Internet Strategy

Related to the above, we provide:

• Distance education, concepts and philosophies of management underlying Rural System, Inc.
• A means to expedite Internet work throughout the region
• An information, gaming, and education center
• Links to all aspects of Rural System, Inc. and important related sites

Our web site(s) will provide major communication links among all members of Rural System, Inc. and open the gates to users, buyers, and members. It provides an e-commerce catalog, access to land, services, and products, serves several memberships within Rural System, Inc., provides a creative space for presenting ideas, but also for listening to the ideas, interests, and needs of potential customers. Much of Giles' web site may be wrapped into the site. Distance learning will be conducted from the site.

With competent work from an aggressive sales staff, this may become a major site for coordinated forestry, fisheries, wildlife, and wildland-related equipment, products, and services. It will link successful hunters and anglers, suggest "hot spots" for activities and provide "bragging space" for some outdoor users who have been very successful. It will provide links to land purchase and sales to sophisticated analyses (for the realtor as well as the potential owners) (e.g., virtual (photo) tours with services) and sets the stage for cost-effective future land management involving the diverse units of Rural System, Inc. Advertising contracts will be sought, but major efforts will be to acquire a percentage of sales resulting from orders originating from this site.

It will house

• Natureseen (collections of unusual nature observations)
• Rural Lives - biographies of people of the region
• A collection of stories.
• Outdoor tips will be heavily used.
• Books related to nature and the great outdoors will be sold (e.g., via Amazon.com)
• A literary group is likely to form using the concepts in the web site called Stonesoup and developing a poetry e-chapbook.
• There will be an events monitor to publicize and describe the upcoming attractions: classes, field trips, scouting trips, BBQ's etc.

Education Strategy

Within System Central, The Rural System Behavioral Change Group, a for-profit educational space and working group may exist for youth and adults to deal with a variety of corporate interests. Youth tutoring and classes will be highlighted but adult education will be integrated with paid group activities in the area. A field museum and workshop in a high technology educational space (notes on The Didactron are available) will provide potentials for special markets.

Housing may be supplied by The Dogwood Inns as well as existing facilities. The diverse outdoor events, the "get-away," the special educational efficiencies, and group-structure-building of The Wildland Crew, will appeal to many corporations. Education and training of personnel are commonplace in the field and within each unit. The Delta Educational Strategy is to develop optimal teaching-learning environments (room size, seating, color, training aids, audio-visual facilities, and optimal field plots and demonstration). The Delta strategy seeks out those optimal devices and environments, creates them, resists use of extra or sub-optimal equipment and demonstrations, and improves education facility use.

The novel criterion of the strategy is production effectiveness, i.e., maximum units of pre-specified behavioral change per dollar (or unit of energy) per hour. The strategy includes:

• Making available computer-managed and computer-aided instruction and "distance learning"
• Creating one or more optimal teaching learning environments.
• Creating a "strategic situation room."
• Conducting applied research in teaching aids.
• Selecting optimal siting and developing field labs and demonstration areas.
• Using un-timed instruction and distance learning.

The Didactron facility, proposed to be developed later, is only one part of a complex, high intensity educational program, largely self-taught, to bring citizens into an advanced educational status about natural resource total systems. A key element of the program is to teach the teachers about optimal wildland conditions. There are major educational aspects to all parts of Rural System, Inc., and all employees must understand the system. The facility is often used to bring experts to improve the unit performance. A course on advanced modern wildlife resource management (Distance learning, taught by Giles in 1999, Northern Virginia Graduate Center) and "Modern Wildlife Resource Management Systems", an introductory course in wildlife resource management, are profitable activities within the group.

The Summit

System Central sponsors the Pivotal Summit at a hotel/motel in the region. It is an exclusive annual retreat for the emerging wildlands industry. Overflow attendance is provided within the Dogwood Inns. Owners, presidents and CEOs from more than 60 companies and agencies attend this annual event. The Summit provides an ideal forum for executives to gain strategic insights, to network and to relax with other industry leaders. Topics covered include the state of the global and U.S. wildlands industries and practical advice on partnerships, marketing, planning, and acquisitions.

The Consequence Strategy

At the political borderline, but not crossing it, a Consequence Strategy is developed. Within System Central is the capability to do high quality environmental impact analyses, thus to cut the costs to citizens of these documents and the work to produce them for public projects that are desired ... and for projects that are not desired and groups wish to fight. Under contract, Rural System, Inc. could produce best available information on the consequences of a range of projects proposed within the county

• Linear, e.g., gas lines and power lines
• Points, e.g., structures, towers, and wells
• Areawide, e.g., air pollution plume maps, tax rate change
• Volumes, e.g., mining with options to modify return-to-contour designs for more long-term beneficial functions within the region (See Peculiar Manor, chapter 14.

This unique ability comes from knowledge of ecological modeling and systems building and use of transition tables or ecological succession. Only presenting the best data for others to use, the enterprise does not "take stands" and is available for either (or both) side of often-difficult environmental decisions. Previously, the mere presence of such a system has deterred people from presenting questionable proposals that would impact a county or private ownerships.

Optimization Unit

First developing R-Nexus, the software to serve developing rural businesses, this unit then develops other simulation and optimization systems including significant combinations of linear programming and expert systems, PERT techniques, Fibonacci searches,robust "heuritic programming" for tentaitive approximate solutions in the areas of

• Trail location
• Operation center locations
• Regionalization
• Antler production
• costs of hunting permits on an area
• Covey food plots
• local human diets
• songbird food
• small-wood products
• fencing
• birdhouse and bird feeder construction
• timber harvest schedules
• planting densities
• planting patterns (hexagonal effects)
• fire control
• optimum scale of a co-op
• several faunal management scoring procedures
• bird-watching sport (Avi)
• bee and honey enterprise (Butterfly band)
• pond optimization
• fish harvest optimization for " maximum success"
• conventional crop production
• livestock production (CoPlan)
• pasture management
• land valuation
• sales of optimization services and software
• integration of GIS and optimization
• new sensitivity analyses and parametric solutions
• expansions of Waldon's Wildwood
• "the best place for you to hunt" service
• garden optimization,

System Central is responsible for the financial analyses and decisions about start-up performance and initiatives. It will contract for office space, develop a communication system and procedures related to field work, establish the transportation policies (the "motor pool"), arrange for insurance, health, and retirement, develop the contacts for efficient contract reviews and approvals, and in the first year play a major role in recruiting staff. Safety programs will be implemented early, especially with staff of The Safety and Security Group. The novelty and advancement potentials of Rural System, Inc., the current recession, and looming political pressures should make it very attractive and some of the best university natural resource program graduates and agency professionals may be easily recruited.

The feedforward concept is promoted within each enterprise but collective work on estimating the future and preparing for the conditions estimated is the work of this unit. A regional credit-card system is developed for modest financial gains, shared resources, and local pride in shared activity.

The group promotes use of sophisticated management techniques at all turns.

Radio units with Earthwatch Radio should be considered. Submitting 2-minute units may be both good advertising and helpful.

Excellent information on changing human populations and new analyses can be sold or used in marketing. See, for example, Geolytics:

Since 1996 GeoLytics has published detailed demographic and geographic data on CD-ROM for business, academic, non-profit and government agencies. The company specializes in compressing large amounts of government data and packaging it with innovative and easy-to-use software. GeoLytics delivers the highest performance/cost ratio for datasets including demographic data, TIGER cartographic files, Estimates, Projections, and the Consumer Expenditure Survey. GeoLytics is a leading provider of public domain mapping and demographic data in the US. Statewide data are available for about $1200.

To order or for questions about any of these products, 1-800-577-6717 or Send an email at info@@census-data.net

Estimates

This unit is primarily one on the cost side of the ledger. Some minor financial gains are expected from GIS services, products, and consulting services. Development costs are $200,000. Profits are estimated at:

• Low - $15,000.
• Mod - $40,000
• High -$200,000