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?

Well… a great piece in the NY Times on March 14th reported a story that pointed to an important trend — when inundated with snow, the Washington Post was not using Twitter, YouTube or Foursquare, but rather Ushahidi, an IT platform built in Kenya, to map road blockages and resource availability during the disruptive storm.

The article points out, “Ushahidi comes from another world [than Silicon Valley], in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.  Because Ushahidi originated in crisis, no one tried to patent and monopolize it.  Because Kenya is poor, with computer systems out of the reach of many, Ushahidi made its system work on cellphones.  Because Ushahidi had no venture-capital backing, it used open-source software and was thus free to let others remix its tool for new projects.”

The Washington Post serves an important lesson to the Austin-Boulder-SF-Cambridge crowd of digi-do-gooders and green lemmings at SXSW.  Even thought an important tide is tipping in the consciousness of the web-tools crowd, practical results still seem far off.  And in the (currently somewhat less) well-financed hubs all trying to “the next Silicon Valley,” e-mails about new conferences, magazines and other gathering points for this new intersection are traveling the web today.  The space will surely evolve, but today, the bottom line remains pretty much single in the tech community.

As Triple Pundit points out, much of the progressive IT community is still pretty slow to get even the second layer of complexity in the massive puzzle of global human sustainability, even as they drink the free green beer at a SXSW party called “Good Capitalist.”  In the meantime, the ability to actually get things done is created by people who have a pressing, immediate need for the transformation of data and information into the knowledge and understanding that can affect practical decision-making.  As the back-to-back DC blizzards (a climate anomaly, at least) pressed the city into micro-catastrophe, tools borne out of crisis trumped tools born out of opportunity.

Even though sustainability thinkers like Shutkin debate the value of “sky is falling” framing for the presentation of a new social innovation, we think there’s more Nairobi (necessity is the mother of invention) and less Sunnyvale, CA (wouldn’t if be cool if…) in creating social-purpose IT.  The consciousness shift will be complete when technological innovators realize that the balance is not between making profits and serving people, but between earth’s resources serving 3 billion people or 9 billion.  Until that shift happens, we’ll still be chipping ice off the icebergs for our drinks at the next party.

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.

First post is about the GSSE at CSU, an awesome program that I strongly endorse.  If you’d be so kind, please head over and write a quick comment, to raise the profile of the sustainable enterprise in Colorado on their radar.

With their recent partnership with Business Catapult, SGN is connected to the national entrepreneurial community.  This fall, they are connecting entrepreneurs in their network who are seeking external capital to the Angel Capital Summit, with a focus on the sustainable enterprise track.

SGN also has the unique distinction of being the first node in the broader w1sd0m network.  Like buying the first fax machine, this status has little social benefit in the beginning, and as the w1sd0m network grows, their contribution to our evolution and roots in the Big Green Apple will pay huge and mutual dividends.

During the relaunch, SGN retains their popular online radio show, where Business Catapult CEO Dave O’Brien and I have been repeat guests.  In today’s show, we talked about the Angel Capital Summit, w1sd0m and building networks of sustainable enterprise in New York and around the world.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this meetup is to provide a place to discuss the specifics of funding, creating and running a sustainable social enterprise. This emerging sector, which spans the for-profit and non-profit worlds, is still taking shape, and there is no silver bullet solution for people who want to create socially- and environmentally-impactful organizations that can thrive for generations. So we need to create the framework in which we operate.

PROCESS
In addition to the typical aspects of a meetup — introductions, community announcements and a general give-and-take atmosphere — we expect to split each meetup into two sessions.

First Session — Metrics and Definitions
“Nothing can be managed if it cannot first be measured.” While I’m suspicious of this bromide on a visceral level, it seems to stand the test of time. At the very least, we need a common understanding at a technical level of what we’re talking about, so we need to develop a fraework within which we can have a meaningful conversation about what outcomes we want to achieve, and how to know we are getting there.

Together, we will review different metrics and frameworks, including but not limited to Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS) and related Investment Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS), Global Footprint, Blended Value, Genuine Progress Indicators (GPI), Whole Systems Risk Management (WSRM) and more.

We will invite thought leaders in the sustainability metrics space to join us each month for interactive dialog about their specific area of expertise.

Second Session — Behind The Scenes
We will invite organizational leaders who are operating within triple-bottom-line and/or sustainable principles to show us how they measure their performance. We expect this open dialog will both benefit the presenter, as well as the group, moving our collective practice forward.

WHO SHOULD COME?
We expect a mix of people to join us, including angel investors, fund managers, entrepreneurs, non-profit executives, thought leaders and the media, as well as anyone else who want to learn about running a transformative organization.

People from the Cleantech, Web 2.0, LOHAS, Non-Profit, Bio-Tech, Media and other related and unrelated fields will all share and gain new perspectives on this challenge.

THIS IS A NO-PITCHING EVENT
1. The emphasis is on collective learning. We want everyone — especially the investing community — to feel that they are welcome to learn, and not be on the defensive.
2. Entrepreneurs seeking funding have many other avenues to pitch, and we will share resources for those activities during our sessions.
3. Service providers (lawyers, recruiters, accountants) who want to transform their business are welcome, but we are not interested in having you shill your business while we’re all learning.

THIS IS A COLLECTIVE EFFORT
Although the catalyst for this meetup is Greg Berry, it’s not a one-way flow of energy, capital and information from him to the group. In order for us to be successful, we will need the activities, support and engagement of a much broader group. You will see an ever-growing group of “sponsors” who are lending their ongoing support to this endeavor.

We started the series with a group report from the recent Social Capital Markets (SoCap) conference:

Social Capital Markets (SoCap) is the proverbial center of the universe for emerging metrics related to investing in for-profit and non-profit social enterprise. Their annual conference happens September 1-3 in San Francisco, and many people interested in this discussion are going to be attending.

Which SoCap Attendees Are Attending?
* Greg Berry, Benevolent Dictator, W1SD0M
* Rick Zwetch, Principal Partner, interSector Partners L3C
* Matt Nathan, Ashoka Youth Ventures
* Teju Ravilochan, Connection Strategist, Unreasonable Institute

What Will We Discuss?
Although it’s hard to know what we will each learn before we go, here are a few themes you can anticipate:

• Who has investment capital, and where do they want to place it?
• What is the impact of the new investing standards Global Impact Investment Reporting Standards (GIIRS) and Impact Reporting and Investment Standards (IRIS) that get announced at SoCap?
• How will the Federal Government, and specifically the Office of Social Innovation make an impact on social enterprise?
• Trends and observations gleaned from our collective discussions at SoCap.

Why Should You Come?
This is the most relevant discussion to anyone who is raising money in the social purpose and triple-bottom-line domain. SoCap attendees will return home with new info, insights and inspiration on how the flow of capital in this field will allow social entrepreneurs to thrive for years and decades to come.We will also introduce the concept for the ongoing meetups, which draw on our collective experiences to help Colorado enterprises become more sustainable.

The best commentary on the session comes from the reports we’ve gotten on the meetup page today:

• 

  Startup Guru- Brian Tsuchiya– “ This is a very informed group of socially minded thought leaders. Great questions and comments from the members. ”

• 

  Eric Lombardi– “ The conversation was a good start. Now the group needs to talk online between meetings so we can dig deeper. For example, the group needs to know about “CIC’s” in the U.K. They are “community interest companies” and there are many of them, and they are years ahead of us here in the USA. They have a new website at www.cicassociation.org.uk ,,, and, for example, one of the front page articles there this morning discusses “exit strategies” for social enterprises, a key issue that hasn’t been solved anywhere yet. So is there going to be a online discussion list? Eric Lombardi Eco-Cycle Inc ”

YES.  Help us decide where.

• 

  Josh Clauss — “ I think my tweet from the first session wraps up how I feel about this group: “I don’t know when the last time was that I was in a room in which I wanted to meet literally everyone, but I’m there now. #socapco Meetup” ”

• 

  Greg Berry – “ Exceeded my expectations. The discussion was generative and intellectually honest. Every comment added value, and there was virtually no posturing or arguing. I came away with the sincere sense that is a lot of shared energy in this space, and we have an opportunity to catalyze positive change in our community. Feedback and collaboration are not only encouraged, they are the underpinnings of our success. ”

• 

  Cameron Burgess – “ Think it’s important, in future, to consider the format. I appreciate that we were getting a ‘recap’ on SOCAP, but the challenge of having a panel-type situation is that people revert to a question and answer mode – denying the collective wisdom in the room. If each event is to have a panel, I see no issue with that, but would encourage a style of formatting with general moderation that provides more opportunity for contribution by all members. Otherwise, topics for discussion wind up getting short-changed due to the format. Instead of sharing directly with each other, we share with each other via the panel. Just a thought …. ”

• 

  Ryan Martens – “ Good topic and organization – will need facilitation in the future – wide views – good interest – tons of passion ”

• 

  Kent McBride — “ It was great hanging out with “kindred souls” who believe we don’t have to keep doing business the same old ways, but business can make a difference and make a profit. After hearing discussion of the SoCap event, I wish I had been there. ”

• 

  John Thomas — “ Pleasantly surprised at how many like hearts and minds are in the space–thrilled to be a part of it all…recommend considering meetings to combine open forum as part of the session and clear agenda/goals for another part with moderation to keep on topic and mini metrics to check-in on if/how well we accomplished the meeting goals. Perhaps a first step to consider with regard to setting metrics for the space is to set metrics around our own ability to methodically address the issues and begin to establish & capture a knowledge base to build upon going forward…just a few thoughts ”

• John Brockett –  Greg did a wonderful job of organizing and leading the meeting, thanks Greg! As with any discussion the topics addressed seemed to follow 3 basic themes: 1. the core philosophy of the subject 2. where we stand at the present moment 3. where do we go from here. I was very impressed with all of the participants and their level of expertise in their particular fields of endeavor. It is obvious to me that we are in the beginning stages of a great movement in sustainability, actually I liked the term “thrivability”. My core passion is in developing methods to shift from “consumer business” to “conscious commerce”. In particular I am working with Millennial age youth in opening their minds and hearts to a new definition of “prosperity”. Be that as it may, I felt like I was in the company of people who hold a shared vision of what is possible and the dedication to do whatever it takes to bring that vision into reality. Thanks and I look forward to our next gathering ”

The only other summary is that we’ve already spoken to a few other groups keen to collaborate, and expect to keep community wisdom in this space.

Based on a series of discussions I’ve in person and on the web, it’s clear that there is a serious thread of innovation in the non-profit space, and in order to honor that, let’s change the name to Sustainable Enterprise in Colorado (SEC) meetup.  Thoughts?

In the most recent installment, WSJ’s video report covers a wide range of popular currency initiatives, including reputation- and attention-based incentives.  Our long-time partners at the Metacurrency Project and The New Currency Frontier blog were featured in the piece, even though their ground-breaking work does not suit a 101 crowd.

As we wrote in an in-depth review of online and social network currencies this summer, there is a fair bit of refinement needed in many of the systems.

Some simplistic thinking conflates many of the different purposes of complementary currencies, confusing the “hard” asset-backed currencies that more traditional thinkers understand with the “soft” socially-backed currencies like attention, reputation and community participation.

This dispute was on display during a particularly heated Open Space discussion at SoCap 09 last week, where we co-facilitated a session with the brilliant Jean Russell, aka NurtureGirl.   Two camps were evident — the more corporate-minded people who insisted that money be backed by something physical, and is only meaningful when it can be traded for the most practical of goods and services, and the more socially-minded folk who were filling the gaps created by the artificial scarcity of national money.

In the next few years, more and more systems will emerge, more stories will be told in traditional media, and even more confusion will emerge.  Until now, the evolving discussion and debate has been happening within small groups of people who generally know each other.  As this discussion becomes more popular, a wider range of perspectives and misunderstandings will surface.  This next step may well be the most important — if sound systems are put in place that serve a community well, a diverse ecology of complementary currencies could evolve in parallel to the global money system.  But if some high-profile currencies — like one from Facebook, for example — that are poorly designed, they will be quickly ridiculed, and the baby gets flushed with the bathwater.

Tread carefully all, and remember that it’s important to shift your perception of possibility along with shifting your perception of money and currency.

For starters, the LOHAS movement has taken root in Brooklyn.  Farmers markets and organic cafes pepper this borough famous for its waves of immigrant population that re-define neighborhoods each subsequent generation.  Also, Majora Carter’s work greening the South Bronx has caught the fancy of the TEDsters, confirming the rosy presumptions of the progresserati, as well as changing the lives of her neighbors who spend considerably less time thinking about the geo-economic impacts of climate change.

So, clearly, something is happening in NY.

Four sessions filled our schedule from touch-down on Sunday night to lift-off Monday afternoon.  Here are the groups we met, and some interesting background on each:

Social Labs
Chris Lindstrom leads a network of motivated and accomplished partners in the development of a nascent set of social media tools intended to serve social entrepreneurs world-wide.  Their group hosts a regular Sustainable Venture meetup, while sorting out the first generation of apps.  Lindstrom’s a veteran of progressive finance, having nurtured one of the more successful complementary currency networks in the country, BerkShares.  Chris is also one of the founding members of the Slow Money Alliance, a movement of patient capital investing in local food systems started by former Investors’ Circle Chairman Woody Tasch.

Evolver
After dinner with Chris at Galaxy Global Eatery — one of the few places where I’ve found truly innovative and yummy menu items catering to the globally aware palate — we joined up with Daniel Pinchbeck, editor and founder of the paradoxically named Reality Sandwich, as well as Evolver, which is an online community of neo-radicals focusing on conscious collaboration for change.  Pinchbeck is an outspoken voice for our transcendent times, and heir to Tim Leary’s crusade for psychedelics and related awareness. A (completely sober) late night in the Village revealed someone who lives in the next evolution of humanty, and is trying to pull a group of folks along on the journey.

Shades of Green
We began the next morning on a weekly radio show hosted by Peter van Geldern and David Marks, partners in the Shades of Green Network (SoG).  SoG is a virtual advisory group for early-stage greentech and cleantech business in the metro area, helping visionaries and technologists round out their team and increasing their chance to launch a successful business.  Their concept of shades of green references their view that many people are still taking small but important steps along the path to sustainability.  That point was illustrated by their other guest, who runs the equivalent of “green tupperware parties,” hosting open discussions for people just enjoining a green awareness, helping them understand the first few steps

PURE Project
Then it was back down to the Village to meet Ryan Fix, a Burning Man veteran, and head of PURE Project.  Ryan is an incredible connector of people and ideas, hosting both a physical as well as conceptual space for the incubation of new social enterprises.  Their incubation concept connect the physical and virtual — hosting performance and short-term retail with a desire to connect.  The PURE principles are an excellent vision of Ryan’s operating mode, and offer a blueprint for the rules of engagement for social enterprises.

Ultimately, it should be no surprise that the Village and Brooklyn are rich fields where these new seeds are germinating.  The intersecting networks connected to each of these organizations demonstrate what is happening in communities around the world.  Philanthropists, conscious capitalists and innovators continue to invent new forms and emergent organizations to support, power and encourage the social change necessary to build our future.

Similarly, concepts around virtual, complementary and community currencies that were once reserved for the then-fringy universe including BALLE and LOHAS, as well as the then-fringy world of hardcore online gamers, are now (finally) being discussed within the world of the disturbingly mainstream Facebook.

Geekdom has reacted somewhat cautiously to the widely leaked rumor and related sightings of  Facebook’s toe dip into the complex world of virtual currencies, which is revealed in the connection between Facebook’s credits and internal transactions.

While Facebook and the other cool kids are just getting up to speed on this topic, a small band of entrepreneurs has been working on it for a much longer time.  Having met most of the respected alt.currency designers  in the world, I’ve found that Art Brock’s work — the technical evolution of which can most easily be found at MetaCurrency.org these days — is the point of the evolutionary spear, and credit him with many of the nuances in my thinking about currencies, currents and flows of value within communities.  Those of you who know Art will see echoes of his many ideas here.

Another veteran of this space is Lisa Rutherfort.  In a guest column at Venture Beat, Lisa Rutherford reports on the beginning of what she sees as a “currency war” about to break out among a handful of key tier one web and web commerce brands.  Rutherford is the President of Twofish, which provides white-label tools for virutal currencies in massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) like World of Warcraft and Everquest.

Her analysis — steeped in years of managing and assessing these gaming currencies — is largely on target, as we’ll highlight below, but still misses some key concepts that we think will figure heavily in the deployment of major virtual currencies across large vertical markets.

To start with our common ground — and recommending that you all read her piece top to bottom — Rutherford thoughtfully discusses the benefits of virtual in-world / online currencies:

Virtual currencies have gained popularity because they reduce two major points of friction – consumer inconvenience and merchant cost. A user enjoying a social or gaming experience doesn’t want to be pulled away to enter payment info, and the seller doesn’t want to pay transaction processing fees that were scaled for more expensive purchases.

Rutherford points out:

A universal virtual currency extends across a host of applications. Instead of each application having its own micro-economy, they puddle up onto a shared currency system. Vertical examples include Microsoft Points, SparkCash, and Hi5 Coins.

She starts getting to the heart of her argument here:

… it’s just unrealistic to think that mass consumers will be willing to entrust a significant portion of their income to a startup tech company (note that I do not consider the people who invested in Second Life’s Ginko Financial to be representatives of the mass market)…

When virtual currencies were just a fanciful piece of game play, the need for that brand promise was low. But now that we’ve started thinking about universal virtual currencies that carry real world value across the Internet…well, they’ve become tangibly important, and a new level of care is expected. The brand needs to be trusted and recognized.

Rutherford argues that much is at stake in this commercial evolution, and that new “v-wallets,” as she calls these universal currencies that connect independent niche currencies, could replace the “e-wallets” exemplified by PayPal and Google Checkout.  Beyond these two natural players — and, of course, Facebook — Rutherford suggests that Amazon and Apple are likely candidates to present a new universal currency to the world.  Her suggestion that Facebook’s alpha test is the signal of the beginning of the great virtual currency wars brings to mind a quote from Gandalf the Wizard — the hero of the progenitors of today’s MMOG geeks — “the battle for Helm’s Deep is over; the battle for Middle Earth has begun.”

Where I’d like to dig into a deeper discussion with Ms. Rutherford is around the idea that one (or several) universal currencies will naturally solve the online micro transaction problem.  In seven or so years of discussing and designing social purpose currencies, it’s become clear that replacing one lumbering system (credit card payments and related fees, denominated in US dollars) is not wisely replaced by another lumbering system.  Rutherford points out in her piece that PayPal risks losing a formidable lead in the online payment space for its lack of agility, and that the folks at Facebook are probably not considering the impact of the nuances of currency design.

When considering the scope of online communities and the breadth of values that each encompasses, one will ultimately see the connections between reputation and incentives, two of the key levers in a virtual currency system.  And the same person’s reputation varies widely from one community to another.  While someone may be a highly respected uber-Drupalista by profession, and an active member of a spiritual community, he could still be a newbie dork at PokerStars who mucks up a good game of Hold ‘Em.  In other words, reputation and value are not always logically transferable between communities.  This will make it much harder for these universal currencies to exchange anything other than relatively similar credits, limiting their scope.

Beyond the issue of relative reputation, consider that social capital is not best utilized as a medium of exchange.  Generally, social capital is a qualitative measure of one’s contribution to their community, and cannot be spent like dollars, barter units or hours in a local exchange trading systems (LETS).  Think about your credit score — it’s not spendable per se, but it affords you cheaper access to money. No matter how hungry you are, you can’t spend 50 points of credit score on dinner. Such is the nature of social capital within the online social neworks.  Although giving out points for contributing in some way to a community (posting photos, commenting on a blog post) seems obvious, upon further investigation, it turns out, we actually care much more about the quality than the quantity.  In fact, quantity without quality can pretty quickly earn someone negative reputation in many communities.

This is probably my biggest problem with Twollars, a nascent twitter-based currency that’s little more than a tip of the hat, and lacks any meaningful commercial marketplace to make it relevant.  While there is a natural and robust in-world commerce in MMOG games where you acquire *things* based on your in-world activity — and those things are tradeable and more or less easily valued in a new denomination — the currency of social networks has more nuance, and ought to be treated with the care it deserves. Rather than the flat-land Twollars concept, I prefer the early work at Tuggl, who has a more creative way of closing the loop among business, charity and individuals, without using a currency.

Rutherford is right — the stakes of this game are big, and a misstep here could send a revenue-light platform like Facebook into a death spiral if horribly misplayed.  You think Beacon was bad?  Wait until the WSJ piece on the correlation between the fall of the dollar, the GM bankruptcy and our nation’s threadbare social fabric, as evidenced by a de novo deficit caused by the overspending of a social currency that was poorly designed.

What seems more interesting is a world where a dynamic tapestry of different currencies exist, and, ultimately, where an exchange is possible, but more nuanced and certainly not universal.  There are a few teams around the globe working on this problem today.  The European-based Open Money project and Cyclos platform are both building web-based tools that support local and regional currencies which replace traditional currency with more community-friendly choices that largely work to complement the national currencies.  Working with a small team of currency geeks, Brock has built up his own platform at Metacurrency.

It seems that the folks at Facebook and the other big web brands Rutherford references ought to take a bit more time to think through the entirety of their plan before deploying something on the ‘quick and dirty’ plan that ignores some of these more complex rules of social capital.

ADDENDUM on 7/6: This discussion continues on the web, with some very thoughtful articles worthy of review:

• MMOG perspective: http://www.mmotradevault.com/wordpress/?p=102
• Currencies perspective (note: this is an unsigned blog): http://www.sworddance.com/blog/2009/07/03/open-letter-to-virtual-currency-companies-universal-is-not-a-feature/