E-COMMERCE

    Dell said the MIRA grant helped him increase his computer skills greatly but that it was the most frustrating project in which he had ever been involved. There are still lingering financial disagreements between his organization and the other CSOs in his cluster of three organizations. In spite of the negative experiences that he recounted, I was impressed with some of the projects that he had accomplished. Everyone touting the power of the Internet for the small business uses an example of someone with the right skills or the right product for some seemingly small niche market. By attracting buyers from around the world, the individual succeeds online by aggregating demand in a manner that would not happen in the physical world of retail shops. Dell fit that ideal.

Dell setup a shopping cart for his site and began selling hundreds of copies of a manual for portable sawmills that was published in Australia. As part of an experiment with the University of Idaho Forest Products Department and the ranger station in the Nez Perce National Forest, Woodnet used its knowledge of the English Yew tree to start a very profitable business. Foresters consider the Pacific Yew a weed and the trees are thrown on junk piles in the lumberyard or burned. Ten years ago hundreds of thousands of these trees were stripped of their bark, which contained an ingredient "taxol" that was used in the treatment of ovarian cancer. Some of these trees were burned; others are still on the ground in the forest. Elk like to eat the young trees, but currently the highest value comes from wooden bow manufacturers. Legend has it that Robin Hood's bow was made of English Yew. Woodnet received permission to pull several dozen large logs from company land. These were hauled to the university where students kiln-dried them as part of a project. A private landowner donated several logs in exchange for half of the finished wood. On Woodnet's web site some bowyers, many hobbyists and woodworkers responded to the ads for this wood at $7 a board foot. Quite good for junk wood that was going to be burned. The only drawback was the cost of shipping. Some European customers were not willing to pay more for shipping than for the wood itself.