The journey begins in earnest.

This week has been eventful. It has sometimes seemed too eventful.

I gave the final for one of my course yesterday and finished grades today. The other class has 24 more ours of class but 6 are movies (and discussion), 3 is a class where all of the English speakers have been invited to come and practice business conversation, 3 are a competition in some strategy games they have learned, and 3 are them presenting songs and me presenting the prize for the best "Plan". The main part of their grans is a plan that they must prepare for what and how they will study during the 3 month summer break using all of the learning strategies they have learned this semester. A team of 3 of us will judge the plans (and I have to mark them for their grades). The winner will get my refurbished desk top computer, monitor, keyboard, head-set, mouse and color printer/copier/fax machine. That will all be over on Feb. 27.

My Thai class will have its final on March 6.

Bronwen is returning to Thailand and she and I will do a 1-day workshop on Buddhism and sustainable business on April 4. Then I have scheduled the defense of my research proposal for the day before the conference on April 8 ("Application of Faith-based Economics to Social Entrepreneurs: A Theoretical Approach" or something close). The conference is April 9-11. There is a "contemplative inquiry" session scheduled for the 12th. Songkran (Thai New Year) is celebrated April 12-15. I have been asked to write an article on the need for my research for the British Journal "Interconnections" for July publication. It needs to be written in this time.

I have already started packing stuff for shipment back to the US and for storage. I will leave Thailand on or about May 1 and fly to Guangzhou on a 0 baht fare (all you have to pay is the taxes and fees) to visit some friends there. Then I will take a 2 hour bus trip to Hong Kong to fly to San Francisco ( found a $1000 ro9und trip fare on Eva from there that combined with the other airfare and a bus certainly beats the $2,200 airfare home from Bangkok!). There are people there that I would like to talk to and interview, maybe even all together like Joanna Macy, Haney and Thomas and Pam and/or Pierre if they are around. It looks like I will be able to stay with a Thai family I know who live in Berkley. Then I will take a bus trip to Denver. Denver is a mother-lode for me. Naropa University (Peter Hurt and Deep Community Development) and the Marpa Center for Business and Economics (Bernard Leitear currency expert / designer of the Euro) are in Boulder. I want to talk with David Braden about his self-help corporation, and Arthur Brock about Alternative Currencies, Mickki Langston and eco-community development. The BALLE conference will be there May 21-23. I can not afford to attend the whole conference but I will be going to the one day of the economics conference. There is also a Christian community outside of Denver that is supposed to be very similar to the Asoke communities here and I want to go and visit it and talk to the people there. David Braden and his wife have generously offered me their home to stay in. (The super great discounted $139 hotel at the conference was just a little outside of my budget!)

After that I will get a bus home to Ohio. I had thought I would be able to stay at my sister's and share costs with her but I can not afford it. Just about the time I found out that bit of news, I got an email from a dear friend from graduate school and she has offered me her house to base out of. (This is only one of the things that has happened in this epic that hints that I have an angel watching over me here.)

During my time home I have a number of other trips planned with many people to interview. I will make a trip up to Massachusetts (to visit the Schumacher Foundation) and Vermont and hope to connect with John Nirenberg (he is on the graduate faculty at Walden University and has agreed to be on my research committee), Lars and John and Allison - community developers and social entrepreneurs all.

I want to go to Duke University in NC to talk with Dr. Timur Kuran Chair of Islamic studies and the author of "Islam and Mammon" a great and terribly interesting book on Islamic Economics.

I want to make a trip to Tyler, TX to talk with some people from the Institute for Christian Economics. I want to make a trip to the Pacific NW and hit Portland where I can talk with Mark (social Entrepreneur), Joel Magnuson and Mary Payne (both Buddhist and economists), and Robert Biwas-Deiner (expert in happiness research across a number of cultures). On that trip I would like to also go to Seattle and try to talk to David Korten and his People Centered Development people and visit the Seattle Unity Church (a combined Christian Buddhist faith community). While I am so close it only seems right to make a trip to Salt Spring Island, Meron, NED and SOLID. Coming back on that trip I want to also visit Salt Lake City and visit their Welfare Square and talk to the people in charge of that.

Much closer to home, I have found a small "nest" of heterodox economists at Wright State University (my alma mater) and one of them even teaches Buddhist Economics. Buddhist philosopher and Socially engaged Buddhist, David Loy is a visiting professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati. Author Wendell Berry is about a 2 hour drive away in KY. Happiness and anti-consummerist Tim Kasser is close in Illinois.

Using a bus, I can do all of the traveling for just under $1,000. Since I did not get a grant that I had applied for from the Templeton Foundation, I need to be frugal.

I plan on returning here to Thailand in the spring of 2010 hopefully with thesis in hand and ready to defend it.

I am looking forward to a break from Thailand. I am looking forward to doing all of the research work. I am not particularly looking forward to all of the work between now and May 1. :-)

I will survive. I will thrive.

If anyone knows of any "sufficiency economy like" communities in the US regardless of faith or even no faith, I would love the tip.

Last comment added: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:47:30 PST

Comment 1 on The journey begins in earnest.

Thank you for your journal, even though I'm several days late in reading it.

Really quite off the wall a usual, I was thinking how nice a little video camera would be for you to have on your explorations. I wonder if you already have a digital photocamera? Erik Hersman likes to take pictures and swears by his Nikon D50, a camera which photographers I know also like. What do I know about tech stuff? Not much. But Erik also recomends the Sanyo Exacti for his Africa trekking.

I think some sort of camcorder would be useful to you. There probably are other tools you need. I hope you'll think a little about what you need. My feeling is that among your network we can raise funds for tools and that's something to consider. One way or another we all want to be of service because we know your work is important.

Comment 2 on The journey begins in earnest.

I have thought about things I need and had already started pricing a digital voice recorder. I think I am going to be interviewing some incredibly interesting people and making those interviews available to others would be magnificent I think.

Having video would be a dream but not on the order of that voice recorder. The only things that I have that are digital are a CD player, my telephone with a cam in it and my computer. Even my watch is analog! Oh yeah, I do have a small web cam as well.

Many things might have been possible if I had been able to get the little grant I applied for. Now I think I need to deal with the bare necessities.

Thank you, as always, for all the support you give me, John. I would like to think that this work will lead to something important for someone more than me...one can never be sure. 6 more days of teaching. I can't wait.

Comment 3 on The journey begins in earnest.

You do need a digital voice recorder.

I'm so backward when it comes to technology, but digital voice recorders offer lots of advantages, one that stands out is transcription software.

My tendency with tools is to try to buy the best I can afford. With voice recorders it seems there's a real high-end and a low-end and then a small number of low-high end models. That's where I would look. these models seem to cost about $150. You might also would like a $20 microphone for recording telephone conversations too, or other accessories.

It seems easier to fund raise around something specific. My sense is when you figure out what recorder you need it shouldn't be hard to raise funds for it. That's especially the case if you're planning to share via podcasts. I hope you will consider direct fund raising for your needs.

Comment 4 on The journey begins in earnest.

:-) I think the most direct fund raising comes from reaching in my pocket and paying for it...I think I can do that for this....

The problem arises when I think about having to spend the same amount to stay in a hotel for one night. Man, have I gotten frugal. hahahha

Comment 5 on The journey begins in earnest.

Safe travels. Massachusettes as part of your trip? Drop me a line, and I would love to buy you lunch, if it's convenient for you...

Comment 6 on The journey begins in earnest.

As always I'm not ready for prime time. I was thinking about your comment: "I think the most direct fund raising comes from reaching in my pocket and paying for it." And I was also thinking about what people pay for and what we expect to be free. Newspapers are trying hard to figure out how to charge for their online content for example.

Just before coming here I was exploring Photovoice. Eric Green is a post-doctoral fellow and Photvoice is sort of a legacy of work he did in Northern Uganda in 2007.

Wow there are several sort of disjointed comments that occur to me and I can't think of any way to join them up, so I'll just put them out in no particular order.

The first thing is I like that he has a Web page--I think you should too ;-)

I have a local friend named David Pohl. David is an illustrator and has had a business Web site for a long time. It amuses me that whenever I Google his name, his Web site is the first on the page. Some of the reason that's the case is he's been a bit clever to make sure that his Web activity gets linked back to his Web site. For example he started putting pictures up at Flickr as Pingting. The reason he discovered Flickr was he thought a blog might be a way to help archive his work. It turned out that Flickr was much better at that. Anyway after awhile at Flickr he realised that Pingting as a search term yielded lots of results. And he realized that occasional posts at the blog gave his professional Web site better ranking. He also had other blogs for his music projects as well as MySpace. So it hit him that without thinking in advance all these other projects in terms of search were a cluster around Pingting. Thus he made sure his Web site was David Pohl Illustration: House of Pinting.

Long winded, but I think it shows how branding isn't something that necessarily requires a lot of money. And there are numerous advantages to branding. I noticed at the Photovoice site that Eric Green linked back to his Web site.

I love the idea of Photovoice--they gave children cameras to take pictures to tell stories about where they live. And so the Web site is a way to share the stories and the research. I was delighted to listen to a 20 minute Slideshare presentation. I know not everybody gets his jollies from stuff like that. But the prints of the pictures are also sold to raise funds for these very kids school fees. I like how they do that. They have canvas mounted ones which are also sold through a partnership with a coffee house and 8 x 10s too. The basis is donation--not sales per se.

Alright, so the donation is going to kids, but still the interest is in content which is also research and it illustrates that there's no solid boundary that says people don't expect to spend at such a site.

The audio in one segment of the Slideshare presentation had a lot of wind noise. Jan Chipchase is a cultural anthropologist who works for Nokia. On the sidebar of his blog is a link to Field Gear. In audio he mentioned a Sony model recorder--very expensive--but it amused me that one of the accessories is called a "dead cat muffler" to muffle wind sound. Ah but he recommends a rather cheaper Olympus voice recorder. The big thing he dreads about recorders is how long transcriptions take--I really would look into the software, some of it free for transcription.

People seem to think that everything online is free. Sure, I know I do; except that's not really true. Etsy is popular and I know a few people who make a grand or two a year selling there. I was also looking over a piece in Inside Higher ED where university presses are griping about copyright pirates. What I found most interesting is the comments many of which pointed out that free isn't the enemy of commerce; free provided visibility which drive sales.

Anyhow, I'll cut my long story short: You already put up content for free and anticipate putting up stuff in the future. Branding yourself online is a way to build visibility. There are many ways to get money for content, even if you put some of it up for free. There's something honorable about branding and asking for money. The Web doesn't always mean free. Money to support your research isn't somehow dishonorable! But as they always say money doesn't grow on trees. Clever plans are possible and necessary.