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Retailers and manufacturers are our friends
Fri, 06/13/2008 - 07:14 — Heath
We ought to be e-mailing folks who sell stuff a seastead needs. They're certainly willing to talk about it. They can help us not reinvent the wheel for many different things.
When I talked to the Fortacrete dude on the phone, I was all, "Just want to let you know off the bat I'm not in charge of this program, and I'm certainly not the guy with the money. I'm just some guy on an Internet forum. I might not have been to clear on that in my initial e-mails."
That didn't matter one bit. He wanted to know how he could help. I wish I had been more prepared or just referred him to someone else.
I'm sure a lot of retailers and manufacturers are like this.
Do we want to know how to setup an integrated PV/Wind system? I bet most retailers would love to tell us all the crap that needs to be purchased in order to make it work. I bet half the time they'd be willing to create a Proposals page if it was suggested. Worst case scenario they have edit wars over whose stuff gets better advertising on here. That's a good problem to have in my book. Even then, a few rules and an {{Advertising}} template would probably do the trick.
People in general find seasteading fascinating. They'd love to have their products on a Baystead or a Coaststead.
(Note to TSI: you ought to talk to the USG dude about Fortacrete. Let me know who to e-mail with his info.)
I agree completely about
I agree completely about trying to get suppliers interested, and have them make us offers: that should give us a lot of information.
You should notify Wayne about the fortacrete. See if you can find his email here somewhere: if not, i suspect thats intentional: try contacting him through the seasteading email adress instead, although it may take somewhat longer.
Good to hear you get positive responses: you are appearently a better salesman than i am.
I used to be a pretty good
I used to be a pretty good salesman, but then I burned out really bad. Anywho, here's a shot at some copypasta:
Subject: (Product Name) and Seasteading <-- Don't change this. I guarantee this is the best way to do it. The rest is debatable.
Dear __________, Please let us know why (Product Name) is right for Seasteading.
"Seasteading means to create permanent dwellings on the ocean - homesteading the high seas." - The Seasteading Institute Web Site
(Some name dropping here might help, but might also be really tacky and offensive to the droppees. I wouldn't know as I don't get out much.)
The guiding principle is incrementalism: taking baby steps to ensure that we maximize our chance of success. This also means that deployment of real structures will happen in the near future. TSI hopes to have a working prototype in 2009.
A quick way to see what we're getting as is to look here: http://wiki.seasteading.org/index.php/Pictures
(Enough about us... but it was important to convey, 1. what the heck we're talking about 2. that we're dead serious. 3. that it's plausible 4. they could make real money off of it in the not-too-distant future... remember: the kind of people we're contacting are exactly the kind of people who will be fascinated by it. there is no way that a campaign like this can fail unless you are completely incoherent)
Is (Product Name) right for Seasteading? We want to know!
We see the following possible benefits:
1. Your product is cool.
2. Your product may be cheaper.
.....
Can you address some concerns?
....
....
(This helps remove some of the form letter feeling they might have. That's no excuse not to use half-decent spelling and grammar though (like double negatives lol). If you have no morals, you may wish to include a fallacious concern about their product. They may respond just to stamp out the evil lies that people have been spreading about their product.)
Feel free to e-mail me directly. I'd love to talk about (Product Name) and how it could be utilized on seasteads. In all honesty, I'm not directly affiliated with TSI. I contribute to their efforts via their forum and wiki. You might want to let them know what you offer through these channels. They'll give you a workout on the forums.
http://seasteading.org
http://www.seasteading.org/forum
http://wiki.seasteading.org
Thanks!
Your Name