 
DOuroPreto history in the
web is completelly linked to the PeopLink project.
Our comunitty is sprayed in the deeps of the rural area of Ouro Preto ,
and always had problems with comunication with the "external" world .
Since 70's , the only market we had was the fairs , all over Brasil.
Between fairs , no deals . Our customers cannot reach us ;
far ,unpaved hard roads and no phone.
The way our work is
produced , with all working in her own home , impose the need of a computer to
try to keep the caos organized , allowing physical control of the proccess ,
storage of information on sales to help planning , costs control , etc.
The natural choice
was a notebook , that can go door-to-door , as we needed
.
After some fights , the
system allow an organization level that increase the production highly.
Very
good , but how about markets ? We've started to drop prices , to ensure
colocation of all
the production allowing keep the fractal growing rate of
the community intact.
Was a non-sense actitude say no to anyone that wants to
learn a hand-work ; the only way to the
community production grow
is adding , literally , hands.
But drop prices has a limit ,
and we was seeing problems in near future .
Suddenly , in 2002 , cell phone signal in the farm ... Very
weak , but better than nothing.
Lets buy a phone and an external
antenna. The guilt for this lines still remember the bright in the eyes of
all looking
for the little toy .Reading the manual someone say " this thing has internet capability !
".
An idea
was born. Let's buy a cable , we have a computer !
We learn that cell phones
connections was very slow
,
expensible and unstable , and that networks needs a completely different
approach
and concepts , different of a machine working alone .
A new world , at first
view extremelly complicated.Much things to learn and very short available
time .
Since our focus in the web was the external markets (Ouro Preto
receive visitors of all the world and the interest of
them in our work always is vivid , some of them
showing interests in re-sales ,etc) in our first try in a search engine we
look
"exportar artesanato" (exporting workmanship)
and find in the Brazilian Ministry of Industry web-site a link to Crafts Center
, were we was kindly redirect by Ms. Michelle Han to Mr. Salcedo , in
PeopLink.
Dr. Salcedo show us a CatGen project . We
study the way they operate and , surprised , see that was exactly what we was
needing . Off-line work , simple to operate to people like us with no skills on
the web , specifically designed for artisans groups . Fly on the first
shoot...
We , naturally , have problems . Cell
connections was very unstable and slow , speccialy with bad signal , expensive ,
and the files was growing . Here enter the CatGen Support Team , with his
infinite patience.
After teach to
zero-starters all the proccess , they offer us a personal care , allowing us to
send our upgrades on the site in a ZIP format , with the crew taking the job of
publish.
So much thanks to Mr. Alexey , team leader !
This was done at night (low phone
rates) , when we go to a top of a mountain in the
farm to have better and stable cell phone signal .
We
put all  in our truck , and using a car battery
charged during a day with a photovoltaic charger (heritage of our times with no
eletric lines too...)spend 2-3 hours sending our files ( later we discover the
Downloads Managers , that among with the team goodwill help us too much in this
task...)
(Notebook , car
battery , power inverter , 7160 cellphone , USB/Serial converter)
Meanwhile , in Ouro Preto , 35 Km away from
the farm , was instaled a public broadband provider ; this allow us work under
best conditions and give a holiday to the support. We start to save the
work in a USB flash drive and do the e-mail read and answer and the site update
in a public machine.
An evolution , but still
slow proccess ; we see a message in a day , respond 2 days before and see
the answer 2 days more.
And the visitation and sales growing ... What a
tool !
As a happy end (or a new
beggining ) we see a little provider of satellite conection borning in Rio de
Janeiro state , near.
After some contacts and calculations we see that
the site was deserving better resourses ; we was having many page-view/minute ,
contatcs and sales that , despite the slow proccess using cyber-coffees, was
allowing us to not only support the fractal growing of the community , but
research ways to speed up this.
We've had months with the site responding to 20% (!) of the
total sales .
More work for all , less pricing due to scale ; more
sales due to good prices ; inclusion of people even more far ,
of the
core , turning economic agents people normally with few or none options ,
the rural women.
Very good.
By now , we have sattelite 24hrs conection, cheaper
than we spend before montly with cellphone calls ; a good
deal...
By now , we offer Skype , messengers , and soon a IP
phone , freeing us from the cellphone high rates , as channels
between us and our customers ; we
have clients in USA, Germany, Portugal, UK and Spain , and we can talk to them
cheaper than calling the neighbour...
Please note that all the proccess not take more than 4
years , surprising us at each step.
We have now a fully
functional e-shop , allowing us , from the deeps of the rural area , reach our
customers on-line , real time , sometimes with people from the other side of the
planet.
Brave new world...
Our sincere thanks to all the people involved in the
proccess. Please be proud , all of you.
Thanks to your work , a more improbably enterprise that
could be access to the Web is selling his work worldwide , providing work and
keeping alive a tradition that was vanishing here , the manual embroidery. Keep
moving ! Do the same to more people !
And you , artisans
groups around the world , dream too ! Contact these guys , they are great
...
Crushing []s for you all , from DOuroPreto Team ! |
