So, I'm the person of the year? Well, it's about time somebody noticed how much I've given to the world. Besides, Muhammad Yunus and Al Gore have gotten enough press this year, don't you think?





I'll have to make sure and keep up the good work so I can repeat next year. But what I really want to do is direct!



Of course, we've all been thrust into the spotlight as the content creators of the 21st century. We're going to write the news, and provide the photos and video to go along with it. We're going to amuse each other with video and audio that we create at home. We're going to finance each other too.

Sounds pretty exhausting to me. And it sounds suspiciously as if the promise of Web 2.0 has jumped the shark.



Thankfully, all the hype can't undermine the fact that connecting people to each other is the best way to create real, lasting change. Once the hyperbole dies down, we'll still be benefitting from the recent explosion of innovations from the blogosphere and billion dollar file swapping services.

Years ago, the introduction of TV was supposed to mean the end of the movie house. Then it was the VCR that was going to send the ticket takers home. Access to everybody's home videos on YouTube isn't going to keep folks from going to see the latest blockbusters.

The possibilities continue to expand rather than contract. Can't wait to see what next year brings.

Last week I talked about how to rob a bank. Okay, not really. “Bank robber” wasn’t an option for career day in high school, and with good reason. No medical benefits. Oh, and the whole it’s immoral and you’ll end up dead or incarcerated if you choose to pursue it thing. Pshaw.

I also talked about going where the viewers are. A lot more people go to YouTube than will ever go to yoursocialenterprisenamehere.org. You have videos? Pics? Podcasts? Post them to your site and post them to YouTube, Flickr and iTunes.

It’s not enough, however, to just take your current content and stick it up on these sites. Web 2.0 is all about motion. It’s all about what’s there today that wasn’t there yesterday. Posting things once might get someone to your site once, but how do you stay in their conscience? How do you lodge your message into their cerebellum?

I give you the wise words of the fox in Antoine de St. Exupery’s The Little Prince:

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. First you'll sit down at a little distance from me - like that - in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you'll sit a little closer to me, every day…"

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If for example, you came at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is ready to greet you…”

Or in the words of another Prince:

There’s joy in repetition.
There’s joy in repetition.

There’s joy in repetition.

There’s joy in repetition.

There’s joy in repetition.

Etc. Etc. Etc. (And yes, I realize that pulling lyrics from an obscure album track off of the soundtrack to Prince’s last motion picture brings up the obvious question of why he never made another motion picture? Endorphinemachine could have been turned into a franchise with the right supporting cast. Hollywood, take note.)

Posting a single podcast to iTunes? Fine. But tell the fox that you’ll post one every Thursday and he’ll start to anticipate it’s arrival. Whatever type of content you have to post, do it on a regular basis. Don’t expect immediate results, as relationships with an audience takes time to develop.

My NetVibes Flickr module did get updated with new pictures tagged “social entrepreneur” this week, so at least one person read my blog last week. Global X. He’s always cutting edge, ahead of the pack. Soon, I hope, there will be new photos tagged social entrepreneur on a regular basis. Certainly others will follow in Global X’s bold, trendsetting footsteps, no? Certainly pics of social entrepreneurs are at least as interesting as ones of people playing with Wii?

Years ago, I was working in a bookstore that was held up. The perpetrator took a few hundred dollars and made off in his getaway car, driving past 3 banks in the parking lot. Perhaps he had never heard about Willie Sutton's reply to the question 'Why do you rob banks?' Answer: 'Because that is where the money is at.'

Why do hackers write viruses for Windows? It probably has as much or more to do with Microsoft's 90% marketshare than with the security vulnerabilities of their OS.

Why are the Beatles rumored to be putting their catalog on iTunes despite their years of legal wrangling with Apple Computer? Because iTunes is where people are paying for music online.

A 30 second Superbowl commercial this year costs $2.5M, despite all the naysayers that say that traditional TV advertising is dead or dying. Advertising revenue is declining. But the Superbowl? It's the one time a year that people watch the ads on purpose.

On the web, attention is currency and the banks are plentiful. Do you need to put your podcasts up on every podcast site? No. Your photos on every photo sharing site? Your videos on every vid-swap site? Nope. Go where the eyeballs are. You can create your own photo or video swapping social network, but you aren't going to reach an audience the size of YouTube's that way.

Take Flickr. Yes, I know, a billion things have been written about Flickr, and all of it's web 2.0 goodness. That's kind of my point. Flickr is a bank filled with the currency of attention.

I have a NetVibes module that does a search for photos tagged social entrepreneur. Most of the time it is stagnant. Very stagnant. Okay, it rarely changes. But last week I noticed that it had new pictures in it, ones that I hadn't seen and I clicked to see where they had come from.

As a result, I learned about On Road Media, " a unique and exciting organisation that provides the necessary tools for people to tell their own stories in mainstream and citizen media or podcasting." After clicking around a bit, I was led to their podcasts hosted at Switchpod. They are on iTunes as well.

Never would have heard of them if they hadn't tagged their pics and posted them on Flickr. And I never would have found them on iTunes. Of course, now they have to keep my attention, which is the second part of the equation and more difficult than the first. Take the fellow who decided to skip banks and rob bookstores instead. He left the store with more money than he had come in with, so part one of his endeavor could be considered a qualified success. He only had a short time, however, to enjoy his misbegotten reward. He had failed to plan for part two - not getting caught - and had left his fingerprints on some books that he had been browsing.

This week's event on Social Edge asks you who your favorite social entrepreneur is. Well, what if you didn't have to choose just one? What if you could create the Social Entrepreneur equivalent of the Beatles? Oh sure, individually the Beatles were formidable. John had Imagine, Paul had Band on the Run, George had My Sweet Lord and Ringo had Caveman.

Think what it would be like if you could launch a social enterprise with all of your favorite social entrepreneurs. Jim Fruchterman slapping down a healthy bass line, Heidi Kühn keeping time on the kit, Matt Flannery wailing on a wah-wah stick and Muhammad Yunus rocking the hardware. For this week's event, we decided to put four of our favorite entrepreneur's together in a replica of the Beatles' first album cover.



Karen Tse, Blaise Judja-Sato, Muhammad Yunus and Victoria Hale, Heavyweights, indeed. Perhaps the Traveling Wilburys would have been a more appropriate model.

With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.

Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.