Buddhist Geeks Community now open

interesting. i just joined a slightly similar christian mysticism forum. similar in that it's paid and screened to provide a private and high quality experience. much less teched out, of course.

I am not so sure I would join something like this. Anyone up for another Hangout? It's free.

Just a quick question. Has Buddhist Geeks switched from a non-profit, donation based business to a full fledged service based tech company? They used to list their financials as a non-profit on the site. So that is what it seems has happened, and I have no problem with that at all. Good for Vince. But, I am not sure when or where they made it clear that they changed their business model. Are they still taking donations? I can't find the donate link on their site, but they do have reoccurring patrons, so it seems like a conflict of interest to change into a regular corporation, yet still take donations. Am I off base?

$20/month? No way. $20/year seems about right for me I may go as high as $50 if I feel it offered me some real value. Either way, I would've created this as a freemium service so that people can get some sense of what and who's there and I probably would've used conference attendees as a core user group by offering them either a limited time free membership or a deep discount. That's just me though...

The paid forum I participate in is $10 one time (but has no technical bells and whistles or fun features - just a custom set of very plain discussion threads). The fee was partly to defray costs of employee setting it up and hosting etc. And partly as a troll-gate. We wanted a committed group of participants who would actually participate, not just lurk.

Then again, I have paid accounts for various things like MindMeister and such-like online software that I use about once a year but never bother to cancel the $5 a month fee for.

That said, I have a very low opinion of the level of discourse on unscreened online discussion media (whatever means are used to screen). I'm happy to pay for better quality.

My one qualm about the $20/month is not that there's a fee, but that $20/month is a lot of money for working class people or retired people, for instance. I have less sympathy for students and other voluntarily poor folk (and I've been to grad school twice! so I've done it myself!), as they live to moan about not having any money only until the weed dealer or pizza guy shows up, at which point everyone finds $10 real easily.
Anyway.

THAT said, not every brand has to fit every person or budget. It's okay to have a target audience.

Ona Kiser wrote: THAT said, not every brand has to fit every person or budget. It's okay to have a target audience.

I agree with this in principle... but not so sure if in practice it applies to all things equally. I guess I'm old fashioned in that I think that commodifying dharma is different from commodifying services like general contracting or law or what have you... there needs to be different models, IMO, for different kinds of services/activities to have a presence in The Market besides the straightforward create-a-product-and-sell-it approach. Health care is different for example, as is education (at least k-12 in the USA)...and I see dharma as more in that category.

... and I am also just thinking out loud

If you take dharma, though, it already has dozens of variations and brands. Not only all the different traditional traditions (and all the variants within them, each of which appeals only to a specific audience (geeky, devotional, intellectual, earthy, artsy, etc.) and all the various spinoffs and guru-specific versions (from Gary Weber to Adyashanti, etc etc), but range from super extra free (such as Goenka) to really expensive: (such as Thich Nhat Hanh: "Retreat fees include all retreat programs, housing, meals and transportation for those housed off-site. Housing options and fees are:
Camping (Blue Cliff, tent only) — $700 SOLD OUT
Dormitory (Blue Cliff) — $900 SOLD OUT
Hotel (double occupancy only) — $1,075/person SOLD OUT")

On a personal level, that's true for me too: it was Buddhist Geeks podcasts that opened a door into a rabbit hole that led to me (and my husband) taking up meditating at all, meeting my eventual teachers, etc etc. There's a bit of a "gratitude to lineage" attitude towards all the people and things that stood out as being particularly influential at key points in my life (even if really everything contributes to every moment), and those podcasts were a turning point.

I don't have a huge interest in technology of mind/meditation, and don't really belong to the demographic BG is focused on. But my husband and I still support BG regularly in part because of the above.

Same with me. Found all of this stuff through BG. I have even had dinner with Vince here last year. I think what he has done for all of us is amazing and I hope he has a ton of success with all of these new ideas, they are great. I am also super excited to go to the Conference this year as well. However, I am just unclear on the model. It was laid out very clearly on the site before, but is it the same non-profit model as before? I have donated but am not a micro patron. I don't see the donate link anymore on the site. Did you patrons get notifications that anything changed?

Chris Marti wrote: Russell. what's changed is that the Buddhist Geeks brand is growing and Vince is creating new models to link practitioners to each other and to teachers online using various media tools. Its' not outside the original scope of his vision. In fact, it's a direct extension as far as I can tell. moving from the podcast to the conferences to Internet hosted communities and online facilitated practices. I think focusing on how the model creates value and how BG stays afloat is interesting but not important to the purpose of BG.

Agreed 100%

Chris Marti wrote: NFP's are allowed to do what Vince is doing, all legal, all above board, all within the scope of whatever NFP designation (the IRS manages this stuff) Vince has used for BG.

I have no doubt that Vince is doing everything 100% legit. I hope you didn't think I was accusing. Being a businessperson myself, I was just actually curious whats going on with them. Their site says nothing anymore about being NFP, but mentions that they got an investment in 2012. So, I thought it was moving more to a real tech startup, so I was just concerned with how they are handling donations now since there seems to be no way to do it anymore on the site.

One thing that suggests itself is that with the Life Retreat model, an online discussion community provides ongoing support for former participants in a context relevant to what they were studying (as opposed to wandering off to other forums where the approach might not mesh). The private forum I belong to is like that, spun off of a series of online classes.

Chris Marti wrote: Hey, maybe my donations are being counted as "investments."

Hah. I wonder what percentage of the company you own? OK, OK...i'll stop now...

BTW. Looks like they are going to do a bit of testing: www.emilyhorn.com/event/meditation-and-c...alogue-three-jewels/