New BMORG book on regionals

[some seeing eye]

The BORG commissioned festies Burner staff to travel around to the Regional campouts to write and photograph a book to commodify Burning Man create nonprofit earned income to increase the demand for tickets from coffee table book types who fly to BRC to support sustainability improve the brand. /snark

https://burningman.org/news/books-about ... -the-dust/

[Elorrum]

Yeah… I should have looked here first before posting in the news to me thread.
https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic ... start=1260

It isn’t about spreading culture, it’s about affirming a class of globally entitled jetsetting tourists on their circuit.

[Lonesomebri]

I heard that you could find a copy of this book placed in the nightstand of yurt rentals...

[lucky420]

The Porto’s will all have a copy this year at the big burn. It will be printed on one ply…

[some seeing eye]

The writer sounds more together than many burners, so my concern is not with her. From the published bio she had an international consulting career, hopefully with someone like the Carter Center rather than McKinsey. Then they had a midlife crisis and took time off to travel. They are exactly the kind of staffer and network person the BMORG needs. And they probably have the skills to study the anthropology of the regionals, which has value to the BMORG.

My concern is that the BMORG long term growth plan is not specific to participant segmentation and the BRC participant acquisition cost is high and yield is low. The census shows that everyone says they are going to return, and they don't.

A book is broadcast marketing, not targeted. Thus my "in jest only" strikethroughs. What the BMORG should target more artist participant/makers and fewer dj festies. More people inviting people they know in real life. This regional traveler probably knows many people in real life they think would benefit from participating.

I think it is very funny that if you look up the book on Amazon, it suggests the book "Slow Road to Deadhorse"

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[Elorrum]

And they probably have the skills to study the anthropology of the regionals, which has value to the BMORG.

What the BMORG should target more artist participant/makers and fewer dj festies.

Yes, but, target what artists? What participants? I thought the idea was that everybody is an artist if art is an expression and not a commodity. The approach to a first attempt at art taken by the author is one requiring a scale beyond individual participation, actually bypasses personal craft or curiosity about learning craft. It is high level corporate skill networking, and the initial work is simply a concept doodle that requires bmorg funding and professional architects. Radical self reliance is now to simply state a concept, ask for others to figure out how to do it, and do it for you while you become a project manager. This is what burning man art is being modeled as. I’d like someone to study the the anthropology of this outcome from humble beginnings hammer and nail at Baker Beach.

I would like to see the culture working regionally by eliminating as much jet travel as possible. It shouldn’t be a way to travel the world and have a burner experience at each destination. That would be Sandals resorts. Discourage those who cannot bring something they actually made to the event, and cannot manage door to door all the materials they have there and need to pack out. That would be a good reason to support regional burns.

[some seeing eye]

Agree. Crimson Rose's theory of art has been anyone can make art for the burn. We can add ideas without subtracting that.

I would add, recruit participants from art schools and allow them to take credit for their work. Burning Man art has a problem that the aesthetic is not that respected in the art world and the movement is viewed as a cult. The BMORG discovered it neglected racial diversity, so they are trying to catch up. Art schools and curators are far ahead of BRC on diversity, so engaging art students as participants has that value. Artists have networks and future networks Burning Man wants to be in.

The other place I would recruit is anthropology, social work/sociology, and clinical psych students. They would be valuable contributors to qualitative studies which the census probably should do or does, with results reported only to the BMORG.

I don't think the BORG monetizes the regionals much. I would like to see data on each regional's growth by year. Many sell out as fast as BRC.