We had a total of 15 people at this workshop on July 8th 2008, and we spent a very enjoyable 3 hours coming up with ideas for how some TTT projects could start to generate income that will keep them sustainable, rather than rely solely on external funding or the goodwill and free time of volunteers. This is moving from 'asking' to 'earning'. It was great to see that this was more of a Transition Network event that a TTT event as we also had people from Transition Torbay, PL21 (Transition Ivybridge), Transition Dorchester and a potential Transition Fareham.

Our aim, across TTT, is to get to a model where we generate at least half of our own income (the rest provided by external funding). This workshop was the first step towards this goal.

Linda Screen from the fledgling Transition Dorchester developed the materials and facilitated the session. We first looked at the 3 stages of product/service development (Discovery, Development and Commercialisation) and got some understanding of how much work is  involved in taking something all the way through from initial idea to getting something 'on the shelves'... and that people will want to pay good money for. In particular we can't underestimate how much time should be dedicated to really understanding exactly what the product is, what it will do, how it will do it, what resources are required, how much will it cost to develop, how much would customers pay, who would want to buy it and why, what competition exists, what is the anticipated lifecycle of the product, what partners may be involved and so on....  

To ensure this work is done, and done well, it is clear that a saleable product/service idea needs to have at least 1 'product champion' that is willing to dedicate a significant amount of time to do all this work. This work will typically be unpaid but carried out in the hope of future earnings. Linda suggests at least 6 weeks of full-time effort is usually required. So obviously, only the most feasible ideas should go through this process.

The ideas that came out of the brainstorming section ranged from the very feasible (making toilet rolls locally from waste paper), to the innovative (issuing celebrity versions of the Totnes pounds) to the amusing (install a drag lift up Totnes High Street to pull people on bikes up the hill for a small fee). The attendees were split into 2 teams and then had to defend their ideas against the other team's questions in a supposedly friendly Dragons' Den! It was amusing to see how often support for an idea crumbled in the face of a much better idea from the other side.

In 3 hours we felt we had made a good start at understanding the product development process and had some initial ideas that may work. There was interest in carrying out  similar activity within other parts of TTT. The attendees generally felt they would be able to facilitate a similar session within their own groups or projects.

We agreed that we would form a sub-group of the Economics & Livelihoods theme group that would work together to support the creation of new products and services, either for TTT income directly or for new business ideas that would generate income for an individual. Fiona will set up an initial meeting.

The question was raised about what expectations TTT might or might not have regarding rights to revenue or a share of the revenue for a business that comes out of this group or process - this is a critical issue that needs to be addressed early on, and it was agreed that this group would draft a proposal for how this could work for discussion by the Core Group, addressing things like use of the TTT or TN 'brand', endorsement and so on.

We also felt it was important that new businesses do not perpetuate the current economic model of perpetual growth at any cost - ideally through use of more social enterprises, community interest companies, focus on products that have intrinsic use to transition and so on. These 'Transition Business' criteria can also be developed by this sub-group.

Many thanks to Linda (and Steve) for a really great session. If you are interested in joining this sub-group, please contact econmicsandlivelihoods.totnes@transitionnetwork.org.