Tyler Suchman

Greetings. My personal site is a catch-all for everything that doesn't fit neatly into one of my other projects, such as my internet strategy consulting business, speaking appearances, non-profit organization or community blog. I am also using this site as a knowledge basis for myself, my clients and my associates. I believe that in our areas of expertise, we tend to answer similar questions over and over. By sharing this information, we can learn and grow at a faster rate, benefiting all of us in our personal endeavors.

Ojai Group Aims To Create Local Currency
Thursday, July 30, 2009
By Ric Romero
OJAI, Calif. (KABC) — The small town of Ojai is considering making their own form of currency to help insulate local businesses from fiscal collapse.

Greenbacks. Ben Franklin’s. Our money has a lot of names, but it may soon be getting a new one — at least in the town of Ojai. The resort community is almost two hours north of Los Angeles.

It relies on tourists spending their cash as its main industry.

“There is no big factory. There is nothing that has people employed here. Ojai itself is the industry,” said Roberta Raye, Ojai business owner.

Lately the quaint town has been seeing fewer dollars. Community leaders have come up with an idea. They want to create their own town currency, and some businesses are all for it.

“It is an interesting concept. I’m very into exploring the opportunities,” said Catherine Nation, Ojai business owner.

Since March a team called the Ojai Community Group has been meeting to iron out the details of the new bucks.

“We look at this is a complimentary currency to help strengthen the local economy, which has its struggles in part because it is tied to the national economy,” said Tyler Suchman, community leader.

But only recently have they come up with a mock-up card and a working title for the new currency, it is called the Ojai Buck.

The Ojai Buck is going to be similar to a person’s debit card. They are planning to have three ATM machines in town. It is a way of keeping all of the money in the community.

“Anything we can do for our community to bring it together and keep all of us driving will be better for us all in the end,” said Susan Coulter, Ojai business owner.

A community currency is not something new. In 2006, western Massachusetts started their own money called, Berkshares. They now have over $2.5 million in circulation.

A few questions remain before Ojai Bucks go out to the public, like federal and state tax ramifications. But the plan is to roll out the new currency by the end of September.

(Copyright ©2009 KABC-TV/DT. All Rights Reserved.)

I've been involved with a group since it's inception which is designed to strengthen the local economy and build a stronger, more resilient community.   The Ojai Economy Group has made great strides since the first quarter of this year, working on a complementary currency, a mutual credit system and the 2009 Ojai Forum on the New Economy. 

We have received a lot of press, which you can check out under "In The News" in the sidebar, including the Pacific Coast Business Times, Ventura County Star and HopeDance Magazine.

The Forum, held from Sept 25-27, 2009 in Ojai, is going to be great.   I've been working on the media strategy, where we plan on a TED.com-style approach, featuring filmed presentations, live streaming video, free wifi for participants and more.

I have a family connection to Kevin Hessel, who has a nice handle on how traditional media outlets, in his case the Marin Independent Journal, can use social media to connect with their community, and secondarily, increase readership size and frequency in a way that supports the publication.

I imagine most designers get leads where the prospect needs a professional website, including logo, and some marketing, but doesn't have much of a budget.  Perhaps a grand or two.

The problem with doing a site for a thousand bucks is how much of that gets eaten up in business development and the design discovery process. 

My new partner and I have addressed this market head on with the launch today of Dennison+Wolfe Internet Group.  We are streamlining the process, so that budget-conscious businesses can get professional web services at a fraction of the usual cost.  Their hard-earned money goes into their site, not into getting their business.

SMS to Enable Interactivity for 40% of Network Digital Displays by 2012, According to MultiMedia Intelligence. 

Emergencity, Inc. has soft-launched NationalIncidents.com, a global incident information center.  Check it out, give some feedback.

It's been a year since I put up this site.  My original thought in doing so was that I was involved in so many projects, I needed a clearinghouse for all of them, and a place for thoughts, links, etc. that wasn't specific to any of them.  Well, that hasn't changed.

A fantastic extended essay from Atlantic blogger-columnist Andrew Sullivan on the history, construct and psychology of blogging.  It's not written from afar but rather from the epicenter, as Andrew has been blogging before it was called that since 2000.

As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did. 

Anyone who has blogged his thoughts for an extended time will recognize this world. We bloggers have scant opportunity to collect our thoughts, to wait until events have settled and a clear pattern emerges. We blog now—as news reaches us, as facts emerge. This is partly true for all journalism, which is, as its etymology suggests, daily writing, always subject to subsequent revision. And a good columnist will adjust position and judgment and even political loyalty over time, depending on events. But a blog is not so much daily writing as hourly writing. And with that level of timeliness, the provisionality of every word is even more pressing—and the risk of error or the thrill of prescience that much greater.

I was on air to discuss Emergencity, Inc., last week with Coach Ron Tunick on KKZZ AM-1140.  Check out the podcast...

DFJ Frontier, an early stage venture capitalist affiliated with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, operates out of Santa Barbara and Sacramento.  They have a very useful "Team Building Tactics" PDF, with great info on hiring new employees, interview tactics, what to look out for and more.