Chapter 12 | Stand Here
Chapter 12 | Stand Here
We should all have learned by this point in life that, not everything we try is going to work out like we want. Recall the three rules to running a successful ‘anything’?
Sometimes we make something expecting everyone on the planet will want to get on board with this idea – because it’s great! Well it turns out that is not always the case.
Stand Here started with the simple concepts that if we could properly educate folks about how to conduct themselves in wild places then they would collectively work together to ensure such places would/could be left better than we all found them.
The idea was born out of personal observation. It was mentioned earlier that during my first year as a ‘professional’ the poster of ‘Day Dreaming’ went into the Grand Teton National Park Visitor Center Bookstore. It was, and remains to this day, a huge hit. So much so, as it turns out, that everyone wanted to find the place and Stand ‘T’here to see the miracle in person. Year over year the place began to deteriorate due to the heavy use because of that one poster I’d created.
Perhaps it was a naive notion, that if you could get it across to people the fragility of nature that they would want to take care and keep it pristine. Turns out that in this Instagram Selfie world, crafted by those who only care about their holy dollar, that is not what people seem to care about. It’s apparently all about the ‘gram’. These Apps, to me, are ugly.
If you’ve noticed we don’t really take part in them too often. I suppose the bottom line is that I don’t really care all that much about what others think of me, or my work. I care about the work I do, not how others feel about the work I do. For me, maybe it’s an age thing here, I do not need ‘Likes’ to get me through the day.
Enough of that already, let’s get back to Stand Here.
Over the course of 18 or so months my team of app builders, code monkeys, writers extraordinaire, graphics designers combined to take my decades of travel, know how, know where, expertise and advice, to share it all with the world. Our purpose seemed very simple, educate the masses on how, where, what, when and why they should care about these amazing places. In the process we’d charge a whopping $1 for extended trail information and intended to donate funds back to preserving that exact trail/spot. You know, leave it better than you found it mentality. Or so we thought.
We felt that this would get people to better understand the importance of wilderness and other places of stunning beauty. It didn’t. It hasn’t. It probably never will. People, it turns out, are more concerned with how they ‘look’ to the general public than choosing to do the ‘right’ thing. When the hell did people stop caring!?
After all of that we’d spent nearly a million dollars on the app, website, and design; we failed in our marketing efforts as well. We tried to hook up with companies like Nike, Columbia, REI, Sierra Club, etc. etc. But no matter how hard we tried, no one seemed to be interested as they just didn’t seem to think people wanted to be educated or try to protect places…primarily because of social media and the flash fire effect it can create and not always in a positive way.
After learning that, we tried to market it to our existing collectors, with mixed results. Most of the people who downloaded the App or visited the website were other photographers who seemed more interested in copycatting than helping educate. To this day it pains me unlike anything you might imagine. The bottom line…it completely backfired. My dream of helping protect these places fell flat on its face.
If you would like to see the website you still can for a little bit longer, sadly we are going to take it down soon. StandHere.net has so much useful information, perhaps we will make it a subscription product so that the information might still help educate and protect these stunning locations, if that’s at all possible.
Stand Here has become a great idea that didn’t catch on – sad, because I was really hoping to help protect the most beautiful places on the planet.
It’s hard to kill a dream.