations are a part of (our responsibility). You cannot make
weather forecasts without observing and monitoring the
weather. You certainly cannot make any predictions or
forecasts about the ocean without observing it in a sustained manner.”

This is going to hurt

Another challenge with finding information about environmental issues:

"Like people all over the world, she got her news mostly from social and alternative media, because the Irving papers and other mainstream media did not carry our news. The more independent media were usually blocked or “kettled” out of the protest areas."

New Brunswick Environmental News

On the site there is information about two upcoming workshops.  It doesn't seem that there's a way to "virtually attend"...  Maybe someday.

Two FREE workshops are already planned 

• Saturday Feb. 13, 4:30–9 pm, at the Greenwood Lodge in Fords Mills. A potluck supper; at 5:30 pm start the workshop.
• Sunday Feb. 14, 5–9:30 pm, hosted by Kopit Lodge, in Elsipogtog (bldg TBA). A potluck; at 6 pm start workshop.

• Other workshop sessions may be planned until Feb 17th. 
• 
  
• 
  

LInks

Here on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, I've been getting out in the kayak whenever the weather and winds allow.  Tucked within a series of islands, there's some nice paddling along stretches of coastline, and then when I shoot out into the swells there are more islands, and more and more...

I was reading some news about the 100 Wild Islands and happened upon the Forest Watch website.  There at the bottom right is a nice list of links.

There are a lot of ways to present links - and the events, people and locations that are associated with them.  What seems to be the challenge is to find a space where everything within one area is placed together.  It takes a consolidated effort to create such a comprehensive, systematically updated set of information.

Lists

An important - essential - aspect of the waketrail project is to build a socially constructed database for projects that relate to one another.  There are many lists out there - for instance Rewilding Projects (check the bottom of the page) and Dark Sky Projects.

How many other such lists are out there?  Where can anyone ever get any global perspective?  I don't believe that searching for, collecting and aligning these lists is something that one person or even one organization can do; it needs to be collaborative, innovative and ongoing - socially constructed.

A mobile app is in process, a database is in process, networking is in process.  It's going to exciting to see how things will emerge.

Nature has no building codes

I was watching two televised events last night - actually, since I didn't have access to TV, I was watching two live streams on their respective sites - a Donald Trump event in Iowa and a Republican Presidential debate.  In both events, healthcare was discussed, our veterans' rights to healthcare was discussed, and there was mention of accessibility - and I took a little journey...

I got thinking about accessibility to nature, and recalled a video I'd seen a while back - "Nature is the Best Medicine".   (Actually this is not something only to parody - Richard Louv, for instance, has coined a term "nature-deficit disorder" that is afflicting many children.)  This then led to recalling a quote I'd once heard - "Nature does not have building codes."  I thought about the work I'd done trying to develop accessibility solutions for mobile phones, and people I have met on my travels - handicapped people dealing with and many times thriving with challenges; the amazing perseverance and fortitude many of these people have in their journeys to enjoy life, live productive lives and share their stories with others. I remembered a sign I saw in an airport in India - "People with other abilities board first".  I thought of something I had once read in a book by Edward Said, about otherness and the way society creates a disenfranchised group of others who do not conform to the social norms, institutions or the ways certain activities are brought into the realm of mass inclusion, and exclusion.

I wondered: "Is it wrong that nature does not make it easy, or at times even possible for those with handicaps to enjoy its spaces?"  "No," I thought, "it can't be wrong - but it can be addressed."

And yes, it is being addressed.  There are many groups that are taking it upon themselves to open up nature to people with disabilities. For instance, in Canada, Power to Be is a group that is seeking to "inspire youth and families in need of support to discover their limitless abilities through nature-based programs".

As I explored their site, I found another site, issuu, which offers free to read publications.  One collection is of various annual reports relating to children and nature.  But within this site, within many other technologies, activities, studies and institutions is a way to locate things - around where you are, in places you are interested in, in places you might be thinking to travel to.

This is what I want to explore with waketrail.org - a way to locate things that relate to caring for and celebrating nature.  Where can a person who is wheelchair-bound find trails to traverse, or maybe even groups of people who are organized to help such traverses?  Where can a person who is blind find the best experiences in nature as defined by other people who have the exact same challenge?  Where can a person who is interested in working on "something" find people in their area who have a simialr interest and are trying to find others to talk through possibilities?

Starting for scratch, sort of

I had a really nice call today with a friend of mine, Ram Kashyap.  I was sitting in Nova Scotia, he was sitting in India, the call was a bit spotty at times but we managed.  We talked about nature - the time we have spent out in nature, the things we have experienced within nature, the ways we have moved through nature - all aspects of the ways we celebrate nature.   And we got talking about how we might work to create a way of sharing those celebrations, and so begins yet another level of the journey...  I've invited him to write in this blog and I look forward to reading about his own journey!

I've also invited another friend, Henri Koivuneva, who has been a great help and inspiration in creating the first nascent elements of waketrail.org.  Henri is a true wizard and it's always fun to feel the speed with which he creates things.  I look forward to reading of his journey also!

So you could say that we're starting from scratch, sort of - working with some existing tools and workable elements to begin designing and creating something that will, ultimately, hopefully, allow people around the world to care for and celebrate nature, discover others doing similar things and discover places where nature is being cared for and celebrated.  Onwards :)

Value, mindfulness and care

I was sitting by the front window enjoying the sounds of the snow squall outside, especially since I was warming to a wood fire and felt like I could relax within my protected view of that potentially brutal reality.  I even had an internet connection, and happened upon an article about "the value of art".  It was describing a unique vending machine where an art student was selling various pieces of ceramic art.

“In this work, the audience participation is crucial as they are put through a decision-making process in contemplating the value they attribute to craft in relation to the price they select."  In other words, the audience is somewhat forced to pause and think about how much they value that piece of ceramic behind the glass wall. At the same time, Hans poses another question to us: “Can we be purely economical about craft?”

As I sat looking out at the raging storm, I thought of how we approach natural experiences, and the prices we pay to get close to nature.  Guided tours, gas to drive, equipment and even relationships and mindset to make the experience tolerable towards "thriving".

If we were to think of "nature" as an immediate, integral, consistent and evolving aspect of our lives, we might look at ways to become more thriving with and within it. 

I began thinking of repurposing a list of ways to thrive:

• Take smart, common-sense risks and step out of your comfort zone - find new ways to approach and become immersed within nature.
• Begin to better prioritize your relationships, both with yourself and others - rethink the relationship taken up with nature.
• Change your environment to a more productive and encouraging one - explore new avenues for experiencing nature.
• Begin to work on understanding your emotions, emotional triggers and limiting beliefs - become more self-reflective when "out in nature".
• Model the excellence you want and expect in your life - discover how you reach mindfulness when "out in nature".
• Improve your fuel plan to support your physical body’s ability to thrive - find new ways to nourish yourself when hiking, paddling, walking or touring in any natural space.
• Try something new and embrace an element of play in your day - surprise yourself by peeking around a corner you never would have imagined yourself peeking around...

My vision is that within waketrail.org there will be something like a channel titled "mindfulness" where people can share such experiences and experimental explorations and discover others who are having similar explorations, or who have taken part in a similar exploration in a location where you are planning to go to, are journeying out into, have recently visited, etc.  We might then be able to get a better perspective on how we invest our time, energy, money and thought and emotional processes in our encounters with nature, and find ways in which we can further our own explorations, possibly towards participating in projects that help to care for and celebrate nature.

Work and nature

I am house sitting a place on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia.  The windows look out over an expanse of water whose distances hint at an area that is being called The 100 Wild Islands.  I paddled out yesterday to catch a glimpse of the farthest reaches of these islands - mysterious and beautiful.  I feel fortunate to be able to spend these next few months in such an environment even as I maintain contact with people around the world to further plans for the waketrail project.

Within everyday work, to acknowledge that empathy carries over into many realms of life, including the natural environment, allows us space for reflection. As I take on the ongoing challenges of developing a platform to bring together many disparate elements of environmental awareness, I will take up this challenge - to try constantly to reimagine myself within new spaces of interaction, with people, with nature.

A recent article asked how the new economy - with new ways of organizing and working together, an energizing sense of possibility, and a seemingly insatiable thirst for problem solving - will engage and support the least visible among us?  I have throught to expand that to ask how will a tendency towards some sort of new economy engage and support to the subtlest of natural elements around and within us, to create a more caring economy? The Values Revolution might bring greater insights into this by taking into account some level of exploration into questions such as how does a greater awareness of nature align with a greater awareness of "the least visible among us".

Or, how is it possible to bring such an awareness within movements such as http://www.goodworkcode.org/the-code/

Story One - The bird that flew away

Sometimes life presents us with moments that lead us to question the logic of how we are perceiving the world.  Sometimes, in order to attempt articulation, we make might bring these moments into fictional presentations - toyings with what we might think of as alternatives to how we originally sensed that moment.

There was one moment in my life after which I had to stand - I was standing and figured I might as well continue - and try to fathom the reality that had just been presented to me.  Nothing too earth-shaking, but there it was - a moment of being presented a new perspective on a world I had thought was one way, but was suddenly recognizing as another.

Nothing escapes us, whether we acknowledge it or not, true or not, and really, we can translate and triangulate as much as we want, believe that theories are actualities, truths are fictions or fictions truths, maybe wander off on our own walkabouts of conjectures, maybe feel that there is an amazing beauty to it all.  So here's a story.

A guy goes to a conference that has a theme of some sort of betterment of mankind.  The guy has an interesting idea - or at least interesting in his own humble opinion, belief, I mean, that's the reason he went to the conference, with belief and hope of gaining more knowledge, perspective and depth of understanding that might fill in around some of his interesting idea and provide some sense of order and sense of purpose within that whole landscape of mankind betterment.  He was there to listen.  He was there to learn.  He was there to ask questions. 

There was one particular question he asked a man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind.  The question was:  "Would I be able to get funding from your organization for a project that explored how little funding it might actually take to solve a potentially global problem at a very local level?"

There was a bit more to it, maybe, but that's about the essence of it, the simplified rendition; pretty much, essentially, it was a question about whether a large non-profit organization whose specific focus was on the betterment of mankind could or would fund a project whose main focus was to see how little it would take to use local insights, an understanding of on-the-ground realities and a quite large network of good people interested in working on good locally relevant activities to figure out how cheaply they could all work together to do something as inexpensively as possible in a way that would allow the problem-solving activity to become self-sustaining and even viably self-replicating across many countries around the world.

The answer that the man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind was, "no".  He said that they wouldn't be able to fund that sort of project.  Straight-out, unhesitatingly he simply said no.  Because, he said, they mostly worked on projects that worked within machinery that was created for large-scale projects, that had huge funding structures, large metrics for success and the bigger the project the better because they could show big numbers and big numbers are what, this man said, needed to be produced.  It was big numbers that caught the eyes of those who would be working with the next funding round, and the next, and the...  Their non-profit wasn't cheap to keep on perpetuating itself, this man said.  It's a very competitive world, this man said.

So the guy with what he believed to be an interesting idea stood there and thought alongside this man who was associated with a large non-profit organization that funded a lot of global campaigns for the betterment of mankind.  Anyone standing close-by and happening to look at the two men at that moment might have caught the two of them seeming to nod to each other with an acknowledgement of something left there to float between them, to hover. 

Then, if anyone were there looking, a funny thing might have been seen.  That thing between those two guys suddenly took on a life of its own and became a bird that flew away off into some distance of escape, around the mass of so many people who, it might be supposed, had so many interesting ideas for some sort of betterment of mankind.   The bird finally found an open doorway and, whoosh, it was gone.

The end

Note 7 Finding nature

http://findingnature.org.uk/

 Nature always has a story to tell, the key is tuning the senses in to it. Every walk is nature’s story and each step is another word in the story of the day – a 10,000 word story.

A further benefit of finding nature locally is that it can be accessed in small pockets of time, thereby accumulating 10,000 steps throughout the day.

Learnings week one

It's been over a week since I took the dive into trying to develop a way to consolidate all global people, projects and activities that care for and celebrate nature.  Actually, it wasn't like I was just starting out - for years I have been pondering this as I have worked on various technology projects in countries like South Africa, India and China, and working with developers to create solutions for education, accessibility and environmental awareness.  It's been a long road to this first week, and this first week has taught me that there are really so many good people around who are sincerely interested in doing good things.  It hasn't been a true to form calendar week of seven days, but more like a mental week, of working through days of activities and insights, communicating through various channels and streams of conversations, and then, on the Sunday of the flow, resting into some reflection and gearing up for the next week.

Although I have managed various technology projects, this week has taught me that I still have a long way to go to get in synch with the realities of a truly global software project that is open-ended at best.  I'm going to look into a project management training, course or insights, possibly a book, something that will allow me more insight into the nuts and bolts of facilitating a software project, possibly to get in tune with evolving a project along the lines of the outline below, extracted from one online course description.

Business reasons?  Presently there is no business.  What I want to do is to create a space for sharing.  Where's the business in trying to develop a way to bring people together for the greater benefit of our global environment?  Maybe others can find good business in this - collaborating on maker projects that repurpose materials, discover ways to bring green technologies into everyday activities, figure out how to get people to "find nature", which might allow more people a space of reflecting on their place on this earth and how their actions inter-relate with everything else around them...

Conducting a Project Kick-Off Meeting

The business reasons for the project

• Where the project fits in the business
• How this fit influences your chances of success

The project customers

• Identifying stakeholders and their needs
• Developing strategies to manage involvement

The project objectives

• What success looks like
• Making the team's success visible
• Managing the project to build customer confidence

Balancing Development Needs with Organizational Expectations

Selecting software development life cycle models

• Comparing SDLC models
• How to identify the right model
• Analyzing strengths and weaknesses of Traditional vs. Iterative vs. Agile (e.g., XP, Scrum)

Designing a road map for your project

• Mapping your PM process to your project's SDLC
• Optimizing time, cost, function and quality

Translating Stakeholder Needs into Actions

Structuring content for your software project plan

• Providing initial top-down estimates
• Identifying tasks and phases using a WBS
• Calculating realistic bottom-up estimates
• Sequencing tasks into a network diagram
• Constructing Gantt charts to assess resource needs

Getting the right resources

• Identifying resource needs using your plan
• Delegating work effectively

Reality check for your project plan

• Testing the plan before you begin
• Assessing the project using risk management
• Involving the team in planning
• Building confidence for your plan
• Selling the plan to relevant stakeholders

Running the Project: Day-to-Day Decisions for Success

Focusing on the project management process

• Putting theory into practice
• Early warning signs
• Building team commitment
• Day-to-day tracking and management
• Measuring progress with milestones
• Defect detection and prevention

Characterizing the software development process

• Analyzing how the SDLC drives deliverables
• Pressures to expect at each stage
• The major stages and how they relate
• Determining the working practices in traditional, iterative and Agile developments that offer the greatest impact

Building successful teams

• Getting technical teams to work collaboratively
• Engaging the team in the planning process
• Empowering team members
• Managing the stages of team development appropriately

Driving the Implementation: Recognizing and Overcoming Challenges

Tracking and control

• Measuring software progress
• Linking progress to success

Implementing change control

• Principles of change control
• The value of configuration management

Controlling risk

• Analyzing project risk
• Changing the risk profile
• Planning for contingency

Closing the Project: Learning from Experience

• Sharpening your project management skills
• Influencing the continuous improvement process of your organization

A 2016 calendar

I have made a 2016 calendar with some of my favorite photos from the last few years wandering, paddling, hiking and just meandering within nature.  You can download it, make a copy of it, use it, share it!

At the bottom is a little reminder to check out The Waketrail  Project :)

I'm envisioning someday to have a completely open calendar where anyone in the world could put in information by date, with specifics about location and some background information, links etc.  This is all part of The Waketrail Project.

Enjoy the calendar!

Graphic design help needed

Is there someone with graphic design expertise who would like to volunteer a few hours to help me design a first UI design visualization fir a non-profit technology project?

I'm working on an environmental networking project - waketrail.org.  The vision is to bring together people, activities and organizations from around the world who are focusing on caring for and celebrating nature.  I am putting updates on my blog - www.onjourneying.blogspot.com and have a gofundme campaign - www.gofundme.com/waketrail - hopefully there will be money to fund some of the backend development and more UI design work in the future.

I also want to design and create a bumper sticker for awareness-building and as something to give to people who donate.

Please let me know if you can help in some way. Very much appreciated!

Note 6 Where do helium balloons go?

A petition in Queensland, Australia started by Tangalooma EcoMarines

Most balloons are made of Mylar (a plastic) or latex (synthetic or natural rubber). Balloon-makers like to recommend latex balloons as an eco-friendly solution, and say these balloons “degrade as quickly as an oak leaf.” What they don’t mention is that the study they’re quoting is non peer-reviewed, has never been replicated, and was actually written for and by the National Association of Balloon Artists, in the USA. The study also doesn’t mention that oak leaves degrade slowly. Latex may take 6 months or more to degrade – even more slowly in water! That’s a lot of time to drift around and pose hazards to our precious marine life.

Balloon debris also contributes to unsightly trash on our beaches and river edges. In the months after the flooding event of 2011, for example, hundreds of balloons (whole or in fragments) and plastic balloon tie-strings, were found washed up on the western side of Moreton Island, part of the trash from the South-East Queensland catchments.

150 dollars

My gofundme project is up to 150 dollars in donations!  What should I do with all that money?

At a technology level, one of the first necessities is to get the  UI design concept drawn out, and to begin developing an architectural design for tying various backend dynamics to that UI with an "overall user experience" - how the elements of technology that create the stuff that works behind the scenes translates into the way that someone going to the website or mobile app or online tool will eventually experience all of that backend elements running in the best way possible along the lines of my vision of how waketrail.org will work.

At another level, there is a need for much broader awareness, both short term and long term.  PR and communications, marketing and outreach, project management, backlogs and agile sprints coinciding with timeboxes, timeframes and schedules - all of these need to be coordinated and presented in clear ways.  Also the main vision and a clear view of where any donations are going.

One nuts and bolts way to spread the word is through a bumper sticker...  Also, this would be one small way to thank people who donate to the project - because I've gotten a few questions from people about what little token of gratitude might be something to receive when they donate, and there have been some suggestions of incentives and there have actually been a few very specifically suggesting bumper stickers.  To tell the truth, I had not been thinking about bumper stickers.  I have been focusing on getting the concept into a first tangible visualization, so that there can be more clarity to where the project os aiming.

But I'll throw it out for some thoughts - if I'm figuring why not do something like a bumper sticker, would this be a valid use of donation money?  It makes sense, it's something fun, it's a way to give some thanks, and it would allow the project, and the site, to gain exposure in the long run.  Within the idea that everything abot The Waketrail Project needs to be done within the scope of available resources, and building awareness by using something like a bumper sticker might build awareness, should resources be allocated to this?  I'll work to develop the UI visualization and the website and in the meantime explore other awareness-building activities.  If anyone is willing to donate 120 dollars specifically to this I would appreciate it.

And of course, if there is anyone who would like to volunteer time, feel free to get in touch! Graphic design, coding the backend, designing and creating frontend features, interactive dynamics, a look and feel that aligns with some design principles that have yet to be created...   This is a software project, and I'm ending towards agile project management, an overall view of everything from basic design principles to architecture design to brand concepting and defining a framework for communications, outreach, gathering information about groups and projects in various countries or figuring out a way to crowdsource this, getting people working together within a community effort to discover and share everything possible, which would then lead to data input and other administrative activites; and then alongside this there is always the day to day realities of activities such as putting bumper stickers into envelopes and putting addressses and stamps onto the envelopes...

You can always write to me at gregory.smiley@gmail.com - I'd love to hear from you!

So here's putting it in perspective of awareness building as an investment into the ong term viability of the project.  One online bumper sticker site has an offer for 200 custom bumper stickers for 120 US dollars.  Not bad: each bumper sticker would cost about 60 cents.  If I were to say that every person who donates 20 dollars or more would receive a bumper sticker, there would be money left over.  The gofundme process takes about a 10% commission on each donation, so from 20 dollars, take away 2 dollars commission and about a dollar for the bumper sticker and shipping (which I guess needs to include an envelope), so that will leave about 17 US dollars for each 20 dollar donation.

The image above is where I see the bumper sticker beginning - a raven flying towards some mysterious space of potential.  So far it has evolved to this stage:

I'd like to see the raven flying above an ocean, which would allow some sense of a wake behind something moving across water, the idea of something going somewhere and leaving that wake, but also include some sense of the wake of waking up, an awakening sense of purpose.  I've sent these thoughts to one friend and asked for a sort of rough sketch of an idea of how he envisions all of this coming together with a bumper sticker space of visual playground...  Maybe others reading this might have some ideas?  Is this a bumper sticker you would feel good about having on your car?  Why or why not?  What could make it more dynamic, more lively, more fun, more purposefully engaging?

Ok; so if I end up doing this bumper sticker order, that would leave me with 30 US dollars.  With 30 US dollars I can maybe, hopefully, get someone to begin the UI design concept, which would set the stage for providing greater clarity into how I envision waketrail.org to look, which might allow greater clarity in to how I see it being used and how it might eventually become a space for sharing many things - again, aligning with the overall vision.

Sightings and a vision of consolidated awareness

beer can on the beach

It has always amazed me that I can be way out in the middle of a huge space of wilderness, sometimes days beyond any access to other people, and I can be walking along within this middle of endlessness and suddenly happen upon... garbage.

How the heck does a beer can get out into the middle of the Tongass Forest wilderness area along a beach that took me ten days of paddling and five hours of hiking to get to?

The anthropology of waste might have some insights into this phenomenon of mysterious can sightings and address some issues of how we might become more critically aware of our own ways of existing within spaces of waste - and then again, it can serve to open up a whole can of worms of potentials of thought.  That beer can is like the tip of an iceberg of a much larger issue - of how we discard so many things, and taken to an even broader level,  how we are even living within a phenomenon of discarding, to some extent, almost everything around us.


A friend who recently arrived in the US from India looked around at people o the street and remarked, "If these people were to discard everything that had been created with child labor, they would be walking around naked."
I heard a friend recently say, "We're living in a time of throw away goods, throw away children and even throw away countries."

One little can.  Landfills. Unfulfilled - or even unformed - dreams of children. Child labor.  Wasteful actions.  The effects of wasteful actions.  How do we effect some sense of perspective.

One friend has a blog of "sightings" - reports of unusual creatures being washed up on beaches, appearing in surface waters or being found or caught far from their historical ranges. My vision of waketrail is to create a global space for sightings - not only of creatures, but also of projects, and possibly of garbage sightings or projects for cleaning up garbage, or sightings of water or electricity waste or food waste.  Each of these has a specific location.  Why not begin to build a consolidated awareness of these?

Note 5 The mission of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network

NSEN

"To raise the profile of environmental education in Nova Scotia through increasing

understanding, capacity, and communication amongst environmental organizations and their

partners in order to maintain ecological integrity and sustainable communities."

The waketrail vision

All in process, all moving ahead, all with so many potentials to ultimately have a space for bringing together so many disparate activities, dovetailing initiatives letting people discover each other to find ways to work together to care for and celebrate nature...

Here's how I see it working when it gets to a point of working well:

There will be is a view - a user interface, a website page - that allows anyone anywhere in the world to post information about any activity that relates to caring for and celebrating nature.  They would put in the location, the name of the activity, a "theme", a link, a few keywords and maybe some personal information.  There will be a very simple and easy to use template for inputting information.

What others will see will be a view that allows them the ability to find information about any activity that relates to caring for and celebrating nature. They will put in the location they want to explore, the name of the activity, a "theme" and maybe a few keywords, and will be taken to that location to see the activities that fit within that space of interest.

Everyone will have their name associated with anything that place into the system - so people can also search for individual names.

Some people might be doing things in various locations - for instance, if you take a hike, you pass through many locations along the way - a mountaintop, a valley, alongside a lake, along a shoreline.  These would all be locations - right down to a particular outcropping of rock along a shoreline.

There are technologies already quite solidly in process for effecting this sort of view, user interface and website page.  I am looking to develop these within a technology backend that will allow for some very dynamic interactions of information - also a solid technology, wondrously glitchy and with some great people taking on a huge to-do list.

Stay tuned!

Note 4 Beach gatherings

Beach gatherings

Note 3 Unusual beach sightings

Unusual beach sightings

Note 2 Paddling Nova Scotia

Paddling Nova Scotia

Note 1 Everest Base Camp

Base camp stories

Why I think we need a consolidated view of people, places and activities that celebrate nature

The challenge is that around the world there are so many really great projects going on, and so many really great people doing truly inspiring work that focuses on nature - but even with the magical internet with its algorithms of discoverability, these people and activities still remain separate, and separated, and it is still difficult if not impossible to locate things right around in your own area never mind on the other side of the world.

So my thought is that the way to face this challenge is to work on a way to remove the separation...  My thought is that the way to remove this separation is to create a systematized way to catalog, archive and consolidate every single activity that is focused on celebrating nature...

A daunting task, for sure, at one level of thinking...  At another level - maybe somewhat unrealistic, overly optimmistic, not really so logical - is the belief that it can be done through a concerted effort to raise awareness of this being something that is happening in earnest.

Onwards :)

the bumpersticker

It might and will most likely evolve...  :)