Ideas from Tim – and more ways you can get involved.
another email corrospondence. this time, i wrote it in my email editor, then, when i realized i was going to post it to the blog, i copied into Word, to edit… spelling, and grammer, and capitalization and puctuation – right? none of the changes i made in word pulled into the blog. none. grr. i dont know why. i am trying to respond to your complaints about my writing style. but this didnt work. ive spent 20 min trying to puzzle it out, and now i need to move to the next task. so, next time i think an email might turn into a blog, i will try to compose it in word, first, and see if i can pull it into the blog later. sorry. so there is a cleaned up, pristine copy of this message sitting on my harddrive. all the capital letters are where they are supposed to be, there is correct punctuation, there are apostrophese in contracted words… all that stuff. but i cant show you, because it is not copying over to the blog post.
take care. mjl
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On May 15, 2007, at 12:25 PM, (snip) wrote:
Hi Michael,I know I don’t yet know a lot about LiftPort or all that has been going on lately, but I have some ideas that have been kicking around in my head that I thought I’d share with you. You have probably already thought about some of this stuff and maybe even done some of it. Most of these are ideas to increase awareness and don’t have immediate “cash” ROI.
We tend to be pretty good with building awareness. What we really need to focus on is cashflow. That said, I would still happily listen and respond.
Anyway, feel free to use or ignore these ideas and information as applicable
Also, I certainly don’t want to distract you from what needs to be done in the short-term. Some of these could probably best be done by fans/volunteers.
My thoughts exactly. No, you can’t distract me from my focus on cashflow, and yes, some of these things can be done by people that support the concept.
1. I remember hearing a Space Show episode that mentioned something about “open source” projects (or something to that effect) for space access/exploration. I can’t remember who the guest was or which company it was, but I think it was the 4Frontiers Corporation. I have not had the chance to dig in and look around to find the specifics, so sorry about that.
Hmmm. I know something about 4 frontiers. So far as I know, they are not really doing anything with an open concept… but I will look into it. If you know of any other open projects relating to education, research, engineering or others, please keep me posted. Maybe there are some links to develop there.
2. If you want to see a great example of viral marketing, check out Scott Sigler. He’s a sci-fi author that has given away free content (i.e., his novels) for a year or two using podcasting and leveraged the listening audience to help him in viral marketing. When he put one of his book in print and made it available on Amazon.com, he climbed to #7 in Amazon rank and got a major book deal. Even if you don’t like his books (they’re quite violent and gory), he is a viral marketing genius with loyal ‘raving fans’. Also, check out StrangerThings.tv (a video podcast). They also did some good viral marketing…and their first story episode was actually an adaptation of one of Scott Sigler’s short fiction stories.
never heard of either of these, but will look them up and investigate. we have a couple web-comics that are fans of what we are doing, and have indicated that they would be willing to support it.
3. Look for ways to make it easy for bloggers and webmasters to embed some of your content in their sites (while still giving attribution to LiftPort). The YouTube videos and flickr photos are a good example of this.
right. working on this. as well as the twitter badges… (soon on twitter, it’s not ready yet). youtube should be ready to promote very soon, 1-2 weeks? less? flickr will take a while. I’ve posted 1750 images, so far, and have 1200 more to go… and then I have to sort, date, organize, set, collect, tag, describe and map the one regarding the elevator. (I will eventually do this for my personal stuff, too, but the important part is to fully upload all the info regarding the elevator images.) I am uploading about 200 pics a day, so it will take me 2 weeks to just get them all up, let alone organized. but I really hope that the effort I am making in transparency will pay off. I want people to see our hardware, and daily activity.
one more thing, if anyone has a website (and a lot of our fans do) it would be great if they would post our ‘newsletter sign-up’ link onto their site. the newsletter is a key tool we use to gauge our success and it is a valuable way of connecting to people. in some ways, it may be our most important tool. so if anyone wants to take on the task of just promoting that one link, that would have huge long-term value. Huge. I am really not kidding about the importance of the newsletter. If we got some help in this area, it will pay off dividends for years to come.
4. Write (or have written) a compelling, believable novel (or series of them) that has the space elevator as a central theme. Maybe start by giving it away for free (eBook and/or audio podcast….or even video podcast, but that is a TON of work!). This is where the “Scott Sigler” method can maybe help.
I am thinking of that… I have a few ideas, but not sure I am ready to step out and do it – by myself. We have a book, but it never really sold very well. We made a lot of mistakes in its initial concept, (mixing fact with fiction) and the librarians and book-buyers didn’t know what to do with it. ooops. So they couldn’t buy it, because they didn’t know where to put it on the shelves… (Of course it is more complicated than that, but you get the point.) But I have been thinking of a couple stories… and might just do something like this. Too soon to tell. I could really use some help on this one.
5. I have heard that the book “Tipping Point” is pretty good, though I have not read it. You may have already read it
Right. It is good. Read it. Also, more importantly, read wikinomics.
6. Create a space elevator in Second Life and create “buzz” in real life to get people to check it out, blog about it, podcast about it, etc. If someone has already done this, “talk it up”.
None that I know of. Yes, it’s on the list. No, have not even started to tackle it. Could use some help here.
7. See if LEGO would be interested in a space elevator kit. LEGO seems to have an interest in space-related stuff and they also have some pretty cool kits for building working robotic projects, etc.
We actually have chatted with them, a few years ago. It was too soon. Now would be the time. If anyone wants to help with this, it would make a big impact – in terms of financing and visibility. This would be a home-run. But we will need help with it.
8. Plant “seeds” in the most popular blogs, podcasts and video podcasts (vodcasts) about the space elevator concept.
We have, a little. Usually we let our hardware experiments carry us. We have another one coming in June. At that point, we can make a splash.
(a) For example, RocketBoom (which is not a space-related vodcast as the name would imply) has a very large viewership. See if they would do any stories. For instance, with RocketBoom, they do use “field correspondents” occasionally, so that might be a way to get on the show. Maybe send in a “show” for them to use or see if they’ll send a “field correspondent” to one of your events.
didn’t know about that. will check it out. I wonder if anyone would like to be a field correspondent for this?
(b) Also, Make Magazine has a video podcast. Is there some mini-space elevator related project (or contest?) that people could make/do themselves for fun? (They do like robots at Make!) And incidentally, they are often on RocketBoom also. Not only that, but the Maker Faire 2007 is coming up soon – May 19-20 – in San Mateo, CA. That could be a good place to get some publicity and/or find creative people to volunteer or work for you. I’ve never been, but it looks like a cool event. It looks like they have another one coming in Oct. also in Austin, TX. One thing I thought could be fun is to host a ribbon climbing (or any space elevator technology) competition for “makers” to enter at the Austin event. It would be for fun and awareness, not necessarily to solve any engineering problems.
make has been following us for a while now. I think they will be at our June event. nope, didn’t try to go to maker faire, but might next year. we were not ready this year. too may other things’ going on.
9. Submarines use towed buoys to bring communications antennas to or near the surface of the ocean while remaining submerged. They also use towed sonar arrays. Both towed systems are normally retracted and stowed and only deployed as needed. Could any of the hydrodynamic issues relate to the space elevator ribbon in the atmosphere? I don’t know a lot about fluid dynamics, but thought there could be some cross-pollination there. Also, it could be another research area (or manufacturing opportunity) for CNTs, though I know absolutely nothing about nanotubes. Another thing to look at is the very low frequency (I think it’s VLF anyway) radio antenna that the Air Force deploys from large aircraft and tows around. These systems could also potentially be an area for research cross-pollination or sales, though it is probably a declining market.
the balloon-based communication systems we are developing fit nicely in this niche. I hope the navy and air force come to our June event. they have been invited… so cross your fingers. if anyone else would like co-develop observation, communications or weather-sensing platforms with us, they are certainly welcome. we talked about that the other day. if you can think of anyone that would we could partner with on these ideas, please let me know.
Disclaimer: I am not a marketing or business guru; these just seemed like some cool ideas
Just let me know if I should keep my ideas to myself, or whether you want to hear more as I think of them. Or, is there a better forum for these ideas instead of an email directly to you? The idea is to help you, not create “noise” and distraction
no worries. these are good ideas. rather than just keep this stuff between you and I, I will now blog the conversation, and see if anyone else wants to tackle these ideas. we can’t tackle them all, we don’t have the capital – time, talent or treasure – but other people other there do… so, as usual, the invitation is open.
take care. mjl
Best regards,
Tim
Michael J. Laine
President
LiftPort Group
245 4th Street
Suite 508
Bremerton WA, 98337
360-377-0623
www.liftport.com
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June 12th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
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