We are starting biweekly OSE Global Conference Calls – beginning Wednesday, October, 14, at 11:00 AM GMT-6 (Central USA time zone). Why? Because we are nearing critical decision forks in this open source project. Read on.
These are exciting times as we near product release for the high-performance, open source, Compressed Earch Brick (CEB) press. Just as a heads up, we’re getting interviewed by Time Magazine next Tuesday, and we have a 2 hour interview with the Venus Project next Monday night, which has quite a global following in the form of the Zeitgeist Movement.
Along the lines of Product Release – we will be releasing CEB Press Beta Version 1.0 – with as much development as we can accomplish by November 1, 2009. This was a long, winding path since the initial prototype release of The Liberator. At this point, we’ll follow the ‘publish early and often’ philosophy of open source – with respect to our hardware release. The Liberator will evolve constantly, and we expect that a stable, optimized version will take another year or two to develop. A stable version is just a matter of time-proven performance – which happens only after machines are being used in the field for an extended period of time.
Beta Version 1.0 of The Liberator will include at the minimum:
- 5 block per minute production capacity
- Field testing completed with Atuomatic Controls, Soil Pulverizer, Slurry Mixer, Power Cube, and Mud Shooter
- Initial publication of an Open Business Model
The supporing product ecology for The Liberator Beta 1.0 release of Nov. 1 to date includes:
- Power Cube for 10 GPM of hydraulic fluid power at 2500 PSI – Prototype I tested
- LifeTrac with Soil Pulverizer – Prototype I, tested
- Slurry mixer for 100 gallon-scake mortar and plaster mixing – Prototype I, in testing stage
- Pneumatic mud shooter for plaster application in wall finishing – Prototype I, in testing stage
- Modular, Arduino-based, hydraulic controller – can be used with CEB machine or automation of other hydraulic devices – Prototype I, in testing stage
Our business model focuses on
- Open source
- Lifetime design
- Resource based economy creation
- Distributive economics – Open Business Model (OBM)
The last point is critical. If we are interested in transformative enterprise, then it is in our interest to disseminate the enterprise opportunity to as many people as possible – worldwise. This means that we can capture value in two ways: (1) production in-house; (2) enterprise replication services via an OBM.
The OBM is extremely interesting from the standpoint of post-scarcity, resource-based economy creation. We plan on not only producing machines, but producing people who produce machines. There is huge value in that, and it is the implementation of ‘Jeffersonian democracy’ of distributive economics. The OBM involves providing all the technical information, sourcing, economic and ergonoimic analysis, workflow design, training, capitalization assistance, and other technical details which makes enterprise replication feasible. This is largely uncharted territory, and we plan on approaching it on a contract basis – just like we’re inviting Dedicated Project Visits on a contract basis.
Thus, we are proposing the first of our regular, biweekly conference calls. In the first one on October 14, we will discuss critical issues related to product release:
- General strategic planning
- Marketing strategy
- PR strategy
- Branding
- Open Source Business Model
- Open Source Documenation Requirements
- Developing production capacity
- Preorders
- Increasing investment in the project, acceleration of general R&D effort for the GVCS
- Fabricator training, workshops
- Prioritizing product ecologies under development
- Developing a community of developers and supporters
Each of these topics can lead to lenghy discussion, so here is our general Conference Call Policy
- This is an action-oriented discussion. Participants make suggestions only on items that they are willing to take action upon. This is a remedy for lengthy discussion that leads to no action. We have found in our experience that the nature of discussion changes dramatically when the speaker is allowed to discuss only itmes that s/he can commit to doing.
- RSVP to opensourceecology at gmail dot com if you are interestes in participating in the conference call. We will give you the details for participating. In your email, please state clearly how you can contribute to the discussion. We will email the participants before the conference call with the agenda and list of participants.
Exciting times indeed! This is fantastic news and outstanding progress that continues to exceed all normal expectations. I’m looking forward to helping more and already noticing my own projects accelerating as I attempt to catch up with the pace of development there!
Sorry, there will be no Time Magazine interview on Tuesday. We just got an email that the writer has ‘run the feature idea past her editor and he says it’s too US focused (she’s based in London office).’
I responded that the US focus is but one of the misperceptions about our project…but life goes on.
I don’t know about the US, but I do see some problems here. Where I live, businesses complain of having to comply with several layers of regulation, from European to the very local. It’s a nightmare, and a LifeTrac is harder to hide than a linux box.
We’ll see how the open-source business model adapts to different locations. In time.
You’re on track about Resource-Based Economy (RBE) but when you mention Open Business Model, business implies profiteering. Doesn’t RBE put business to rest? I’d rather we term it Open Resource Model.
How about Open Enterprise Model?
From Niel Kiernan, Venus Project spokesperson, reagarding yesterday’s interview:
———-
Here is the link to the archive of our show.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/V-RADIO/2009/10/12/V-RADIO-Open-Source-Ecology-Interview
Please link my show’s page as well.
http://v-radio.org/
I would be happy to do features on new projects and constantly report new progress. So please give me “press releases” to talk about what is going on and I will devote a part of every show to doing so, so long as I have material from you to do it.
Here is today’s agenda:
———————–
Welcome to the forthcoming conference call. You will receive a call at 11 AM GMT-6. The agenda is CEB Product Rlease and General Project Acceleration. Remember this is an action-oriented discussion, so discussion should be kept only to things you are volunteering to do to help the project. Let’s try to keep the call to an hour. There are 6 participants this time, so prepare to talk for around 10 minutes, though it can be shorter. We’d like to use this forum to start discussion, and followup can be done by email or phone. This will be a weekly call, so we can follow up on items next week.
Participants and Agenda
1. Marcin – OSE Founder – 5 minutes – Intro on the exciting new developments related to product release of the CEB press. This is a new stage for OSE. I will touch on strategy, hardware license (trademarks?), and acceleration of progress. We will hear from the contributors first, and then go back to this discussion.
2. Jeb Bateman – 10 minutes – True Fan and Open Source Consultant – will discuss proposals to increase the True Fans support base by leveraging our existing social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Identi.ca, etc.)
3. Markus – head of the Kansas City Zeitgeist Movement branch – will discuss setting up a local, non-profit branch of OSE in collaboration with the Zeitgeist Movement
4. Neil Kiernan – 10 minutes – Venus TV director, spokesman for the Venus Project – his expertise is political organizing. We consider the CEB product release as one step towards a Resource Based Economy.
5. Mike Koch – 10 minutes – Open Pario project manager – how to apply Open Pario as a design repository and collaboration platform for OSE hardware development
6. Lawrence Kincheloe – 10 minutes – Factor e Farm home team – discussion of open business model strategy for product release
the venus project lost me with that stupid WWII industrial mobilization analogy. no thanks to totalitarian utopias.
perhaps the cancellation of the Time interview is a blessing in disguise. best not to get the MSM all in a tizzy about decentralization, lest the guvvies figure out a way to come nab the golden goose.
think of marketing and PR just like the rest of the project – organic open source. don’t get ahead of yourselves and beware of reporters waving readerships. all in the right time & place, yes?
congrats & continued blessings.
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