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Three Cheers for Subud Life
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2074
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Posted by
harfijah
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
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How can a Subud portal be more human? Since the World Congress in Bali many members have been debating and sharing website/internet knowledge. Stewart wanted to see Subud create an interactive platform that was community-based and more than just ìnewsî. Look at the capabilities and design of sites such as amazon or yahoo, was there a way to build a platform such as these without spending thousands of dollars? Many said it wasnít possible and others said it would be too expensive, but Stewart persevered and didnít give up the search. The results are flowering as you can see on subudlife.com.
A bit of history. . .
I was able to spend some quality time with Stewart in Jakarta and pick his brain for ideas and solutions. I thought it was important for members to know how this forum came about so I interviewed Stewart to write this piece.
Stewart started sharing about his experience in Bali. There was an internet working party held by Lester Sutherland. Several members with web-master experience and some without started to put their heads together about the future of Subud on-line. As many of us know, there are several Subud sites with news and information posted. Stewart noticed that the key element missing from such sites was a feeling of community life and interactivity. He also heard frustrations from members that they thought the local Subud life was not captured on the internet and that news tended to focus on international projects and travelling. For example, one of the participants in Bali explained, after latihan members would gather for a local meeting and much time was spent on international news or projects that had no bearing on their everyday lives. This isnít to say that they were interested in hearing the news, but time would be zapped and members didnít focus as much on local concerns and activities. This may result in members feeling that their Subud life on a local level isnít as important as the big international projects.
Meanwhile, Stewart was thinking about platforms that would solve such disconnect and wondered how he could program something that didnít require investing thousands of dollars in software or server costs. He found a company that built such platforms based on real on-line communities and got very excited until the price was revealed: only about 80,000 US dollars to start. He tried pitching pro bono work to this company as an experiment with a non-profit, international organization. They were intrigued, but wouldnít do it for free. The discount they offered wasnít cheap enough so the search went on. In the end, Stewart found something on-line that other programmers worked on around the world; hence, the multilingual capabilities you see on the opening page. Stewart spent many hours and weeks customizing subudlife.com as an appropriate platform for Subud. He funded it on his own and we hope donations can come through ISC in the future to keep it going. In one yearís time Stewart said that we will have a complete overhaul to implement a superior system/engine. Thank you Stew!
Subudlife.com is an on-line community with choices and categories. One can submit articles and comment on others. There is a chat room as well as links to websites both personal and business related. Weíve only just begun getting the word out so please recommend this site to your friends and Subud brothers and sisters alike. Excited is not quite the right word to describe the feeling that comes from witnessing this site, jazzed and overjoyed is more like it. It has potential to be a real on-line community that is fun, creative, and spirited. Register today and get the feeling.
Subudlife is also offering free web space and email for any Subud organizational body that urgently requires it. They must also have a reasonable amount of web publishing experience. Contact admin@subudlife.com for more information.
Any last words Stew, ìWe hope that people can be as open as possible on subudlife and to support this openness, we would ensure extreme security.î
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Other News:
Many of you know that Iíve been traveling in Indonesia. I am now in Jakarta. Manuel and I will be traveling to Bandung in West Java for a national gathering. We will be returning to Kalimantan later in the month. Thank you to those who continue to email me. Iím still searching for ìSubud youthî members who have positions Iím not aware of or who have not contacted me. Please do so at your earliest convienence and I look forward to hearing from you!
Your Sister in Subud,
Harfijah Chung
Co-chair of Subud Youth International
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