:Title: Brainstorming Income Generating Ideas :Author: John Powers :Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:23:44 PST :Modified: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 21:27:57 PST :URL: http://www.ned.com/group/ugandabooks/news/3/ This is a thread for discussing ways to produce educational materials which produce income. Brainstorming is a way of thinking out loud. The important thing is to generate ideas. All of the ideas will be incomplete and need more work at first. In fact the point about generating ideas isn't to develop all of them, but to have ideas to choose from. With a list a few ideas might be worth investing time to develop. So the idea of brainstorming is to generate ideas without too much worry how good they are at first. *I hope I'm not confusing things by starting too many threads!* [edit: to add what brainstorming is] ---- **Comments** :Author: John Powers :Date: Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:14:20 PST I hate it when I write something and then accidentally close the window before saving! I just wrote something about how I came up with the idea for `Cracker Jack Books`_. I'm lazy so rather than to try to remember what I just wrote I'll just copy a little from the blog post I just linked to: One interesting effort I read about is Anywhere Books. The project outfitted a van with a laptop and printer and went into village schools in Uganda printing out off-copyright books from the Internet. There's a kernel of a really good idea here, but the project ran into numerous obstacles. Among the most serious problems was the cost of the enterprise. I wondered how to reduce costs. One of the questions I asked was, "What's the cheapest book I can imagine making?" I recalled Cracker Jack books and thought about how regular paper cut into four lengthwise and the folded accordion style would be something like that. Even allowing production costs of ten cents a page, each book would cost less than three cents a piece. Okay I'll add a little bit to that. First they got the off-copyright books by downloading them from the site `Project Gutenberg`_ which has over 20,000 books to download for free. The second thing is Cracker Jacks were a special treat I'd sometimes get as a kid. It was a little box with molasses candy covered popcorn inside. Along with the corn there was a little envelope with a riddle or joke printed outside. Inside the envelope was a little toy, sometimes a little book. I haven't developed this idea, but it's one that I keep thinking about. You might ask, What good is a little book? Well, I still like to read comic strips in the daily newspaper. I'm impressed with how much information can be conveyed in such a small space. I loved these little books as a kid. Part of that was the special treat part of the box of Cracker Jack, but part was the books were often fun. Little books have the advantage of being cheap to print and also cheap to distribute. And looking at the model of Cracker Jacks, the idea they could be distributed along with a product already widely distributed interested me. If the books had some use and were wanted, then they might provide a little incentive to buy the product. So companies might not only help to distribute the books, but might also provide some of the costs of running the program of small books. I don't have children, and when you don't have children what kids like isn't always known to me. About ten years back American children liked `Pokemon`_. Pokemon means "pocket monsters" in Japanese. The idea behind Pokemon is that in Japan collecting insects is an activity children do. So Pokemon is sort of a game where you collect as many of the Pokemon characters as you can. I'm surprised by how much information can be made available on a little paper, even still one Cracker Jack book doesn't have too much information. But if you add in a game somewhat similar to Pokemon, where there is an encouragement to collect and trade many Cracker Jack books, the little information in one book adds up. It also encourages the little books not to be thrown away but passed along so more than one person reads just one book. There are many more aspects of this idea that I like, but I won't go into today. But one thing that is important is I believe that a small version of this project could be tested, say for children in one school, without costing very much money. It's always good to have an idea which can start small and then grow. I'll leave that idea for today. Please if you have ideas for ways to make materials available that connect with some ideas about where money might come from, add them to this thread. .. _`Cracker jack Books`: http://bazungubucks.blogspot.com/2005/10/cracker-jack-books-cracker-jack-books.html .. _`Project Gutenberg`: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page .. _`Pokemon`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:35:55 PST In one of the threads `Dan Bassill`_ mentioned the idea of intermediaries. That's a big subject, and I have a little idea about that for this brainstorming. Before I go into that, I'll mention that looking at what Dan Bassill has done is worthwhile and inspiring. His work show how much a person can do steadily moving towards their goals. Life takes time, thank goodness! Here in the USA and many other parts of the world there are many ways to buy books. One popular online bookseller is Amazon.com. There is also an interesting new kind of publishing called `print on demand`_. Basically what these publishers allow is for a person to upload files for a book to a site which will list the book and print books as they are ordered. `Lulu`_ is one print on demand publisher. It's possible at Lulu to list a book with no costs up front. That's a good idea for certain kinds of books. But it's much better if a person wants to sell many books to make the book so that it can be sold by online booksellers like Amazon and also be sold by bookstores people walk into. In order to do this there are certain rules about a book, and following those rules adds about $150 of costs paid to Lulu before any book is printed. `MyPublisher.com`_ is another print on demand publisher. Two nieces made a book this Christmas and it is so lovely. There are other publishers too. So it's possible to make a book and sell it today much easier than it has ever been in the past. If many people buy books then the income can be significant. And it's possible to imagine a book or books sold primarily to Americans and Europeans but made by Ugandans to help with the costs in running this project. The questions then are: What kind of book to sell? Who will write the book? Who will get the book ready for publication? Who will make sure the profits from the book go to your project? As you see from my Cracker Jack Books idea, I like the idea of sets. Many people like playing card games. As a child there were card games like one called Authors. In that game pictures of famous authors were on cards along with the titles of some of their books and maybe even a little information about them. The game was simple, the object to collect the most sets of 3 of the various authors in the deck. There is also a famous set of cards called `Tarot`_. Tarot cards can be used to play cards games, but they are also used for divination--a kind of fortune telling. I find this part quite interesting because the cards are ways of telling stories about ourselves. Part of the art of fortune telling is simply telling others something that's generally true about people. The person being told their fortune will be quite impressed with the fortune teller, when really there is little reason to be impressed ;-) An American Indian named `Jamie Sams`_. Sams wrote acouple of books that were based on card sets used a little like tarot cards. I've always been impressed with these cards because they are a way to share American Indian stories with other Americans. So I wonder whether a card set and accompanying book could be a way of sharing Ugandan culture and stories with a wider audience. I believe this sort of book would sell lots of copies. The problem with writing a book is it's a lot of work. So the way I think would be great is to get lots of somebody-elses to write the book and provide the art. This sounds hard to believe, but there is Wikipedia a huge encyclopedia written by lots of people. So a blog and/or a wiki might be a way for Ugandans to share Ugandan stories and folklore together and with others, and provide the text for the book. I haven't said anything about who will get the book together to print. I have some more ideas about this, but for now I'm jsut throwing out ideas in general. Feel free to add your ideas or to ask any questions about my ideas. .. _`print on demand`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_on_demand .. _`Dan Bassill`: http://www.ned.com/user/u768936330/ .. _`Lulu`: http://www.lulu.com/ .. _`MyPublisher.com`: http://www.mypublisher.com/ .. _`Tarot`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot .. _`Jamie Sams`: http://www.jamiesams.com/ ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 06:52:19 PST Thank you John,for that good suggestion. I agree with you if we start with books about the cultures in uganda. Indeed uganda has a culture which i hope every one out would love to read about; how people behave here is different from there; how we respond to different actions. But now the task is to look for authors, lets try to discuss and see how we can make it possible. The other way could be getting the needy students writing about their text book needs as this will act as a testimony for the funding agencies. Or these students could assemble and we get a video of them and some one out there may help u show these videos about the students needs as far as text books are concerned. I do not know what others think of it! ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:04:52 PST Funding agencies can be a pain. Clearly it's a good idea to think of ways to be in a position to appeal to and get funds from grant making agencies. But it's so important to be what the organization can be and should be without always thinking of grant making organizations! `Michael Phillips`_ wrote a book many years ago called "The Seven Laws of Money" a page with a list of the laws can be found `here`_. This is the first law from that page: 1. Do it! Money will come when you are doing the right thing. The first law is the hardest for most people to accept and is the source of the most distress. The clearest translation of this in terms of personal advice is "go ahead and do what you want to do." Worry about your ability to do it and competence to do it, but certainly do not worry about the money. Michael Phillips has lots of opinions I'm not so sure I agree with, but that insight about money and a project I really do agree with. The way this project will come into being is if you guys are really doing what you want to do. And as odd as it sounds, your chances of getting some grant making body to cough up some money for what you do are enhanced very much by not only your vision of what you want to do, but by you're doing it. Kasinja said something in his comment very near and dear to my heart: getting the needy students writing about their text book needs...Or these students could assemble and we get a video of them... Okay I'm leaving out some important parts of what Kasinja says; what is really important to me is making students producers of stuff--writing, videos, music, dance, inventions, and hundreds of other things limited only by their imaginations. .. _`Michael Phillips`: http://www.well.com/user/mp/ .. _`here`: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Commerce/RATNA/june2.html ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:21:14 PST Kasinja, I wasn't really suggesting you start by making books about culture in Uganda. From what I here from you all you're interest is in science, water and agriculture. Those books are so important. Remember brainstorming isn't a time for making decisions, it's a time for generating a list of ideas. Once we generate some ideas we can chose one or two to concentrate on and to work out in detail. I brought up the idea of stories and folklore because lots of people know these stories. They've been told them over the years and are part of the culture of Uganda. Now in Uganda there are many different cultures, some of the stories are shared across cultures, but some are particular to particular people. Also some of the stories are always, or almost always, told in home languages. So there are ways of sharing stories among Ugandans, but when it comes to sharing stories with people outside Uganda, that's a a little harder. One of the reasons is that the stories fit together with all sorts of other things you know. So part of the trick of sharing stories with people outside Uganda is giving them a way to fit the stories together. Because it's only together that the meanings of the culture begin to make sense. Something about Uganda is people often move from their part of Uganda to places like Kampala to go to school. So people move around. And often people meet and fall in love with people from other parts of Uganda with different traditions and a different language. Finding the ways of sharing cultures with the blending isn't always easy. The ethnic tensions in Kenya are a good example. But people need positive ways to share their cultures. And people like to share stories. I think it is possible that Ugandans might share stories online. One of the ways that I thought they might do that is with a blog about Ugandan stories. There are some issues to think about in making a blog. But one thing to say about blogs is it's worthwhile to see other Ugandans writing blogs. It's nice because you can leave comments on their blogs. If you have a blog or Web page when people see your comment many will click to see what you write too. So over time conversations and connections develop. Making lots of connections in Uganda is really an advantage for your organization. There are issues to talk about with a blog. But I talk too much. The main thing in my example was to show that the Internet can be important in making ideas sustainable. ---- :Author: Matovu David :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 09:46:09 PST I think fund raising can be a great way of getting resources. But it needs a good and creative team to do this. A social group perfoming arts and drama about students needs can be of help. But how to involve students in this group is my worry?? I think taking videos can work also as suggested by kasinja. How about organising seminars in different subjects of study and make students pay a little amount of money, cant it work? I think registering this group will be also important because it will help us to seek for grants as an alternative source. But we need to first try out all other alternatives before thinking about grants. I think seminars will work well. Thank you. ---- :Author: Kayemba Robert :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:01:12 PST I think, let us first think of producing affordable reading materials to these students. The money we shall get will help us in running the project. The most important thing is to have little assets to begin with and we members if it is possible to contribute some little money or equipments needed to start conducting these income generating activities like seminars, getting videos, drama groups. I think it will help out because you are talking about registering the organisation as a CBO, it also needs so money, do you have it? if not how are u going to get it? So every thing now rotates on little investment to put your ideas into reality? Think about that. I know most of members may hate talking about money at this time but i see we may not get over this point with out investing small capital to start generating more funds for the project. Thank you. ---- :Author: Nalubega Teddy :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:33:03 PST What means do other charities use to generate funds? can we first list them and see if they can apply to our project? we must know that turning these ideas into reality needs some resources to start; you cant organise seminars unless you have chalk, teachers or a room where students will sit. Printing of materials needs little money, CBO registeration needs some money. So think about that. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 20:21:46 PST Some very good discussion going on. There was a famous book called "Catch 22" and basically a Catch 22 situation is a no-win situation. Robert points out that everything revolves around getting a little capital, but getting capital means that you have to have programs on the ground, but getting something going on the ground requires capital. It's a circle that's really hard to figure out how to get out of. So when I'm brainstorming I'm trying to figure a way to get out of this circle. One thing about getting money and support is you have to be known. It's quite possible to promote your group face to face and by word of mouth. That is a very good thing to do. But it's also possible to make content online to point people too. Online content that you create is very useful because it lasts a long time but can also be frequently updated. By using online tools it's possible to make connections with many people and those connections provide a base for fund raising. That's why in my brainstorming I often mention creating a blog. There are many ways of creating Web pages, it just so happens that blogs are an easy and free way to make Web pages which are frequently updated. They are not the only way however. In any case, a Web pages are ways to make connections with others and those connections provide a foundation for getting this project off the ground. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:15:16 PST Thanks John powers, so what is lacking for us to create a blog? ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:41:04 PST It's not hard to create a blog. But I think it's a really good idea is to have a plan for what you want to do before starting one. I'm not very good at all things computer. Lars Torres uses WordPress blogs and they are very good because they allow developers to make useful things for the WordPress blogging platform. Also there are quite a few templates that look really great and allow a lot of flexibility. Unfortunately, I do think you have to download some stuff to a computer to use WordPress. I may be wrong about that. But there are many other platforms, including the popular Goggle owned Blogger that you don't have to download anything to use. `Blogger`_ is what I use, so it's what I know most about. It's so easy, even I can do it. But before starting a blog it's a good idea to have a plan for what it's going to be about. What we really want is a blog that will attract lots of people to visit the site often. Also we want a blog that the posts don't take to long to compose. Another easy way to make Web pages is a Wiki. These are also free (with some restrictions) and incredibly easy. The problem with wikis is that they are harder to get people to come to them. However, I do think that wikis might be very helpful to you to make books. The reason is they are easy to put in text and illustrations, but allow several people to collaborate. I find `PBwiki`_ really easy. .. _`PBwiki`: http://pbwiki.com/ .. _`Blogger`: www.blogger.com ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:45:44 PST so let us first discuss what to put in the blog. Then it will give us what to do next. Thanks ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:08:15 PST I like Kayemba Robert's comments, because he shows he's someone who doesn't want to loose focus on the mission. Keeping focus is very important quality. And I know that the ideas I'm throwing out seem very much off point. But what I'm trying to brainstorm about is a way forward to develop some money and resources. I don't have any money. Blogs may not be an idea you want to actually do but there are so many good things about them, that I do think it's an idea to consider. One of the things about having a blog is connecting with other Ugandan bloggers. I think that's very important. Other Ugandans might have great suggestions and connections locally. While it's a great idea to have a blog that has occasional posts that tell about your work and try to raise a conversation about your work, those sorts of posts take some time to write. What's really great is if there are some simpler posts that would be of interest so the pages can be updated frequently. I hope all of you in the Ugandan Book Project are getting to know me, and coming to know that while I have lots of ideas, many of my ideas aren't very good. That said one idea I had for a blog is a puzzle a day. `Tangrams`_ are a fun kind of puzzle. I don't know whether any of you have a camera? I'm going on the assumption that you do not. So Tangram puzzles are an example of images that you can make using the computer. The idea would be to post a puzzle a day. Then either provide the solution to the previous day's puzzle the next day, or once a week. Tangrams are not the only sort of puzzle that could be used for this idea. The general idea is to have a page that people will go to frequently. The Tangram puzzles could be worked out well in advance, so it would only take a minute to post the puzzle. Of course in addition to the puzzles you could post regular updates and information about your project. .. _`Tangrams`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangram ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2008 12:26:21 PST I very much like the idea of producing affordable reading material for Ugandan students especially in rural areas of Uganda. Now the trick is to find ways to grow this company, project, social enterprise, from no or little money. I understand that most schools don't have computers, Internet, and some not electricity. Still the Internet allows for some useful things for this project. On the Internet files can be put up that anyone can download and print. So it is possible to find ways to put up good reading materials and to encourage people on the ground there in Uganda to print them and provide them to schools. That doesn't seem the same as making books, but really small books can be books too. A single page can have about 500 words. A lot can be said in 500 words or less. I think there are many ways to get good materials published by having others download and print and copy them. And that this sort of model can be encouraged by this group using the Internet. That's why I talk about blogs and wikis. Both are free and powerful tools that allow us to provide materials for distribution. They also provide a way to demonstrate to others that this book group is for real. It provides a way to show people that might be interested in providing money support that the group exists and has a track record of results. Making small documents isn't too hard but it's not too easy either. I have many ideas on this subject. But I just want to try to get out the general idea of this distributed method of publishing. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:58:32 PST John powers, Thanks for your mail and the efforts you put in to make this project a sucessful one. There are two important areas we are to discuss fully; one created by linda of parteners; we need organisations to collaborate with, so i do not know how we shall do that? The other is the issue of resource generation, its good you talked about small books; it is a nice idea but again will poor students be able to print these books? Do you think third world schools have printers? How are we gonna adress that? Blogs will be important to expose our work to every one but they are some authors who are not willing to put their materials on line, how shall we adress that? Lets discuss more about that John. Thank you so much. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 10:18:45 PST Kasinja I'm very glad that you raise important subjects for discussion. I feel you have some frustration and exasperation in your attitude towards me ;-) There is much I don't understand about your situation on the ground there in Uganda. Turning to the other side of the coin I feel a similar frustration and exasperation imagining that you think an organization is going to give your group money without your group having a track record of proven success or even a solid structure. The very good thing is your willingness to continue to discuss with me even when you think my ideas aren't any good. You raise two very important matters: 1) Developing partners; 2) Resource generation. Then several questions. On the matter of developing partners, I think it is very good to look for partners outside Uganda, but it is just as important, or even more so to pay attention to developing partners within Uganda. On the matter of resource generation the attention must be to develop tangible results with the resources the group can gather in the present. Reaching the higher goals you have for the group will come by building on small successes. Your questions: *its good you talked about small books; it is a nice idea but again will poor students be able to print these books? Do you think third world schools have printers? How are we gonna adress that?* I don't think that many schools do have printers. But in many areas of Uganda there are businesses and individuals who have copiers or printers, and in many areas people can get access to the Internet. Remember my attention is focused on creating some real success, even if a small one. Imagine that your group develops some science materials. These materials are developed in such a way that individual lessons are able to be printed on a single sheet of paper. Over the course of a semester a few of these lessons can be printed out. I think they should be designed to be folded, but that's something I'll talk about later if you find any merit in the plan. So imagine that the group wants to demonstrate some small success. So let us imagine a single science classroom, say of 40 students. 40 pages costs something to print out, but it's not too expensive. It may be possible to get a business or an individual to print out those 40 pages to provide to our single science classroom. Okay with one book in one classroom we've demonstrated something. The hope is that the teacher and students will find the material useful, and the teacher will want to save the lessons for next year. The thing to do then is to make a second small book--a single page--and then a third. All the work in making the materials will be done and so these same materials can be made available to other classes in other parts of Uganda. *Blogs will be important to expose our work to every one but they are some authors who are not willing to put their materials on line, how shall we adress that?* This questions brings up many issues, and some of those issues are the reasons for my starting the Copyright and Intellectual Property thread. Members of your group may not be willing to publish their work online. But already online there are thousands and hundreds of thousands of educational materials made available for free distribution. The group may be willing to find appropriate materials for schools in Uganda from what already exists. The key again is to be responsible for actually getting educational resources into the hands of real students in Uganda. A blog provides a way to telling others that you've actually had some success. A blog is a way of building interest in your project and for developing partners and communicating with them. My responses are not enough, I know that Kasinja. It may be that you find my ideas not at all appropriate for what you want to do. That's okay. But if you imagine that I'm just wasting your time right now, please tell me. I don't want to waste my time either. ---- :Author: David Bale :Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:34:14 PST I'm not clear what this brainstorming is about. It can't just be about thinking up ways of generating some income in a vacuum. We first need to be clear what the money will be used for. Is it about (A) raising enough money to get the enterprise started - because after that you have good reason to think that the enterprise itself will soon become self-sustaining? *If so, who will your customers be? How will they afford to pay for your services? How reliable will be the income stream you hope they will provide? Would it be a good idea to have other income strategies?* Or is it (B) about finding some form of compatible income-generating activity that will continue alongside the book production activity, and which will provide the ongoing income stream with which to finance what would otherwise be an unprofitable business (however socially useful it might be)? *If so, what will your ongoing costs be? What kinds of income generation might provide - and continue to provide - enough to meet those costs?* Or is it (C) about generating enough money to mount a successful campaign to secure funding for the Book Project? *If so, who do you need to persuade to invest in your project? What will they be hoping to get from their investment? Are you sure you have a sustainable solution for delivering whatever it is they are seeking by investing in you?* So, which is the right plan for your project: (A), (B) or (C)? Does any of this make sense to you, or have I got it all wrong? ---- :Author: Evvy Bryning :Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:54:26 PST It makes perfect snese to me. I said at the beginning of this Book Project discussion that a complete plan needs to be formed. I have many questions about it that have yet to be answered or maybe they have and I just missed them. I agree that getting books into the hands of poor Ugandans is a challenge and a worthy cause to take on. I believe very strongly in books and learning. That said, is the intent to create better books, less expensive books, or to start a publishing company? It may be more practical to look at ways to get books that already exist into poor schools rather than be concentrating on publishing new books. Can someone explain the reason for this? Has an organization been formed? Has it been registered and how is it registered? What is the mission statement. How will you go about publishing the books, what is the plan for distribution? There are a lot of people here and elsewhere that would be happy to help and advise. John is a tremendous resource as well as others here. What I would suggest is that you sit down and make a plan or a proposal rather than just a wish list of needed items like computers and printers. You will be much more likely to get some help and funding if you have a solid plan to present. Having a solid well thought out plan will also help you to focus on the project itself and it will enable you to set goals and milestones that can be met one at a time. I know it may seem like a slow method but I also think its a necessary one. Think of it like a road map. You start at one point and travel to the final destination following the map. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 16:40:43 PST David, as an outside observer--in other words putting myself in the shoes of the book project crew--I would answer your question "Which is it?" by saying yes to all the above. In order to get to C) a campaign to secure funding it's necessary to answer the questions: What will your project do? How will you do it? (And How long?) How will we know that the project did what you said it would? There are better ways of saying the questions, but that's the gist. Projects must have measurable outcomes. This is where many project fall down the most. So it is important in order to get credibility with any donor to demonstrate some evidence that the organization is able to do something, and that it's able to measure and report on what's been done. In other words in order to get money, you have to have already done something. But the problem with doing something is it takes some money to do it. That gets back to B) A plan to generate revenue to pay for the social goods that money will buy. Plan B may not be needed, but at least it seems reasonable to think of the possibilities here. Ultimately plan A) Getting enough money to start something which will become self-sustaining is the goal. Except what self-sustaining means is a bit tricky. Students and schools don't have money to pay for enough books. So the enterprise will always have to draw income from other sectors in creative ways. Evvy makes very good points about organization forming and program goals. It's very important not to rush into these as good plans take time to hammer out. A constitution seems really boring and unnecessary, until, people being people, the constitution is what stands between life and death of an organization. I know that I'm confusing everybody. I sorry about that because I believe strongly in the goals of the book project and want to see the project get off the ground an fly. The main sorts of ideas I'm trying to brainstorm are ways to demonstrate something tangible. Since there's no money, these ideas are going to have to be small-scale (I think), and creative. But a small and inexpensive experiment can prove a concept and provide evidence that the members of this group are capable of delivering what they say. With that evidence the other goals mentioned here become more attainable. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:36:21 PST John powers, we find your comments so useful in making this project a sucess. It is these comments that direct us what to do. We are brain storming, every one comes up with the idea and we look at it in details. As we are discussing, every idea is of value because it opens our eyes and minds wider, so we are sorry if our ideas seem conflicting with yours but it helps us to answer the questions we have in our minds.Money is not the main idea on our minds, its seeing this project getting done. We have already contributed money here to make a constitution and register the organisation. But before that we had suggested the CBO name, goals and objectives, structure and we wanted you to comment about them, though we have not seen any comment yet. We have choosen a board of directors already from here and we are to include the Board of advisors from that side, then we shall be ready to make a constitution and then register. We really thank you plus David and Evvy for the wonderful suggestions. Currently we are working on the proposal which we hope to send to you all to read through and advice us. The project is already on ground and we have gone to two secondary schools this year to teach science lessons. Next month, we are planning to go to Rakai district to survey about the schools there and we get started. Otherwise we appreciate every idea from you ned family because it contributes much to the sucess of this project. Thank you very much. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:43:28 PST BOOK PROJECT SUSTAINABILITY Here are some of the activities / programs we intend to do to make this project sustainable: 1. We are to set up examination boards using our trained teachers, these teachers will set exams for students and schools who have capacity to pay some little money. In uganda, there is one main examination body and students wait to sit for exams at the end of the year. These exams will enable the students to prepare for the final year exams. Our trained teachers will mark the exams, the money we shall get will boost the teachers salaries as well as helping in running the project. 2. Our trained teachers will be able to write text books for sale. We shall publish these books and sell them to capable schools and students. We even have a greater chance of getting tenders from the government to supply text books to the schools, we hope to commercial printing for magazines, brochures for other organisations. The money we shall get will cover the costs of printing and distributing reading materials to poor students and schools in uganda as well as boosting the teachers salaries. 3. We are to organise seminars for students and will be required to pay some money. These seminars will mainly be helping these students in answering questions. We are also to organise seminars for teachers from capable schools so that we can update teachers regularly about new teaching methods, how to teach students in order to excel in exams.Teachers will pay money and this money will help in running the project. 4. With time we hope to start a paper making industry because in uganda there is need of papers as there is only 2 companies supplying papers. If we could produce our own paper, then we can reduce on cost of production of the text books and we shall be able to make exercise books and distibute papers to poor schools and students as well as selling the most of papers to make this project moving ahead. 5. Microfinance activities; We are to give parents interest free loans so thet they carry out income generating activities so that with time they will be able to buy text books for the poor students and the community will be able to build good schools from the income generating activities. This will make our project sustainable. Please you are welcome to comment. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:32:27 PDT This weekend my friends Bob and David came out to visit for a fire. It's very nice that over the years, several times a year, my two friends come out in different seasons. Probably not politic to say, but we drink, so they usually spend the night. We listen to music and gossip--yes guys do gossip. Oh well maybe not really gossip, but all of us have people we care about, and every life has its challenges; so it's that sort of thing. For me these evenings are pure magic because it's a chance to share my garden with others. My friend Bob gets up at the crack of dawn, one of those folks who gets up the same time of day no matter what, so he's usually gone by the time I get up--no early riser me. But David often stays for breakfast at least. David is a wonderful artist and makes his living doing illustrations for publishing work. This Sunday it was a lovely day and we spent several hours in the garden talking. Since David runs his own small business, his observations and advice about how I can do better at making an income are particularly welcome. He has put some pictures up at his Flickr stream of where I live. The set is called `Thistlemoor`_ *A Place to Dream*. So we were talking about various income generating ideas and he pointed out that what he was doing with the Thistlemoor set was a sort of branding. His business is under his name David Pohl, but he also has House of Pingting as sort of an overarching brand for his various work in music, art, and writing. It seems a very good idea for me to develop Thistlemoor as a kind of brand for myself. **An Idea** So that's a bit of background for an idea that I have as a way of income generating for this project. It's an idea that I would love some feedback and suggestions about too, so don't be shy. I've mentioned that print on demand publishing is something available here in the USA. I have a bit of writing that I did online in the early part of the decade called *The Incompetent Gardener*. I rather like writing about gardening, and I had thought that some of that earlier writing might be able to be worked into a book. So the idea is to produce a book and turn over the copyright to SPACE so that the sales of the book might provide a bit of income for the SPACE project. There are some other advantages besides just income that this might accomplish. First of all it's another title to build the Space catalog. Second it's a way to think about copyright. This second bit is a bit complicated I think. Some of the titles that SPACE produces will certainly want to be copyright protected. But the organization must be aware of, and it's my conviction, participate in open source publication as well. So the balancing act between the two is something where practice will probably be beneficial. Third there are probably others who have created online writing who might be willing to publish a book in a similar arrangement with SPACE. Perhaps different arrangements, ones where a royalty, or a portion of the proceeds will go to SPACE might be worked out. There is another aspect of the idea that raises an important issue too and that is the role of editors. Most of the open source textbook projects have spent a considerable amount of effort on the issue of editing. There is an American comedian, `Stephen Corbert`_ who has a running joke about "truthiness." Truthiness is something that lots of people think but really isn't so; more particularly truthiness is when that false something is published somewhere so gains authority. He demonstrates truthiness by making ridiculous edits to Wikipedia entries. For publishers of textbooks, truthiness is something they really want to avoid, and that's one reason editing is so important. I spell poorly and tend to be verbose. I **need** an editor. It's kind of hard on the fact part of the editing process because my gardening is done in Western Pennsylvania, a quite different place from Uganda. So it's hard to expect Ugandans to edit the book completely. But editing is the sort of thing where the wisdom of crowds online may be helpful. And putting the stuff online is also a way to build an audience for the book and potential customers. I like wikis very much. I've even convinced Kasinja to make a wiki so he can begin exploring them. Wikis are very nice for bookmaking because they are based on pages. Each individual page has commenting and the order of the pages, or chapters, can be very easily manipulated. The trouble is people don't really like to go to wikis for some reason. Blogs on the other hand are something that people will go to. So one way to begin the editing process is to make a blog. Something about blogs is it's easy to fill them up with widgets and pictures, but that makes blogs slow loading in places like Uganda. I think it's important to try to make the blog load quickly in Uganda, because after all I want SPACE members to help me to edit it. So the blog probably shouldn't have lots of pictures. But the blog is in itself a publishing project, or property, and I envision the blog a property of SPACE not mine. An advantage of blogs is the ease in which links can be made, so the blog can link to other online publishing work that SPACE makes. This online publishing aspect of the experiment is another advantage and challenge for SPACE. So the outline of the idea is to produce a book, *The Incompetent Gardener* the proceeds from the sales will go to SPACE. In order to edit the book and get it ready to print an Incompetent Gardener blog will be made. The blog will support branding of both the SPACE Enterprise and my own Thistlemoor enterprise. What do you think? Is this something which you might consider collaborating with me on? .. _`Thistlemoor`: http://www.flickr.com/photos/houseofpingting/sets/72157600338969985/ .. _`Stephen Corbert`: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:16:41 PDT Thank you John powers, it sounds a very good idea and i will get to you soon for more information. Thank you. ---- :Author: katonya arnold daniels :Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 11:23:13 PDT hi john, couldn't have enough thrill of your vibes on the LIACAN thread, i decided to peruse through all the interesting threads here till i landed on this one , have not gotten enough time to jangle through everything, but at least I've been attracted with the title. so far what is taking place here is another spiced flavor, Ive just learn t about some two things,which i have always confused in my posts. brainstorming and decisions. i appreciate all people of different opinions, and i pray that something materializes. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:43:37 PDT There are so many directions that this project could go. In the back of my mind I wondered about ways to help student afford textbooks and school supplies. Today I saw `1000 Girls`_ by way of `Nii Simmonds`_ a blogger who's taken the African Cheetah's idea and run with it. 1000 Girls combines education and entrepreneurship, it's a rather interesting model. .. _`1000 Girls`: http://www.10000girls.org/ .. _`Nii Simmonds`: http://nubiancheetah.blogspot.com/ ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:37:02 PDT We have a biology manuscript we can print here and sell but we do not have resources for printing. Any suggestion? ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:14:28 PDT What is the cost of printing (read that copying) in Kampala? Double sided. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 07:47:05 PDT It ranges from 300 to500 ugandan shillings per page. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:11:04 PDT There is the income generating idea for you.....even in Thailand the cost of copying is 1/10 of that cost. Someone somewhere along that supply chain is making a killing. ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:21:05 PDT 300 UGX is about 18 cents, which is about what it costs here for double sided copies, at a few places it's as little as 10 cents. But I am not convinced of gouging. The supply chain is indeed a factor. My understanding is that most of the office equipment comes in through Dubai or Eastern Asia. Many suppliers travel several times a year to Dubai to bring in goods. I'm not sure what the duties are, nor of a better supply chain. My experience, while not extensive, suggests to me that the mark up on computers, accessories and consumables while slightly higher than here in the USA are not excessively priced. Wangi is doing some pricing of equipment. I've been busy so haven't gotten around to some things I want to do. A friend of mine spent his whole career as a printer of books and other jobs for the school market. He recently sold his business, but I had him over her the other day and began picking his brain. Most of the equipment that makes sense for beginning this project is not of the same scale he's used to. But he asked me to send him links for some of the equipment we've been talking about and I want to do that. In discussion with Kasinja we talked about a laser printer versus a photocopy machine. Kasinja is of the opinion that a computer printer first makes the most sense. I haven't talked directly with Wangi, but I did mention to Kasinja that it's important to be able to at least roughly figure the per page cost of printing; i.e. to divide the the cost of the ink cartridge or toner by the yield--the number of pages--to establish a per page cost. I've not tried too hard, but it seems harder than it should to get the information for per page costs. But it seems that computer printers generally cost quite a bit per page, at least 4 cents, so making a good decision about the printer will add up quickly. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:57:39 PDT The price I pay for copying here is less than 1/2 a baht per page (counting each side as a page). That is about 1.5 cents per page. That is even cheaper than a laser printer though a laser printer does look like a better capital investment than a copier. I was trying to find a no capital investment interim solution. ---- :Author: Mark Grimes :Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 03:47:15 PDT >>We have a biology manuscript we can print here and sell but we do not have resources for printing. Any suggestion?<< Is the buyer a school, stores, or the students themselves? Would enough buyers put 1/4 to 1/2 down paymenton the order? In essence providing enough capital to print the books? For that matter, provide the book at a lower cost for those that pre-order. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 06:28:42 PDT Thanks Mark, the intended customers are both students and schools but at subsidised prices. These clients will only pay their money on acquasition of books, in other words no advance payments. What we need is the initial capital investment to start the job.buys will only pay for a finished product. About the printers and photocopier, i think a printer will work well for us here, because it is cheap and can do commercial printing to sustain the project. Thank you John Powers you are missing alot at google talk! ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:03:05 PDT How many pages is the book and how many copies do you want to make? Subsidized prices means that someone is giving you money to cover some of your costs. Any idea who that might be? ---- :Author: Mark Grimes :Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:31:17 PDT There's always Kiva for a loan, seems like that could be one decent option. - How much will each book cost to print? - How many copies are you printing? - How much will each book sell for? - How many people are going to purchase the book during the first 30 days after printing? ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:43:32 PDT There are 270 pages ,our plan is to print 500 copies books at first and the cost of production for each book is 10,000 ug.shillings ( $6.25 ).The selling price of each book will be shs. 12,000 ( $7.5). The number of people going to purchase during the first 30 days after printing will depend on the season we are to print the books, most students buy books when returning to school. But what we know there is a need for this book among the schools and students. Thank you. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:56:32 PDT Has the book been tested? Do the teachers know of the book? If the teachers have seen the book and checked it you should be able to know how many books you will sell before you print. It makes no sense to publish the book after school has started...pretty much guaranteed that no one will buy it. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 07:20:31 PDT The book wa edited by qualified editors in uganda. 500 books is a good number to start with. ---- :Author: Linda Nowakowski :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:43:48 PDT I have selected any, many books to teach with in all of my years of teaching. And trust me, a qualified editor does not know or understand what will make a good book for any particular group of students. You have to get teachers in the field looking at it and giving you feedback. If it is a great book, they will see it and they will make the decisions. They will talk and they will sell it for you. Not well qualified editors. This is one of the functions of a book fair...to get the people who will use the book to see it. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:47:33 PDT But to these editors are still teachers in ugandan schools may be we take a survey among many teachers. Thank you ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:05:12 PDT Dear Uganda SPACE Organisation, members a friend of mine from Georgia state has promised me to cover the cost of production for my biology book. I think you should not get worried about that. Thank you. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:05:29 PDT Dear Uganda SPACE Organisation, members a friend of mine from Georgia state USA has promised me to cover the cost of production for my biology book. I think you should not get worried about that. Thank you. ---- :Author: chris macrae :Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 17:53:25 PDT any comments on http://www.curriki.org/ ---- :Author: John Powers :Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 19:29:12 PDT It's a great link Chris! I've certainly bookmarked it and am very interested to find out more and to participate. It's really worth a look, because it's a good example of the ways that publishing is moving towards a "distributed" model. ---- :Author: Kasinja Tonny Henry :Date: Mon, 12 May 2008 21:46:36 PDT Thank you chris, it is a nice link. ---- :Author: chris macrae :Date: Sat, 31 May 2008 07:10:30 PDT :Modified: Sat, 31 May 2008 07:11:43 PDT thanks guys - I really must try and phone up these guys in their DC office near me and ask how do folks like us participate though realistically I am travelling for a couple of weeks-equally this is one of the initiatives that Scott Mcneally and Sun is most proud of so if anyone (eg more in tech world or west coast than my peers and I) networks with sun alumni they could inquire there too ----