Well.... you knew it was coming. Here is my feedback for 2007. I really hope that you read through it and consider what I have to say. 1) Communication. Communication. Communication!Communication remains my top issue. There is a growing amount of animosity between the BMORG and the community - the whole "us vs them" problem. I think that you can largely solve that problem and you do so simply by communicating with the community better - and that means making communication much more of a priority. The last afterburn report took 12.5 months before it was released. Come on people that's pretty poor. Is the next one going to take that long? The feedback email explanation on the website tells you that you might never hear back and you might receive a form letter. I hope that all of you know or can imagine what it feels like to send an impassioned email with complaints or constructive criticism and never hear back. It sure _feels_ like the BMORG is not listening!This feedback cycle which I am now participating in and the afterburn report are annual things. That's much too infrequent. Major concerns like the green corporate pavilion and the latest american dream theme come up mid-year. If you want to close this gap between the community and the BMORG then I call on you to work with the community more often. Once again. I'd suggest creating an online town hall where for 2-hours twice a month the community can speak directly with the BMORG. And it's not just a matter of dealing with problems. You've got 40,000 of the smartest people on the planet attending your festival. I'm shocked by your statements that people are not allowed a voice unless they "do public service." You've got brilliant minds among the burners who have full-time jobs and are unable to give you free labor as volunteers. You're not allowing them a voice??It's in your best interest and ours to do more to get their feedback in making Burningman better than ever. And honestly a faceless email address which may be responded with a form letter if at all is not the right way to do it. Are you listening? 2) For-Profit Festival or not?Let's get this out in the open. Are you a for profit festival of not? Are you now trying to make as much money out of this event as you can? I will keep asking this question until it gets answered -- On the afterburn report why don't you publish your gross income in addition to listing your expenses?The LLC history tells us that the members of the BMORG had "no problem" in "not enriching themselves" off of the event. Has that changed?If not why don't you rewrite your operating agreement so that there are known caps on everyone's salaries and other bonuses. You could certainly do that according to Nevada law. And that would end once and for all the question if you're getting rich off this event or not!And this is not just a matter of the BMORG but it's spreading to the regionals too. I met one regional leader who told me that his goal in throwing his regional was to make enough money to live off of. He's putting the money first and the event second. That's wrong. What kind of example are you setting? Are you encouraging this behavior? You might not think you are encouraging it but you don't seem to be doing enough to discourage it if that is the lesson that least some people are taking out of your actions. Could you set a better example? When should a regional leader start making money off his event? How much should he make? 3) Hell-bent on becoming just another subset of the waking world?Aaron wrote a beautiful post which sums up so many of my thought. I'm sending this feedback in his words. I've quoted most but not all of it here. I encourage you to print out the entire post and share it with the BMORG and beyond. And I think he's owed a response. "What seems important now though is not the true (if momentary) pleasure of joining a refreshingly intimate crowd of refreshingly arbitrarfy strangers to watch a rare moment of unplanned chaos. It is how the BORG chose (if that word does not suggest too much self-awareness and agency) to respond in the days that followed. In brief. I think it is instructive to compare the BORG's contingency/crisis management of the burn to the way our government now responds to perceived (and real) acts of terror. The emphasis was nakedly on reasserting (the illusion of) reassuring total control and on continuing with 'business as usual.' The people by golly would get what they paid their $225 for. Did anyone else find the BORG's response eerily reminiscent of the shopping bags that appeared in the fall of 2001 which read 'America: Open for Business?' (If I had thought of it sooner I would have suggested Piss Clear run an ad reading 'Burning Man (tm); Open for Business' with the appropriately spoofed typography...)To spell it out if I must: contingency plans were seemingly in place (god knows possibly rehearsed and workshopped preparing for 'that inevitable September day'...); the crime scene nominally at the heart of the city -- (Ground) Zero O'Clock let's call it? -- was promptly cordoned off and made a no-go zone for simple plebes; bright and alienating work lights surrounded the Man's court for days; self-important (no doubt occasionally on legitimate business) strutted walkabouts chattering loud terse jargon and shouted at bystanders to back the fuck up. It all seemed so well-managed so seductively familiar within the larger new context of our 'post-9/11 world' that no one least of all the BORG itself seemed to question how utterly at odds it all was with the origins of the ritual itself or even with the patented pieties patiently marketed by the BORG. A Marxist theoretician I read in college said something that has stuck with me that revolutionaries are doomed to recapitulate the very structures they overthrow presumably because it is the only order they know. My old favorite koan from Kafka says (to no doubt misquote from memory). 'The beast seizes the whip from the master and whips itself that it might become master.'In his own crude and ultimately (I sigh) no doubt indefensible way. Paul Addis lashed out at what he quite possibly rightly perceived as a sickness in how Burning Man is run and is allowed by us (even consciously and unconsciously encouraged) to evolve. When that whip cracked the BORG revealed itself as unwittingly recapitulating the modes of thought and action of the thing it is supposed to offer us respite from. It revealed itself as aping The Man. It alarms me that our festival seems hell-bent on becoming just another subset of the waking world."
Evil:> they have created this incredible event,To be more clear. The BMORG the cacophony society all of the volunteers all of the artists and everyone who helped build the culture of Burningman all together created Burningman. Isn't that right?> i don't see what is wrong with bmorg making money. I did not object to them making a salary. But I would object to them betraying the values which they used to hold and getting rich off of this event. I'll quote them:"Nonprofit status however is a tax category and strict rules apply to what is called "self dealing". This means that a nonprofit entity cannot exist for the purpose of enriching its directors. We had no difficulty with this concept. None of us have been particularly financially enriched by this enterprise. Our problem however was that we could not afford to work at guiding and creating Burning Man without being paid."So if enriching themselves is not their goal then do you see any reasons why they should not add a section to the LLC agreement which puts a cap on their salaries and bonuses - ending once and for all the question if the BMORG is getting rich off this event?Is the BMORG betraying the values that they used to hold? We don't know because of a lack of dislosure on their part. Can you think of a single reason why the BMORG should not engage in financial openness and disclosure their gross income in addition to their expenses?SockPuppet:> or perhaps he just meant that he is so dedicated to making his regional work and take off,Maybe maybe not. But do you think that the BMORG could set a better example in this by defining reasonable salaries and codifying that into their own operating agreement?
That was well-written and insightful. I'd like to add this link:in addition to other things (like larry),the article points out that the Black Rocks Art Foundation (a proclaimed "charity") really SUCKS. BFAF has been reviewed by Charity Navigator as being in serious trouble and CN explains why.(Charity Navigator is AWESOME. I always use them to check out a charity before I donate.)from the article:"For comparison to similar charities. Charity Navigator measured the Black Rock Arts Foundation against 341 organizations that list their mission as distributing funds to various public and cultural issues. Of those charities on average. 65 percent of their budgets went to grants. At Black Rock Arts Foundation. 27 percent of its budget went to grants."They also discuss the practice of David Best getting the lion's share of the pie:"The person who has received the most from the nonprofit is Burning Man's most well-known artist. David Best. In 2003 the Petaluma-based artist received a $15,000 grant from Black Rock Arts which at the time was by far the largest grant doled out by the organization. That same year four other artists split the remaining $3,250."BMORG is RIFE! with problems indeed.(I might even post this info as a separate topic in the future is good stuff)
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