"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
About your Evokation business plan....
This is mostly a response to Ursula's questions in this post, but I think the answers are relevant to others too.
Some notes in the order they come up:
Your comments comparing the application process to a school paper are spot on. It would be good if Evoke were to provide a sample or three indicating what they want. (Instead of samples of more ambitious projects, and the caveat We don’t expect that your EVOKATION will be as fully-formed as those of these teams, some of whom have spent a year or more working on their
projects.)
Of course you can create a business without a plan. Even with a plan, Moltke's maxim remains true: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." In other words, as soon as you begin operations, unpredictable events will render your plan more or less obsolete. I believe it was Napoleon who claimed to never have had a plan of operations, and The Art of War is all about keeping your options open.
All the same, a plan serves to identify points of weakness in your approach. It can help you prepare for some of the things that can go wrong, reducing the number of things to worry about, and maybe even convince you to abandon your current course. It's a process of thinking more clearly about what you're doing and educating yourself about what you need.
And while your dad may have done well, there are plenty of people who haven't. The absence of a plan in one case doesn't mean that not having a plan is always bad.
A non-profit is a business just like any other. There are legal requirements just like for-profit companies, and probably a wh*** load of extra regulations due to the tax situation. You need to have money coming in, you need to pay the bills. The books have to balance at thhe end of the month. You need to define your market, figure out how to bring your product or service to that market and ....
Oh yeah, and if you're asking someone else for support they are always going to ask for a plan. If they don't know you then what else are they going to base their decision on?
Answer: people support people. More precisely, people support people who are able to communicate an idea clearly and effectively. People like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Barack Obama, Jimmy Wales, or even Geroge W Bush are examples of this. Bush may have appeared to be an illiterate hick, but he spoke to his audience in terms they understood, and was extremely good at what he did.
You have to first of all identify who is potentially going to support you, and then you have to be able to communicate with them. From the sounds of things, you're not ready yet to be the public face of your project. One solution would be to team up with someone personable, another would be to do something else for a while that will help you develop that part of your personality and skill set. Or maybe you need to be the lead nerd in an organisation of nerds, and you're actually the perfect person for the job but you don't realise it. Believe in yourself, and great things can happen.
If you're going to try and create a project, you need to be a wh*** bundle of different people all rolled into one. You have to be an organiser, delegator, leader, accountant, marketing expert, firefighter,... and also be able to provide some service or product that people want.
The mechanics of running a business are very different from the mechanics of, say, building a website or fixing washing machines, or cutting hair. Don't confuse "providing your product or service" with running a business. In your ccase, you need to be able to manage a community too. It's a tough combination to get right, and it's not something I would embark on alone. (Actually, I have tried several times and failed.)
As for your project itself, I think it's a wonderful idea. Now let me please get on my soapbox and shout at you about tools for building websites.
Some notes in the order they come up:
Your comments comparing the application process to a school paper are spot on. It would be good if Evoke were to provide a sample or three indicating what they want. (Instead of samples of more ambitious projects, and the caveat We don’t expect that your EVOKATION will be as fully-formed as those of these teams, some of whom have spent a year or more working on their
projects.)
Of course you can create a business without a plan. Even with a plan, Moltke's maxim remains true: "No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." In other words, as soon as you begin operations, unpredictable events will render your plan more or less obsolete. I believe it was Napoleon who claimed to never have had a plan of operations, and The Art of War is all about keeping your options open.
All the same, a plan serves to identify points of weakness in your approach. It can help you prepare for some of the things that can go wrong, reducing the number of things to worry about, and maybe even convince you to abandon your current course. It's a process of thinking more clearly about what you're doing and educating yourself about what you need.
And while your dad may have done well, there are plenty of people who haven't. The absence of a plan in one case doesn't mean that not having a plan is always bad.
A non-profit is a business just like any other. There are legal requirements just like for-profit companies, and probably a wh*** load of extra regulations due to the tax situation. You need to have money coming in, you need to pay the bills. The books have to balance at thhe end of the month. You need to define your market, figure out how to bring your product or service to that market and ....
Oh yeah, and if you're asking someone else for support they are always going to ask for a plan. If they don't know you then what else are they going to base their decision on?
Answer: people support people. More precisely, people support people who are able to communicate an idea clearly and effectively. People like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Barack Obama, Jimmy Wales, or even Geroge W Bush are examples of this. Bush may have appeared to be an illiterate hick, but he spoke to his audience in terms they understood, and was extremely good at what he did.
You have to first of all identify who is potentially going to support you, and then you have to be able to communicate with them. From the sounds of things, you're not ready yet to be the public face of your project. One solution would be to team up with someone personable, another would be to do something else for a while that will help you develop that part of your personality and skill set. Or maybe you need to be the lead nerd in an organisation of nerds, and you're actually the perfect person for the job but you don't realise it. Believe in yourself, and great things can happen.
If you're going to try and create a project, you need to be a wh*** bundle of different people all rolled into one. You have to be an organiser, delegator, leader, accountant, marketing expert, firefighter,... and also be able to provide some service or product that people want.
The mechanics of running a business are very different from the mechanics of, say, building a website or fixing washing machines, or cutting hair. Don't confuse "providing your product or service" with running a business. In your ccase, you need to be able to manage a community too. It's a tough combination to get right, and it's not something I would embark on alone. (Actually, I have tried several times and failed.)
As for your project itself, I think it's a wonderful idea. Now let me please get on my soapbox and shout at you about tools for building websites.
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