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Day Five of my Crowdfunder once again came up empty so now on day six it is looking unlikely that I will have garnered enough public support to take advantage of the 50% discount on the iuniverse program by 2 PM today when the sales person is going to check back with me.
Perhaps when I complete the remainder of the thirty day crowdfunder I will have suceeded in garnering enough public support to justify investing in such a program. That bar is $500.00 because until I reach $500.00 I do not get to retain any of the funds pledged. If I reach that bar, perhaps there will be another deal available- or I can do another crowdfunder to try to raise the rest of the funds needed,- so with that thought in mind, I am going to continue with this crowdfunder to its completion. It feels like doing one of those dance marathons of the depression era-or a fillibuster speach on the floor of the Senate.
This is a particular sort of endurance test which I have decided to take on in much the same spirit that I decided to take on the elevator pitch in hopes of procuring funding for re-doing the molds for our ceramics. I had never done such a thing before and when I did it was my first direct encounter with the corporation of Maine- that is when I first learned that the taxpayers were under writing a high growth investment company to the tune of 10 percent in a deal arranged by the people's representatives in which the taxpyers involuntary investment is treated like a non-profit investment- while the private investors are referred to as "high growth investors" a term which traditionally means that they take high risks to make high profits- but at The Maine Venture Fund, the legislature has passed 10% of that risk on to the taxpayers, which likely means that the tax payers cover all the overhead costs and as usual, do not share in the profits- its called socializing the risk and privatizing the gain. That was a shocking eye opener for me and accounts for how I became involved in my independent research project which is recorded here on this blog.
The advantage of having a knowledge of the entire economic development policies of the state came into play when I was analysing the speculative intent of small language changes in the "Expanded and Imporved Seed Capital Tax Credit" -small language changes that advantaged the Maine Venture Fund over other investment companies pursuant to their public corporation status.
I was thinking today about the way that bloggers are frequently treated with general disrgard. I have heard Fox News commentators use the phrase "bloggers in their pajamas" when just plain bloggers would have been fine. Such a phrase is used as a derogatory phrase but it makes little sense. What does it imply? That the blogger is working independently out side of the system. He is wrting at home- hardly unusual for any type of an author. I bet even Steven King sometimes wears his pajamas when he is writing in the privacy of his own home, especially if he is struck with a moment of inspiration before he gets up and puts on his suit and tie, which would be the standard uniform that a repsectable author wears when writing in the privacy of their own home- but not those bloggers ! They wear pajamas ! I am surprised that the line is not that bloggers sit but naked at their computers when composing their blogs ! Why the demonization of bloggers in our society- which essentially means independent and individualistic voices?
The phrase represents being outside of the system- or a voice independent of the system- not on the system's payroll ! That describes me. How could I write what I write as an employee of the system which my research is revealing? There is to the perspective that I have revealed an intentional design to keep the operations of the system concealed from the public's eye.
The attitude represented by the phrase "bloggers in their pajamas" is part of a larger speech regulation trend that seems to be rapidly growing steam in the USA and clearly in Maine. I run into speech regulation every where in my personal life from family to acquaintances. I call the perpetuators of such free speech regulation "polite society" for they claim that they regulate speech because it is rude to experess any subject of thought which they have banned- as the self proclaimed arbitor of good manners in our soiciety. Recently I was in a group of people when out of the blue one of them asked what my politcal affiliation is. First I was asked if I was Tea Party and I said the Tea Party is no longer what it started out to be. Then I was asked if I am a Libertarian and I said No because I believe in a very very very strong defense. They were shocked and deeply offended that I would say such a simple sentence in response to a direct question in public. I was told "Why you can't say that here at this non-profit organization". Did the speaker understand that she, as a manager of that organization, was saying that said organization stands for the regulation of free speech? I will likely never step foot in that organization again as I cannot support any organization that claims it has the authority to regulate free speech.
While in my personal life I have been told "You have other places to air your views so you don't need to do so here"- Conversely one of the reasons I write my blog is because I am a thinking person and there are very few forums in which one is allowed to express one's thoughts on important subjects.
The sales woman from iuniversal called early. I have on more day more than I thought. I just need to make a down payment of almost 300.00 but I will not have access to any funds raised until I reach 500.00. The small contributions matter as much in terms of feeling that there is public support for this projects as the large one's do. A sponsor level contribution could get me to the level of making a clear committment to the program which is teh best means for one in my situtation to find a network of support needed for success in this type of an ambition.
Once I meet the $800.00 project goal I get to be a contributing author on Beacon, which also provides an ongoing source of journalism funding and is another way of connecting to a community as well:
This is about Beacon
Beacon: A Journey in Crowdfunding Journalism
A Different Kind of Crowdfunding: One for All
In 2013, founders Dan Fletcher, Dmitri Cherniak and Adrian Sanders launched Beacon as a different kind of crowdfunding platform, one that focuses on writers more than their stories, and takes a collective approach by sharing revenue across different projects.
Users subscribe to their favorite of Beacon’s 150 writers for a minimum of $5 a month, and in return receive access to all the content produced by all writers on the site. About 60 percent of the subscription fee goes to the chosen writer, while the rest is shared with the other Beacon writers.
Funding Writers, Not Stories
The idea to focus on content producers, rather than individual stories, was inspired by social media’s impact on news consumption, something Fletcher has spent his career observing. Before Beacon, he was Facebook’s managing editor, and before that he had a gig at Bloomberg, coordinating social media accounts and training.
“So much conversation about what happens in the world happens on places like Facebook and Twitter,” he said in an email interview. “If you’re able to tap into that activity, and channel it into something that actually supports journalism’s growth and development, that’s tremendously powerful.”
I am really excited about that concept. I need to feel that there exists a support network for what I am doing. I probably can squeeze the money out from somewhere for the down payment for the program but it is the feeling that I am not receiving public support for my already established efforts in research journalism that holds me back- that and all the other pressures on the use of my time that I am facing- which if I were not spending time on this, would mean I would have a lot mooe availabe time for the other.
So once again- a lot of small five are ten dollar contributions are not likely to get me to my financial goal unless they are really a lot- but they make a huge difference in feeling that there is public support out there for my mission. A large sponsor category contribution can make a big financial impact on meeting my project goal to become one of the Beacon authors.
I do not have a large audience relative to the main stream media but I have a growing audience in which there are usually at least three instances of locations where the number of pages and session duration numbers are unususally high- meaning that people are reading more than just one post and spending more than a twitter moment on my blog. The image above shows the Google Analytics Page for today. For a long time- several years - the circles were located in theBoothbay Region but now they have spread out over a much larger territory. The people reading my blog, if they support my mission can help me to reach my goal to become a Beacon author and to join the iuniverse program so that my megaphone can have a wider reach.
Today is a particuarily important day to see some public support for what I am doing. Please become a backer of my project. A one dollar contribution has as much weight as an 800.00 contribution when it comes to measuring public support and feeling that I have public support does matter to me. It makes a crucial difference.
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