The Interledger Community 🌱: Pamela Alexander

Wellness through Mindfulness — MozFest 2022 Web Monetization Action Plan

Pamela Alexander — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 11:31:03 +0000

Collaborating with Erica Hargreave from StoryToGo and her team in Creating Wellness Breaks during the MozFest festival prompted me to re-launch the Wellness Through Mindfulness program. What better way to continue to explore and experiment with the potential to empower through mindfulness than with the Grand MozFest Web Monetization Experiment incubator experiment?!

Web Monetized Resources at MozFest

Just for MozFest, Erica and her team are creating a Sustainable Funding Series MozFest Exclusive Gallery with all videos from the series. Since I will be leading a session for that project, you will be able to access the link to my Web Monetized works session on her Gallery.

MozFest attendees will be able access this gallery, provided they have added the Coil browser extension to their desktop browser or are using the Puma browser.

Ways in Which I Am Web Monetizing These Resources

The Wellness through Mindfulness program is currently web monetized through the Coil Web Monetization Plugin for WordPress on www.pamelajalexander.com, connecting the Pamela J. Alexander Wellness YouTube channel to the Coil account, and uploading our video files to Cinnamon Video. There is also the possibility to give direct donations via the link found on YouTube.

I've started talking with Erica about other collabs, so expect more way to access mindfulness content soon!

A Tweet About My Web Monetized Resources at MozFest

Looking forward to collaborating with fellow #WebMonetization resources creators and past @GrantForTheWeb grantees @EricaHargreave, Briana Stuart, @LoriYearwood Creating Wellness Breaks @mozillafestival! #OnlineWellness #MozFest pic.twitter.com/sn4vM6jEqk
— PamelaJAlexanderWellness (@PamelaWellness) March 6, 2022

My Payment Pointer Supports this Internet Health or Social Good Initiative (optional)

The payment pointer supports on-going education and professional development which directly translate into the development of future wellness resources. These "resources" will take the form of practices sessions, future courses, presentations and ebooks, etc.

I'd Love the Community Support with this Project By ...

Aside from sharing the resources that are being built with anyone that you feel could benefit, I am always looking for new people to collaborate and would love your suggestions. That could be you or someone you know. I'd also love any recommendation on how to share more, more efficiently because as a solopreneur I don't have "people" for that!

Let's Stay Connected

Tweet with me at @PamelaWellness
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Like, share and subscribe on YouTube and Cinnamon

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Final Grant Report #3

Pamela Alexander — Tue, 13 Jul 2021 14:06:41 +0000

Project Update

Grant for the Web has provided me with the extraordinary opportunity to make a remote and affordable mindfulness-based program (MBP), the gold standard in mindfulness training, available to anyone. In the process I’ve learned a lot and become a part of an amazing community. I am both happy to have been afforded this opportunity and proud of what my team and I have accomplished.

And when I say my team, I don’t just mean the people named on my grant application. Chris introduced me to grantee Rashon Massey Link who helped me get stuck into the community. The Coil development team help me trouble shoot the integration. CoilDoc Link is here to help us and if what you need isn't there, don't hesitate to connect with the support team. Briana Steward Link, another grantee, introduced me to her video editor when my video was no longer able to support my project. Did Erica Hargreave Link, yet another grantee, reach out to me or did someone introduce us? I can’t remember. What do an herbalist, a dancer and a storyteller have in common? They each show how open, supportive and willing to collaborate the Web Monetization Community is.

Progress on objectives

The goal of the project was three-fold. Since the credibility and efficacy of mindfulness-based program(s) (MBP) are well established, the focus was 1) to explore how to deliver an MBP online using video on a website that is built with monetization APIs natively—as opposed to an afterthought to fill a gap, 2) to design and built the course in a way that anyone can replicate and 3) validate if Cinnamon is a financially viable form of monetization.

During this grant period, we rebuild, redesigned and relaunched www.pamelajalexander.com with native Coil monetization
We developed and released the 8 module Wellness Through Mindfulness, mindfulness training course, which includes 16 mindfulness teachings videos, 10 video meditations and 5 mindfulness exercises

Key activities

Since my last report I have begun to release weekly content on both YouTube and Coil, to write articles, to make plans for future bonus videos, and to market both free and paid content with the goal of significantly growing my following. I continue to keep my existing followers engaged via my newsletter and give-aways. Activities to date include:

Presented at Self-worth Awareness Week Link
Spoke at a joint workshop led by Rashon A. Massey from Micopedia Link
Participated in Fireside Chat on the ‘Encounters in EdTech Podcast’ Link with Erica Hargreave and Lori Yearwood from StoryToGo Link and Link

Communications and marketing

While the GFTW grant period may be over, the marketing of this project and goal of validating the financial viability of Cinnamon have just begun. With that in mind, I have three ongoing goals. 1) marketing and promoting my course and 2) driving Coil sign up. and one of my original measures of success was to have 3) 500-1,000 active participants providing meaningful data to create more content that responds to the interest of the viewers. I if course I’ll share my findings with the web monetization community. Activities to achieve these goals will include:

Writing regular articles for Reddit, CoilBLOGS, LinkedIn and Medium
Producing free and monetized video
Presenting YouTube Lives
Advocating web monetization within the MBSR community
Engaging in partner programs inside and outside of web monetization community

What’s next?

Again, now that the site is build and the course is live for the foreseeable future the focus will be to continue to create new content and to monitor Coil’s ability to be a financially viable teaching platform. I will also continue to be active members within the web monetization community and be an active advocate of web monetization and other digital tools outside of the community.

What community support would benefit your project?

If you feel so inclined please like, share and subscribe to my channels:

Cinnamon.video/pamela Link
YouTube Link

I hope to continue to meet and support member of our growing network. Don’t hesitate to contact me with questions, thoughts, suggestions or maybe just to chat at pamela@pamelajalexander.com

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Grant Report #2

Pamela Alexander — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 10:16:56 +0000

Image (optional)

Project Update

I finished my last report with “My team is confident that we will have the basic site up and running in about 4 weeks.” That was the February 21. Four months later, I feel like I’m careening into home plate head first…coughing up dust and dirt! But I did it. The site and my course are both finally live. And I thought I was requesting that extension so we’d have a few more weeks breathing room. Ha!

It goes without saying, this project did not come without its challenges. My developer’s dad got really sick, so she brought on someone to help her. Shortly after my last report the site started acting buggy and when I brought it up the “assistant” developer, she got mad and quit. Then as far as we can tell, when we installed a WordPress update, the site broke because the person helping was hardcoding and using CSS instead of the template/theme. Then my original developer’s dad ended up in hospice, so to keep everything going I had to rebuild the all of the pages for both the site in WordPress and my course in LearnDash myself. My developer jumped in fixing things when I couldn’t figure out how or when she could.

Once the course was built I turned my attention back to videos. As it turned out, the videographer I hired was not the video editor she claimed to be. Or at least was not willing to work with me to edit the video, despite not being a mindfulness teacher or understanding the content and how it should flow. So I had to learn how to edit video. Everything was moving ahead smoothly until it wasn’t! So while I’m left dusting myself off, I’m also very proud of what I’ve accomplished.

Progress on objectives

My final deliverables include:
— Development of WordPress site using Divi themes with LearnDash
—An 8 module course with 3-6 videos per module
—Linked student documentation, audio meditations and integrated mindfulness exercises.

Here is a recap of the main goals of my project and what I’ve learn creating the deliverables:

Use my site as a test case to see if MBSR can be made available on the Coil platform. The short answer is yes, Coil/Cinnamon is a viable platform for delivering course content, but it can’t be dripped one module at a time or in a specific order on Coil. And the Coil tech team told me that “Coil Web Monetization plugin is not working on adding the functionality to schedule content”. So the course content must be delivered as standalone modules. For a fully functional course, I integrated LearnDash into my WordPress site using a Divi theme. The integration between Coil/Cinnamon and LearnDash is as simple as uploading the widget into Wordpress. And with LearnDash you have all of the functionality needed to deliver a fully functional course that drips content, allows for quizzes, etc. 
Promote remote and affordable delivery of courses (MBSR) that pays (MBSR) teachers fairly: On first glance the short answer seems to be that Coil/Cinnamon is still too new and doesn’t have enough traffic to make it a feasible learning platform that allows teachers to make a living. But again as explained to me by the technical team at Coil there is the possibility of leveraging both the “ ‘Monetized and Public’ option, which pays creators when Coil members visit the site while allowing ‘Non-Coil members’ access the same content keeping creator’s content open to everyone, while still getting paid for Coil views. This can be a great option to begin site monetization for those who are reluctant to lock exclusive content for Coil members only and are using other means of payment (like PayPal) in the interim to unlock exclusive content until Coil web monetization revenue picks up because it means they are being rewarded for views and can also get a good sense of how much they are making from Coil members as they move forward with the current operation.” 
Create a turnkey model for (MBSR) teachers who often are not tech savvy.  The short answer is that the platform is evolving at a lightening speed. Issues that made the platform not “turnkey” ready for delivering courses in March 2021 had already been resolved by April 2021. At this point integrating Coil into WordPress is not an issues because as I mentioned above Coil Web Monetization only requires a plugin. Therefore how turnkey the delivery of any course will be is dependent on what tool the creator decides to use to deliver the content (e.g. custom LMS or theme vs. out of the box LMS and theme, etc.) and if they have the course content developed or not. Again I used WordPress and LearnDash, so anyone can download an out of the box WordPress template buy LearnDash and if they have the course content have their course up and running in weeks. Or they can get something more custom and still using WordPress and LearnDash, it could take months.
Create a framework that helps (MBSR) teachers promote and monetize their courses: As far as a structure that helps teachers promote and monetize their courses is concerned, I’d recommend keeping it simple. Here are my recommendations or things to consider:

A good quality course doesn’t required TV or movie level equipment to be well done or effective. The equipment can be as simple as a smart phone, a lapel mic and the free software that comes with your computer like iMovie and GarageBand. Upgrade your equipment from there depending on your budget.
Consider shooting your own video. I hired a videography, but I would encourage others to buy the video equipment, learn to use and edit the video.
Learn how to do everything yourself, even if you don’t have to. I believe that the long term benefits of being able to create, edit and release your content yourself will outweigh the initial challenge of learning how to do it because you can use the skill to continue to create videos for ongoing marketing, post-course support, or additional course creation, etc.

Note: When I started I was thinking of mindfulness teachers and the like. But I now realize that that’s everything here holds true for educators of all kinds, so I now have MBSR in brackets.

Key activities (so far)

Presented at Self-worth Awareness Week (https://www.selfworthweek.com)
Spoke at a joint workshop led by Rashon A. Massey from https://micopeia.com/,
Started releasing weekly community content on Cinnamon at https://cinnamon.video/pamela and scheduled release of YouTube content at https://bit.ly/3w7kdXL beginning Friday, July 1.
Participated in Fireside Chat on the ‘Encounters in EdTech Podcast’ with Erica Hargreave and Lori Yearwood from https://storytogo.ca/ Here's link the podcast https://firesidechat.com/ericahargreave/01F9AQ5C5114J10FZC4KBSQ4QW). (Thank you Erica!)

Communications and marketing

Repeating what I wrote in my first report, while I didn’t expect it at the onset, I am fully integrating Coil’s, Mozilla Foundation’s and Collective Commons’s philosophy into my long-term business and marketing plan. As a result I’m am limiting my use of social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, which invade people’s privacy and I've applied a Creative Commons 4.0 license to my site.

On my homepage, I highlight my Cinnamon video with a link to https://cinnamon.video/pamela and I’ve created an About Our Grantors page (https://www.pamelajalexander.com/about/grantors/) describing my mission and position on security and safety as well as celebrating the support provided by of the Grant for the Web and Coil.
I’ll post weekly premier videos on Coil. These premiers will include Coil exclusive content. When the video is not Coil exclusive I will post it a week or so later on YouTube.
And as soon as I hit the 1,000 subscriber/4,000 views threshold I’ll start doing YouTube Lives. I’ll then invite my FB/Cinnamon Video followers to meet me there for live events.
I’m currently writing a series of articles for Reddit, CoilBLOGS, LinkedIn and Medium. These articles will support the video series as extra content. As with the videos, they will first be released on CoilBLOGS and my website, then on LinkedIn and Medium the following week.
I’ve already started sending broadcast emails to my mailing list. Now that the site is up, I’ll begin driving my current subscribers to Coil with an email campaigns.
And finally I’ve started talking with a handful of MBSR teachers, who absolutely see the value of a platform like Coil/Cinnamon and starting to look at ways to integrate the platform.

What’s next?

I have a month before my Grant for the Web Final Report is due. From now until well beyond the delivery of my final report, I’ll focus on marketing my site and Coil, posting on CoilBLOG, Reddit, LinkedIn and Medium while continuing to post videos on Coil and YouTube and of course promoting my course.

What community support would benefit your project?

How you can help me:

Please share, like and follow me on Cinnamon at https://cinnamon.video/pamela
Please share, like and follow me on YouTube https://bit.ly/3w7kdXL (I need 1,000 subscriber/4,000 views so I can start doing YouTube Lives!)
Check out my course, tell me what yo think. What works? What doesn’t? How is the experience? Suggestions? https://www.pamelajalexander.com/courses/wellness-through-mindfulness/

Additional comments

How I can help you:

If you find any of the above useful or helpful and want to know more email me at pamela@pamelajalexander.com
If you’d like to collaborate, I’m interested, so send me a message at pamela@pamelajalexander.com
I can help you with WordPress, LearnDash or Divi themes with Wondershare Filmora and GarageBand
Check out my course. You deserve a bit more peace of mind. https://www.pamelajalexander.com/courses/wellness-through-mindfulness/

Lessons Learned

For the benefit of all the grantees, I asked myself what I learned, what I wish someone would have told me and what I could I have done better.
— Know your project inside and out. I certainly could have finished the project sooner by calling in favors to get the site built and the videos edited faster, but I believe by taking on the challenge of thoroughly understanding the in’s and out’s of how my site is built, how the integration with Coil and LearnDash happened, I’m more self-sufficient which will enable me to both do and delegate work better in the future.  
— If you run into delay or issues reach out to the Grant for the Web team (Ayesha, Chris and Erica). You may need a time extension or advise. They REALLY are here for us. So the moral of the story is don’t suffer in silence. Everybody is really nice. Call if you need help.

— The Coil tech team is super helpful. Here’s a shout out to Sara Jones and Marc Perel over at Coil, who walked me through the integration of Coil with LearnDash. They are more than willing to share insights and offer up suggestions too. Plus they are open to suggestion from us, which helps them improve Coil. It’s win/win.  
— Grantees come from all walks of life. Some are highly, highly, highly technical. Other are plain old folks with great ideas. Don’t be intimidated. Just introduce yourself. Even if you’re not super outgoing, if you introduce yourself people in the community will connect with you just because they are interested or have similar projects. And the Ayesha, Chris and Erica are incredibly supportive. Don’t be surprise if they spontaneously connect you with other Grantees! 
— Look for opportunities to connect with other Grantees. You may not be able to attend all of the events, but make an effort to show up for some. You’ll be surprised by what you’ll learn and who you’ll meet. The more often you run across people’s paths, the more likely they are to reach out and the more chances you will have to connect with others. The GFTW community has been amazingly helpful, willing to share and promote everyone/each other.

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Grant Report #1

Pamela Alexander — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 16:49:50 +0000

Project Update

The "Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program" is an online version of the eight-week evidence-based stress reduction program backed by science that offers secular, intensive mindfulness training to assist people with stress, anxiety, depression and pain. The pandemic is driving home the value of courses like MBSR, which support people’s ability to cope with stressful situations and circumstances. It also shines a light on the need for people to have access to such training outside of geographic hotspot and how online access can fill that need.

As soon as I received word from GFTW, I notified the team and started scripting the course. Once I received the funding, we had our first team call, reviewed and agreed on the overall project timeline. Unfortunately, Belgium reinstated lockdown in response to Covid-19, which delayed the filming of the course. Filming started in December and we were able to record all of the course videos during a window between lockdown periods before Christmas.

While pandemic has halted large portions of in-person interactions in Belgium, since our team is located in Belgium (Brussels) and the US (California, Virginia, Florida,) changing social rules hasn’t impacted us and we expect to finish the project on time. We currently have 7 short intros/b-roll and 24 course modules.

Progress on objectives

High-level progress on our deliverables include:
— Dev site set up on WordPress using Divi theme.
— Configuration of WordPress installation complete and redesign in progress.
— Course Platform: researched, bought (LearnDash), installed, setup in progress.
— Video Course: course structure defined, course recording all shot and in final review, and student documentation written.
— Researching Coil Login Integration into LearnDash learning platform.

The design and development are happening as I type. My team is confident that we will have the basic site up and running within about 4 weeks. We started the project with certain base assumptions. While they have not fundamentally changed, the best way to execute those ideas are becoming clearer as we move along. This is reflected in how we are redefining and aligning the long term vision of my business in promoting a healthier internet in general, which wasn’t on my radar before GFTW. Once the site is up and running, the remainder of the grant period will be used marketing the project and driving sign up.

Our main goals for this project are to:

Use our site as a test case to see if MBSR can be made available on the Coil platform. The main challenge so far is while the course does not need to be delivered in-person, to be effective, it does need to be delivered in a specific order. So we are currently exploring ways integrate Coil into the LearnDash platform. 
Promote remote, affordable delivery of MBSR that pays MBSR teachers fairly. The real test will occur after the site is built and the course is launched. This is where we will see if is economically feasible for MBSR teachers to deliver the course online. The course usually cost between $300 (https://www.brown.edu/public-health/mindfulness/class/spring-2021-mindfulness-based-stress-reduction-mbsr-online) or £275 (https://www.londonmindful.com/8-week-mindfulness-course-mbct.html) per person.
Create a turnkey model for less that tech savvy MBSR teachers.  Since we have yet to figure out how to drip the course content, we are considering other options such as monetizing “ongoing support offerings” by delivering bonus elements and ongoing support modules. Whatever the outcome our developer will create a video describing the software choices and showing how to use the elements of the site. Workshops and calls will also be recorded as a part of the setup documentation.  The options and possiblities will be presented to the MBSR community.
Create a framework that helps MBSR teachers promote and monetize their courses: My experience and observations will serve as a benchmark and model for many kinds of service providers (MBSR teachers, yoga instructors, etc). For example, I hired a videography, but I would encourage others to buy the video equipment, learn to use and edit the video themselves. The learning curve may be steep. But I believe that the long term benefits will outweigh the initial learning curve because this isn’t a “create it and they will come situation.”

Having video equipment could also 1) support participants post course, a shortcoming in the current delivery of MBSR and 2) be used for ongoing marketing to support the continued course enrollment, which will be needed for long-term success.

Key activities

We're in the process of rebuilding the website and reviewing the final edited videos. Next we will upload the video to LearnDash, integrate the monetization protocol into the website with Coil being featured on the homepage of www.pamelajalexander.com and research how to integrate Coil into the LearnDash learning platform. 

Communications and marketing

I didn’t include an event in my original plan, but the opportunity arose so I took it. I presented at Self-Worth Awareness Week, share upcoming rollout of the new site and spoke about my alignment with the philosophy of creating a safe web environment using Coil. https://www.selfworthweek.com

What’s next?

Once the site is built, the reminder of the grant period will be focused on marketing and communications. While I didn’t expect it at the onset, I am fully integrating Coil’s, Mozilla Foundation’s and Collective Commons’s philosophy into my long-term business and marketing plan. As a result I’m am preparing to stop using social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. This decision has change how we will approach the campaign to drive signups on Coil.

Instead of using FB Lives I’m going use YouTube Lives.
I’ve already started sending broadcast emails to my mailing list. Many have responded to that initial email and are anticipating safe and affordable access to mindfulness material. Next step is to start to invite my FB followers to meet me on YT.
Adopting ideas from other GFTW grantees updates, I’m currently writing a series of articles for Reddit, CoilBLOGS, LinkedIn and Medium to be posted in conjunction with the launch of the new site.

Once the site is up, we’ll continue driving current subscribers to Coil with an email campaigns, start to grow user base with the launch of a community partner affiliate program with a mindfulness teacher and yoga instructor in Tampa and leverage site SEO to reach new users.

And finally I’ve already started spearheading education about the platform within the MBSR global community with a few MBSR teachers. These handful of teachers are helping me to trouble shoot the creative process. Once the site is launched I’ll open up the sharing to the entire MBSR community. This will be in the form of live Zoom meetings and via WhatApp groups on which I am currently an active member.

We will begin the marketing when the website and other resources are launched. We’re shooting for mid-March.

What community support would benefit your project?

I’m love to connect with other grantees. It would be great to speak to those who are already using Coil and hear about their journeys so far. I’ve learned a lot from people inside and outside of my local area, in related and unrelated sectors, and those working on completely different kinds of projects. So I’m open to connect with anyone and everyone! And I’ve even adopted marketing and communication ideas just from reading other people’s update. So again I’m super happy to follow, connect and share with other grantees.

 I’d like to learn how others are promoting the benefits of Web Monetization to their communities, and how they are engaging new users. What’s seems to be working and what’s not.

Please follow me on the community site and/or send me a message at pamela@pamelajalexander.com

The Interledger Community 🌱: Pamela Alexander

Wellness through Mindfulness — MozFest 2022 Web Monetization Action Plan

Web Monetized Resources at MozFest

Ways in Which I Am Web Monetizing These Resources

A Tweet About My Web Monetized Resources at MozFest

My Payment Pointer Supports this Internet Health or Social Good Initiative (optional)

I'd Love the Community Support with this Project By ...

Let's Stay Connected

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Final Grant Report #3

Project Update

Progress on objectives

Key activities

Communications and marketing

What’s next?

What community support would benefit your project?

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Grant Report #2

Image (optional)

Project Update

Progress on objectives

Key activities (so far)

Communications and marketing

What’s next?

What community support would benefit your project?

Additional comments

Lessons Learned

Online Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Video Training Program — Grant Report #1

Project Update

Progress on objectives

Key activities

Communications and marketing

What’s next?

What community support would benefit your project?

Additional comments

Relevant links/resources (optional)