Raccoon Plan

This is a draft of a new or in-progress document, and is likely to have a few people specifically working on it. You may wish to check in on the discussion page to see what the purpose of the document is and who's working on it; then feel free to give this article love and attention if have extra of those things.

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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 cheap computer stuff for the purpose of modern commercial/personal computing
• we can sell it to the bulk buyers we have found
• we can use it for infrastructure
• the online sales coordinator notices its online value

This leaves us recycling many items that could otherwise have value. Markets not dealt with optimally:

1. online sales needs more eyes trained and looking for good stuff
2. 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 Free Geek is for stuff
   • there is 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

Please define a goal for this SWOT

	Good (for Free Geek)	Bad (for Free Geek)
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.) this may discourage theft and hoarding by giving people the opportunity to buy things previously not available through legit channels, as well as removing a source of resentment at unequal treatment this may offer additional cultural niches to volunteers after/outside the main two programs, especially attractive to smart, geeky people (eg, dirk in a/v) this may help organize and clean areas this may take pressure off the store this may encourage more volunteer-volunteer interactions this may allow for an addition staff position this expands the role of core volunteers	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.) this may take up space and possibly contribute to messes this may be slower than recycling in getting rid of stuff this may be hard to implement and maintain this may need paid staff oversight
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.) this may better address the changes in technology and the increasing incoming obscure hardware as e-recycling becomes legislated. this may increase our reuse of CBM (complex materials, difficult to handle responsibly) at a local-market level this may better develop our use of FS/OSS on more diverse hardware this may increase our income, and certainly makes it more diverse	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.) this may be limited by what FS/OSS is available to use

See also Trends and Attributes | What do we want to do?