Hello?

Happy New Year! Anyone around yet, or are we all recovering?

Feel free to drop in and make a comment...

Happy 2008 Charles. I'll see if I can't help get this discussion going. I posted a few images on my blog that I encourage you and others to look at. http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2007/12/many-to-one-not-one-to-many.html

One is a favorate picture I took from my grandmother's house when she died about 30 years ago. It's of a lonesome horseman. I think lots of working in social benefit orgs feel this way.

Below the photos are two charts I call one to many, and many to one. Take a look at them and let's talk about how they relate here.

We can either try to solve the problems we're facing by each working alone, or we can find ways to help each other.

That's my description of the problem, and the solution.

And working together is the gist of something arriving on Facebook a few days ago.

http://www.slide.com/r/_NAQN62Z4j9GxjRdWC_Wumk-C0st8kRM

As a matter of interest, Given this new social opportunity, how many social purpose organisations connect with each other in this new space?

my impression is that they don't much at all, more a zero sum game to gather the most supporters and imprint a brand. An astute businessman might weigh the cost of gaining a tranche of any customer base, but in this endeavour it seems not to be the case.

Hi Daniel:

QUOTE: We can either try to solve the problems we're facing by each working alone, or we can find ways to help each other. :UNQUOTE

That's the most basic and all encompassing version .

One thing that always strikes me here is that we often post what are in effect personal statements, and only seldom respond to one another

so there's an accumulation of points made, but not so much of a sense of indivioduals connecting with individuals. And from my experience in other online environments where people respond to each other's ideas, I know that a strong sense of community can be created by simple back and forth of messages in which the "other" is first recognized, then gradually becomes better known.

When a bunch of people all do this at once, there's a very powerful feeling of community and support that arises, and I wish we could slowly build that support and caring here on the Edge, as you and I (for instance) have been doing for a couple of years now.

Hi Jeff,

and Happy New Year to you too!

I meant to wish Daniel a HNY, but my post got sent before I was quite done with it, and includes one of those horrid bold-face bits followed by an indented rest of the para which happens whenever I put two dashes into a post, which I often use instead of a comma. Argh. I usually try to go back and get rid of them, because it makes it look as though the part in bold face is especially important, and it isn't, it's just a glitch,

Anyway, the point about Facebook which you're making does pretty much parallel Dan's, doesn't it? And mine.

I'd like this place to be the place we come together, because it's set up for the social entrepreneurial community. And I'm not saying "let's flood the place with chat", just that if each of us added a short sentence or para greeting someone else who has posted and making a brief comment, we'd begin to create more of a conversation and less of a list of posts.

And in my view, that (conversation, and ensuing sense of community) creates the sort of soil in which a more collaborative sense, in line with the video you pointed to, can grow.

So, Dan, if you're reading this, a Happy New Year back at you!

To you Charles, and all those participating/reading here. ;-)

Dan BTW, happens to be one of the people who does collaborate, in the sense that we cross refer to each other's community activities on our web presences.

On the subject of coming together, One might imagine that in a country like the UK where social enterprise has been included as part of government policy it would be easier. The truth is that open discussion is far from encouraged. It's the US who lead in this area of fee-free network participation.

Hi Charles, Jeff,

Happy New Year to you both, and to others who read these messages. The three of us have gotten to know, and respect, each other as a result of several years of interaction in various forums. Yet we've never met each other. That shows the potential of building on-line relationships.

I have started a group in Facebook with the goal of creating a linkage between myself and many others who also use Facebook, and who also are invited in various forms of tutoring/mentoring, or in social network analysis, GIS or other things related to what I do. I use Facebook the same way I use Google. I do searched from time to time to see who else I can find. When I find a group that is related, I join, and post an intro, and an invitation to collaborate. I do this on Linked In too.

In many cases I add links to these groups on my http://www.tutormentorconnection.org web site, and I'm beginning to see a trickle of people posting articles on the site, and helping me build this community.

However, I don't have a flood of responses to this, although I do track about 6,000 visitors and 80,000 page views per month to my web site. I just don't think there are that many people actively trying to build networks of purpose, by going into other people's space as part of a strategy of inviting them to your own space. Jeff does this. A few others do.

I think the primary challenge to building such a community on Social Edge is that "social entrepreneurship" is generic. It applies to many causes in many ways. It's hard to build passion and long-term involvement around something that is generic. I've hosted a conference in Chicago for 15 years and some people have attended more than 50% of these. They keep coming back because it's relevant to what they care about.

I think that unless forums like Social Edge provide focus areas, such as AIDs in a country, of Water issues in India, or Tutor/Mentor in the US, or in Chicago, it will be difficult to build on-going participation in the forum, which is fundamental to building strong relationships, trust, and the willingness to help each other.

Charles, one of the reasons I come back here is that you have always been welcoming in your response to my comments and to others. I thank you.

I take Dan's point that, "I think the primary challenge to building such a community on Social Edge is that "social entrepreneurship" is generic. It applies to many causes in many ways. It's hard to build passion and long-term involvement around something that is generic," but I also think his following comment is significant:

QUOTE: I think that unless forums like Social Edge provide focus areas, such as AIDs in a country, of Water issues in India, or Tutor/Mentor in the US, or in Chicago, it will be difficult to build on-going participation in the forum, which is fundamental to building strong relationships, trust, and the willingness to help each other. :UNQUOTE

The primary aim of SocialEdge, it seems to me, is to serve as a resource for those who come here looking for information of various kinds, which I refer to as the "Reference Library" function. What I think of as the "Coffee House" function, where people begin to form friendships and some measure of collaboration here, comes second. To my mind, though, it should be not too distant a second, since the good will it builds can quite powerful. Perhaps I could put it this way: the "Reference Library" function is like capital, but the "Coffee House" aspect work be like compound interest.

So the idea of setting aside areas within SE for "AIDs in a country, or Water issues in India, or Tutor/Mentor in the US" - ie topical or geographical nodes, is something I'd like to brainstorm and perhaps propose to the decision makers.

Along those lines, I very much appreciated your comment, Dan, "Charles, one of the reasons I come back here is that you have always been welcoming in your response to my comments and to others. I thank you." That's exactly as I would hope we might all be, here, and althought I'm not much of a one for New Year's resolutions, I'd really like to see this year bring more of the kind of back-and-forth that we three engage in, which always delights me whether it's directed towards me or someone else.

Jeff, I hear you too when you say cooperative and collaborative thinking is slow to build in the UK, and mostly I'd just like to point you to a para from Daniel's blog, where he writes:

QUOTE: Those who lead small non profits, or are struggling to get social benefit ideas launched, may related to this One-To-Many graphic. We're constantly reaching out in many different directions, trying to find the help we need. We're like fish in a bowl, competing with thousands of others for a limited amount of dollars and volunteers. Unless you've got a powerful marketing machine, or are well connected in donor circles, you succeed some of the time, but not most of the time, and you spend tremendous amounts of emotional capital and energy all of the time. :UNQUOTE

Let me simplay say that last part:

you succeed some of the time, but not most of the time, and you spend tremendous amounts of emotional capital and energy all of the time --

sums up a great deal about the wear and tear involved here, and that it's something I wish the various funding sources would take into account, and that I wish we could alleviate ourselves via "mutual aid".

A wonderful word, that, "mutual aid". The biologist prince, Kropotkin, considered it as powerful a driver in evolution as the Darwinian competitive drive for success. Let's not forget it.

Charles, thanks for taking time to read and quote some of the comments on my blog. I'd like to offer a follow up to your hope that Social Edge might offer some leadership in this area.

I've pointed to the Boston Innovation Hub at http://www.tbf.org/indicatorsproject/hubofinnovation/innovation.asp ever since I first saw the site about 2 years ago. It's a navigation wheel that represents all of the issues important to people in the Boston area. Click on a slice of the pie and you get a page with information specific to that category.

I feel this could be duplicated in any city, and on hubs like Social Edge. I also feel there are different versions of the wheel. At this link I show a similar wheel, with spokes leading to the types of talent needed for me to achieve my mission: http://cmapspublic.ihmc.us/servlet/SBReadResourceServlet?rid=1189368290546_1787162000_15115&partName=actualhtmltext

A similar map shows the networks I'm trying to connect. Thus, we can map issue areas, and we can map challenges, related to achieving an issue. The aim is to connect people and resources who are already focused on an issue, or working to solve the same problem. Jeff, have you tried to diagram the people or networks who you might connect with to solve the problems you're describing, or to help you achive the goals you set up your business to achieve?

About problems that is, Charles. I can offer some real illustrations. We operate under a for-profit model as a small business and like many small businesses find ourselves beholding to larger organisations for payment. In many instances we are kept waiting, in one case a year so far, by an organ of government which partners with a nonprofit foundation to host yet another social enterprise network. So, I and my cause must wait, in deference to their entry into the advocacy scene.

It is somewhat ironic that the same organisation has recently been ejected from country where we operated in the past, us being blocked 4 years ago. Allegedly, they infringed financial regulations. I sympathise, we know how such infringements can be contrived, but when it came down to the wire, when small orgs began being ejected under a change of political climate - they did not speak out because they were not a small org. We now in turn cannot attest to their financial integrity because it hasn't been demonstrated to us.

When I bring up the issue, I don't want a sympathetic "I know how it is" response from the benefactor network of which I've become a member. I want honesty and integrity, so that my small business isn't pay ing taxes to a government who with another hand, fails to pay their bills, taking me and especially my cause to the brink. Rather than yet another group banging the drum about social enterprise I need solidarity to ensure we are all treated fairly.

Our work is a region which can be politically hostile. Unsurprisingly we face antagonism. In particular, an anonymous smear blog hosted by Google. They should more than most understand the concept of for profit social benefit, grasp the idea that "Doing no evil" has associations with failing to take a stand where their services are abused.

Neither of these things involve funding or donations but they do require a corporate spine.

From where I stand, the whole thing is a crock, with those left outside the club, simply skinned for their contrbutions and ground into the dust with a host of social networks looking on and shrugging their shoulders.

This is but a sample. I'll not go on....

Just to let you know I'm moving from LA County to Arizona tomorrow, Monday, and will be back online Tuesday if the gods permit.

Let's keep talking...

Realizations are reinforced systematically -

Whenever we go through a situation where we preffered it shouldn't have or rather we wish we could have avoided- the immediate realization is that similar experience we had some time ago.Context might me different and issue might be different but outcome is the same>displeasure/unhappiness/hurt.

I see the resoultion is to relook at what you went through the year and see that you dont get into similar situations.

I for myself decided to be small(organisation),be available, promise to deliver if it can be done by me and keep learning and wait.

Wait??????????

Wait for situations you can deliver best and bring in smile for myself and the companions.

I just wanted to log back in, let you know I now have net connectivity in my new place of abode, say hi to Prakash once again, and in general invite further discussion...

Jeff, can you get a newspaper interested in pillorying the govt for the way they deal with you?

Charles, I hardly know where to begin. Jerr Boschee some time ago suggesting me contacting a Baroness Thornton, which I did at her House of Lords address. We'd submitted a funding proposal for a UK community broadband service, which was rejected because there were "too many of these and funding was being restricted to full cooperatives", then my colleague Terry was barred from re-entering the UK leaving us a social enterprise with no director. I had no reply, neither from her or another Lords member I wrote to later. This isn't supposed to be the response.

No interest from any newspapers. Reminding me that one of my late payers is a newspaper, part of the Guardian media group. You will find Guardian editors at advocacy events and promoting their own efforts in Katine, of course.

Our government promote a Pay on Time campaign which I think came from the Office of the Deputy Prim Minister who will respond to tell you that "all government departments and their contractors are obliged to settle undisputed invoices within 30 days".

Anyone one thing at a time. Our defamation experience seems to have been hosted by a major social networking platform for close to a year. A bogus profile promotes the smear blog which Google hosts. Additionally, the author of said blog appears to be recorded as a consultant for an NGO working in the same city, it rather looks like the sponsors of this org are funding his online abuse. Naturally they have no answer, when I ask the question.

Anyway, after 3 attempts at getting a response from TIG, a social enterprise partner of the British Council, one of my long term debtors, I've decided to go more public with it here.

http://www.ned.com/group/community-general/news/109/

And here, on their own Facebook group

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2212236019&topic=3532

I don't know what to say, Jeff.

I wish there was an ombudsman or tribunal that could sort this out for you with some authority... this is just sparking at random, here, I don't and can't know the details, but could the Prince's Trust take an interest in some way, or are they exclusively concerned with "inside the UK" matters... I mean, this is both inside the UK and Ukraine-based, and I suppose risks falling between two stools if people's rules are tightly written in respect to place.

Wish I had something better to offer than encouragement.

Charles, I was trying to think of a title for it, i.e. the collective influence of both accidental negligence and deliberate acts of sabotage in a social networking/social enterprise environment.

Maybe one might become that tribunal you suggest? After all we all took up SE to tackle a problem of one kind or another.

Aside from those things which are simply unhelpful we perhaps have too much simple faith, in that by constructing a social network, we might not take into account that someone might use the service to do harm to others. Where are we as moderators, with two people elsewhere in the globe both claiming to be the same person?

Our use of the internet may be subject to laws, but if someone simply moves to a country where these laws cannot be enforced, we are defenceless. We can be pretty sure however, that as with computer viruses, that what we're seeing so far is amateur night stuff when it comes to using social networks to propagate misinformation and deny others freedom of expression. These things are already happening against human rights sites.

I'm pondering.

Could you email me so I can forward something to you?

I'm hipbone at earthlink dot net

Dear Friends,

The lines you are going to read now are my life experiences and I thought in this dialogue what we are having, I felt it fits in for reflection:

Iam the youngest in the family and I had a sister who suffered from Congenital Heart Disease, we grew together as she had no energy I used to carry her school bag, as she could not dance or run I used to do for her and she enjoyed it.

She used to be very sensitive and she used to save 25 paise for every ruppee which was given to us and she was admitted in hospital many times for medical treatment, she was in need of a medical graduate at home, so I joined medical stream.

I just completed my first year and I took my first exam (Biochemistry) and my sister was advised surgical intervention and it was decided to be performed in Perambur Railway Hospital (1983)and a doctor from US by name CARP and a local surgeon by name Jr.Cherian attended the case and surgery was done. The surgery was a failure and she died in post operative care unit.

I was in no mood to see her body at that time I felt I saw her alive and let me not see her as dead.I was 18then.

Friends, it took lots of time to accept that she is no more.In 1986 I joined an NGO as a volunteer, where the organisation was very active in influencing youth and I learned why we need to be accountable to the society we represent.

As the years passed by, I completed my medicine and my masters in health adminstration and I joined Catholic Health Association of India(CHAI) as Medical officer in charge of trainings and thus I had opportunity to be with people and toured entire India and learned what is going on.

I was convinced that I need to be free to understand why suffering is existing in spite of growth and the need made me quit the organisation and initaite my own organisation -Life-Health Reinforcement Group in 1999.

By the time I quit a formal Job, I got married and gave education to my wife who graduated to be a gynecologist and we were blessed with two children.

Everything was going well and in June 2000 my brother called and said " I am feeling dyspnoiec even at rest" when we investigated we found he was suffering from -PRIMARY PULMONARY HYPERTENSION.And the doctors declared that he might be living for a maximum of 1-6years.

This was a shock for me and I asked Sr.Ancy of CHAI whetehr I should continue my quest for understanding Life and people or close an join as employee, she said if money could bring health to your brother do it or else continue with what you are doing.

So, I continued with my life work and systematically (though I was living with my parents) I was delinked with my family matters.And in January 2006 the inevitable had dawned and I lost my brother and my father couldn't take this and he left us in May 2006.

Still I continued with added vigour and I initiated a New initiative -OPEN HOUSE ( a place where their is access to food and lots of dialogue on life)which helped me to absorb shocks of my life.

Today though I am busy with the initiatives and purpose and I recieved and recieveing adequate response and acknowledgments in the form of awards and publications about us in the media, but a gap exists, a huge unrest and very difficult feeling to express.

Disease and Death had taken a huge toll on my life, I was bubbly, funloving and wherever I went their was joy and merry, now I resist myself to be among celebrations and I feel lots of solace to be with people in need and enjoy only when I serve.

I wish none should go through what I went though.

A costly lesson indeed.

Thank you for sharing your personal story. You ended by saying "you enjoy only when you serve." I think many people have been inspired to service by some tragic even in their lives.

I'm like the group to consider two questions.

First, there are millions of people suffering as much, or more, because of poverty, war, disease, in India and throughout the world. Why don't more of these people, or the survivors, take up similar paths of service?

Secon, how can we innovate ways to inspire people who don't live in poverty, have not yet been struck by health tragedies, or been victems of war, violence and/or terror, to dedicate parts of their lives to service, and gain the same joy that you, me, and many others find in doing meaningful work to help others?

I don't have an answer, but spend lots of time looking for it.

Daniel I always followed tutormentor postings from your side.

A very intense and systematic postings from your side.

Its very difficult decision to post the story, a real life time story.

A traumatic experience indeed but when I see many dying other than the reason of disease or because of ageing, its more traumatic.(this is what you mentioned in your posting).

Daniel and others what I see is choice of being with people and do what you can, is a personal choice. I always believe that being with people in need is being with God.

Yes a very sincere wish that earlier we realize the finnitness of once life and fact that life is all about living with uncertainities, we become more complete.

Daniel my work is simple which anybody can do - give education to children, respect and protect women, care the aged and feed the hungry people who couldn't organize for some reason and finally reflect on life and learn everyday.

I just love Socialedge so I share.

-surya prakash.

Thanks, Prakash, for your story and your service.

Daniel, I think part of the answer to your two questions must lie in Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Do you know Ken Wilber's work with Don Beck on a "developmental stages" model? They're at least trying to picture how we grow / mature, where we get stuck, and where we can rise to an occasion or plummet during a disaster...

Whenever we consume more, we become comfortable, if we loosen a bit.

I see in life too, we tend to overdo and we need to understand how best we can comfort ourselves.

As I mentioned before it calls for lots of understanding and courage to be contented and especially who are able.

I see lots of encroaching in others spaces is the major reason for needed development not happening.

Charles as I said earlier, I always enjoy your responses and I like to submit here that what I am doing is nothing but what I am supposed to do and I dont know anything except what I am doing.

-surya prakash.

These are some of the problems I faced and how I addressed them:

Problem : Death of my sister Fixes > by choosing a life to be led with people who are in need.

Problem:Working in Non-Profit organisations, saw lack of needed transparency and fair play.

Fixes > by initiating and establishing an organisation with complete transparency and keeping the promises made.

Problem:Funding groups(No doubt the ones we faced only) saw limitation of undersatnding process based organisation.

Fixes > by making activities completly community based thus participation by locals who are resources got enhanced.

Problem:Uncertainity of life

Fixes > by realting with elders and knowledge groups and thus continous dialogue on life helped to face unceratinities.

Problem: Too many issues to be addressed.

Fixes > by identifying activities which are basic and essential such as Food, health and dialogue on life.

I have an issues that is keeping me up at night:

My question concerns children who end up as slaves/forced laborers to corrupt moneylenders.

Situation: A child falls ill, and the parents opt to treat the child and receive approximately a $20 medical bill. Being poor, they cannot pay. They go to a moneylender who gives them a loan. To pay back the loan, the child is given to the moneylender as a worker. He, however, being corrupt sets her salary so low that she never make a profit. She remains in bondage for her life, unable to pay the loan. (I first read about this specific issue in Not For Sale by David Batstone).

Questions:

1) Is anyone familiar with this issue or know of organizations seeking to address this issue?

2) Does anyone know a model "out there" for addressing this specific situation? (To me, it seems the model would be creating a SAFE MONEYLENDING ENTITY).

I am familiar with a few microfinance companies as well as the model of the Grameen Bank (Professor Yunus mentions in his book Banker to the Poor that a small percentage of loans from his bank go to these specific cases). However, I know at least in the Grameen Bank the majority of loans are for profit-generating business ideas/plans/start-ups rather than non-profit generating issues, such as medical bills. 3) Hence, must our "model" solution/company be changed in this case to best address this type of poverty?

Thank you for your time.