Raccoon Plan
Making Raccoons a part of Free Geek
Obscure and difficult hardware needs different attention. We should create a program that sets standards for how to deal with obscure hardware, how to deal with volunteers who want to buy unusual things, and how to enable volunteers to contribute their time and skill in dealing with (finding, testing, redistributing, &c.) this stuff.
Currently, things are worth saving if:
- we can make a freekbox out of it
- we can sell it to people who want newish computer stuff for cheap
- we can sell it to the bulk buyers we have found
- we can use it for infrastucture
- the online sales coordinator notices its online value
This leaves us recycling many items that could otherwise have value. Markets not dealt with optimally:
- online sales needs more eyes trained and looking for good stuff
- internal market to volunteers who "just want stuff"
- these people are often seen as a nuisance
- many core volunteers do this; often their primary reason for participation at freegeek is for stuff
- they are a pool of artists and hobbyists (read: market) who have already come to us and are telling us what they want to buy
We need to give attention to these two areas to help reuse in as many ways as we can. We need to offer more structured opportunities to electronic hobbyists. We need to ensure that the people who know how to find, test and sell this stuff are pushed to make their knowledge available to the rest of the organization. We should integrate the constant expansion of our categories of reuse. (that sentence had extra buzz) We should offer training to people in both dealing with specific types of obscure hardware and in finding new markets. Our core volunteers already do these tasks to some extent; we should encourage and develop it into a program that is well enough structured to include more people.
SWOT
Good (for Free Geek) | Bad (for Free Geek) | |
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Internal (to Free Geek) |
Strengths: Strengths are advantages we have that are internal to Free Geek and helpful to achieving the objective. (Good things we do.)
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Weaknesses: Weaknesses are problems we have that are internal to Free Geek and harmful to achieving the objective. (Things we do poorly or not at all.)
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External (to Free Geek) |
Opportunities: Opportunities are advantages we have that are external to Free Geek and helpful to achieving the objective. (Good things that will or could happen to us.)
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Threats: Threats are problems we have that are external to Free Geek and harmful to achieving the objective. (Bad things that will or could happen to us.)
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See also Trends and Attributes | What do we want to do?