June 2014 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS

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1 L o v e S e r v e R e m e m b e r F o u n d a t i o n P r e s e r v i n g a n d C o n t i n u i n g t h e T e a c h i n g s June 2014 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS

2 Introduction The Love Serve Remember Foundation was created in 2007 as a 501(C)3 non- profit dedicated to disseminating and continuing the teachings of Ram Dass and Neem Karoli Baba and other esteemed wisdom teachers. Since 2007, the web and social media have been instrumental in making these teachings available to past and current students, as well as targeting an emerging generation of spiritual and truth seekers new to the teachings of yoga of devotion, compassion, love, forgiveness, and greater self awareness. This proposal seeks support for making these teachings available on line to the increasingly large number of people seeking guidance in their spiritual search in a more precise and responsive manner. It includes all the work necessary to transform the existing web site, smart phone, tablet and future digital platforms into a robust and responsive experience as well as continuing the process of transforming the existing content into an easily searchable digital library available to all. Overview Since 2007, 2400 hours of media composed of archival audio and video footage have been collected, inventoried, and catalogued. Additionally, vintage assets are continually being discovered and shipped to the foundation for inclusion into the library. The original archival media assets are housed in a media storage warehouse in Asheville, NC and have been physically inventoried. These assets are labeled with unique id and bin number for reference following a standard media tagging schema. 82% of these assets, many in VHS, Beta, and cassette tape format, have already been digitized for online media delivery hours (77%) of media still require metadata analysis: titles, description, dates, venue, location, speakers, keywords. The metadata analysis is the most resource- intensive step, requiring a team of knowledgeable content analysts and interns to view and/or listen and assign relevant assets to each media asset. These keyword attributes, or metadata, are tagged to the online assets for accurate search results by both internal ( and external (Google, YouTube, etc.) search engines. Of the digitized assets, 18% (400 hours) were previously made available in a private online digital asset management and content delivery network. In 2013, the board of LSRF made a decision to make these assets available to a wider audience of viewers and listeners via and YouTube. Previously, these assets were available via a subscription donation system only on At the time, the subscription donation model was necessary to leverage donations to support the costs of processing and maintaining the LSRF/Ram Dass media 2 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS 2014

3 collection. However, Internet donation models evolved to move away from costly subscription based services in favor of free- content services. By removing the required donation barrier to access the media assets, LSRF was able to open the valuable content archives to a broader base of online students and truth seekers. This opened a floodgate of new traffic to the site, increasing visitor rates tenfold, from average monthly traffic of 37,000 unique page views in April 2013 to 477,000 April Additionally, Ram Dass has >350,000 social media followers. By increasing traffic to the website and social media outlets, LSRF hopes to not only continue attracting new donors, but also to further implement the mission of LSRF to spread the teachings of love, compassion, forgiveness, and self- awareness to the broadest audience possible. In addition to improving the availability of these teachings on the Internet, an enhanced search mechanism will allow for improved curation of media assets to be repurposed to develop documentary films such as the Cultivation film series ( loving- awareness- film/), playlists, and social media shorts. Mobile devices are rapidly becoming the platform of choice for our media audience. Viewers want access anytime, anywhere, without be tied to a personal computer. New technologies have arrived to enable responsive content display on all form factors: smartphones, iphones, ipads, tablets, PDAs, multimedia devices, mini- PCs, etc. By leveraging technologies such as responsive design and HTML5, LSRF content will be made available to the broadest audience possible. This will require retrofitting the existing site to support these technologies. This retrofitting will make the site more future- proof as new personal devices capture the market. LSRF Media Assets (in hours) Available on web WIP - editing WIP - Pending Taxonomy Undigitized 1300 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS

4 Media Processing Workflow The process to take archival footage in legacy media formats to the Internet is task and labor intensive. Steps involved to prepare each media file for final inclusion on include: 1. Obtain Source Media (DVD, VHS, Beta, cassette, etc.) 11. Add playlists to RamDass.org website 2. Add physical media to warehouse inventory, label asset and bin # 10. Curation for web playlists, documentary dilms, and shorts 3. Identify known attributes (title, year), add to database 9. Public Release YouTube channel 4. Send physical media dile out to 3rd party for digitization 8. Stage on YouTube for QA and approval 5. Add digital media dile to inventory Amazon S3 Cloud 7. Determine Metadata (desc, date, location, venue, add'l speakers, keywords, runtime) 6. Media Editing (add bumpers, copyright overlays, sound/video editing & enhancement) 4 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS 2014

5 Digitization and Media Processing Tasks There are several resource roles involved with these steps: physical inventory clerk, site administrator, web content manager/curator, media editors, project manager, taxonomy (classification) specialists, web developers, digitization specialist, and QA testers. The most labor- intensive steps include digital media editing and content taxonomy. The media editing enhances and/or trims the media to provide the best viewing experience for the content consumer. Taxonomy provides the necessary details to catalog and organize the content for navigation, and to make the content easily findable on search engines. Currently, the LSRF media library requires 1700 hours of media editing and taxonomy services to bring all of the archived content to fruition via the web. Strategic Evolution LSRF s outreach strategy is all- inclusive, reaching out to serve everyone who visits the site with interest, questions and problems and providing tools and mechanisms for them to easily find solutions. Since the inception of the LSRF media library on the Internet, viewing preferences have changed with market demand. The growth in market share of mobile phones, tablets, pads, and other mobile devices has created a need for updated web standards such as HTML5 and responsive design. These standards ensure that all content will be available via all devices, providing an effective user experience (UX) for the content consumer. RamDass.org website requires development updates to ensure that all content can be distributed on all form factors with high regard for the end user experience. With a vast collection of 2400 hours of media assets, changes must be made to provide a high standard for user navigation of these assets via the website through all available and emerging devices. In addition to requirements for website upgrades, LSRF s outreach strategy includes further leverage of social networks to distribute media assets. While standard social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ have attracted a wider audience, LSRF will continue to deploy additional outreach campaigns on emerging networks. Additionally, LSRF is assessing emerging social networks in order to reach a deeper audience beyond the Baby Boomers and Gen X, and into the Millennials (~age 12-32, or Gen Y), with consideration of the emerging Gen Z s. LSRF would like to reach a broader audience in the Millennial generation, which requires a very different outreach focus. Millennials tend to trust user content generation (UCG), or peer review, over professional or scholarly review. This means that they trust their peers ratings of content over any other type of advice. LSRF plans to allow viewers to rate the site content and share amongst their social network peer groups. Highly recommended content from a viewer s peer group will LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS

6 be presented first. For instance, if a site visitor uses Twitter to authenticate (login) to the site to leave a content rating (4 stars) or comments, other visitors in that person s network will be presented with content that their peers rate highly. In this way, relevant LSRF content can be shared within peer networks for exponential exposure. Work Plan The LSRF website and media library plan includes these three main aspects: 1. Completion of the digital media library with free global access to all content 2. Upgrade of the website for an enhanced User Experience on all platforms 3. Enhanced cross- generational engagement and outreach strategy A project plan spanning the next 12 months will be developed with expected completion and delivery in April Proposed Budget This project will require a cross- functional team with several skill sets. A project manager will manage the contracts, timelines, and budget on a part- time basis. The content manager and curator is a person intimately familiar with the teachings who will advocate for the best user experience in searching and navigating content. A media digitization firm will have the equipment and expertise to convert legacy tapes into high- quality digital formats, but will not need subject matter expertise in the teachings. The taxonomy (metadata) team will consist of people very familiar with the teachings. This is the largest team since each hour of audio/video will need to be reviewed manually; salient keywords will be tagged to each media asset. A fee of $25 for 1.5 hrs of taxonomy service will be paid on a contract basis. Digital Library Task Skill Hours Rate Extended Manage project resources, budget, Project Manager 1000 $32 $32,000 timeline Ensure content quality, consistent Content 1000 $15 $15,000 keywording, and searchability Mgr/Curator Media conversion and encoding Media Digitization n/a $4,000 Edit Media Refine, add copyrights, bumpers, enhance sound Compile clips for long form videos View media, categorize, and keyword 6 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS (hrs of media) Media Editor - - $12,000 Media Editor/Producer - - $10,000 Taxonomy Team 1700 $16.67 $28,333

7 Develop website features to enhance UX. Write interfaces from Amazon Cloud to YouTube to move media assets automatically. Convert db to SQL. Label and file physical media, data entry Web front- end Developer Web back- end API Developer Inventory Clerk/ Data Entry - - $ $ $15 $1200 Maintenance/Support Web Dev (30%) $4050 TOTAL $120,083 User Experience Enhancements Task Skill Hours Rate Extended Manage project resources, budget, Development 100 $40 $4,000 timeline. Perform system analysis. Manager Upgrade website to adapt to all Web Developer - - $6,500 mobile devices. Design custom landing pages aligned with social media/advertising campaigns. Improve page response. Create theme- based playlists Content Mgr 160 $15 $2,400 Upgrade site hosting to meet high- Site 15 $40 $600 traffic demands and improve response times. Monitor performance. Administrator Provide Quality Assurance Content Mgr 100 $15 $1,500 Maintenance/Support Web Dev (30%) $1950 TOTAL $16,950 Cross- generational outreach strategy Task Skill Hours Rate Subtotal Manage project resources, budget, Project 20 $40 $800 timeline Manager Upgrade website integration with Web Developer - - $5000 social media peer awareness and user ratings Provide Quality Assurance Content Mgr 40 $25 $1000 Maintenance/Support Web Dev, PM (30%) $1740 TOTAL $8,540 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS

8 Summary of Costs Project Cost Digital Library $120,083 UX enhancements $16,950 Cross- generation outreach $8,540 Unspent Media Library <$15,000> budget TOTAL GRANT REQUEST $130,573 $15,000 is currently available in the LSRF budget for media library upgrades. This leaves a deficit of $130,573 to complete the vision of reaching more individuals across all generation groups with six decades of teachings on love, compassion, and self- awareness delivered by Ram Dass and contemporaries, and inspired by Neem Karoli Baba. We are grateful for your consideration of this request. 8 LSRF PRESERVING AND CONTINUING THE TEACHINGS 2014