Why Micro Publishing?

In many respects, small, cash-starved organizations have never enjoyed such an abundance of available technology. A tremendous wealth of open source web publishing tools have matured in the past year or two. Most useful, in terms of online publishing and media management, are content and document management systems like Mambo, Civic Space, TikiWiki, B2 Evolution, and several others. Because they're open source, these technologies are free for anybody to download and use. The best of them can transform a dull, online brochure into a powerful, web-based information portal.

A significant number of these powerful resources are technologically ready for prime time. They are stable, standards-compliant, enjoy a wide user-base and offer a promising development road map. The best are supported by a global community of highly-skilled hackers. Some boast features and capabilities that rival or exceed those offered by their proprietary counterparts costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.

So what's not to love? It's this: most of these tools are stuck in the ease-of-use dark ages. Help guides and user manuals usually don't exist, or are hopelessly inadequate. Why? Because this stuff is essentially developed by geeks for geeks. Code is the geek's lingua franca. Help guides are often just an afterthought. Compounding this issue is a "geek ethic" that considers neglect for user manuals as a good way of avoiding unnecessary work. Many open source geeks are hard-pressed to understand that you may want to use the technology they've created to make your life easier; not launch a new career as a budding übergeek.

So what's the solution? Simple. Employ essentially the same process used to sell, integrate, train and maintain technology for any other organization. But instead of sending in an army of highly-paid consultants to deploy costly proprietary technology, you find highly-talented do-gooders to deliver open source technology instead. Oh, and make sure they can do all that--sales, integration, training and maintenance--for cheap or free, because that's what most of our beloved cash-poor community groups can afford.

Here's a more realistic alternative. Gather a few smart people together who have hands-on familiarity with these technologies. Enlist them to create training resources and user guides for the best of breed open source publishing applications. Team up with a local web host or two who've demonstrated a strong ethic of community involvement and create an "outreach" program to raise awareness. Follow through with low-cost training and support programs.

Not long ago we put up our "filthy lucre" request to humor ourselves whilst thinking through the challenges outlined above. More realistically we aim to enlist the support of local, community-based institutions with a vested interest in strengthening local business and community ecosystems. Local banks, credit unions, colleges & universities, civic organizations and municipalities quickly spring to mind. Bottom line: this is nobody's idea of a "get rich quick" scheme. That's because most traditional investors look for opportunities offering a reasonably high return on investment in a fairly short period of time.

But that's not what an investment community infrastructure--focused on benefiting cash poor, but community rich micro-organizations--is all about. It's about providing our with community vital resources the traditional market is usually unable or unwilling to offer, despite the enormous potential this market opportunity offers. You, however, may have an idea to help us potentially solve our paradox. If so, please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you!