[Jewelry making - Article 00171] - [Orchid] Charles Lewton Brain's speech at the 10th Orchid Dinner

[brainnet]

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    Good evening friends, colleagues, industry people and most of all to
    ourselves, Orchidians and Ganoksin Project participants. To be
    together like this, here, in Tucson is a special moment in the year.
    And this year is special too. 

    The 10th year. A full decade of Ganoksin. If this were a marriage
    we'd be giving each other a diamond today. Probably a big one. And
    that is Ganoksin and Orchid, a maturing marriage, a partnership of
    like minds, sharing, compromising, collaborating and evolving
    together. By this intimate relationship, through group mind we work
    together on advancing our goals of making life easier, better and
    more informed for the jeweler, the person with their hands on the
    material, filings tattooing their fingers and, ever more, their
    fingers on a mouse, jewelers all. Our mission of dissolving secrecy,
    improving the quality of life and work for the goldsmith, the maker
    has succeeded. Never before in the history of the world has this
    information been so accessible to our field. We have made a serious
    difference for tens of thousands. That's nice. And meaningful. And
    we're not done yet. This is in fact an organic, fluid, growing
    thing, this project we have all been working on. We are moving into
    the future together. 

    So what is this ganoksin thing? There are two major parts, the
    Orchid list, its living, vital community and the information
    reservoir that is the Ganoksin site. We know it is about sharing,
    and quality information, and making life easier. We know that it is
    a content density, a weighted gravitational warp in the universe of
    the internet, as planned a decade ago. We know it is somehow
    constructed by our thoughts, that we are magnetically linked through
    the dissolving bonds of geography, like minds sucked towards the
    vortex of information, discussion and group mind that flowers
    through the ganoksin project. We know it is a Global hands across
    the sea. We are a place of living knowledge. 

    Our functions are also as a public library, a community center, a
    school, and as a place to document and store knowledge, a repository
    of how-to. Hanuman feels that in a globalizing world, a place of
    niche markets and the inability to compete on price alone, that we
    are increasingly a way of preserving the art of goldsmithing, of
    keeping knowledge alive, of offering points of entry to new
    generations. 

    While still mostly US based and in English it gives us snatches of
    culture, and is a synergy of cultures, multiple viewpoints - a path
    to empathy. In fact, it makes a better world. We have also been a
    flux, a lubricant, and a role model for industry. A number of
    partnerships and activities occurring today would not have gone the
    way they have without Ganoksin and Orchid's existence. We've changed
    the world. 

    This is not a random construction. There are many carefully built
    details to provide a warm place, a place with heart, a home for a
    community. For instance Orchid is carefully designed to use the
    email format in the way it does for a number of reasons. Email gets
    to essence of a discussion, the core of an issue. When an email
    lands in your mailbox is it private, it is yours, and the ownership
    and relationship is more intimate than a web board. Hanuman and Ton
    edit carefully, a massive all day, every day job. Hanuman is our
    magician, our cook, stirring, adding ingredients, sorting them,
    letting us tell our stories, be our own role models. Tina Synder,
    editor of AJM magazine believes that Ganoksin itself is 'a sign of
    change' in our world. She thinks that Orchid gives a voice to the
    quiet, the shy, that part of the population who find it difficult to
    speak in public, that the email exchange dissolves social barriers.
    Ganoksin and Orchid raise the confidence and self esteem in the
    profession, especially those in isolated places. People say
    repeatedly they "know they are not alone" and that it reinforces the
    choices and paths of life as a jeweler for them. It teaches us ways
    of looking out of the others eyes, through their minds, the sparkle
    of their ideas. 

    There are currently about 20,000 unique visitors per day at
    ganoksin, some 600,000 a month adding up to 7,5 million unique
    individuals who use the site a year. They stay to read an average of
    7.4 documents. Our 'natural' traffic is up significantly, that is
    the people who find us while looking for information on the net. 

    The Orchid list itself has grown by almost 20% and how has 6,500
    members. The proportion of people who get the digest instead of
    individual messages is steady at about 65-70%. Our news and press
    releases have about 35,000 opted in recipients. Spam blockers as a
    new factor interfere with up to 15% of such mass mailings. There are
    also a number of new ganoksin users through RSS news syndication. We
    have been tracking translation engine visitors and there are real
    increases in users reading us in other languages, especially from
    France, Germany and Japan. The hidden effects of Ganoksin include
    those people who use the archives and the massive content that is the
    Project. 

    Construction changes to the site include the huge and complex move
    to a new, and dedicated ganoksin server, our own cyberspace vessel
    as Captain Hanuman and lieutenant Ton call it, the server Titania.
    The search engine logarithm was rewritten in response to user
    comments and has resulted in major improvements to the search
    abilities on the site. The new industry sources and resource section
    was added to and improved. 

    The articles that go up regularly at the site are, in fact, a
    magazine, each 'issue' being a list of new content. A lot of it.
    Between last January and this January over 490 articles were added
    to the Ganoksin project. Wow. We have branched into theoretical and
    critical art content, business, manufacturing and design. The
    conversation is larger than before. 

    We have cemented relationships this year with Canada's national
    Metal Arts Guild and its magazine, with Germany's GZ magazine and
    their range of publications and with the coalition partners of the
    Clasp project, an incredible initiative that bridges the information
    silos in the field and promises new ways and effectiveness for
    learning and sharing in our world. Our friend Andrea Hill will speak
    to this. 

    This brings up an important set of changes we have noted. As the
    ganoksin project has matured we are more powerful. Our opinion is
    listened to and we are viewed as a force and a partner of note. We
    are moving from the virtual world to places of bricks and mortar and
    stone. More of our actions are emerging into the tangible world of
    objects and physical experience. The partnership in the September
    Clasp conference and its educational spin-offs is a sign of this. 

    The Orchid Books in Print Projects, a collaboration with AJM
    magazine and MJSA's Rich Youmans are another example. Karen
    Christian's book on the Flex Shaft, the first in the series is now
    in print to good reviews. This significant book brings solid and new
    information to the field. Planned books in the Orchid in Print
    series include The torch and soldering by Peter Rowe and a book on
    the jewelers bench by myself. 

    A development area for the project is the need for information
    guides, interpreters, and teachers using Ganoksin's content for
    curriculum, setting up paths through it and making the mass of
    information more sensible for learners. 

    One of the factors coming our way is more emphasis on the local at
    the same time that information exchange and communication increases.
    Rising energy costs and security issues are affecting things,
    American tourism in Europe is down hugely and forecasts are for
    greatly reduced travel within the US itself. The importance of
    ganoksin and the community it offers will increase as physical
    travel is impaired. 

    A decade ago the internet did not offer bloggers, video
    conferencing, internet telephony and more. 10 years from now, as new
    technologies evolve and new ways for people to communicate appear
    Ganoksin will grow with it. Hanuman says "No doubt the net is
    evolving at a mind boggling rate. What the level of complexity will
    be a decade from now is anybody's guess. Ganoksin is well aware of
    the process. We are hard at work responding to this enormous
    challenge, nevertheless our major focus is on you as users and
    contributors and I see this challenge as a collective challenge for
    all of us, moderators, contributors and users. Ganoksin will be
    there with the right tools for the community to keep discussion
    alive". He adds "We all have to think where we want to be ten years
    from now. We are now making an important leap from cyberspace to the
    real world". 

    These comments would not be complete without recognizing some of
    those who have worked for ganoksin, Ton, Karen Christians, Pat
    Glover among others. To all of our sponsors who have given time,
    auction and raffle items, bought tickets tonight and more we give
    great thanks and appreciation. A huge, enormous thank you to Rio
    Grande, Andrea Hill and the Bell group for their unswerving
    support,, financial and otherwise, and for the huge job of
    organizing, and sponsoring tonight's Orchid dinner. 

    And finally, I would like my dear friend and partner Dr. Hanuman
    Aspler to stand up and be recognized for his work for us all, for
    the world of jewelers, and for our part of humanity.

    Thank you all, and have a lovely evening together.


 
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