Friday, December 12, 2008

Camp Economics

In case of disaster, deployment teams might set up a staging area, possibly with transportation (e.g. bus or ship convoys) to more permanent facilities elsewhere e.g. NATO uses bases in Germany.

These bases are likewise equipped for high turnover, including among staff (to avoid burnout, to keep cross-training a reality -- knowing the other guy's job means being better equipped to do one's own).

Division of labor becomes an obvious feature of the operations, as talent divides into partially overlapping crews and/or teams. A badge system, other insignia, provide a shared recognition system. Campers may become staffers in some cases, or temporary volunteers.

Getting an identity established within the bookkeeping system is often a first order of business, right after providing shelter, medical attention, basic security. Longer term treatment requires record keeping over time, meaning following appropriate privacy conventions (example: HIPAA), and allowing individuals substantial control over their own profiles (per social networking software).

There's not just one pyramid hierarchy or inner circle, but several subcultures knit together in various ways, or at least that's one design people seem to enjoy. We're not trying to emulate Prussia or give wannabe tyrants an edge, prefer our more democratic designs.

In climbing the skills and responsibilities ladder, we gain access to tools of our trade, including currencies.

There's nothing to say we can't experiment with local camp currencies, tokens for internal use, with the ability to set expiry dates, how we do it with plastic.

Given tokens of a certain vintage will fail and go out of circulation, we have the ability to evolve through frames (chapters), to end and begin our various implementation experiments, garner feedback.

With free wifi, families gain access to schooling, whereas skills-building means training and testing in variously equipped facilities (like gymnasiums).

A willingness to enter testing programs in exchange for camp currencies, meal tickets, other tokens, possibly software tracked: this is a basis for nurturing the requisite human resources for keeping campers happy and/or assisting them in transitioning to next chapters.