[Tim Harrigan]

I want to weigh in here but I just hit the wrong button and 30 minutes of writing disappeared. I will get back tonight.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 37994 wrote:

.. Perhaps call yourself on your cell phone a couple times… Later, go home and bitch about what a terrible time you had and how boring everyone was. Like a big cocktail party.

HaHa, sounds like you have been to a few of those. I need to learn how to call myself on my own phone and get it to ring. Can you start a new thread? 😎

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 37978 wrote:

….. I come here because I want information. I feel that “baiting” people with information and then “switching” to something else (like connectivity) is disingenuous…

Andy, I suspect ‘connectivity’ is a concept like ‘networking’ in the sense that it can be interpreted in many ways. Can you explain how you are thinking about connectivity?

[Tim Harrigan]

Ben, looks like you better plan a trip to Germany for the February 23-24 gathering.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Carl Russell 37945 wrote:

Like public radio this site can be supported more by sponsorship and donations rather than by membership.

I would be inclined to keep this site free to the public, not restricting access to any content. Rather restrict to paying DAPNet members only things like profile signatures, or advertising (if it ever get to that), or increased capacity for uploading pics and attachments. And there could be a category highlighting links or services etc offered by DAPNet members only, clearly viewable by everyone, but only accessible for posting by those who are paying members. No one uses it now, but this site has a blog area, this could be limited to DAPNet members only.

In other words, grow the content on this site, and make it available to as many folks as possible, but limit the ability to use the connectivity of this site to DAPNet members only. It would require some overview from Admin, but most of what I described above can be done easily in the admin panel by creating filters for certain user groups…

Just mind running wild….:eek:

Carl

Andy, I tend to agree with Carl here, there are many subtleties involved that take it beyond income maximization into the much cloudier realm of multi-criteria optimization and qualitative considerations. This is something for the Board to hash out, in my mind.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, this is an important philosophical question that the BoD should discuss at the planned retreat.

[Tim Harrigan]

That is a good idea. I think videos are a great addition and an under-used resource on DAPNet, but they have limitations. If we can identify the right balance we would really have an effective process in place.

[Tim Harrigan]

@Countymouse 37911 wrote:

I am not convinced that overall visibility of the site is a problem. What evidence do you have that this is a problem? Google searches bring interested people here quickly. With over 3/4 of the population online and google being the dominant seacrh engine, this is a huge amount of visibility to me. I do not think that a low number of DAP.org members means interested people are not aware. The site always has a large number of people viewing forums, but only a small percentage of these becomes a DAP.com member and fewer yet are converted to donating DAP.org members. I think that this is demonstrably a problem, and is clear by looking at the numbers rather than simply speculating.

I was referring more specifically to videos. There are many horse, ox, logging, etc videos on YouTube with many thousands of views. One of my videos has over 50000. When I look at the source of those views I see that more than 90% were directed to the video from related YouTube searches, not directed from DAPNet. Does this mean that there are 50000 folks really interested in what I am doing? Of course not. But I can also see that there are a certain fraction that watched it more than once, so they probably have a little more interest. So this tells me that there is more potential for using videos to bring new folks in than in expecting them to find DAPNet and then find the desired content.

It is also linked to the fact that folks don’t always type in the best key words, or that they discover new ideas and concepts that they were not aware of just through the process of looking around (at videos). I think YouTube is pretty good at matching content in that way.

This is different from the free-rider problem. If we want to stop the free-riders we will have to upgrade the web site to restrict access of certain content to supporting members. That brings on another set of problems. This is sort of like NPR. They have been trying to get over the free-rider hump since day one and I am quite certain the vast majority of listeners still do not support it financially. But like I said, that is a different problem.

[Tim Harrigan]

I think we will find ourselves swimming upstream if we seek to limit access to educational videos and other materials to this site. The overwhelming trend is for greater and easier access in all forms of educational content. So the delivery should be a tool to attract users to DAPNet, not requiring them to find DAPNet and then discover the content. For instance, links and references can be embedded in videos that raise awareness of DAPNet. If the video content is good, folks will come here and likely find other content that has value.

Video have great value in helping folks visualize methods, equipment, etc. But mostly they provide entertainment and a chance to inflict a little education in the process. But people’s attention span is pretty short and unless you have a very sharply defined educational content it is unlikely that you will be able to anticipate and answer the specific questions that they have. For us, the real value is in the interaction, the detailed discussion. So videos can inspire that, but not likely to replace it.

Videos that carry dense educational content take a lot of planning and effort. It is not easy to recreate conditions that arise occasionally but are worthy of discussion of how we assess the situation and apply specific tools or techniques to accomplish the task safely and effectively. I have some topics in mind but they would require me to have a camera with me everytime I work with Will, and be prepared to take the time take the video. So that would take a pretty well defined plan and probably months of gathering the pieces here and there. That is a barrier to getting it done.

So I guess the bottom line is that videos are not the answer, just one more piece of the picture that we can use to balance the approach. But we can certainly do a better job with it.

[Tim Harrigan]

Andy, are these threads or posts?

Another interesting statistic is how many members actually help support the web site and organization by becoming supporting members. I do not have that number off the top of my head, someone probably does. And at any one time the large majority of visitors to DAPNet are not members, but visitors. At least they are not logged in as members.

[Tim Harrigan]

Jen, have you thought about how you plan to manage your hay/pasture ground? By horse hay, do you mean grass/clover or alfalfa/grass? Grass/clover managed well should not need reseeding and you can make hay at first cutting when the spring flush provides more hay than you can pasture, then you can rotate through those pastures by grazing during the rest of the season. Frost seeding or some other method of interseeding can keep a nice balance of grasses and legumes over the long haul and you may never need to till the ground again. That is a huge plus on a hillside.

If you are thinking alfalfa or alfalfa/grass that ramps up the management needs. An advantage is alfalfa will yield better than grass in second and third cutting if it is managed as a hay field. But alfalfa does not hold up well under grazing so reseeding will be needed maybe every 5 years or so. Reseeding of hay fields will be needed as well, alfalfa tends to winterkill. There is a bloat potential with alfalfa with cattle on pasture as well, and alfalfa requires a near neutral pH and your soils are likely acidic so periodic liming will be needed (probably helpful for grass/clover as well). And, alfalfa is a heavy feeder on potassium which affects winter hardiness so you may want to give some thought to how you will meet the nutrient needs.

I have typical yields in mind for Michigan but have no idea what you can expect in NH. Of course, local knowledge is great, UNH probably has a forage extension specialist and extension educators will have a good sense. Also, the USDA Agricultural Statistics Service publishes average crop yields as well, you should be able to find that on the web.

I checked the Ag Stat Service, average NH hay yield in 2011 was 2 tons/acre.

[Tim Harrigan]

That is so sad. So very sorry about your loss.

[Tim Harrigan]

Sorry about your loss, Billy. That is really rough.

[Tim Harrigan]

When I question the networking component I am not suggesting that networking is not good, or desirable or necessary. My sense is that networking is our strongest component. And I don’t keep a balance book or do cost-benefit analysis regarding time spent networking and connecting with other organizations. This is not a question of for or against. Of course, networking is hugely important. Some of the challenge I have seen is translating networking into action that supports our goals and values, and thereby builds and strengthens the organization. So my question is really if we should be doing more, than how much and in what ways that are different from what we are doing now? And to what end? So we use the term ‘networking’ quite freely as if we have a common agreement and understanding of what it means, but actually it can mean just about anything. So if the sense is we should be doing more networking, it implies to me that we should be doing something different or better. So what exactly does that mean in the context of limited time, limited dollars and other resources? Not suggesting a reduction in networking, just wondering why more networking is where we need to invest limited resources.

[Tim Harrigan]

This is also (and probably most importantly) a fund raiser for them.

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