Gaming, specifically the participation in graphically rich virtual worlds, is the metaphor for media in the 21st century.  Having already overtaken the Hollywood box office in terms of gross annual revenues, the sociology of gaming suggest that it’s a media metaphor which will gain in influence over the coming era.  Look no farther than the success of Farmville (100 million players) to realize that it’s not just 17 year olds (and their post-adolescent uncles) who fall into the gaming stereotype.

Jesse Schell’s talk at the Long Now Foundation, tilted “Visions Of The Gamepocalypse” is the most intelligent and comprehensive treatise on this phenomenon.  He is an extraordinary speaker, and will connect especially well with those who appreciate the dry humor implied by the paradoxes revealed by a systems perspective.

The video highlight embedded here (chosen by the editors at FORA.tv, a cool new-to-me site with smart talks and panels from conferences), is a clip about how advertising fits into the gaming world, provides a peek into the style and pace Schell brings to the topic.

If, like so many of us these days, find yourself in uber-overwhelmsion (tip to Sally), and the idea of watching a 2-hour video is absurd, you owe yourself this treat.

This summer, we have been hyper-focused on building the W1SDøM exchange.  As soon as I got back from my abbreviated spring conference swing, it was clear the time to talk had ended, and the time to build was nigh.

This fall, we will be engaging a targeted pilot of the platform, and our team will get back out into the world, demonstrating the concept we have been talking about to you for more than a year now.

As the writing and research for the business plan slows down, I hope to have more time to get back to blogging.  If you’re not following me on Twitter, it’s a good place to see some of the pieces of things that are moving by in my field of attention.

Thanks for reading — I look forward to more engagement soon.

This was the year that social entrepreneurship crossed into the IT geek consciousness of South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi), with the advent of Good Capitalist party (info, report). Good Capitalist, attended by nearly 2000 people, by some reports, was created by social media / social entrepreneur crossover star-child Martin Montero, aka the ubiquitous @montero in the #socent world on Twitter.  The party was celebrated with gusto by the social entrepreneurship community, heralding their acceptance by “the cool kids.”

Triple Pundit reported on a different angle of this intersection at SXSWi, and called it the “Big Green Disconnect” between tech and sustainability communities, saying “the few green related panels were under attended and often rudimentary,” suggesting that each community is talking a different language.  Our friend and advisor Bill Shutkin had a similar, less politic rant over dinner a few weeks back, along the lines of “do we really need another Twitter app while our energy and financial systems are in crisis?.” Both comparisons were predated by Silicon Valley tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s call in 2008 to “work on something that matters,” where he beat a drum of “create more value than you extract.”

So, now the meme has been released, and some cool kids in technology (largely a comfortable-if-not-affluent crowd from a global perspective) think social entrepreneurship is the next big thing.  Mostly, this is good.  Right? Continue Reading »

Our great friends, the inspiring change agents at the Unreasonable Institute have been doing some excellent interviews with social entrepreneurs and impact investors on the SoCap blog ever since the event ended last August.

During what any humble, reflexively sarcastic entrepreneur would think of as a week with no other good interview candidates, we got an email from Teju Ravilochan, co-founder of Unreasonable, asking if we’d be game for the experience.

The results turn out pretty well, it seems (you might need to turn the volume up, or else the onboard speakers on this aging computer are loosing their umpf).

Would love your feedback.

Since we last reported on the then-named Sustainable Business Model meetup we launched in Boulder last year, we have merged with the Boulder-based social entrepreneur meetup, and have hosted four session in our new, revised format.

Today, the re-named Sustainable Ventures meetup is consistently gathering between forty and fifty change agents (which we expect to grow) every two weeks in Denver and Boulder for an exchange of ideas, advice and learning that benefits everyone in the room.  From non-profit staffers to clean-tech execs, and including investors, advisors and entrepreneurs, the sessions are providing a venue for advanced discussions about how to run a sustainable venture, regardless of sector.

More relevant than my perspective is the feedback from members that sheds light on the experience.  When asked “why should others join this meetup group?”, Ashoka Fellow Lynn Price said, “To engage with individuals who dare to do what they think should be done – in a spirit of unselfish and supportive collaboration.”  Kent McBride, founder and CEO of the Make The Difference Network adds, “if you want to be around people who intentionally use business to improve the quality of life on the planet, then this is the meetup for you.” Continue Reading »

The social innovators who founded the UnReasonable Institute have unveiled the next step of the their model, the funding marketplace.  The UnReasonable Institute is a novel incubator for social benefit organizations.  Potential fellows were just screened down to 35 finalists, who have been posted in a market place.  In order to attend the 10-week fellowship program in Boulder this summer, finalists must raise their tuition — $6,500 — in the marketplace. Continue Reading »

This video, produced by our friends at In The Telling, tells the story of Bernard Amadei, one of the co-founders of Engineers Without Borders, and the new Center for Engineering for Developing Communities.

“We tap into local talent, and strengthen that talent,” Amadei says about his philosophy, a more sustainable approach than typical imperialism still practiced by a majority of aid agencies.  Amadei’s latest project is recycling trash into fuel in developing countries, like Afghanistan.

Enjoy the video, a great investment of four minutes.

Together with colleagues John Cleveland and Pete Plastrik, the founders of two amazing change networks in urban sustainability (John) and social innovation (Pete), I’ve been working on a concept called the Social Innovation Commons.

The project is an answer to an obvious problem: a maze of data and a warren of information stores permeates the field social innovation, rarely crossing myriad organizational boundaries and doubtfully overcoming technology hurdles.  This leaves the change agents, social entrepreneurs, non-profit execs and foundation program managers at a loss for answers to questions as simple as “What has been tried in this sector before? What has worked? What problems have stopped progress in previous attempts? Who are the experienced implementers?”

As Pete writes at the nuPOLIS blog, Continue Reading »

Our friends Rick Zwetch and Caryn Cappricioso at interSector Partners L3C just shared this draft of the L3C legislation (PDF download) that Rep Joe Mikosi is introducing in the Colorado legislature.

Beyond “you heard it here first,” Rick is seeking:

1. feedback on the bill (this would be your lawyer or friend starting an L3C)
2. supporters for the bill (this would be your state rep or senator)
3. people to testify for the bill (this could be you)

Ping Rick to get involved.

If you have read this far, and are still wondering “what’s an L3C?”, it’s a new legal and tax designation that appears to most obviously benefit for-profit partnerships that are seeking program-related investment (PRI) or mission-related investment (MRI) from foundations.  Wikipedia has a more robust description.

Although there is some debate on the relative merits of L3C designation vis a vis some other business forms that may come down the pike in coming months and years, we see it as a signal that sustainable and triple-bottom-line ventures are being taken seriously by state legislatures.

If you care to dig in on the debate further, we’ll engage just such a discussion at an upcoming gathering of the Sustainable Venture meetup, which Rick and Caryn co-founded with us.