The next 4 days
the next 4 days are going to be something of an experiment. i'm in santorini, at the santorini palace hotel in firostefani. signe is here to participate in a planning meeting on hybrid ventilation systems. originally i thought this would be a great chance to get a last week of sun in before the misery of autumn in denmark (not my favourite season), see a bit of what is an absolutely lovely island, and just get a few days and some evenings of prime time with signe.
things have changed a little since i originally made this decision. first of all, i have already spent almost half of september on the road, what with the summer source training in vis, and the freifunk summer convention in berlin. but most importantly, these next weeks have effectively become make or break for the organisation we've been trying to get of the ground since about march 2002.
we're in a nice positive dialogue with a prospective funder for the project we have dubbed 'the wireless roadshow'. It has taken us one and a half years to get to such a concrete idea of what it is we are trying to do. one and a half years of hard work, confusing strategy meetings and very little income. one and a half years of intense learning, enriching cooperation, and fighting to remain true to our ideals.
i had no idea it was this difficult to try and make a difference. and i'm not talking about the difficulties in getting funding. i'm talking about the difficulties in congealing your ideals into a substantive, doable project. and then getting funding.
oh well, back to the next 4 days. i'll be here, in a santorini beach hotel, trying to get perhaps one of the most important documents in my career written. and this time there is no excuse.
the proposals i've written in the past have all been easy. easy because we mostly knew we didn't stand a chance, and therefore it wasn't that important. don't get me wrong. last year, around this time, when we wrote a proposal for the world banks infodev grant, we worked our asses of. probably spent over 2 man-months, which in a 2 and a half person org is a lot of time and effort. but in a sense we all knew it was a practice run. the fact that we had no experience as an org meaning that we didn't stand much of a chance. the fact that we weren't very coherent or practical when it came to explaining our project didn't help either.
this time though, as i said, we're in a good dialogue with a prospective funder. they seem to accept our skillsets and professionalism, and all it takes is to write a smashing proposal that will convince the sceptics that are a requirement for every funders board of directors.
and quite frankly, it scares the shit out of me.
and i have to do this in a holiday hotel on santorini, where i don't even know whether i'll be able to get my laptop online. this time it's for real..... wish me luck.
