Community Mobilization

Water, Design, Life

In certain communities, access to watter is the key to survival, and thank to high design there is a more practical water transportation mechanism than buckets on heads. The Hippo Roller is nothing more than a barrel with a hollow center through which you place a harness and drag / pull it behind you. With curved shoulders it is ideal or traversing winding paths and unpaved roads. GOOD NEWS has a fantastic show on the development of the Roller.

This inspired me to look a bit further into water access and technology. I found an old Boing Boing post I remembered reading about using the power of play to drive wells. Seesaws and round abouts drive the pumping mechanisms, bringing valuable water to the surface and into holding tanks from aquifers in arid regions.

I also looked for and found a copy of a presentation by Alex Steffen from WorldChanging.org at POPTech! about sustainability. When i was there in 2006 and he had on display a Hippo Roller prototype! What was interesting was the way that the community at POPTech was so enamored with the idea of design and how it can make such an impact on the lives of so many that everyone at that meeting went back to their challenges with design in mind.

iPhone Baby Monitor

There seems to be an endless stream of useful, and semi useful applications for the the iPhone. As a parent I will give the iPhone baby monitor application a nod and speak to the value of innovation that made this possible.

The intrinsic value of the iPone is not that it is a great gadget, but that it allows people to develop amazing tools for a device that seems to have the structure to enable an unlimited number of creative uses. The baby monitor application uses a few of the features parlayed into each other (sound recognition, movement recognition, and cellular calling) to make a usefull application. Someone could easily have rebranded this as an intrusion alarm that will call the home phone if it detects the sound of a breaking window, or a person going through drawers. They did not - the developer saw a more gentel and meaningful use - monitoring a sleeping baby from anywhere on the 3G Network. Nice purpose driven development!

The Irrational Logic Of Twitter Spam

I was doing some cleaning upon my twitter lists today and I began to notice more and more spam accounts. Heck, there are event twitterspam, and stop twitter spam sites. Give, we all knew this would happen eventually, but the concept is illogical. Micro posting spam is about as effective as e-mail spam ... it gets caught and you get booted. Moreover users, I would think, would tun off your feed, report you, and then you get booted.

On the other hand, I have seen some nice uses of marketing via twitter. Product updates, information, and insider goodies all are appearing on twitter seducing potential users to join the stream and reap the rewards. As it is still a relatively small community, comparatively, I think there is a lot of intimacy and authenticity here and that is why I am taking the time to clean out my lists and make sure I am really getting the updates I.

Innovation Market Place

One of the most difficult things about being a leading organization is maintaining a competitive edge through the development and implementation of innovative ideas. Often organizations and their employees are so involved in their work that they lack the time or perspective to generate innovative concepts to bring to market.

So the smartest organizations are asking everyone for their input. Part of the benefit is the capacity for outside perspective from numerous people converging on one problem, or a set of problems. The New York Times has an article out about this crowd sourcing of innovative ideas. The American Cacner Society does something similar through its ACS Springboard Innovation program. ACS solicits ideas from all of its staff and volunteers but also has a portal open to the public.

Games That Move You

In the Netherlands there is a new gaming system that gets kids up and moving outside and indoors too. Swinx is a device that have downloadable audio profiles that organize and direct kids in fun games anywhere there is some open space. Players wear RFID wristbands to help Swinx determine position and activity level of each player.

David Neff on using social media tools in Non Profits

Our friend and social media maven Beth Kanter has posted a insightful interview with our other friend and frequent co-presenter David Neff. David using the Sharinghope.tv platform to provide 3 key tips to non profits when entering the social medial space.

The tips are 1. Experiment, 2. Buys a video Camera, and 3. Research what other companies and organizations are doing in the field and learn from their success and mistakes. These suggestions are not only valid for nonprofits but they ring true to any organization or company. Part of being successful is understanding the space you are entering. Any for profit company will invest money and research into understanding new markets before getting into them. With social media all you really need is a few adventurous staff members to try things on with an eye always focusing on the organization's goal.

Sharing Hope TV gets press coverage

Our program Sharing Hope TV recently received press coverage from a local Austin, TX news broadcast. The story takes a look at one user and how she is using the platform to support others in their fight against cancer. Our good friend David Neff was interviewed and really discusses the community nature of the space.

What is of particular interest is how the community at Sharing Hope TV is able to self express and support at the same time. The community is a niche community and they are using the site and the underlying technology in new was not previously designed for. Of major interest is the Creative Commons content compositions, where one artists compiles and reconstitutes works, or pieces of works from other artists into something new and unique.

One Man Non Profits Part III - The Power of Compounding Effort

Albert Einstein said 'The most powerful force in the Universe is compound interest'. To that I say 'the most powerful force in philanthropy is compound interests.' The ability to bring people together based on a common interest and to make an impact is, in my opinion, the most important skill for a philanthropy to develop and hone. Superficially this flies in the face of the idea of the one man non profit. If real ultimate power comes from compounding the interests across as wide an area as possible then how effective can a hyper local one man non profit be?

The short answer is not very. HOWEVER it is my opinion that the large  nationwide organizations should pay attention to this micro trend and formulate a strategy to attract and support these  entrepreneurial philanthropists to further large scale medical and epidemiological research.

Nationwide organizations can leverage their fund raising vendors (Convio, E-Tapestry)for a system to enable one-off events. Beyond the fund raising appropriations there are legal concerns as well. Branding, trademarks, and a host of other technical concerns may stymie entrepreneurial philanthropists from engaging large organizations, and so they create their own.

As much as we would like to dismiss this trend it is building in momentum and volume. The next iteration of philanthropy will be to empower volunteers and donors to create something that they could intrinsically call their own. The association or agency that can make that process as user friendly for the constituent will continue to grow in importance and ability to move mission.

Map Mashups for Fundraisers

I just found a really good map mashup for the greater New York area that shows the locations of all of the Relay For Life events on a map. Creating mashups like these are neat for visual learners and those who like to see where events that are taking place are close to them.

As mashups continue to proliferate we will see additional medias being combined. Sharing Hope .TV is a site that encourages users to upload their own content about their cancer experience. Best part is that the site allows constituents to license their content Creative Commons. All of this is important to seeding mashups.

Influence of Internal and External Networks on the Outcomes of Strategic Change in Organizations

Alexander Alexiev is presenting on the internal and external networks have direct impact on strategic decision making from top level leadership. The complexity of decision making is complex so the research looked at the difference in exploitation and exploration. He is looking at the network differentiation in ration vs. consensus decision making. Only Ration is featured in the report. Two major factors were the homogeneity and consistency of senior management and the change pace of the market the industry was in.

In exploration having a Heterogeneous  board for  exploration overrules outside social network influences. The same thing is true in the dynamic fast paced environment - a heterogeneous core is very critical. One of the key future factors will be the tracking of centrality of executive officers and the bounds of external networks and their reach. Access of those networks is also a key consideration. The dependent variable was sales and product development and the question was if the new innovations were tied to new technologies or revivals of existing items.