Open Source Social Entrepreneurship

• What's the issue that concerns you?

Full social inclusion of people with disabilities

• What's the idea?

People with disabilities form a distinct culture and subcultures. Various forms of Sign language are on cultural product. The seven principles of Universal Design express the community’s desire for full social inclusion and point to a solution.

In developing nations tourism often provides a large percentage of national income. The tourism industry builds or strongly influences infrastructure development in these regions. Until the industry fully embraces people with disabilities as a valued customer base, rather than a legally-mandated set-aside group, by adopting Universal Design infrastructure in destination nations will be exclusionary by design.

When they adopt Universal Design the tourism industry an authentic partner in the aspirations, rights, and culture of the disability community. (See http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/5951 )

• Where and how has it already succeeded?

In various demonstration projects such as the islands of Tasmania and Tenerife or the cities of Socorro in Brazil, and Takayama in Japan.

• Where else might it be useful?

There is a discussion on that at:

http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/5952

As Boomers age the need for this solution will “suddenly” arise in every country.

• What more can we learn?

Antika Sawadsri is a Thai PhD candidate living in the UK. She did a study on people’s emotional response to using Universal Design in their homes in Thailand. It was revealing on the family roots of prejudice and offers predictors about larger-scale initiatives to include people with disabilities in society. It should be replicated in other countries.

Julie Howell of Fortune Cookie web design together with Travolution did a study of the accessibility of travel web sites in the UK. All failed. The study should be replicated on the top travel information web sites for the top five countries that people with disabilities in the UK travel to with results forwarded to the tourism ministries in those countries alerting them to the opportunity costs of inaccessibility.

Jan Intarapasan is studying accessibility at heritage tourism sites in the six Greater Mekong countries (Thailand, Vietnam, China (Yunnan), Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.) Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni just spoke out this week on the necessity of inclusion for people with disabilities at India’s historic tourism sites. International and regional tourism bodies should develop concrete action plans on this point. It will soon become international Human Rights law under Article 30 of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

Similar items are regularly reviewed at http://www.Rollingrains.com

Hi Scott;

Thanks for opening our conversation here with such a concise and inclusive response! You have laid out the situation in a comprehensive fashion, and I note your particular concern with "destination nations".

A couple of recent conversations here on the edge have dealt with social entrepreneurial work in conflict situations, countries at war, with civil disturbances, etc, and with the cultural impact of social entrepreneurial work in places where small traditional cultures may be at risk, not just in terms of their artifacts but of their pace of life, their sense of time...

I am coming to feel that how we prioritize our efforts may be dependent on a whole complexity of different drivers, personal interest of course being a highly significant motivator - but how do we weigh, eg, issues to do with landmines in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, which cause disabilities, and issues to do with the facilitation of those with disabilities?

I ask this not because I wish to prioritize one over the other, but because I think our innate tendency (at least in the west) to think topically rather than contextually is liable to blindside us, and that somehow we need to begin seeing an interwoven "bigger picture" as well as our own particular points of focus.

And I am bringing it up here in response to your post and asking you about it, not in disagreement but because you have really done a superb job of expressing your point of focus, leaving me with little or nothing to add along the same lines besides my admiration and gratitude.

Thanks again.

Hi Charles,

Sorry to delay in responding. I don't see a comment alert function here and I am competing for some funding on this work that otherwise distracted me from returning to this discussion without the reminder.

I haven't read the book you mentioned but I will look it up.

I very much appreciate the challenge you lay out to habitual thinking. As some who has been part of the disability community since 1972 I "think differently" as a consequence of lifestyle. We joke among ourselves that it is always a translation process to take ideas that are just common sense within the disability community and express them to "temporarily able-bodied people" (TABs).

How to prioritize?

Priorities arise from within our community as a political process.

A core value of the Disability Rights Movement has been participatory decision-making

alternately expressed as "democracy", "interdependence", or "inclusion." It is captured in our old dictum, "Nothing about us without us."

We call our non-profits "DPOs" - Disabled People's Organizations and we are united both within our (disability) cultural groupings and geographically. Strong external partnerships exist with the World Bank, UN, and other development agencies. Yesterday, for example, we launched the Disability Rights Fund to "provide financial support for human rights advocacy in the developing world and Eastern Europe/former Soviet Union...to empower disabled persons organizations around the world to effectively implement and monitor the CPRD [UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities]."

In effect, we have spent the past 30 years refining our priorities into a human rights document with the power of law. The concision of my post comes from the fact that I am the "go to guy" for tourism in Article 30 of the CRPD, "Participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport."

Priorities also arise within our community as intellectual and social processes.

Several years ago I launched academic discussion on the topic of tourism and disability into one of our Disability Studies journals (Review of Disability Studies). Four international and several regional conferences on tourism and disability have followed. Paralympics, inclusive dance companies, disabled performers, and local events like last month's "Spotlight: An Asian Festival of Inclusive Arts in Cambodia" all arise from and contribute to the prioritization process in terms of our culture. All these are run by citizens with disabilities taking charge of agenda-setting in their own countries.

In the countries you mentioned, or the Greater Mekong Region nations more generally, international development funds have been solicited for major tourism infrastructure projects. I facilitate a social enterprise incubation network of disabled entrepreneurs that includes inventors, researchers, and business owners from the region. Underway is DPO consultation on prototype accessible public toilets for the region, redesign of a Thai resort city in partnership with the mayor, trainings for tourism policymakers and hotel professionals. An all-Asia DPO conference on railway accessibility just finished in Dhaka, Bangladesh followed by a national meeting in the Philippines.

In the case of Laos, to address one of your examples, grassroots programs for survivors of landmines Laos includes training as musicians at tourist sites. That is, the "bigger picture" priorities are coordinated within the disability community to allow a seamless transition for someone with a landmine injury to full social participation. Planning includes both individuals and the community as a whole. We focus sharply on our community's needs and priorities because we know that our tool

Universal Design -- spins off social benefit for those who will never self-identify as disabled (seniors) and all those who simply prefer products, places, policies, and interactions on a more human scale.

BTW, Steve, seeing your portrait mountain-climbing at http://www.Rollingrains.com , I'm wondering whether you know Rene Daumal's book, Mount Analog? Daumal was a mountaineer / idealist / mystic / writer in C20 France, and his book is a little known gem... You might enjoy it.

Sorry, in that second post I meant Scott, not Steve!

We are working on two new great ideas for high leverage change and are trying to find out if they have been done before. The ideas are:

Real open source development & a Grass Roots Project Incubator

1. Real open source development

Putting some money on the table for an unspecified development project and let the interested internet public create the project down to the last detail. After a set time period we would then implement it on the ground as per the open source design.

We are still working on what limits to set (like total amount, location, timeline etc) but are convinced that it could really take off.

Once it was going and people have given input and seen it making a real difference they would have incredible ownership and desire to see it succeed and grow.

We would start by putting up an open source website where anyone can edit content (based on the Wiki concept) and even the look of the site and only minimum limits.

What do you think? Ever hear of anything like it?

1. a Grass Roots Project Incubator

This idea came out of two types of experiences; both setting up my project in Cambodia and in talking to others who were doing similar things.

There is great support for social entrepreneurs who are really successful and some support for some of us who are still getting to that stage. However, we have never found anyone supporting those who are just starting out.

It seems that most Social Entrepreneur funding agencies use an adapted Venture Capital approach (funding proven project ready for scale). We think that due to the social nature of these projects and the accessibility of grant money, that there may be a higher start up success rate to be gained in helping people establish themselves even from the pre idea phase. We would even supply them with best case practises (from Ashoka etc) to help them build successful models.

Rather than the standard approach towards Social Entrepreneurs of financial support, we would use as coaching and in kind support and then actively assist them in getting that financial support.

Scenarios:

a) Imagine a traveller is inspired to help a person or community they met while abroad.

How do they get assistance back there and how do they ensure it's going to the right place? More importantly, how do they know that they are doing the right thing?

b) Imagine a student or office worker who returns from travels and wants to organise friends to make a real difference. Maybe to set up a micro finance program or a school sponsorship program for a certain village?

People do this everyday, and many waste money or fail. Most take a long time to get off the ground and still more use outmoded approaches to problems.

How do they get started? Who do they ask? Where do they get funds? How do they know the best way to help?

Imagine now an organisation and website with a pool of diversely experienced people to answer questions and which supplies dedicated coaching for start ups. An organisation that also has staff in developing countries who can facilitate, advise and assist with start up projects. A one stop shop for people who want to make a difference but don't know how.

So, any thoughts?

Maybe I have missed it, but is there a global operation that tracks change opportunities that can be nudged into activity by persuasion at the highest levels of world power? E.g., I heard that in the 80s the Reagan administration cut off funds for secular education in Pakistan, thus making madrassas the dominant option for many children there. How about an under-the-radar think tank notworthy for its ready access to the Gates and Buffett networks, possessed of up-to-the-minute global information on the movements of advanced thought in governments and large corporate powers, and prepared to make grounded suggestions everywhere?

Michael

How about an under-the-radar think tank notworthy for its ready access to the Gates and Buffett networks, possessed of up-to-the-minute global information on the movements of advanced thought in governments and large corporate powers, and prepared to make grounded suggestions everywhere?

That would be quite a trick! I'm working on a form of concept-mapping that would allow decision makers to see something of the complexity of situations that's very different from current data-visualization tools and modeling software, basing it on (a) quote and anecdote as the units of data, since they carry the human voice, meaning, passion, etc and can therefore "speak" holistically for stakeholders, and (b) a normal upper limit of 10 or 12 nodes, since humans can generally hold only about six or seven "clusters" of thought in mind at one time.

I'm slowly unfolding this work on a blog at "hipbone out loud" at http://hipboneoutloud.wordpress.com/ .

One person whose work has impacted mine significantly, and who tracks both problems and solutions globally, is Anthony Judge at UIA - see the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential at http://www.uia.org/encyclopedia/ and his own, often brilliant / quirky papers at http://www.laetusinpresens.org .

I take kind of a simple, empirical, historical approach. I'm thinking that it's not so difficult to track differences in consciousness, since there has been such massive change in knowledge and emotional agendas in the past 200 years. We have so much data! Waziristan can be diagnosed. [I have a little case study vis-a-vis Mahmood Ahmadinejad on my blog --http://michaeldee.livejournal.com/] Even "the narcissism of elites" might not be out-of-bounds. Get Michael Milken on board.

I'm not sure quite what you envision when you say "Waziristan can be diagnosed" - my own take on Ahmadinejad is that we need to understand his form of Mahdism, which can best be approached (it seems to me) via the rhetorical insights of Stephen O'Leary's Arguing the Apocalypse (Oxford) and the Shi'ite specifics of Abdulaziz Sachedina's Islamic Messianism (SUNY). But that's a field of particular interest to me, and takes us far from the Social Entrepreneurial zone...

Richard Branson has an organisation that mobilises influential world figures to do these things.

Not sure of the name.

He's Terry Hallman, founder of P-CED who used the opportunity presented by an appointment to the Clinton re-election committee to put forward a model for poverty elimination based on a business paradigm deploying profit to community/social purpose. 3 years later, he leveraged a microfinance bank project in Russia based on this principle and by 2004, the UK had introduced CIC form of company incorporation which reflected this approach.

Rather than delay and publish as a book, his paper was distributed open source, free for anyone to deploy as a business model.

Scaling up the Russian project, it is now the basis of another groundbreaking strategy paper for a microeconomic Marshall Plan and targets Ukraine's manifest social problems with a nil overall cost projected outcome.

It has potential to be used anywhere a combination of full and partial cost recovery components can be identified and deployed in concert toward targeted economic development.

Hello again, Jeff:

Is either the original or the second (microeconomic strategy) paper available online? If not, can you tell us more?

Charles, Yes it is. But first, there's a couple of very recent news items to refer to. First is reported by Bloomberg with the title - Sachs presses Marshall Plan for the Poor.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post published an article by Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz from which I extracted this statement:

"We could have had a Marshall Plan to help desperately poor countries, winning the hearts and maybe the minds of Muslim nations now gripped by anti-Americanism. In a world with millions of illiterate children, we could have achieved literacy for all

for less than the price of a month's combat in Iraq."

Both ideas the author has advocated for repeatedly over the last decade. In fact you will find the argumemts for deploying Smart Power, the focus of a recently formed US think tank, in a third paper advocating a social enterprise development package for an Islamic community in crisis.

So, let me now refer to the first paper which 3 years ago I tracked down to the Clinton Presidential Library. Although Open Source, they consider it part of campaign records and won't distribute. However there is a synopsis online:

http://www.p-ced.com/History/tabid/57/Default.aspx

This goes on to leverage the Tomsk initiative in Russia, in the wake of the Defense Enterprise Fund where large sums have gone missing. So an alternative to top-down is given a try.

The third paper comes next and almost immediately someone tries to circumvent the plan. This time around there copyright to contend with and in an unprecedented move, blocks his own project for the sake of ethical integrity, then launches a broadside on the corrupt authorities, being unaware that there's a revolution brewing, following the murder of Giorgey Gongadze who also spoke about corruption.

http://www.p-ced.com/Projects/Ukraine/CrimeanTatars/tabid/63/Default.aspx http://eng.maidanua.org/node/331

Here's where I come in, finding him destitute, living in a tent fasting for economic rights in the US. I resolve to start the social business model in the UK to provide the revenue for overseas operations in childcare reform.

A draft strategy is delivered to the Eurasia foundation, who over the next 3 years align their efforts to the same objectives finally launching the East Europe foundation only this year after Davos, where Bill Gates prescribes Creative Capitalism, which seems to reflect ideas from paper 1.

Now, in March 2006 I stumble on the Death Camps story which identifies the severity of conditions in some institutions. The story get written up, with a proposition for intervention and a year later, their goverment announce proposals for a network of 400 rehab centres.

http://eng.maidanua.org/node/581

Later in 2006, the Marshall Plan is complete and in the hands of their government, just before being dissolved. It it not until August last year that we go public.

So, there's only one Marshall Plan that can be found online which is more than rhetoric. This is a condensed version and describes a nil overall cost strategy, combining elements of more than and less than full cost recovery as a holistic strategy to combat poverty and its social consequences.

http://www.p-ced.com/Projects/Ukraine/AMarshallPlanforUkraine/tabid/69/Default.aspx

Thanks.

It's good to have all the appropriate links in one place, where they can easily be referenced.

It may be a bit of a stretch, but are you aware of Tom Barnett and Stephen DeAngelis' Enterra Solutions approach, and is it in the same ballpark? It's my understanding that they are trying for a modular approach which can be varied according to place and circumstance..

As I read it, probably at the opposite end of the spectrum Charles.

Opposite end in terms of implicit values, or of style of approach? I won't ask for your critique unless you can manage it in a nutshell, because I'm sure you have other things to do - but I do appreciate the continuity of your presence here, and your continuing participation across a whole range of events.

What I read fron Enterra's web site is the offering of a private security business providing protection in ongoing and post-conflict situations. Interestingly both organisations regard the events of 9/11 to have significant influence. Ours is a shoestring operation in comparison which aims to identify potential conflicts before they happen, and the significance of 9/11 to us, is 5 years before, having predicted that failing to tackle the economically disenfranchised was to engender acts of terrorism against ourselves.

Our approach has been to leverage development aid funding to be deployed as investment capital to create sustainable business, with a revenue engine provided by business to fund research and advocacy. It would be closest to Yunus's social business enterprise and Gates Creative Capitalism - as I read it.

Rather than focus on microcredit alone, our aim is to deliver holistic plans where components achieving more than full cost recovery offset others which are less than full cost recovery. For example the microeconomic Marshall Plan as a nil overall cost strategy.

Page(S) not found. Any other options for accessing this material?

Kathleen

I see london as a financial ,center of our world . London is so close to outher countries , My dream has always been to help all people and all countries . I see the word FUTURE can unite all . Iv already spent all that i have and am and my health , years , only to be . see the facts on my webpage is www.futurevisionaries.com I do wish that i can find partners to help cary the global FUTURE tourch . Its very hard on me an my health what has happened to me back in sept 2004 . here in th USA . Im fighting 24/7 I feel alone being one and poor . I hope my ideas will help all . PS i do email people alot I reach out its not spam . I have been Covered up by the media for years . I use open formes To post . I lamost lost my membership with ecademy do to complaints . If you want me to me email you tell me . also you can use my email milmntec@btinet.net Main email . There is a wolrd pend For the word FUTURE in USA for 7 years search www.uspto.gov search Trademarks serial NO 76634950 FUTURE , Search 76133905 Word FUTURE pend filed year 2000 ; Also Search www.patent.gov.uk Search Trademarks NO. 2290533 Just alowed after 8 years Word FUTURE pend in Great Britain and northern Ireleand The Mark shown Below has been Registered Under NO .2290533 as of the date 30 november 2001 . FUTURE The mark Has been registerd in respect of ; Class 01 ;02;03;04;05;06;o7;08;010;11;12; 13;14;15;16;17;18;19;20;21;22;23;24;25;26;27;28;29;30;31;32;33;34;39;40; Wolrd pend for FUTURE with people and their own ideas and their country ideas For FUTURE think of all the people working together all the countries FUTURE Ideas .. ; we show usage threw the people and their ideas . Kindly Im not the best typer Im under great preshure with the attacks from see on my web page . I need help my self so I can help the people .. ; My father has always said it only takes 1 To belive in you , and to listen To you I dont understand kent all they want to do is to take your ideas .. not work with you . I just recived a leter From lincoln financial They want me not to use the world FUTURE or any one asocaityed with me for anything financial . all they have is hello FUTURE , Future lincloln financial . They aply after me regardles of my R trademarks in USA in 1999 , and time alowances . They use my own ideas vs me . I have also reached out to so meny . I would not wish on any one what i have been threw and going threw . I think of all the people who im fighting for The poor who dont have a FUTURE voice . best KGA www.futurevisionaries.com Kent G anderson FUTURE sm/tm 925 N Griffin Bismarck ND 58501 USA 1701-223-0639

Hi Kent:

You write:

-- Kindly Im not the best typer Im under great preshure with the attacks from see on my web page . I need help my self so I can help the people ..

Could you say in a single phrase or sentence what the word FUTURE can provide us with?

I am setting up North America's first social stock exchange, called the Green Stock Exchange (http://greensx.com), which will finance and trade shares publicly in social businesses, just like NASDAQ and AIM London Stock Exchange. It is a eBAY.com like system for trading shares in social businesses, connected to a green social network ("like MYSPACE and FACEBOOK") with a triple bottom line (economic + social + environmental). It will be ready about summer 2008. I have not made any press releases yet, so you are the first ones to know about it.

A "social business" as a profit making business that also benefits society. Example like Granneem Bank (Micro-financing), Green Energy...etc. My idea is to become a catalyst to finance, support and grow more social businesses.

Do you think there is a place for a social stock exchange vs. traditional stock exchanges?

Do you think Direct Public Offerings are the way to go or IPOs for your exchange?

Would brokerage firms and brokers be interested in participating?

How would investors react?

Any ideas appreciated.

I have also set-up a forum before the launch at: http://greensx.com/forum/

Hi David:

It seems to me that for your idea to succeed, you need to be very clear in what you tell people. At the moment, you seem to be in the "discussion and development of ideas" stage, asking us (for instance) whether brokerages would be interested. If I'm right about that, I'd suggest making that clear at the outset, saying (eg) "I am thinking about setting up North America's first social stock exchange" rather than "I am setting up North America's first social stock exchange".

It seems to me that at a certain point you would have received and assimilated all the answers we here, and others elsewhere, can offer you in response to the very important questions you raise, and that you will then be able to assess your hopes in terms of what the best format for achieving them would be, and proceed to business planning. But that needs to happen after you've achieved clarity on the questions you're raising here.

I hope you'll take my comments kindly - I think the idea is an interesting one.

*

I'm also tempted by the thought that if there are three bottom lines, then there are three evaluations and possibly all three should be represented directly in all transactions. Is that what you envision? I may not be being very clear here myself, but if the "value" of a share is (x) dollars plus (y) social improvement plus (z) environmental benefit, do I pay x dollars for it, or do I have to contribute social improvement and environmental benefit (eg in carbon credits) myself?

A gift economy, if i understand it rightly, reciprocates the human value of transactions, not merely their "cash" value

but how one institutionalizes that currently escapes me.

I hope I'm not being too impossibly idealistic / theoretical here, I have the sense that there's a question worth asking here, but I don't yet have quite the right angle to approach it from.

Dear Charles,

The social stock exchange (Green Stock Exchange) connected to a green social network at http://greensx.com is already in the beta stage and will begin trading the Summer 2008. This is not just a paper idea...

This forum is to provide a discussion for new ideas. Since social exchanges are a new type of beast, the model will be evolving.

Our evaluation system guidelines is part of our Green Business Certified program. You can see the guidelines at http://greensx.com/info/listing_social_guidelines.php

Hey,

Just my 2 cents: Does it really pay off to differentiate between social and "normal" stock exchange? So many traditional companies are "going green" (Toyota, Ferrari, GE, Marks & Spencer just to name a few). How could you integrate these two approaches and become a lobbyist of triple bottom-line to be included in the traditional stock exchange?

Or maybe these two could co-exist with "real" social enterprises and traditional firms both applying for your "socially meaningful company" status. I.e. any company could get competitive advantage by being recognized with that SE label.

Anywho, whatever you decide to do you will face a lot of challenges from legal and financial world. Be prepared for that. However, I really like your idea and hope it will succeed.

-Tomi

Hi Tomi, and thanks for contributing.

I hope David will clarify his project and the considerations behind it further.

Dear Tomi,

Our green stock exchange is focused on social businsses. A social business is a company that makes mony and benefits society.

The examples you cited are not social businesses.

Financial funding for small green businesses are scarce with public money; SustainAbility, a consultancy and think tank, says " money remains the main headache for social businesses; 72% of the social businesses surveyed cited raising money as their main challenge". The Green Stock Exchange (GREENSX) intend to bridge this funding gap. It allows investors of green businesses to have more options for quicker exit strategies. Many businesses with triple bottom lines (values, social and economic) make plenty of money - look at Aveda, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, The Body Shop, Smith and Hawkins. It is possible to be both ecologically sustainable and economically profitable.

Furthermore, 99% of small businesses do not have access to public funds, yet small business has added 20 million new jobs over the last 15 years to the US economy, using less than 1% of publicly traded equity capital. Therefore, it is obvious that if small businesses had more access to public money via the Green Stock Exchange (GREENSX), they could propel the economy forward in a spectacular fashion.

Domini Fund http://www.domini.com/domini-funds/Domini-Social-Equity-Fund/index.htm

Calvert Foundation http://www.calvertfoundation.org/

SeaChange http://www.seachangecap.org/ SeaChange is a nonprofit finance firm that raises growth capital for high-quality nonprofit organizations from wealthy individuals, foundations, and other funders.

Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium http://www.deutsche-bank.de/csr/en/pool/Soziales_3247.htm The Global Commercial Microfinance Consortium is an investment fund that aims to build stronger ties between local banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs), facilitating access to local currency loans and helping to remove foreign exchange burdens for MFIs, thus lowering end-borrower costs.

Social Funds Socially responsible fund investing info http://www.socialfunds.com/

David, I registered on your forum as I run a social business that develops software. Now waiting on a confirmation to join. You might also join a few of us on the Google group, yunus_discussion where similar thoughts are being bounced around.

Personally, I feel there's a greater need for simple seed funding but we can talk about that at length elsewhere.

Jeff

The GIA

I think we need a Global Intelligence Agency, the "GIA". It will be different from the CIA, because the CIA--which was originally called the Office of Strategic Services (OSS)--is a paramilitary organization. Besides gathering information, they shoot rockets at terrorist leaders from drones, kill "bad guys", interrogate prisoners, etc. This is all appropriate to the level of consciousness at which they presume they are operating.

But the GIA would operate and a different level of consciousness. It will only handle information. It would gather it and dispense it. I think of it as headquartered in Switzerland, and have state-of-the-art global knowledge handling technology.

Don't be afraid of the idea of "level of consciousness". It is a decidedly hard-edged foundation in fact. You don't have to go back far in history to see it exemplified. Geology as a science only got going good at the start of the nineteenth century. By 1850 the notion of "deep time" (the earth is millions of years old) had its scientific foundation, although very, very few people comprehended it. So, when Darwin came along in 1957 and fractured the biblical paradigm of human history, his information was not totally new. But it was still "scandalous" to the vast majority. But by the end of the nineteenth century the new, very small, place of man in the universe had begun to catch on. And when in 1905 Einstein rendered the whole universe accessible, he was just continuing the groundwork for the modern mind. All of us are part of one humanity. The picture of the big blue marble in the sky in 1968 finally created a full-color ikon to express that.

But still, in 2008, there are a lot of people who don't get that. The GIA would tackle that problem.

So, knowledge information is important.

Then there is emotional information. While knowledge was progressing by leaps and bounds in the nineteenth century, emotions were still dark and brutal. The ivory trade in the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century is just one small case of the sickening course of colonialism that was conducted by Europe. (That case was the basis for Joseph Conrad's novelette The Heart of Darkness in 1905, and The Heart of Darkness in turn was the inspiration for Coppola's 1979 movie, Apocalypse Now.)

The tribalism of the first World War that used machine guns and artillery instead of swords and arrows brought so much death and destruction that Europe went into deep shock. Out of that shock came what Keynes called "the Cathaginian Peace" in 1919, an arrangement that led directly to Hitler, the Holocaust and the death of 50 million europeans in the ten years between 1936 and 1945. Out of that cataclysm came The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations, fragile stabs at a state of consciousness higher than the past.

So, we know all this. We know that the world still needs knowledge and cures for the atavistic fears of bygone ages. And we know what alleviates those fears. The GIA would take this knowledge, and parcel it out into local, regional and global programs.

Michael:

Have you looked at Robert Steele (ex-CIA) and his work at OSS.net? He's working in roughly the same ballpark as your Global Intelligence Agency. His book, The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political - Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption is available on Amazon, as is Information Operations: All Information, All Languages, All the Time.

I've posted my own ideas along similar lines at http://publicintelligenceagency.com/ .

Thank you, thank you. We are not far apart. The idea could stand being massaged a little. Yes, get more specific. My initial approach is to support the development of "the modern mind" where it does not yet exist. So, enhancing science education for children in all the languages of the world. Broker a relationhsip between the best science education in industrial society and parts of the world where it is struggling. Tons of translations (text books), support teacher education, investigate government programs/attitudes. So, that is part of the "rational information" part. Then there is the "irrational information" part, i.e., what to do about the sociopathic borderline personalities of authoritarian elites around the world. This is trickier. But even raising the question is beyond what anyone is doing now. Like I say, massage this.

Just to pick up on one aspect of your program: "Tons of translations (text books)" - you m ight be interested in Juan Cole's Americana in Arabic Library Translation Project at http://www.globam.org/ - it's focused on texts about American democracy and its underpinnings rather than science, but in some ways represents a parallel endeavor.

Thanks again, Charles. That brings up an interesting point for me. I would want to avoid anything that looks like "selling OUR system". Hopefully there are true universals. Anybody would want to know Algebra, the periodic table, and how to determine the ages of rocks. But I will check out globam.org. I'm sure the logistics are interesting. :) M

BTW, re Steele's New Craft of Intelligence, he wants to work with secrets. So, let someone have a go at that. It is not what I want to do. I think the world of secrets will be the last social system to change. My idea of an "intelligence agency" is to work with the universals of knowledge, and the universals of emotional health. A touch of zen would not hurt.

Steele's main focus is on OSINT, ie mining the data that's freely available. It's my impression that he prefers transparency to secrets by a long mile, but maybe recognizes that secrets won't go away entirely...

I'd also be interested to learn how you see zen fitting in - I suppose that means, at least in part, that I wonder whether you see zen as (a) free of religiosity, hence amenable to rationality, or (b) transcending rationality via (eg) koans which are inherently paradoxical? I've gathered from your web writings that religion doesn't exactly enchant you...

I refer to zen as a method for staying awake and keeping in mind The Whole Picture. You correctly note my reservations about religion, since in their traditional forms I think they are deeply invested in sedating consciousness rather than awakening it, and thus produce continued sectarianism. [And I have deep experience of Roman Catholicism to base that on.] However, going back to square one of this discussion, I am trying to think of interventions in consciousness that a social entrepreneur could do that are practical, safe and progressive. Supporting science education at all levels is one I have come up with. I think it is widely neglected, and easily promoted.

The other avenue of intervention I am proposing is keeping track of the emotional pathologies of power. Widespread candor [with clinical sophistication] on this subject I think would be helpful

You say, I would want to avoid anything that looks like "selling OUR system". I understand and sympathize. Hopefully there are true universals. That I understand too, but I'm a bit wary because I want to preserve cultural diversity, and the sciences ("Algebra, the periodic table, and how to determine the ages of rocks") come with their own implicit philosophical stances, whether they're Popperian or Kuhnian or whatever. So in some sense, the sciences are "OUR" sciences.

I guess I missed the point completely, but I don't get it why knowledge (or are you talking about information?) should be centralized, then packaged and disseminated by a certain body.

Isn't it wonderful that in internet anyone can access any information and create their own knowledge by putting two and two together? I believe this gives more power for the ordinary guy on the street.

Care to explain more and be more conscise?

-Tomi

The exchange of free ideas is what a fairer world would look like, and to get to the world that Kwase is talking about in Kjerstin's bog, " a change of mindset" is needed. For ideas to be priceless a new social value would need to be created, much like David's green stock exchange and Terry Hallman's open paper. The idea that we are all in it together and we need to share information without fear of losing profit margins, requires the gift economy to take the lead, if business and governments won't.

Hello again, Jo:

I think a lot of us feel the value system that's currently "running the world" in terms of governments and corporate interests leaves a lot to be desired, and "nature" seems to follow both cooperative and competitive paths in a constantly shifting balance - so the question arises, what sort of "change of mindset" is required, and how,l in a world already bristling with different, competing mindsets, can the new one be introduced without unleashing consequences that are both unpredicted and unwanted?

Hope, it seems to me, is like honey. I am looking for a honeycomb structure that can give it integrity, bring it into realization.

May I offer an idea for a way to let a new value system bubble up without being imposed? This is to try to turn the multiple threats facing us all into an opportunity. Conventional problem-solving looks at climate change and says invest in biofuels and nuclear. It looks at security risks and says invest in weapons and surveillance. Trying to deal with symptomatic problems separately causes unwanted consequences and perpetuates the values that caused the problem. The field of systems thinking seems to suggest that problems are instead managed as a whole by looking for leverage points which trigger cascading change. In 1966 the economist Kenneth Boulding pointed out a leverage point which is tied to all major global problems. Please see http://www.eoearth.org/article/The_Economics_of_the_Coming_SpaceshipEarth(historical). He outlined the two possible patterns of resource use; linear (or cowboy as he colourfully put it) which allows material value to be lost as accumulating wastes, or circular (he said spaceship) which ensures that material value is rebuilt as fast as it is used. Boulding cleverly noted how the prevailing linear economy is tied to reckless, exploitative, and violent behavior. People's capacity for positive values and a positive view of the future is lost in the scramble for a share of diminishing resources and safe environments.

Systems thinking does not come easily to decision-makers so Boulding's recipe for a new value system has gathered dust. However the Chinese government have the goal of circular economics in their current 5 year plan and many Chinese academics and policy-makers are aware of the potential to align economic, ecological and social goals (see for example http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200410/04/eng20041004_159063.html) Apparently all that is missing is the mechanism (or honeycomb?) to implement circular economics. It has often been assumed (even by Boulding) that government taxation would be a suitable mechanism. However over the past 40 years governments haven't taken up this opportunity. Had they tried I still wouldn't see taxes being sufficiently trusted, efficient or global enough to do the job.

My idea is to use a version of insurance instead of taxes. Significant producers (or importers) would be obliged by their governments to insure against the risk that their product would end up adding to wastes rather than new resources (for nature or people). This is the basis for recycling insurance in the EU WEEE Directive. The only change needed to deal with large scale problems is for premiums to be invested preventively to avoid the costs of damage becoming unaffordable (eg irreversible climate change or regional dioxin pollution in Italy). Preventive insurance may sound strange but there are examples in both the history and current practice of insurance. So instead of single problems being managed with multiple mechanisms in each country, multiple problems would be managed with a single mechanism used in every country. It is the only mechanism I know which offers the possibility for economic growth to continue in future, instead of being submerged under either growing problems or growing burdens of regulation.

My work on this was picked up last year by a European network of professors, who invited me to present it in Naples last summer. (Please see a short version at http://www.blindspot.org.uk/briefing.html.) I'm happy to send the full paper to anyone interested; it's now being published by a NATO Advanced Research Programme. It would be great if this work could be discussed further by those able to help make it happen. Humanity is probably capable of doing a thousand times better at getting on with nature and each other. Perhaps this could happen if we build the honeycomb?

Hi James:

You write:

Trying to deal with symptomatic problems separately causes unwanted consequences and perpetuates the values that caused the problem.

I very much agree. But then you say:

The field of systems thinking seems to suggest that problems are instead managed as a whole by looking for leverage points which trigger cascading change.

Here I have to say I have reservations. It's my impression that interventions at specific leverage points, while it will indeed cause cascading change, offers no great assurance that all the changes in question will be beneficial - or in other words, it leaves us still wide upon to unintended consequences.

To my mind, we haven't yet learned to think the way the actual interdependencies operate, and while various forms of systems thinking, systems dynamics modeling, agent based modeling and so forth are opening some exciting visas, I believe we still have a long way to go, conceptually, before our interventions will be as fruitful as we might wish..

Good point Charles. Systems thinking can help but sloppy systems thinking won't. I've heard for example of carbon emissions being a leverage point for sustainable development. So far they look more like a leverage point for nuclear power and biofuels eating up croplands and habitats.

The paper you downloaded is the early one just about the insurance instrument. You might also enjoy my recent NATO paper which also includes a proposed leverage point for security and disarmament. If you'd like this please let me know your email address. Otherwise there is the short version already mentioned above. Thanks for your kind interest.

The paper I downloaded was "Systemic economic instruments for energy security and global security" - "Draft under review - this version expires 30th September 2007" which was linked from a shorter version on your site to http://www.sdinnovation.co.uk/blindspot/Resources/NATO_Greyson.pdf .

My email is hipbone > earthlink.net - thanks!

I's just like to add, as a sort of meta-comment, that my own work on religious violence attempts to deal with specific ways in which we are blindsided by it, or to put that another way, in which its implications all too often pass ":under the radar"

so your domain name, blindspot.org.uk, is one that resonates powerfully for me.

I have downloaded your extended paper, and hope to find time to study it in the not too distant

although I have some deadlines looming!

I'm glad you do concept mapping Charles. Right now conceptually, I'll give you a quote from William Blake:

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear...as it is, infinite."

Our blindspot is our ego,but remodeling ourselves is doable, more on this later.

There's no doubt we need to find a new balance. A man called Baron Eugene Alexandrovich Ferson, brought knowledge to a select few around the beginning of the 20th century, in a book called The Science of Being. This profound book goes beyond the science and religion that we know today and maps the intersection between them into a golden thread for us to experience great and positive change. He takes Shakespeare's most famous words " know thyself" and builds on them " know thyself and thou shalt know all".

In my former life as a consultant, our office had a terrible problem of knowledge hoarding. Believing that knowledge is power, individuals were reluctant to share that information, fearing their power would diminish. However, the greater entity was harmed by this behavior, as each person had to re-invent his or her own wheel, not able to access the "secrets" of others.

This pattern plays out in different forms, and to different degrees. Education costs money, limiting the ability of all to access it, yet there arguably are positive network effects (that the value to one person is greater as the number of people who also have that information increases, think telephones, ebay, etc., - worthless if only one person has one, but powerful the more people are involved) to the information contained in so many lectures and texts.

Education is a bit tricky that way - we believe we are more powerful if we are the only ones to have information. Sure, some things that might be true. But others (like a solid grasp of basic math, or good health practices, or literacy) actually help all of us as more people have it.

Seeing this, a colleague and I wondered how the bottom-of-the-pyramid folks accessed information, how MFIs passed such information on to entrepreneurs who lacked such "secrets." What we found disturbed us: many organizations didn't pass on any form of business training (perhaps basic record keeping), others refused to share it, asked us (students at the time) to pay exorbitant fees to purchase a copy, or charge such high costs (usually in time) that most entrepreneurs must make huge sacrifices to gain such "knowledge."

We disagreed. We believed the information should be shared, should be free, and should be open-source to allow others to change it to make it work to their particular location. In a sense, we took what we learned in business school, condensed and simplified it, and made it available to all. We called it the Barefoot MBA (www.barefootmba.org). So far the response to it has been positive, we have adapted it to 3 different areas, and many others are in the process of integrating it with their work.

We don't necessarily need a gift economy to make this work, we just need to believe that we're all better if we can let others in on our own little educational "secrets."

Scott

I absolutely agree with you Scott that the more people that have basic literacy and education, the better off we all are. What you are doing at www.barefootmba.org looks good, good luck with it.

• What's the issue that concerns you? Empowering everyone to create careers in social entrepreneurship (and lack there of).
• What's the idea? My idea is to make my company a flagship of social entrepreneurship in my home country Finland. The idea is to help people become successful social entrepreneurs. But that's not enough to make my company an SE itself, so I'd like to take an approach where certaine "underprivileged" or overlooked groups of citizens could be empowered to become entrepreneurs. For that I'd need to know what has already been done.

So, my question is two-fold: a) what underprivileged groups do you see in your society? and b) what kind of SE ideas you have heard of that are addressing the needs of these groups?

Here are the groups that I've thought so far: # Kids # Teens # Students # The unemployed # Immigrants # Prisoners # Physically disabled # Pensioners (Note that I haven't included the poor because in Finland there are none compared to real poor countries. I guess a country in a situation like this carries a major responsibility to innovate and help new practices that could be used also in other countries.)

• Where and how has it already succeeded? You tell me. I know some examples where these groups have been empowered to entrepreneurship, but not exactly to social entrepreneurship (e.g. http://www.prisonentrepreneurship.org/ and http://www.internetbasedkids.com/).
• Where else might it be useful? Globally.
• What more can we learn? Again, you tell me. This is more of a conversation opener than an idea. It is for us, together, to collect knowledge together since this is supposed to be open-source idea forum - call it GIA if you will. :)

-Tomi

PS. To prove my point how important it is to see what has already been done, just a few months back I got an idea of something like www.opensourcebusinessideas.org (it's not an existing page, just an idea) where people could share and develop their (social) entrepreneurial ideas. And now I'm writing in one that someone has already actualized. :)

"The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can’t be done is generally interrupted by someone already doing it." -Elbert Hubbard

It may seem counterintuitive of me, but when I read: I know some examples where these groups have been empowered to entrepreneurship, but not exactly to social entrepreneurship I wonder whether perhaps teaching entrepreneurship with an openness to "social" variants might not be the way to go - Bill Gates didn't start out in social entrepreneurship, but he's had a great deal of social impact.

And then there are people for whom the arts, music, writing might be the way to go, to make a vital contribution. I think of Vaclav Havel, for instance. The spectrum of human activities is wide, and I'm always hoping the entrepreneurial side of what we're up to doesn't somehow close us to those routes to human enrichment which don't pass through business territory, so to speak.

Hi Tomi. Just thought I'd bring us to your attention: the School for Social Entrepreneurs. Our vision of social entrepreneurship is pretty much what you start to describe above: one that empowers, is inclusive, open to all, transforms beneficiaries into potential leaders etc.

You'll find a lot about this on our blog, especially where we write about the Long Tail of Social Entrepreneurs. Check out the discussion on this site about Paul Farmer's speech at Skoll also.

You bring around 800 of the world's leading social entrepreneurs together to celebrate five years of excellence in social innovation. You call it the 2008 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. You hold it at the prestigious Saîd Business School at Oxford University.

You hold the opening plenary at the Sheldonian Theatre on a cold, wet, spring day in March. You forget to open the only wheelchair accessible entrance (at the back). You spend ten minutes trying to work out how to open it, to let the guy in the wheelchair and his PA from New Zealand in. You don't care that they get soaked waiting.

More: http://200gr8.blogspot.com/2008/03/heres-innovative-idea.html

I used my experience of last night to introduce a workshop on Experiential Diversity - it set the scene perfectly. Then I had a very constructive conversation with Liz Nelson, Development Manager of the Skoll Center at Oxford, about access at this and future World Forums.

More: http://200gr8.blogspot.com/2008/03/changing-past.html

Having just emerged from the Closing Plenary of the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, I feel a sense of depression and hopelessness that I've not felt for many years. I'm left questioning my own purpose and motivation, even the value of the work I do. I'm struck with an incredible sense of irony and, despite all this, I have an overwhelming trust that everything will be ok - for me at least; after Al Gore's rousing address at the plenary, I can't vouch for the planet.

More: http://200gr8.blogspot.com/2008/03/depressed-hopeless-purposelessbut-ill.html

After a good night's sleep I feel more able to reflect less emotively on my experience at the Skoll World Forum! Spending three days in the company of some of the most influential changemakers in the world was truly inspiring.

More: http://200gr8.blogspot.com/2008/03/objective-light-of-day.html

Hi Philip!

That was an intriguing and unexpected way for me to get an insight into the goings on at the Skoll World Forum - where my various levels of boss have been hanging out these last few days, in the city, Oxford, where I grew up and was educated! I envy you the chance to be there, while also sympathizing with the concerns you had and the way you handled them.

I went to your blog to read up the extended versions of your paragraphs here, and was struck by this paragraph in particular:

QUOTE: I think the current environmental crisis has far more to do with human beings than the planet. I think the issue we need to grasp is our relationship with ourselves and each other, not our relationship with the Earth. Until we value, respect, and love ourselves and each other so much that we would never do anything, either in the short- or long-term that would hurt anyone, I fear we will never eradicate environmental harm. I suspect that only when we recognise and truly believe that we are completely and utterly connected to every living thing on, of and around this planet, will social, environmental and economic change really happen. :UNQUOTE

That switches the targeting from fossil fuels etc to the human mind and heart, doesn't it?

You describe various causes as sexy and some as less so, and then write:

QUOTE: the fashionable/sexy/cool issues are external, out there, separate from ourselves. The others require a more intimate examination of self. The former is far safer, emotionally and existentially, than the latter. :UNQUOTE

Those are powerful insights, very much in line with some of my own thinking, and I'll make a commitment here to trying to raise them in some future forum.

From my POV, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, lack of medical care and so forth are "visible" in a way that attitude, mindset, worldview simply aren't - and the "invisibles" don't get the funding.

And yet attitude, mindset, and worldview are where al the change has to come from, no?

I'm with you guys on the invisibles - relating to ourselves and each other, mindsets, etc. I also get worried when people talk like this because it can reinforce a duality that perpetuates the problem. "The issue is internal NOT external; value ourselves THEN deal with the enironment" Such things are said with awareness of connections so why not connect across the divide? "The issues are internal AND external; value ourselves better whilst dealing with the environment better." The ebb and flow between visibles and invisibles is like honey; it needs a honeycomb structure to give it form. Us humans get attached to one end of every duality, but could it be that the big leap forward with invisibles will come if/when the world adopts economics which gets the visibles right? Such an economy would create a paradigm that supported healthy relationships at all levels, in the same way as today's defective economy undermines all this.

This may sound a bit theoretical but it's written up in a colourful handout for the UN Climate Neutral Network. Please see the climate briefing at http://www.blindspot.org.uk/blindspot_stwf.html. Comments welcome!

The Skoll Foundation clearly shares the belief that every person has the potential to make a difference. I been working to do just that--create appropriate employment opportunities for people with Asperger's syndrome, a form of high functioning autism, that will tap into their potential, enabling them to improve their lives and make powerful, lasting contributions to their communities.

The incidence of autism has risen dramatically in recent years and many strides have been taken to address the educational and therapeutic needs of children with autism spectrum disorder. However, as this population ages, the need for supportive employment is also skyrocketing.

About 85-93% of adults with AS (statistics vary from study to study) and despite average to above-average IQ, suffer from continuing unemployment or underemployment. Adults with AS fall through the cracks as their impaired social skills make it very difficult for them to successfully use their intellectual abilities in today's fast-paced workplace.

I have been working to create a company, Aspiritech, which will employ people with AS. Through my research, I discovered that a Danish company, Specialisterne,already exists to provide employment to people with AS. This company has already proven that we can utilize the unique competencies of people with AS to provide testing, data entry and other services to large IT companies.

I would like to adapt this concept and expand it to the US, to provide employment opportunities that tap into the potential of people with Asperger's syndrome while providing ongoing support to mitigate their challenges.

Aspiritech can provide innumerable benefits to both ASers and to society at large. In addition to an increase in their disposable income, AS employees will gain greater self esteem, develop a new social network, and have opportunities to demonstrate their specific talents and abilities. Moreover, this AS-centered, not-for-profit can reduce the incidence of clinical depression, a common factor among ASers, often associated with unemployment or under-employment and the lack of a social network. Employment also will provide purpose and structure to their day and a self-identity. The broader benefits to society will include reduction in SSI payments and increase in tax revenue. Client companies will benefit from quality IT services provided by an affordable, domestic workforce that is highly motivated, focused, persistent, precise, and attentive to detail. Aspiritech may also have an employment agency component to address the needs of individuals with AS, whose interests lie outside the IT arena but who would benefit from ongoing support.

My goal is for Aspiritech to be a pilot employment project that could be replicated or expanded throughout the country. I am very interested in joining forces with others who may share this goal.

Our conversation here was just blogged by Lucy Bernholz at http://tinyurl.com/4g4mnr. After discussing what she calls the "seven building blocks of open philanthropy" she writes:

QUOTE: These concepts are all exciting, and they also raise some questions for philanthropy. Where are the lines between public and private when it comes to ideas for the public good? Can or should someone be able to own a policy innovation? Protect a service delivery process? Are all socially positive ideas public? How will new entities like L3Cs or B corporations re-mix the assumptions about ideas and innovation as proprietary sources of business proposition - or are they public goods?

What are the best ways to encourage creative thinking and bring the ideas to action? Is social entrepreneurship better at this than anything else? Are social entrepreneurs even paying attention to raging intellectual property debates - and, if so, how and why? What should they be asking? What should philanthropy be asking? :UNQUOTE

I'd like to welcome any new readers here from SSIR and invite their participation, and also ask our participants to visit the SSIR blog and read Lucy's piece - and maybe comment there...

I am very concerned about the causes and effects of urban poverty in the US, which wastes untold human capital and threatens the health and life prospects of our most vulnerable citizens.

My goal is to adapt the lessons we've learned from the "pioneers" of microfinance to benefit urban communities in the United States, and ultimately worldwide. The strategy most effective in addressing it is community-based entrepreneurship paired with microlending. Young people are trained to become effective entrepreneurs; their startup costs are financed by creating an investment product (community development bonds) marketed to the local community.

The main obstacles to community investment, both for disadvantaged communities in the US as well as in developing nations, is lack of infrastructure / perception of high risk / modest ROI. In each of these scenarios, small-scale entrepreneurship often succeeds where conventional investment fails.

Despite notable successes in the past 30 years (Grameen, Ashoka, Prosper etc.), microfinance is not necessarily a 20th century concept. In fact, it used very effectively in the development of America's rural communities since the mid-1800s. Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) such as Tuskeegee University not only trained in technical skills and business, but extended modest loans to community members to start small businesses. These loans were almost universally repaid in full and helped to build the economic infrastructure of entire communities.

In the same way, small enterprise can address the needs of 21st century urban communities. Needs which can be met very effectively by small, community-based businesses include:

1. Private education and/or extracurricular education 2. Production & distribution of healthy & affordable organic foods 3. Child care & early childhood education 4. Neighborhood beautification, landscaping, & trash removal 5. Real estate development & rehabilitation 6. Positive social/recreational activities for community members

These areas have, historically, been difficult for government and conventional enterprise to capitalize effectively.

I'm very excited at the potential this offers, and look forward to your feedback.

• What's the issue that concerns you?

full inclusion - I'm starting with access services for Deaf, in U.S. (approximately 30 million - 30,000,000 - deaf or hearing impaired; similar number as latino-Americans, African-Americans, population of California - for consideration of social activism potential influence.

• What's the idea?

Starting with helping people find the existing information already existing, for films with some level of accessiblity for Deaf:

(in context of English as primary language in U.S., Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, etc. and "foreign" being language other than English)

1. Foreign films with English subtitles b. open captioned films (like subtitles but with visual cues for sounds) English captions for current release films with English dialog c. "closed caption" films (large U.S. non-profit org in Boston WGBH promotes films which have dialog displayed on electronic display on back wall of movie theater - clear plastic panel at viewer's seat reflects dialog, on adjustable panel.; largest number of film showings, but least liked by deaf users (it does seem too identical in thinking to the 60s U.S. civil rights struggle term "back of the bus" type of segregation.)

• Where and how has it already succeeded?

my site, starting with U.S. info www.deafaccessfilms.com

UK site www.yourlocalcinema.com (approx. 9 million Deaf in UK)

• Where else might it be useful?

anywhere with Deaf or hearing impaired and/or multiple language use (all countries) and where films are exhibited (most countries)

• What more can we learn?

there exists little organization and coordination of demographic information, so typically expected and used by commercial ventures to plan marketing efforts; So commercial film exhibitors have had to be forced by suits in court to prepare accessibility services - even though the financial benefits will be very large.

This "problem" can be an opportunity for social venturers to cultivate trusted relationships with individuals and groups in one or more communities of "disabled"/physically challenged, and use it as a basis for encouraging existing busiensses and services to expand their marketing; or to develop the new services which will have the commercial advantage of proprietary market info.

thanks for starting the discussion Charles!

What's the issue that concerns you? Green Behavior Change Tipping Point

What's the idea? The Low Miles Community (LMC) concept seeks to create and sustain low driving, green communities in the developed world. 100% of residents in large residential complexes will pledge to reduce vehicle trips by using alternative modes of transportation, such as carpooling, vanpooling, bicycling, walking, telecommuting, or taking transit. Transportation behavior changes will be monitored and quantified. LMCs will use online groupware technology, social marketing, and neighborhood gatherings to facilitate the evolution of a dual physical/cyber culture within these communities. This culture will provide positive social reinforcement and place a high value on a green lifestyle not centered on the private automobile. Each community will develop innovative auto-reducing solutions and will share these solutions with other LMCs.

Where and how has it already succeeded? A) Behavior change psychology is well proven, but is typically used to increase rather than reduce consumption. B) dual communities are celebrated in the book: Community Building on the Web. meetup.com is a good example. C) simplistic on-line behavior change pledges do not work (http://www.climateprotect.org/pledge , http://green.yahoo.com/pledge/create , etc.). Psychological research has shown that these on-line pledges are soon forgotten and do not lead to lasting behavior change - human behavior change is much more complicated. D) A terrific precursor idea to LMC is called “TravelSmart.” TravelSmart succeeds in repeatedly attracting pilot project grant funding, but hasn’t reached viral spread. Where else might it be useful? The LMC concept has potential to expand to cover more than one million homes over ten years. Once residential real-estate developers can observe a successful pilot with a solid financial model, then we’ll see viral spread. Once a local Tipping Point green culture is developed, then LMCs will morph in various interesting ways. Variations outside of residential communities to arise – work communities, etc.

What more can we learn? Here are details on the idea with lots of supporting theory: http://www.cities21.org/LMC/. I’d like to give this concept away to someone or some organization that can “make it happen.” I believe the concept needs funding to a) pay two residential real-estate developments to pilot it, and b) measure pilot performance.

I thought the whole idea of tipping points was that you don't need 100% of residents to pledge in order to change the paradigm and make alternative transport the norm.

In order to get this tipping point to happen in many communities (viral spread) we'll probably need more than clever localised solutions. The obstacle seems to be that people interested in transport issues don't usually get interested in economics. And those interested in economics tend to focus on narrow corrections that affect just one acute problem at a time. The headfirst dive into the empty pool of biofuels is an example of how such thinking gives us a world where the solutions just make things worse.

LMC is a clever concept but needs to advance together with more joined up solutions. See for example my climate briefing at http://www.climateneutral.unep.org/cnn_members.aspx?m=195.

• What's the issue that concerns you? Today we face many global tragedies such as poverty, AIDS, illiteracy, and climate change. They cause enormous suffering for millions of people. There are already thousands of nonprofits struggling to eliminate those tragedies. They are doing great work, but the question must be asked “Could they be doing better?”

Recent social sector research suggests that they could.* Even more intriguing are observations that nonprofits across dramatically different sectors share common effectiveness-hindering problems. Can cross-sector problems share a similar solution? We believe so.

A major factor contributing to nonprofit ineffectiveness is a rampant inability to effectively manage information.** From finding and fostering collaborative relationships, to diverse and creative fundraising, to internal and external communication, weaknesses in locating and managing information prevent many nonprofits from achieving optimum effectiveness and efficiency.

• What's the idea? Vision To end global tragedies such as AIDS, poverty, global warming, and illiteracy, by increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of nonprofits working in those areas.

Goal Create a process that produces 5% increases in the effectiveness and/or efficiency of 200,000 humanitarian and environmental nonprofits by 2018, and continually increases its impact over the next fifty years.

Strategy We believe that any solution must be low-cost, low-risk, and beneficial to everyone involved. It must support innovation, adaptation, diversity, learning, and global change. It must not create a solution -for- nonprofits, it must create solutions -with- nonprofits. To be truly successful, we believe it must be a metasolution.

To that end, we will facilitate a community of technically inclined youth, open source and corporate software professionals, educators, and nonprofits. Community outcomes include collaborative mentoring for students, data for further social sector research, and high-quality software and educational solutions that equip entire nonprofit sectors to operate at optimal effectiveness and efficiency.

Desktop... mobile... RFID... GPS... it doesn't matter. This isn't about individual hardware. It's about creating a social, educational, and technical collaboration process that can equip nonprofits in their areas of need, while adapting to any programmable information management environment.

While the challenges are considerable, the rewards outweigh them. Long-term success means a worldwide increase in nonprofits' humanitarian and environmental impact through billions of dollars worth of amplified outcomes, streamlined communication, and saved resources each year.

(As an emergent benefit of the process, a supporting organization has the primary responsibility of fostering relationships, not producing software. By encouraging personally beneficial collaboration amongst many participants, it can remain extremely small while providing software, education, and support only possible from a multi-thousand employee corporation.)

• Where and how has it already succeeded? While parts of the model have been successful, e.g. Google's Summer of Code, software error reporting systems, and the Sahana Project, they have never been put together in a scalable model that can accomodate hundreds of diverse nonprofit sectors. We've had to invent most of the process, and we're continually revising it to mitigate risks.
• Where else might it be useful? The model is sufficiently complex that modifying it for other challenges may prove difficult, but anyone is welcome to try. All the materials on our site are licensed Creative Commons BY-NC-SA ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ for details ), so they're free for use, adaptation, and sharing for non-commercial purposes as long as we're in the credits.
• What more can we learn? More information available at www.floss4good.org

Also, we just began exploring collaboration options with the folks at The Humanitarian FOSS Project at www.hfoss.org. On April 30, we'll release an updated version of our site to accommodate some of the changes and current progress, including a status feed and the first draft of a multi-phase project plan incorporating the strengths of both the HFOSS and Floss4Good models.

While this is long, hopefully it provides some good food for thought.

Adam Laughlin

Footnotes: *) Jim Collins’ “Good to Great and the Social Sectors” http://www.amazon.com/Good-Great-Social-Sectors-Monograph/dp/0977326403 Crutchfield and Mcleod Grant’s book “Forces for Good” http://www.amazon.com/Forces-Good-Practices-High-Impact-Nonprofits/dp/0787986127 Summary of the book's ideas available at Stanford Social Innovation Review http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/creating_high_impact_nonprofits **) dotOrganize survey on nonprofit information management: (PDF) http://www.dotorganize.net/downloads/dotorg_report.pdf (HTML) http://www.dotorganize.net/report/ See also techsoup.org, aspirationtech.org, and nten.org

My last post wasn't interpreted as plain text, so the formatting is a bit off. It's been a while since I last used Plone, but I'll take a guess at what's going on. If these come out as italics, underlined, and bold, then it's filtering the input as Plone's structured text. If not, nevermind.

test test test

It may be helpful for communication clarity and readability to add text formatting hints by the comment box, and/or a post preview function, so that commenters can see what their post is going to look like before posting. If it is structured text, here's a link to Plone's structured text cheatsheet if that helps. http://plone.org/documentation/how-to/structured-text-cheatsheet

This Open Source Social Entrepreneurship discussion has spurred an idea. Thanks to everyone who has posted, I've learned a great deal about "open source" projects aimed at progressive social change which I was previously unfamiliar with. I would love to learn about even more-- hence, my idea.

• What's the issue that concerns you?

Too many individuals and organizations in the social sector are still protective of their methodologies and ideas. In short, the idea of open source social entrepreneurship embodied by this discussion, unfortunately, still represents a minority viewpoint in our sector. I’m interested in how we can work together to change this.

• What's the idea?

To transform the social sector into the open sector.

• How do we get there?

We start with just three simple steps.

1. ) Together, we co-create a simple set of principles to guide the work (overarching philosophies and underlying practices) of social sector organizations towards increased openness in our sector.
2. ) We post these principles on a simple, carefully-crafted website and describe various social sector projects that we already know of which embody them. (We would also need to seek permission of those directly involved to post summary descriptions on the site and label them "open sector" projects.)
3. ) We invite others involved in existing projects which already meet these criteria to post their own descriptions using a simple standardized form (for consistency and clarity) and list and categorize them for others to learn about and potentially get involved.

In the beginning, we would need to be highly proactive in our efforts to find such projects. However, eventually I think we could reach a point of critical mass and shift the site into cruise control mode.

To re-cap, the goal would be two-fold.

1. ) To create a permanent space to learn about and get involved with open source projects benefiting humanity and our planet. We already have a number of examples from this thread, such as: www.floss4good.org, www.hfoss.org, www.p-ced.com, www.uia.org/encyclopedia. Another great example is www.openarchitecturenetwork.org.
2. ) To inspire others to create their own open source social sector (a.k.a.-- open sector) projects by providing them with a simple guiding set of principles to abide by and by providing countless examples of what these principles actually look like in action.

I truly hope to move forward on this and welcome all the help I can get. If anyone out there is interested in assisting in this effort, please let me know. ncryder > gmail dot com

[Human society is naturally non-violent.] All society is held together by non-violence, even as the earth is held in her position by gravitation. But when the law of gravitation was discovered the discovery yielded results of which our ancestors had no knowledge. Even so when society is deliberately constructed in accordance with the law of non-violence, its structure will be different in material particulars from what it is today...

• Gandhi

The problem There alot of folks who require help and there are a lot who would like to help but how do u connect them?

My solution www.earnkarma.org is a free online web service that helps individuals and organizations to post opportunities that require any kind of assistance. EarnKarma.org connects them with millions of people who would like to assist in any possible way. For instance, if an organization is conducting a medical camp in a village and would like to ask individual(s) for any kind of assistance, they can do by it posting such opportunities in our website.

Do let me know what you think about this

The problem There alot of folks who require help and there are a lot who would like to help but how do u connect them?

My solution www.earnkarma.org is a free online web service that helps individuals and organizations to post opportunities that require any kind of assistance. EarnKarma.org connects them with millions of people who would like to assist in any possible way. For instance, if an organization is conducting a medical camp in a village and would like to ask individual(s) for any kind of assistance, they can do by it posting such opportunities in our website.

Do let me know what you think about this

Greetings. I write in hopes of generating interest, regarding a pottery water filter, that is, effective, inexpesnive, acceptable to users and sustainable. Please have a look at the web site, www.SilverCeramicSystems.com . It's about open source technology.