Evolutionize It

How one group of war-affected Ugandans is co-creating the future they want

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 05:23:00 +0000

Evolutionize It founder, Christina Jordan, spoke at TedXChiangMai in Sept 2014 about a war-affected Ugandan community that is working together to co-create the future they want.

Nurturing progress in marginalized communities

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 09:55:00 +0000

Sometime several years ago, after decades of working in diverse international development contexts, it finally dawned on me that everyone - even the poorest on the planet - must take responsibility for their own progress in life in order for progress to occur.

Don't get me wrong - this is not about assigning blame. Yes, there are often terrible and complex circumstances beyond any individual's control which can mitigate the ability of people to make things happen in their lives. There are certainly things that governments and organizations can and should do to improve those circumstances. In the end, however, it is people themselves who choose to seize opportunities and pull themselves ahead. If they don't choose to, then progress doesn't happen in spite of the best laid development plans.

A key to development, then, lies not just in nurturing opportunities for change to occur, but in encouraging people to act in the interest of their own progress. In communities of very poor or marginalized people, creating opportunities is never quite enough. People need to feel and believe in their own possibility before they can make sense out of opportunities, and that's a process that can take a little time.

Just this morning I was talking with a friend about a community of Burmese refugees who live at a trash dump in Mae Sot (Thailand). I have been visiting them regularly over the past few months, which has led to the Piglets for Progress campaign (launching at startsomegood later this month). My friend - who has also visited the dump - wondered aloud whether the community actually wants to take responsibility for their own development. While I can't answer for them, of course, what I do know is that people living at the dump have spent the past 10-15 years feeling completely powerless and afraid of being chased away by Thai authorities.

In that kind of restrictive circumstance - with a long living memory of things often going very wrong - taking responsibility for one's own progress does not just come naturally. The fear of what might go wrong for undocumented immigrants is very valid, and serves as a powerfully discouraging force to try anything that might shake up the (intolerable) status quo.

To get beyond that, the people who find themselves in some of the worst human conditions that our planet has to offer need to feel and experience the potential of progress in baby steps in order to begin to believe in their own range of possibility. For someone who intends to really help, that starts with asking - not telling them - what they can do, and listening for positivity that can be encouraged. Taking the time to listen and believe in people's truth about their own situation and potential is one of the simplest, yet most powerful tools that any development professional has to work with. If we want people to take responsibility for their own progress, we must first help them believe that they can.

Frankly, I never gave much thought to piglets, in a general sense. I will, however, make an impassioned and creative plea for them on the trash dump community's behalf at pigletsforprogress.org. Of course I hope - like they do - that the community will experience improved livelihoods and that the number of children going to school will increase. What I hope for the most, however, is that the piglet project will leave them with the living memory of a time when they identified something they thought they could do to take responsibility for their own progress, and experienced making it happen.

I'm betting that once they have a taste of possibility, they'll be hungry for more.... and maybe less afraid to pursue it.

Please support the Piglets for Progress campaign today at Startsomegood.com/pigletsforprogress

Accelerating collective #socent impact? @ci2iglobal is born in the afterglow of #we_b

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:42:00 +0000

Below is a lyrical personal story of what recently happened when I invited some worldshaping women friends to Brussels in January 2012, to co-host an experimental co-creation lab for accelerating global social impact and innovation.

I compiled these images and wrote this story (without twitter handles or links) for a Pecha Kucha evening in Brussels on 25 January, which means I had only 20 seconds to speak about each image - that's 6 min 40 sec total to tell the whole story of what was an extremely transformative experience. It didn't go perfectly, but all in all, a great learning by doing experience I can highly recommend for sharpening your changemaker presentation and storytelling skills.

I would also share that collaging and then turning the story lyrical in the days following these events were both very intense, even catalytic ways, to distill and harvest what really happened for me. I have mindfully told this from a very personal perspective, because I can't say at all that the deep shift which happened for me is representative of what everyone at the #we_b event experienced.

I do know that the whole @ci2iglobal group, however, continues to be deeply moved by what we experienced together with the amazing #we_b participants, and in our debrief and planning session after the event (not to mention dancing together until 4 in the morning in between those!).

Enjoy the story ~ I'd love comments on how it makes you feel.

(You can click on each image to see a larger version, if you need to.)

--------

This is a story about a mosaic

of social entrepreneurs, changemakers and worldshapers.

In my belief system, they are the living angels

in which the hope of our planet currently lies.

It’s a her-story.

that’s becoming

a history of WE-stories.

It’s a story about accelerating the work of “changemakers” around the world.

And since I am one of them, it’s also my story.

I first fell in love with the simple word “WE”

when I was using it to catalyze

Webbed Empowerment

in an East African warzone.

I'd been amazed when

an organization “labelled” me

a “leading changemaker”

because of essentially personal passions

I was pursuing.

But I became aware in those days

that there were other people like me,

who were driven to serve the world

by something different inside.

My passion for WE

moved with later me to Brussels,

where I’ve explored & found

work for myself in the emerging

global changemaker scene.

There’s lots of us now!

At the start of this year (2012), I invited five friends

- fellow women changemakers -

to gather from 3 continents at my home.

Each in unique ways they are my angels, and

We see eye to eye on many things.

our plan was to have a conversation

and to host a conversation

about accelerating collective

global changemaker impact and innovation.

We invited a few people we knew

to join us for an experiment in Brussels.

that we called in the invitation "#we_b."

We also committed ourselves

to moving a conversation forward

around the world in the next 2 years.

Worldchanging folks heard the call

and gathered with us for this first ever WE_x co-creation lab.

The inspiring space filled with awe inspiring people

Their uniquely powerful energies

humbled us

as we bumbled through

our group’s first time working together as a team

Round 1 of group introductions confirmed

it would be a very exciting day

We were 20 changemakers

from 9 countries

with work on 5 continents

and unlimited passion in the room

into this pool of empowered people

we unleashed systems thinking content

and co-creative processes

and personal reflection.

With ease the group sparked and taught each other

about how the changemaker space is emerging today,

and explored what that could mean for each of us.

For 12 hours we conversed, we played, we ate, and made plans.

It was exhausting and exhilerating at the same time.

I learned so much.

One framework that cut naturally across

many of our conversations was

the @Thrivable action spectrum,

proposed by Jean who was there to share from Chicago

Seeing our actions as changemakers

through the lens of

what we can control

what we can guide

and what we can nurture

was so grounding.

a collective sigh of relief

seemed to ripple through

this group of often

over-committed over-achievers

as we got this.

Christelle from Paris

provoked us to think about impact

in terms of social risk and opportunity

How might we invite

new conversations with old system institutions and corporations,

that re-frame the story of why social inclusion matters?

What if

creating social impact

was valued in terms of

reducing social risk?

Bonnie from Chicago and Carolina from Buenos Aires

led discussions about scaling impact which left us wondering:

Must we all scale our impact?

Or can we find ways to work together

to achieve the impacts we seek at scale?

There is only so much each of us can do,

to control, guide, & nurture

the world’s current transformation.

But collectively

We are a new landscape

that’s daring to emerge

and through modeling with clay we learned:

We each define the impact we seek to create in this lifetime,

We each bring our own dynamic to the landscape,

and We each determine the direction we face

as we keep moving forward to serve

Our group included changemakers

at every stage of the European talent pipeline.

we were students and start-ups,

consultants and thought leaders and

directors from globally operating organizations

We’re still developing the basic language

to talk about what we do,

and why we do what we do.

Our simplest shared truth is that

we exist as a real community of human beings

who feel called to live our lives in service to the earth’s

transformation today.

It might sound to some of you

like our heads are in the clouds.

But as an angel who joined us reminded me,

each of us sees something different in the clouds.

and learning from what we all see

is the essence of the magic

that tapping into our collective wisdom offers.

The perspective we gain when we gather

helps all of us to see how to reach higher

another nugget from her, and this frilly doodle

that floated in from one of the many flipcharts

have given me a new appreciation for ginger lately

Did you know that ginger is a rhizome?

I’m told it’s a unique biological concept,

that needs no beginning or end to grow

the nodes grow where they are called to grow

without any perceptible effort

like the conversation that #we_b became

So people left us inspired,

some embarked on new paths of commitment and collaboration

The conversation moved online

with #we_b angels like @ladyniasan and others

organizing themselves to connect and

to share all their many thoughts.

But although this first #we_x lab was done

we knew,

the real harvest was yet to come.

In the afterglow

a warmth of women’s wisdom infused my Brussels home,

where we debriefed and distilled,

seeking meaning in it all

for another 12 hours.

With a renewed sense of common purpose,

but still without clarity on what we’d actually done,

we pondered ci2i logo options and

discussed and discussed and

asked ourselves,

again and again

Where does the #we_b conversation lead us?

For me personally, clarity came

once everyone else had finally gone.

In the house all empty and reflective

The silence started rumbling

as an organized unjumbling

of the many thoughts in my head

began to crystalize

and spill itself

onto the screen.

It was our ci2i group’s mosaic

of content and tools and process and future plans.

It that thing that drives me on this path.

Forming a clear picture
where there hadn’t been one before

of an approach - our collective approach -

to nurturing the changemaker’s call

to learn and become

who we are and what we can do

in this emerging new landscape

we're co-creating.

Working together to guide this discovery

in ourselves and in others,

is a natural way forward

my angels see eye to eye on

and I love it

since there is nothing else we can control.

For each changemaker carries our own cross for change

and follows our own integrated personal and professional development path,

that leads us toward the kind of impact on this transformation that

we are each here to make.

And every day,

more and more brilliant and

driven people

are picking their up their own crosses for change

and pursuing journeys in service to the earth's renewal,

toward humanity's higher good.

Look around and see us everywhere,

gathering in places like Brussels every day.

Are you one of us?

I’m glad they like ginger in Thailand,

since Chiang Mai is the next step in my own unique journey

Now preparing for new projects in the orient

I feel oriented.

#we_b was a powerful affirmation for me

of the the thriving existence of a global tribe

to which I know I belong.

I can only wonder

at what we’ll see

at #we_c !!

===== end =======

Special gratitudes to @appliedwisdom, @bonniekoenig, @christellevh @carolinatocalli @nurturegirl and the #we_b participants for all the amazing inspiration.

Thanks to you as well for reading and commenting if you feel so inspired. Feel free to share.

Follow us collectively at @c2iglobal

I'm at @ChristinasWorld

HUB 2.0 Leadership @HUBBrussels - Open Conversation on 8 December

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:44:00 +0000

As a member of the HUB Brussels Board, I was thrilled to send the following message to the HUB Brussels community and careholder mailing lists today, knowing that tremendous progress has been made in the past few weeks in finding constructive pathways through the complexities of our HUB's current profound redefinition. You'll see it re-posted on the HUB Brussels blog next week. (I've taken out the email addresses, so please feel free to connect around this via twitter @HUBBrussels if you'd like to join us.)

Hub Brussels is looking for new leadership: You're invited

Open conversation, 8 December 2011, 17h -18h30

Dear Hub members and careholders, dear friends,

We celebrate our 2nd birthday at la Chocolaterie tomorrow, knowing that 2012 will be a decisive year towards Hub Brussels 2.0: a new space, new leadership and new ambitions. There has been a lot of work over the past weeks to find the energy, fresh blood and brilliant ideas Hub Brussels needs now, to bring it to the next level.

Hub Members Bieke van Dijk and Marie-Gabrielle Amadieu have stepped up and engaged with many of you to accelerate the process of finding new leaders for Hub Brussels. This effort has the full support of the Board and the "old" co-founders in this process. Several of you have signalled to be ready to take on more engagement and ownership and that's great because we need an inspired new breed of kick-ass social entrepreneurs!

To create some space for a conversation about rejuvenating leadership and ownership of the Hub, you're invited to join us for an

Open conversation on 8 December, from 17.00- 18.30, at Hub Brussels,

to talk about the current state of the Hub, the plans for 2012, transition to the new Hub space, our roles (old co-founders, members, operational team, careholders, emerging new leaders, Hub network) and how each of us can engage in this process. We will also talk about the kind of people and qualities we are looking for, to fill gaps in the new team of HUB2.0 leadership talents that’s emerging.

In these times of chaos and uncertainty, a space for creating opportunities to make this world a better place is needed more than ever. This space is called the Hub. Together with the global HUB network, we’re on the cutting edge of innovation in how people connect for building a better world, and we count on you to be a part of our continued changes in Brussels.

We look forward to seeing you on 8 December (please confirm by replying to @HUBBrussels on Twitter) and please contact us beforehand if you have comments and ideas, at the Hub fair tomorrow (3 December) or elsewhere.

Hugs from the Hub,

For Board, team and co-founders
Alexander Riedl, Christina Jordan

What is a Changemaker, and how do I become one?

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:18:00 +0000

I have been having fun with this presentation lately as a conversation starter with groups of aspiring changemakers. I originally prepared it for a group of HUB Brussels members and Dutch civil sector students who were visiting the HUB on their European study tour.

Earlier this week, I recycled it for a round-table discussion at the Maastricht University Business School. What an honor to learn from those engaging young talents!

What is a changemaker, and how do I become one? on Prezi

What is a Changemaker? Reflections on Ashoka's EACH Vision and the Changemaker's Campus at #ACW2011

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:39:00 +0000

During the second quarter of this year, I had the honor of working with Ashoka Paris and a global team of professional group conversation facilitators in hosting a 3 day set of dynamic dialogues at the first ever Ashoka Changemaker's Campus. Our theme was building Ashoka's Everyone A CHangemaker or "EACH" Vision.

Months before June's global event, when I had just signed on to help the Paris team and was presenting some ideas for feedback from the rapidly growing Ashoka Belgium group, someone from a local company asked me "but what do you actually mean by the word changemaker?"

I remember winging an answer that most of the room seemed to feel comfortable with at the time, but today - yes, even after helping to organize and attending the Changemaker's Campus in Paris, I am still not 100% sure that my definition of a changemaker is the same as how others in my professional space use it. If I have learned nothing else in my years of exploring the emerging "changemaker space," it's that we tend to have lots of issues with semantics. In the end, that might not be such a bad thing.

Are you a Changemaker?

Of course you are - even if you're not calling yourself that yet.... and no, you actually don't have to participate in a changemaker campus to be one!

As I see us, we changemakers are a rapidly growing global tribe of hearts with minds who dare to accept and embrace that we actually can have a world where EVERYONE has the means and incentive to contribute to a thrivable human existence on this planet. We are the Blessed Unrest that Paul Hawken writes of - the largest movement in the world that nobody saw coming.

When I close my eyes and allow myself to see the EACH Vision as we embody it now, we are a beautifully gleaming mosaic of social innovators, social entrepreneurs, social investors, social enterprises, social ecosystem builders, socially engaged corporations, community based initiatives, NGOs, Foundations, LC3's, community action networks, government agencies, informed & engaged consumers, philanthropists, volunteers, moms, dads, kids and grandparents ALL OVER THE WORLD who have already decided and who will eventually decide to work together more and more, in big and small ways, to turn the world around, and set our planet's human development on a sustainable course for a thrivable future.

There we were at the Changemaker's Campus. 1000 of us with power networks, ready to reach across sectors and silos and backgrounds to start thinking big about growing the number of changemakers everywhere. We were bankers and policy wonks, practitioners and investors, corporations and consultants, and cutting edge social innovators from every corner of the globe tackling complex human challenges in incredibly exciting ways. We lived on campus at HEC, one of France's most prestigious business schools. We ran into each other to linger over serendipitous conversations in the long halls, outside of state of the art classrooms, where we learned from each other about our collective potential to build a world where the EACH vision could become real.

The Changemaker's Campus main 2 day "EACH program," with 3 cross-cutting collaboration tracks (which followed a special sectorally themed cluster program), turned out to be a delightfully gooey and messy banana split of an event experience (with drums sprinkled on top!), where the many flavors present worked wonderfully well together. For three days, we experienced the special magic that happens whenever changemakers gather. Idea sparks flew, mountains moved, foundations were built, and our collective sense of resolve and direction was sharpened.

There was a collectively intoxicating giddiness in the sudden knowing:

that we are many;
that we are powerful;
that we are very real and growing daily in our reach.

Changemakers are everywhere among us, already playing your parts to make the world a better place in large and small ways - many of us only beginning to understand the power of the impact we can have on the world with our personal choices about how we spend our time and money. Some of us are driving change from within the towers of industry, some of us are generous in helping out with crowdfunding and online votes for projects our friends send us links to. Some of us are driving innovation from within communities of likeminded people; some among us will influence new national policies, and millions of others of us are influencing the economy through spending habits that we are increasingly linking to the kind of impact we want our households to make in the world.

Ashoka's Founder, Bill Drayton, proposes that teaching empathy in elementary schools would create a next generation of changemakers that would really kick the building of a more peaceful society into overdrive. I couldn't agree more. But frankly, I also don't think we'll need to wait for those kids to grow up before we start witnessing an intense acceleration of Changemaker activity in the world. I personally sense that the most important "big thing" we must begin doing together is to work harder at measuring and showing the collective impact of the (billions?) of Changemaker actions that are now happening 24/7, all over the planet.

My call to all of us is what are we all measuring, and what can we start measuring together? Which indicators, which targets, which micro-level actions and trends can growing groups of us commit to measuring together, in ways that can help all of us more clearly see and understand the new world that is emerging through our collective actions? How wonderful it would be if we could figure out how to use our networks of networks to build bridges to a shared new perspective on what our unique pieces of the global change puzzle look like, when we are able to look at them together.

Co-creating a world where Everyone is a Changemaker involves all of us who believe in a better world taking a frank look inward, at our own personal values and potential value to society, and making choices in our lives that reflect the kind of human beings we want to be, and the kind of change in the global human condition that we want to be a part of. It is up to each of us, the world's people who choose to work and buy and invest in the part of society that believes in the betterment of humanity, to build our own bridges to a thriving new reality, and personally choose to walk over them.

Finding your own comfort zone within the Everyone A Changemaker vision is a transcendence of all political dogma; it's not a passing new age fad. It's about choosing to identify yourself with the growing global tribe that knows the world’s best kept secret: that alongside the armageddon of crumbling global economic and political systems we all see in the news lately, other kinds of widespread positive change in the human condition are possible and increasingly real today, thanks to the growing millions of individuals, families, organizations and institutions that are engaging in new kinds of dynamic alliances across silos, across boundaries, and across dogma to co-create it. The world we are building holds empathy for the human condition at it’s core.

There is hope.

Look around you, people. See the bridges to a more just society around you everywhere, and choose to walk into the reality of building and being the better world you believe in. We changemakers are the anti-conspiracy movement that’s opening up new possibilities for each and every person on the planet to thrive, in an inclusive, cooperative and a thriving world.

Trust me, even if reading this blog post is the first time you’ve ever thought of yourself as a changemaker in whatever position life finds you, I can assure you it won’t be the last time in your lifetime that you will be called upon to reflect on the impact you can make in building a better world. We are taking over the world's leading business schools. We are infiltrating old institutions and (not so covertly) co-creating some new ones. We are sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents from all over the world who are embracing this life’s large and small opportunities to redress local and global imbalances.

Surely if you have access to the information today that leads you to this post, you are already powerful beyond measure in what you know you can do with a few simple searches or clicks to support your favorite cause, social action or concern. What I guess I’m really saying Paris gave me is a certainty that more of those kinds of easy choices, on many levels in our lives, are yet to come. Changemakers at all levels of society are conspiring to create a world where all of us doing our part is as easy and natural as breathing. If you don’t think you are a changemaker yet, you will be... we are making sure of that :-)

#gratitude to Ashoka for allowing me to play such an active role in thinking through HOW to host the amazing event that the Changemaker’s Campus became, and to the amazing group of facilitators who lived up to the trust I place in them to help make the event "anything but a conference." I loved the experience and feel transformed in my thinking about my own potential value as a Changemaker because of it.

Feeling inspired? Share this post with some budding changemakers in your life and pass the positive energy along :-)

The WE Alliance for Women's Empowerment

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:52:00 +0000

This year, in the context of Ashoka's Changemaker's Week, I have been honored to serve in a volunteer leadership role on one of the most exciting collaborations ever, with a fabulous group of women and men who have dedicated their lives to empowering women across the globe.

The WE Alliance on Prezi

As I posted to the WE Alliance mailing list, here's a very brief report of what WE experienced together on the 20th (& 21st-22nd) of June 2011, at the Ashoka Changemaker's Week in Paris:

What we did:

We got to know each other a tiny bit with some personal sharing
We watched the presentation http://prezi.com/smn7wdisq573/the-we-alliance/
We got bogged down in mapping the impact we each stand for, by philosophical discussions about gender equality versus women's empowerment
We wondered about who decided, and why it was decided that we needed to establish an alliance

We moved to another space and worked in a larger group with some fresh perspectives on thinking through the potential Who, What, How and Why of the WE Alliance idea
We went back to our "home" room and made a collective list of everything that needed to be decided upon in order to take the WE Alliance forward (and also explored some concrete ways to influence Ashoka)
We created an exploratory committee to further develop a proposal around the issues identified and report back to the larger group with it in the Fall
We shared our reflections (after sleeping on it for a night) with each other and some additional changemakers at a scheduled lunch meeting on the following day

We shifted our focus to other worldchanging topics, but continued to share, discuss and take action on pieces of the WE Alliance idea informally with each other
We continued to identify ourselves and each other as part of WE in the halls of the Campus
We became a magnet of attraction for the Campus facilitators (many of whom are now itching to be a part of our unique energy)
We dared to dream that a next WE Alliance meeting - to ratify a WE Alliance Charter in revolutionary Egypt - could be possible in November of this year.

What we discussed:

There was a personal "To-Do" list proposed for all of us in the morning's presentation, which we were not able to revisit as planned (being distracted at the end by the whole other important discussion about how to influence Ashoka). When I revisited that To-Do list I found the following thoughts organizing themselves in my mind, as the main takeaways that I personally gathered from the entire WE process described above.

To Do #1 -
Help define the DNA of your ideal community of collaborators

what differentiates the WE Alliance from other networks is that it seeks to gather innovators
the innovators should come from all silos in which innovators for Women's Empowerment are found
we need to ensure that we think carefully about including men
we need to balance between each member's individual and organizational identity & commitment

To Do #2 -
Dare to dream about what we can achieve together

most of us were able to imagine working together in a variety of ways to achieve both simple (ie, knowledge & info sharing) and complex (ie, impact measurement & global policy influence) objectives
there was not much worry that we would find funding & other support to build useful structures and tools
A (doable)? next meeting has been proposed: Egypt in November, to take the work of the Exploratory committee forward

To Do #3 -
Identify the value you can add to building the alliance

19 individuals have put their names on the list to participate in an *exploratory committee* that will meet virtually in a series of calls and email discussions between now and the proposed November meeting.
Our initial call has been scheduled for Wednesday, 27 July.
The immediate issues for this group to explore will include those on the photo below,

We will also discuss some key questions about the November event that's been suggested.

Objectives of the meeting?
Who will attend?
Why it is important – why are we meeting?
What will we do afterwards?
(It's worth noting that I will propose some concrete suggestions recently developed by the Evolutionizing Innovation collective)

TO DO #4 -

Get clear around what's in the WE Alliance for you

being part of a "sisterhood" emerged as a highly valued potential benefit for many participants (I wonder if/how we can develop that into a "siblinghood," since we know we want to also include men....)
Personal and professional access to a responsive high level global support network resonated as a valuable potential asset
we can organize our interaction & activity with "spaces" for the many sub-interest groups represented in the alliance

TO DO #5 -
Think outside the box about how the WE Alliance can help us gain energy

this is the area where (for me) the most interesting ideas emerged "off-grid," outside of our larger group discussions
there is a tremendous amount of "energy work" happening among and around us, which seems (to me) to reflect the same energy that calls us to believe in the potential power of a global alliance of innovators for women's empowerment.
what gives us the feeling of "siblinghood" is the sharing of "together experiences" that energize us as individuals.
unleashing a cascade of innovation *might* occur if we work more deliberately to harmonize/connect the personal energy of the amazing innovators involved.

See more photos of the WE Alliance launch workshop on facebook

Part 4/4: A Social Business Plan for Serving the #socent Community - Transition support for late stage & serial social entrepreneurs

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 10:15:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I shared an idea for serving the #socent community on these blog pages. To my delight, an exciting group of allies, most of whom I have had the honor of working with in the past, formed and settled into a core group of 5 initial "builders" who are committed to working together to see the concept move forward. Our common objective is to support late stage social entrepreneurs, primarily through identifying opportunities to deploy their unique changemaking skills on cross-silo consultancy assignments for the Corporate sector, NGOs and multilateral institutions.

Amazingly, four of the 5 wonder-women in our initial group were able to meet up at the Ashoka Changemaker's Campus in Paris in late June. It was awesome!

The #socent skills collective that Bonnie Koenig, Cheryl Cooper, Christelle van Ham, Jean Russell and I have been imagining together since February was on the program in the Alliances for Change track on the last day of the Changemaker's Campus event, which gave us an invaluable opportunity to get some early stage feedback on the concept from a live group of social entrepreneurs and consultants active in the social change space. Facilitator Alycia Lee from the HUB Amsterdam's "Collaboracy" initiative led us through a group dialogue and working group session with 17 participants entitled "Leveraging Professional Changemaker Values."

Gratitude abounds - not only for the session group's ability to "see" the utility and do-ability of what we were proposing, but especially for their willingness to help us start thinking through some of the aspects that merit the most careful thought.

My 3 main takeaways:

- The need for a professional support "bridge" to help social entrepreneurs transition between projects resonated very strongly with the social entrepreneurs in the room. Specifically, we learned that guidance from "others who have been there" would be welcome in transitioning out of the leading role in the structures they have created, and on toward developing the confidence to reinvest of themselves in building new initiatives that capitalize on what they have learned. The potential financial opportunity involved in consulting was important but not obviously the most important motivation for participating.

- There will be important work to do in helping social entrepreneurs to recognize and self-assess the concrete skills they have acquired during the course of careers which can be transferable to other professional contexts.

- On the flip-side of defining what social entrepreneurs have to offer, we will also have some interesting work to do on framing the deployment of their unique expertise into a (collaborative?) methodology based practice that can consistently offer unique and high quality value to the clients we consult for.

By the end of the session in Paris we had acquired some lengthy lists of names in 2 separate groupings. Not only did many of the changemakers in the room sign up to be informed when we start developing our database of deployable expertise, but a good number of participants also expressed an interest in exploring ways to work with us in helping to build it.

And voila - new minds gather, new hearts open, and a big idea moves forward toward co-created action. We will be exploring next steps with the expanded group of builders in the coming weeks.

If you have been following the development of this concept and would also like to explore becoming further involved, please let us know using the form the follows. As always, comments, questions and additional feedback most welcome in the comments section below.

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Part 3/4: A Social Business Plan for Serving the #socent Community: Collaborating to Build a Values Driven Collective

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 12:42:00 +0000

A vision is (and can only ever be) a framework for anchoring our thinking. What becomes "real" from a vision is always (and can only ever be) a reflection of how it resonates with others, especially with people who have the will to make what they see in it real.

Since I began writing about the Consultancy idea last month, some interesting people I know have shown an interest in moving forward to make it real. Some I reached out to, some got in touch when they read my posts here, some already know each other. Instead of writing a blog post to share with them the next bit of info about this vision that I'd planned to share, I've turned to prezi for help. It's embedded below.

The inspiration to serve

Every vision is initially selfish - sharing it starts with admitting what I want. What does my mind's eye see in my dreams of what I would love to be able to be a part of on a daily basis? What kind of legacy do I want this endeavor to leave on me as a person, as I eventually transition again and keep moving on into my old age?

So I admit it - if I am going to be building something new at this point in my life, I want to be investing my time in something that helps me to achieve an alignment between my core essential values and my professional life. I would also like to work with others whose personal values and professional integrity I have reason to trust, and who are also seeking alignment with their personal values in their lives as innovators. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that kind of alignment really needs to happen more if we are going to maximize the potential effectiveness of deploying social entrepreneurs as a cross-dimensional workforce in the world.

Last week, I managed to gather 7 amazing people together on a group call, and shared some thoughts on how we might structure and finance the start-up of a member governed Consultancy Collective that would help it's members - Social Entrepreneurs - to build dynamic careers that are strengthened by nurturing our core personal values.

Of course, the challenge in sharing a vision is to articulate it in a way that others will be able to see clearly enough, to be able to find that they want it too. The blog post I was trying to write wasn't working. I am still not sure the prezi captures everything I needed to say at this point, but it's out of my head and some next steps are already planned, so things are moving.

And what about you? Do you see anything in the prezi that resonates with what you want? if yes, feel free to reach out.

The Big Idea

Consultancy Collective on Prezi

Where to now?

Space for the emergence of whatever should happen next is now open around all of the people who have already been involved in discussions about these ideas.

Present on last week's call and tentatively on the list of potential Builders are Sharon Bylenga, Simone Poutnik, Jean Russell, Christelle Van Ham, Bonnie Koenig, Cheryl Cooper and me, Christina Jordan. (Disclosure: yes, I have tweaked the prezi a tiny bit more since I shared it with the group.)

I will also be sending the prezi to former colleagues in consulting Marie-Astrid Corbisier, Michel Cervesato, and Walter DeSchepper (whom I have spoken to but who were not present on the call), as well as to Antonella Notari, Yann Borgstedt, Jennifer Milliken, and Jonathon Hirons, who all represent potential partnership opportunities I have been nurturing, and who should - for the sake of transparency - be aware of the bigger picture emerging behind the ideas I will be proposing to them in the coming days & weeks.

If you have a prior working relationship with any of the people noted above and you find the idea of getting involved as a "builder" worth discussing further, please reach out through your personal channels to get connected, and we'll talk.

Part 2/4: A Social Business Plan for Serving the #socent Community: Co-creating how we present ourselves

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 14:04:00 +0000

A key cornerstone to developing the unique consultancy practice I've written about will be the quality of our database of social entrepreneurs who are vetted, willing and available to be deployed on short term consultancy assignments related to their skills and sectoral/issue based knowledge.

When it comes to initially recruiting potential consultants, the prestigious "labeling" networks such as Ashoka, Skoll Foundation and Schwab Foundation offer existing vetting processes and profiles that we can hopefully build upon. Asking those agencies' input on identifying their Fellows who fit the "post-late-stage" description comes to mind as a great place to start approaching those important standard-setting organizations with value we can help them to add to their Fellow's experience.

However, we will need a scalable framework for effectively tapping into an even broader range of dynamic social entrepreneur talent pools than the "big" labeling networks alone can offer. To that end, I am proposing a database development process that includes at least 6 months of gathering direct potential stakeholder input as described below.

Engaging our potential consultants in designing how we present their experience to potential clients will enable us to explore a variety of ways we can plan to leverage the value of the database we build, for maximum impact on the growth of all of our consultants' primary activities. It will also give us the knowledge of our consultants capacities we'll need to begin developing differentiated pricing models and quality control systems for the kinds of value added services we can confidently claim to offer.

The inspiration to serve

After a presentation I recently gave at a #140confBrussels gathering, another of the speakers persuaded me of the "black hole of information" that he told me futurists are saying will exist around the recorded history from our time. As I understood his argument, too much valuable new information is being created in digital age real time that we are not yet capturing and sorting for historical knowledge sharing purposes. Even powerful tools like the amazing wayback machine are having trouble keeping up with the pace of new online content growth in a self-sustaining way.

So here's how I see it: If we want today's stories of social change to matter in the world, it is incumbent upon us to start building our history, and keeping a clear record of what we are gaining experience in and collectively achieving in the global changemaker space. I have been feeling a need to redefine how we profile ourselves for many years, and am thrilled to see that new online mapping tools like OpenAction.org are finally making it easier to imagine creating profiles for social entrepreneurs that, I believe, can add considerable value to our unique professional potential.

The big idea

Building a successful commercial consulting practice will involve developing an up-to-date database of the relevant experience that our workforce of consultants has to offer, which reflects the variety of current operational expertise we have to draw from in designing and deploying consulting teams to meet our clients' needs. The internet offers us increasing shapes and forms of content to link to in evidence of that operational experience. Mapping technologies like what OpenAction.org is able to render make it possible now (finally) for individuals within a community to seamlessly and effectively consolidate a broad range of online content activity from different platforms, into a single profile and archive building interface.

If we begin to use that kind of technology to deliberately build upon the value of an individual changemaker's big and small cutting edge activities and achievements - historically and in real time - we will have also created something more. Our database of consultants, which is also in effect a trust based network with a high propensity of face-to-face connections, becomes a unique platform for showcasing what our experts' endeavors are achieving, have achieved, and even need help with right now. Our database of links to the full range of a Social Entrepreneurs activities that are visible online becomes an "online superstore" of social change-related activities that can serve to invite repeated stakeholder and fan engagement.

In the consulting database of social entrepreneurs I am imagining, we would be encouraged to configure our profiles to automatically keep our resumes up to date with active links that offers a full picture of our operational experience, expertise and output. For example:

video media about our projects
business & community services our projects offer
books we have written that are for sale
socent competitions we participate in
awards & distinctions we have received
physical products our projects are selling
crowdsourcing campaigns we are spearheading
other funding models we are experimenting with
financing campaigns we have recently contributed to
reports we have submitted from completed assignments
social media channels we are using to tell our ongoing stories
feedback from our clients and teammates about our work on completed assignments

A collective digital space that pulls together links to this kind of content from a collection of the world's leading social entrepreneurs would not only give us a powerful platform through which to find, deploy and share about operational expertise, but would effectively serve to increase the visibility of every campaign, product for good and other kind of fundraising initiative listed in it.

Who benefits, how?

Our consulting practice will benefit from using technology that can tap into a wide range of evolving activities that our consultants are engaged in to create & demonstrate their impact;

Our partners and clients will benefit from the ability to see, find and personally invest in the ever changing landscape of social change that's emerging around people they personally know and trust;

The current and past Social Enterprise projects our community of senior experts has launched would all benefit from visibility within an online superstore of social change-related initiatives that invites engagement with each individual experts' current, past and future endeavors.

Most importantly, participating Social Entrepreneurs will benefit.

In fact, an evolving profile is one of the things many Ashoka Fellows I know have wished for the most loudly during the 10 years since I was named a Fellow. Unfortunately, our Ashoka profiles are (by Ashoka's design) a static snapshot in time of where we were with our plans at the moment when Ashoka chose to invest in us. One could argue that what really matters is what happened after that investment, but our continued evolution as social entrepreneurs is not well reflected in how Ashoka (and other competitive award networks) have tended to present the work of social entrepreneurs to their stakeholders.

The face-to-face client and teamwork relationships Social Entrepreneurs can build through occasional consulting assignments can fuel new levels of viral engagement with each of our ongoing and past activities. Pointing my client in the Corporate Social Responsibility department where I am deployed to an easily sharable professional profile that always offers them automatically updated ways to consider supporting or engaging with my other work in the world could be a very, very good thing.

A one stop page that gets automatically fed with fresh content as we continue to blog, upload videos to youtube and participate in social media platforms and competitions as usual can also help to streamline the use of a social entrepreneur's promotional time. Instead of breaking our time up around promoting specific links to new opportunities as they arise, our consultants' profiles will offer a full picture of what each is actively engaged in right now to make the world a better place.

The consultant's profile should be designed to be equally useful to the potential consultancy client who is considering expertise proposed for a job, to the former client or teammate who is looking to support or engage with the work of a changemaker they now trust after completing a job together, and to the online contact or family member who sees it in our email signature. Our evolutionized profiles will become the one place where everything we Social Entrepreneurs do in the world can be seen, in a coherent, evolving, career-history documenting picture.

A community co-created plan for supporting social entrepreneur careers

To begin transitioning Social Entrepreneurs' skills from our own projects to transferable skills that can be deployed in a social change consulting workforce, we need to first take stock of what we are currently doing and learning to do with new and old tools that we all have available. Technology will enable us to let what we are doing speak in the present and create a historical marker, so that what we have done can eventually start speak for itself. The question now is, which tools and systems are Social Entrepreneurs using to achieve what they are doing in the world, that our database should be sure to capture?

I am currently talking with a number of partners about what's emerging as a +/-6 month plan toward the development of a professional changemaker database with high impact value. The plan includes 3 basic activities:

Prototype an online collaborative process for developing a useful, trust-based community designed platform which serves senior social entrepreneurs in a specialized sector with new kinds of career-building support, visibility and potential to connect with new opportunities.
Develop and test an offline series of seminar events for guiding Social Entrepreneurs at various stages in their careers through a process of building a reframed and expanded vision of their professional value. The process methods will be tested with small groups.
Work with partners and potential consultants to co-create the consultancy vetting, training & certification process (and related database needs) that will provide a backbone in the quality control systems we put into place for pricing our consultants' services, coordinating teams, and guaranteeing the delivery of value.

Existing groups of Social Entrepreneurs within easy reach for engagement in this exploratory process through existing partnerships over the next 6 months include:

Groups of regionally connected, self-identified social entrepreneurs who are members of the HUB Network in the Benelux region (Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam) and possibly the UK;
Groups of actively connected changemakers and Social Enterprise support networks who gather at open space industry gatherings such as OxfordJam and SHINE UK.
Groups of senior late stage changemakers (Ashoka Europe, WomenChangeMakers Foundation)

Where to now?

I am in active conversation with a Social Entrepreneur support partner on developing a trust-based web community that offers high value to their soon to be appointed first round of Fellows later this year, and see clearly how that experience could serve as a prototype for building a broader database that taps into other kinds of specialized, issue-oriented operational expertise.

As a Board member of the HUB in Brussels, I have recently been stepping up my engagement in helping to initiate a stakeholder engagement strategy in 2011 that - among other objectives - will aim to strengthen the HUB's community identity as a global and local network of self-identified social entrepreneurs. I will be looking seriously this week at the feasibility of incorporating the Social Start up Labs model in what I hope to develop with and for HUB members, and will continue to pursue discussions with OpenAction.org on how to use their mapping technology to build on the currently evolving HUB member information systems.

I was thrilled to learn in detail last week about Ashoka Europe's plans to hold a Europe-wide collaborative gathering of Fellows and key stakeholders in the social change space in late June of this year. The most exciting new thing I learned in the presentation was that one of the main themes in the programme agenda is building social entrepreneurs' professional competencies. You can be sure I'll be exploring potential synergies with those developments in more detail with some of my Ashoka contacts this week.

What can YOU do?

Inspired by some of the very practical new technologies for changemakers recently launched by people I've worked with and been watching for a while in the social change space, such as OpenAction.org, StartSomeGood.org and wonderful initiatives like Amy Sample Ward's #commbuild chats, I am currently collecting guest-written articles about the latest developments online that support the social change space. These articles will feature prominently in a plan to bring the Internet4Change.com blog back to life this spring. If you are a Social webpreneur developing online tools for the social change space, you are invited to introduce your tool, tell us your story, and tell us specifically how you see it building project and career level value for today's Social Entrepreneurs.

Please let me know @ChristinasWorld or in the comments below if you would like to contribute a blog post about a tool for #socent mapping, project financing, product sales or career building that you'd like professionals in the social entrepreneurship space to know is now launched, launching or growing. I will look forward to finding ways to connect further around your ideas for Internet4Change article submissions, and will be seeking an initial 12-20 articles to fill a pilot content schedule in the Spring.

Part 1/4: A Social Business Plan for Serving the #socent Community: Developing a Commercial Consultancy Practice

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:41:00 +0000

The inspiration to serve

The real inspiration for this component of the Evolutionize It business plan came from the amazing group of late stage social entrepreneurs I had the honor to work with when I led the WomenChangeMakers Foundation launch workshop last spring. The purpose of the workshop was to let social entrepreneurs in the field of gender equity inform the newly forming foundation about how they should conceive of a great fellowship support package. We all learned a lot, and my hat goes off to the WomenChangeMakers foundation for how they are incorporating what they learned into the new support programs for social entrepreneurship in gender equity that they are developing.

One of the most intense moments of the workshop came when the participants and I collaboratively coined the term “post-late-stage social entrepreneur,” and started revealing, crying about and discussing what that meant as a condition we all shared. Collectively, these 8 women from around the globe had impacted the lives of over 10 million people. They had all won multiple awards for their work. They were awe inspiring in their abilities to make magic happen in the world, and in their persistent effectiveness for the security and wellbeing of others. At a certain point, they all understood, however, that they all shared a really terrible and serious set of professional and personal weaknesses in the structure of their lives:

Not one of them was financially secure.
They all knew that they would have to transition away from the projects for which their lives had gained some recognition in the public eye, and yet, not one of them could visualize a plan for what was next for themselves.
Those who had ideas about new projects they would like to start were not finding any resources to back them.

And of course, there I was right in that spot they were afraid of finding themselves in. Starting over after having stepped away to allow what I had started in Uganda to continue growing on it's own, and completely dependent on just my own creativity to figure out what was supposed to come next. For me, it was a transformational moment of realization that our experiences represented a critical gap in the social change space that needs to be filled.

While I will be forever grateful to my delightful WomenChangeMaker friends for being the first to so bravely help me start to see and understand our professional condition, ventures further abroad in the social enterprise sector have confirmed that this condition extends beyond just women who are changemakers, and beyond just social entrepreneurs who are working for gender equity. It’s a sector-wide phenomena among the best social entrepreneurs that we must transition, that we have skills that are extremely valuable to society, but that we find ourselves in need of support in making “what’s next” happen.

Embracing that even the most committed social entrepreneurs must eventually transition out of the primary leadership role in the projects they create in order to rightfully claim the term "sustainable," the primary aim of the commercial consulting practice I am now collecting partners to co-create, is to identify and develop relevant and useful career building opportunities for social entrepreneurs - starting with those who have been vetted and recognized as noteworthy by the growing number of social enterprise support networks and agencies around the world.

The big idea

From 25 years of experience in the international development aid industry and as an occasional consultant in the corporate sector, I am 100% certain that there are many interesting commercial opportunities to source short-term consultancies for governments, corporations and international aid agencies from among experienced & acclaimed social entrepreneurs, on competitively tendered and paid assignments related to:

community event facilitation,
stakeholder engagement strategies,
facilitation of community dialogue & decision-making processes,
the use of online communication tools for social change,
project development, assessment & feasibility studies,
proposal writing and specialized text editing
innovative approaches to assessing and leveraging the impact of ongoing development projects and programs,
etc.

I have some concrete ideas about how to find assignments like this. One of the things I used to do professionally was sell & manage international development consulting services to multilateral and bilateral aid institutions. Lately I have been making some unanticipated but interesting inroads into the world of CSR, which lead me to believe that there could be a broader range of potential clients to explore for the kind of expertise that (especially) late stage social entrepreneurs have to offer.

Who benefits, how?

The opportunity to engage in the kind of short-term consulting assignments I believe we can find will allow social entrepreneurs to:

penetrate and influence thinking in diverse sectors of the global economy with their experienced innovator skills and social insights,
gain practical experience working together collaboratively
take planned breaks from their projects to gain new perspectives on their interests in new contexts
practice leaving others in charge of their projects for short periods, with support from other social entrepreneurs who've done it;
earn meaningful personal income with low levels of annual time commitment,
invest in developing a personal long-term and global professional value that will outlive their role as leaders of their current projects, and offer some long term financial security.

Of course, all of that assumes that clients will actually benefit from the expertise that social entrepreneurs have to offer. To that, all I can say is that personally speaking, through my interactions with Ashoka Fellows and likeminded #socent groups in countries around the world, I have become convinced that social entrepreneurs are among the smartest, most cross-dimensionally thinking people on the planet. I nurture a personal belief that within the minds of our systemic thinking changemakers lies our greatest hope for the future of our global development systems. Enabling ways for talented social entrepreneurs to influence projects and systems beyond their own projects feels like a noble and worthy pursuit.

A commercial, for profit practice? Oh my!

While this will operate as a commercial practice, Evolutionize It is a non-profit making association, which means that profits are not distributed among owners but are reinvested into mission related activities. The net revenue that Evolutionize It earns thru successfully developing this commercial consulting practice will be reinvested in, for example:

creating jobs related to building the practice, including a solid consultancy marketing and global management support structure,  
developing a broader range of professional coaching & career development support services for social entrepreneurs, 
establishing a start-over seed fund for post-late stage social entrepreneurs who have transitioned away from their original structures and are now starting new projects.

Where to now?

Key in making this work will be getting the right people and partnerships on board to help grow it operationally - I’m not talking about starting something that Christina can run from home, but that will take on an organizational form of operations early on.

There are a couple of current and former business partners that I have scheduled discussions with in January to discuss ways we might work together in mutually beneficial ways to get this idea off the ground at an appropriate scale. At least one short term contract for a team of wisdom crowdsourcing experts to be recruited by Evolutionize It is already in late stage negotiations for late 2011.

The development consulting firm I used to work with has also recently been in touch - in a small assignment to review their web copy I livened up the descriptions of their experience with new language from the social change sector, and was inspired to think about how doable it could be to deploy social entrepreneurs on the kinds of EU funded projects that they bid for.

Explorations continue - I should have further news on this component by the end of January.

Introduction: A Social Business Plan for Serving the #socent Community (4 parts to follow)

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 13:41:00 +0000

During the last month of 2010 I went decidedly offline and did some reflecting on how to re-frame everything I've been investing my energy in during Evolutionize It's start-up year, into a coherent business plan for a diversified social enterprise model that serves the emerging social enterprise sector in meaningful ways.

As 2011 begins, I am excited to feel my entrepreneurial spirit restored. Last year's explorations in facilitating supportive relationships between social entrepreneurs are connecting with my decades of other professional experience in new and exciting ways, creating a pathway to Evolutionize It's future as a social enterprise support institution that feels comfortable, and easily within reach.

Under my continued leadership for the next 1.5 years, Evolutionize It will be pursuing a diversified and growth oriented social business plan for serving social entrepreneurs in some very concrete and practical ways, including:

Development of a commercial consulting practice that sources global teams of short-term consultants from among seasoned social change agents
Co-creative leadership on designing a cooperatively owned platform of premium business building services for social entrepreneurs, specifically targeting (but not indefinitely limited to) self-identified social entrepreneurs who are vetted members of the global Hub co-working space communities.
Modeling the establishment of effective, trust based online support networks for groups of social entrepreneurs with specialized needs, and
Establishing career development services and a "start-over" seed fund for accomplished social entrepreneurs who are transitioning from one brilliant project to another.

In the coming days, I will be using this blog space to share where I'm currently headed on each of these components with the plan that's in my head and real conversations that are already taking place.

What's most exciting to me is that while this reframing of my eclectic collection of professional activity since Evolutionize It was incorporated feels new and ambitious, things are already rolling in these directions, and these have been activities/ideas that I have fantasized about developing for quite some time (no - this list is not exhaustive!) Identifying these 4 components of a plan that's tangibly doable right now is making it easy for me to see how I can build on everything I've already got in place to be able to get Evolutionize It where I'd like it to go.

What I'd like it to be - what I have always hoped it would be - is a new kind of social enterprise model that meaningfully serves the growth of the social enterprise and grassroots innovation movement worldwide.

Stay tuned for details.

First impressions welcome in the comments!

#cosi10 - Evolutionizing Collaboration (virtual co-creation transcript)

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 10:08:00 +0000

The following is the transcript of an **AMAZING** virtual planning session with cosi10 hosts on Monday 9 August, using the group text-chat function on skype. I borrowed this format from the session I facilitated at Radical Real Time, and with very satisfactory results. The extraordinary level of energy in the conversation was really exciting to be a part of, and the collaborative output was top-notch!

Thank you and KUDOS to all of the cosi10 event hosts who participated across timezones from around the world: Pallavi Keshri (India), Christian Vanizette (Paris), Danielle Lanyard (New York), Matt Nathan (Denver), Jean Russell (Chicago), and Mark Grimes (USA). I coordinated the the chat around a framework of questions related to press release messaging that consultant Bonnie Koenig helped to develop.

The cosi10 event hosts in Australia, Africa and Brussels weren't able to make it, but hats off to Pallavi India for staying up late to remind us all about how important it is to strategically level the playing field in the social innovation space.

During the chat we got to the core of our messaging strategy by exploring two headline topics for press releases that are now to be written:

Connecting a global sector, and
Are you building a better world through innovative entrepreneurship?
A tip if you ever want to try something similar: key to making this virtual collaboration format work was having paste-ready text prepared in advance.  I then invited everyone into a group IM chat on skype - as you can see at the end, Australia was eventually able to see what had happened. What I love about using text chat instead of voice for this purpose is the rich archive we are left with that captures the group's globally collaborative thought process.

More virtual co-creation sessions are planned leading up to the kick-off of the cosi10 webbed event series experiment in September, and I am so excited about continuing to work with this wonderful group of likeminds. If this level of energy is what's coming together to make Connecting Social Innovation 2010 happen, I have a feeling we're all in for a heck of a transformative experience between now and December!

Enjoy ~

Who and How: toward co-creating cosi10 messaging strategies
---------

[09/08/10 19:11:20] Christina Jordan: Just a friendly reminder that today's important skype chat about cosi10 messaging & promotion will happen at:

1pm Portland/LA

2pm Denver

3pm Chicago

4pm New York

8pm Bamako

9pm Edinburgh

10pm Brussels/Paris

1:30am New Delhi

6am Australia

If you are not able to join us, hopefully you will be able to see the transcript here later of the chat between those who did.

Please share these instructions with any others you would like to involve:

"To join the chat, connect with christina_jordan (Brussels, Belgium) on skype between now and then to let her know you'd like to join the cosi10 chat, and she will add you into the chat group."

See you then!

Christina

[09/08/10 19:17:55] Christina Jordan: http://www.ned.com/group/cosi/ws/pressreleases/

[09/08/10 22:00:50] Christina Jordan: Hey folks - Not seeing many in the group online yet but HELLO to those who are here!

[09/08/10 22:01:12] tahitian_coconut: hello ! :)

[09/08/10 22:01:24] Pallavi Keshri: Right here

[09/08/10 22:02:18] Danielle Lanyard: hello

[09/08/10 22:02:48] Danielle Lanyard: (sun)

[01:33:40] Christina Jordan: Hi everyone!

welcome to our first cosi10 virtual planning chat.

So glad some of you could make it!

Maybe those of you online could introduce yourselves briefly to each other.

WHO ARE YOU, and

WHERE ARE YOU involved with hosting a cosi10 event?

[01:34:54] Pallavi Keshri: Hi everybody! I am Pallavi founder for eyaas.com. I am hosting Cosi in Delhi, India

[01:35:38] tahitian_coconut: hello my name is christian, we are creating a web-app for social entrepreneurs http://www.makesense.org and want to organize a cosi event in Paris

[01:36:16] Danielle Lanyard: Hi All. Danielle Lanyard here. In New York City. I am a serial entrepreneur, founder of Travelcology and Third Rail Ventures, which is hosting the cosi NYC event. hey christina christian and pallavi!

[01:36:46] Pallavi Keshri: Hey Danielle... Great to meet you

[01:37:02] Pallavi Keshri: Christian... Are you making any Tahitian Coffee?

[01:37:32] tahitian_coconut: not right now :) Helle Danielle, nice to meet you

[01:37:48] Christina Jordan: I think Bonnie is here too somewhere....

[01:39:00] Christina Jordan: bonnie if you see this try typing something in here

[01:40:52] Christina Jordan: and matt nathan from denver is finding his way here too

[01:41:31] Danielle Lanyard: here. some entertainment. underground skype emoticons: mooning

[01:41:38] Christina Jordan: LOL

[01:41:39] Danielle Lanyard: drunk (drunk)

[01:41:52] Pallavi Keshri: hahaha... (finger)

[01:41:55] Christina Jordan: Matt and Bonnie are you with us yet?

[01:42:14] Danielle Lanyard: last one: is that too much information? TMI (TMI)

[01:42:27] Pallavi Keshri: Mooning is my fav. ...lol

[01:42:28] Bonnie Koenig: Hello everyone. I am here now. Bonnie Koenig. Consultant to NGOs on international engagement. Helping Christina with Cosi10 organizing.

[01:42:53] Matt Nathan: Hi! Matt Nathan, social venture strategist/catalyst, Ashoka's Youth Venture and Change Your City initiative, member of w1sd0m. I'm in Denver, Colorado, USA -- cosi10 host here for Sept.

[01:42:56] Pallavi Keshri: Hi Bonnie. Connected with you on Twitter. This is Pallavi from Eyaas

[01:43:04] Christina Jordan: Yay! It's so great to see you all. Thanks so much for being online at this hour!

Could you all just type in WHAT TIME IS IT IN YOUR PART OF THE WORLD NOW?

[01:43:21] Pallavi Keshri: Hahaha... It is 1.45 AM India Time

[01:43:29] Danielle Lanyard: nyc. 4pm.

[01:43:41] Matt Nathan: Denver, 2pm

[01:43:48] Bonnie Koenig: Yes, Pallavi, nice to see you here as well as Twitter!

[01:44:11] Mark Grimes: Mark from Portland, Oregon 1:00PM

[01:44:12] tahitian_coconut: paris 10 PM

[01:44:12] Bonnie Koenig: I'm one of the lucky ones, also 'business hours' here - 4:00 p.m. in Vermont

[01:44:21] Matt Nathan: Pallavi wins the dedication award!

[01:44:33] Christina Jordan: just after 10pm here in Brussels - hats off to Pallavi!

[01:44:34] Pallavi Keshri: LEts talk again on Sept 13th.

[01:44:38] Christina Jordan: Wonderful!

It's been such a pleasure to get to know some of you over the past couple of months. I hope that these cross-timezone sessions can encourage us all to appreciate and understand each other's richness even more, as we lead up to the cosi10 events.

DISCLAIMER - this is the first time we're doing this so of course the format remains open to refinement. Depending on how many of us show up online at this hour, we might end up inviting discussion to linger over 24 hours instead of an hour…

We're NOT going to attempt to chat by voice tonight, as Skype (and other tools) just aren't as stable for voice as they need to be to make that happen smoothly.

Everyone ok so far??

[01:45:29] Pallavi Keshri: On board!

[01:45:33] tahitian_coconut: on board :)

[01:45:51] Bonnie Koenig: Yes, so far, so good :)

[01:45:51] Danielle Lanyard: this sounds good, though i must mention, i've heard great things about www.tinychat.com - used by open source developers for real time video collaboration around the world

[01:46:12] Christina Jordan: Great!

The OBJECTIVE of tonight's chat is to work together on some "wordsmithing" that can hopefully help all of us to convey the cosi10 concepts in our local/regional environments.

As we all know, the language around social innovation and social entrepreneurship is often ambiguous. On top of that, the cosi10 event concept is new.

Luckily, Bonnie has helped to develop a framework for us to think about the shape of some promotional press release messaging. (Thanks Bonnie!)

The basic idea here is that I'll post some questions and you type the answer that comes to your head, based on what YOU think/imagine the cosi10 event series can be.

In other words, there is no right or wrong answer… this is an exercise in harvesting collective wisdom about the words we use :)

Ready?

[01:46:17] Matt Nathan: Yes, and thanks for your leadership, Christina. Visionary + practical + empathetic = gr8

[01:46:34] Christina Jordan: interesting Danielle - thx for the link. Will check it out!

[01:46:53] Danielle Lanyard: and i'd retweet Matt's comment if i could! :) thanx christina!!

[01:47:17] Pallavi Keshri: SO far so good! I agree with Matt! Great work getting us altogether Christina

[01:47:17] Bonnie Koenig: +1 RT - Big thanks to Christina!

[01:47:25] Christina Jordan: aw thanks guys :*

Headline topic 1: Connecting an emerging global sector
------------------

[01:47:50] Christina Jordan: OK here goes...

Proposed Headline topic 1:

"Connecting an emerging global sector"

PLEASE TYPE THE FIRST WORD THAT COMES TO YOUR MIND NOW

[01:48:09] tahitian_coconut: twitter

[01:48:49] Pallavi Keshri: Cosi

[01:48:57] Jean M Russell: just landed at a place with wifi... waves hello

[01:49:10] Pallavi Keshri: Hello Jean. Welcome

[01:49:13] Christina Jordan: hello Jean! Welcome!

[01:49:17] Danielle Lanyard: hi jean!

[01:49:21] Matt Nathan: hey Jean!

[01:49:23] Bonnie Koenig: Creating systems, processes, forums that allow for meaningful connections

[01:49:30] Jean M Russell: global brain

[01:49:35] Danielle Lanyard: deep ecology

[01:49:52] tahitian_coconut: Hello Jean :)

[01:50:18] Christina Jordan: Danielle what does deep ecology mean to you in the cosi10 context?

[01:50:33] Matt Nathan: Christina, pls clarify the direction we're springboarding toward, eg this is about messaging, right?

[01:50:54] Christina Jordan: yes Matt - sorry if that was unclear

[01:51:07] Danielle Lanyard: taking tenets of ecological frameworks and infusing them into community foundations. more than biomimicry, but actual whole systems theory, for enterprise and innovation - put into action. breathe.

[01:51:08] Christina Jordan: we're aiming at creating the input for some press release writers to work with

[01:51:16] Christina Jordan: they have asked for broad outlines and bullet points

[01:51:30] Christina Jordan: there's a briefing on ned at http://www.ned.com/group/cosi/ws/pressreleases/

[01:51:57] Pallavi Keshri: knowledge sharing

[01:52:43] Matt Nathan: OK, here's mine:
Connecting an emerging global sector to strengthen and accelerate new solutions.

[01:53:24] Christina Jordan: Great - good stuff!

Now, in YOUR words, Who is the emerging sector you hope to connect at your cosi10 event?

[01:53:38] Pallavi Keshri: Social Enterprises

[01:53:52] tahitian_coconut: Social Innovators

[01:54:22] Jean M Russell: Social innovators. :)

[01:54:25] Danielle Lanyard: 'we' are the emerging sector. the 'we' is now open to all how seek to improve their world and others through innovation and hopefully collaboration.

[01:54:53] tahitian_coconut: +1

[01:55:03] Matt Nathan: Changemakers (Ashoka's term, but catching on more broadly - useful in that it can include all across the spectrum...)

[01:55:05] Danielle Lanyard: in nyc, we have killed previously beautiful terms like 'green', 'organic', 'social enterpreneur' due to who have used them. probably very different in different regions.

[01:55:19] Christina Jordan: are SOCIAL ENTERPRISES and SOCIAL INNOVATORS different groups?

[01:55:35] Matt Nathan: Yes, social innovator is broader

[01:56:01] tahitian_coconut: same as Matt, Social Innovator is broader with experiments etc

[01:56:03] Jean M Russell: agreed Matt

[01:56:07] Mark Grimes: Wish to connect social entrepreneurs, enterprises and innovators building scalable, replicable and sustainable market driven solutions that will grow to impact over one million people and one million dollars in revenue in under five years.

[01:56:17] Matt Nathan: social enterprise is a sub-set of social innovation, and can in many instances be quite a narrow slice

[01:56:25] Christina Jordan: Danielle, yes I have learned there are definitely regional variances! How does the "we" in NYC describe itself?

[01:56:40] Jean M Russell: (y) Mark

[01:56:45] Danielle Lanyard: it doesn't. there is no unity here, to be honest. this is why i am so looking forward to cosi!!!

[01:56:52] Jean M Russell: although I am not a fan of scalable

[01:56:59] Jean M Russell: not everything needs to be scalable

[01:57:02] Pallavi Keshri: +1 Jean

[01:57:07] Pallavi Keshri: I agree with that

[01:57:17] Danielle Lanyard: jean, i agree. most social innovation does not need to be scalable to see it's mission realized. most social enterprise, different story

[01:57:43] Jean M Russell: right, but other than that, I really Love Mark's language

[01:58:02] Pallavi Keshri: Even a social enterprise, as long as it is serving the purpose of its existence within the community it is serving

[01:58:03] Mark Grimes: Personally interested in scale as to growth towards overall larger impact

[01:58:18] Danielle Lanyard: Mark, also really like your language. where are you located?

[01:58:28] Pallavi Keshri: A social enterprise can be replicable... it need not be scalable.
[01:58:36] Christina Jordan: Terrific - and remember, we don't need to achieve consensus here... the main thing is to understand the words that we can use to be effective in drawing participants to the events.

ok, so THINK PRESS RELEASE: What's creative about how cosi20 is connecting the sector?

[01:58:46] Jean M Russell: scale can be one org growing in size - but sector scale can be achieved through many orgs, none scaled up, just well connected

[01:58:48] Christina Jordan: oops *cosi10

[01:58:53] Danielle Lanyard: time machine!!

[01:58:54] Mark Grimes: Portland, Oregon (in Nairobi for Maker Faire Africa in two weeks)

[01:58:55] Jean M Russell: which is what this is for - to connect together and inspire

[01:59:04] Bonnie Koenig: For those not familar with your definition of social entrepreneur or social innovator how will they know you are targeting them?

[01:59:05] Pallavi Keshri: +1 jean

[01:59:18] Mark Grimes: and thank you Danielle

[01:59:29] Pallavi Keshri: With Jean on this... I think with Cosi10 we are talking sector scalability

[01:59:35] Matt Nathan: Mark, I like that AND what if cosi10 helped someone launch a key innovation that was policy driven or donation driven (not market driven) YET IT WORKED? I'd like us to be open to whatever works and can scale!

[01:59:57] Pallavi Keshri: and we can describe the sector as Social Innovation to incorporate all definitions including social enterprise

[02:00:07] Jean M Russell: Thank you Pallavi

[02:00:24] Matt Nathan: oops, sorry I fell behind - was referring to something Mark said upthread.

[02:00:37] Christina Jordan: no worries Matt!

[02:00:41] tahitian_coconut: For me what is creative about the COSI10 event is that it is experimenting a way to connect people worldwide at the same moment on the same problematic using collective intelligence mixed with information technologies

[02:00:51] Christina Jordan: repeating: THINK PRESS RELEASE: What's creative about how cosi10 is connecting the sector?

[02:01:36] Mark Grimes: Matt, for me (personally) policy stuff is too wanky, and donation stuff is too focused on the money, not the results. But heck, I’ll offer any assistance I can to anyone trying to make the world a better place.

[02:01:50] Christina Jordan: same moment, same problematic, collective intelligence + info technologies. Nice set of words Christian

[02:02:19 | Edited 02:03:41] Jean M Russell: there are several hurdles to the network of innovators flowing smoothly - innovating and collaborating. 1 is being connected together strong enough to remember each other and have enough trust to reach other. and #2 is that the network of this sector starts to function with some intelligence. that is dependent on us (at least regionally) speaking some of the same language. the COSI event helps with #1 and 2

[02:03:56] Pallavi Keshri: Just a voice from the other side of the world... Christian you might be able to throw some light on this.... I think with Cosi10, the whole social innovation space is allowing the world to become equal. It is allowing people across the development spectrum to speak on the same platform from their own perspectives and channelize global wisdom

[02:03:57] Danielle Lanyard: big thing here is how to make space for everyone, from all different fields, and how to really support each other. support of the network, knowing that differs by region, innovation, etc. - this is what i see making cosi different

[02:04:45] Matt Nathan: what's creative about cosi10:
-- Connecting grassroots to global
-- experimenting to mix in-person & online collaboration in new ways
-- forwarding real work from event to event around the world, innovating and strengthening it as we go
-- outcomes will be co-produced and decided via global participation

[02:05:17] Matt Nathan: (y) Danielle

[02:05:18] Jean M Russell: high functioning coordinated bottom's up approach.

[02:05:24] Christina Jordan: You folks rock! (dance)

Another important question:

What ‘VALUE ADDED’ do you think PARTICIPANTS will gain by being part of this event and network?

[02:06:42] Matt Nathan: Build real working relationships locally/globally that will carry forward in mutual support toward shared goals.

[02:07:27] Christina Jordan: (handshake)

[02:07:28] Pallavi Keshri: Said it right Danielle. How to really support each other, knowing what differs by region

[02:08:10] Matt Nathan: Also perhaps key point: some amazing local innovators/innovations will likely DISCOVERED and showcased / connected up globally.

[02:08:12] Jean M Russell: opportunity for new or expanded relationships with people working on similar things or with a similar purpose
find social support for your efforts
learn what is going on around your effort
co-create the future of the sector

[02:08:13] Danielle Lanyard: value adds could be answers/solutions to how regions can be value add to people and vice versa - in the social innovation space. localized innovation with global support, input and collaboration.

[02:08:34] Jean M Russell: visibility ;)

[02:08:55] tahitian_coconut: mmm i think the added value each participatn would have is the collective intelligence shared worldwide , a reputation beginning on a global network , an action trigger for the projects of the participants

[02:09:00] Mark Grimes: what do participants want?

[02:09:50] Danielle Lanyard: in nyc, we need to innovate because our city is truly on its last legs. were it not for tourist money...the startup and innovation boom here is driven by genuine need. is it similar in other cities?

[02:10:01] Jean M Russell: get what you want and give what you have event.

[02:10:13] Christina Jordan: ;) Mark, my question was initially worded as what do you think participants want to gain... want to give a stab at answering?

[02:10:32] Christina Jordan: (I changed the wording at the last minute!)

[02:12:26] Jean M Russell: (my daughter insists that I say something to all of you now that I explained who I am talking to and why. Waves from Zoe Anne)

[02:13:01] Christina Jordan: LOL Hi Zoe Anne! (hug)

ok one last question on "Connecting an emerging global sector" as a headline topic:

In a word or 2, what's the really sexy part of cosi10 - to you?

[02:13:07] Matt Nathan: (Waving back)

Participants want to gain:

-- support in all forms

-- better understanding of big picture / movement and where/how they can best contribute

-- energy and connection to sustain themselves in their efforts

-- feedback and learning to be more effective

[02:13:23] tahitian_coconut: I think they also want TED stuff....not sure they could all be open to collaborative approaches only, perhaps they might think that it s too disruptive as a conference format.... just a tought

[02:13:36] Pallavi Keshri: BIG WAVES Zoe Anne!

[02:13:43] Mark Grimes: Participants at Maker Faire Africa want increased product distribution, marketing education, access to investment capital, exploration of business partnerships

[02:14:10] Jean M Russell: hi Christina and Pallavi from zoe (hug) (F)

[02:14:16] Jean M Russell: hi Matt

[02:14:20] Danielle Lanyard: oh. lovely people, & zoe, speaking of TED. i just found out TED EAST is held on November 5th, the first day of the Nov. cosi events. can i have your feedback on this?

[02:14:39] Christina Jordan: That's one of the reasons why the hosts design one 1/2 day session Christian!

[02:14:44] Pallavi Keshri: The SEXY... Children and THAT WORD In the same breath...puff..... Now that I have used it, the sexy bit about Cosi10 is that it allows you to break through to the global community from a local perspective

[02:14:55] Jean M Russell: what makes COSI sexy is the AMAZING people involved with a track record of innovation

[02:15:08] Matt Nathan: Sexy part: taking collaboration to the next level, to work on innovative solutions together from grassroots to global

[02:15:26] Jean M Russell: globally networked, locally active and locally led

[02:15:51] tahitian_coconut: @christina roger that :)

[02:15:57] Christina Jordan: Wow! powerful stuff (clap)

[02:15:59] Danielle Lanyard: is cosi NYC still sexy if it's date conflicts with TED East on Nov 5th? sorry to be annoying, but would like your input on if u all think this matters.

[02:16:40] Matt Nathan: Also: it's a grand experiment to work across distance and difference to save the world!

[02:16:45] tahitian_coconut: sexy part : feeling of being part of the same movie

[02:17:05] Christina Jordan: Danielle - one of the organizers of TED in Phnom Penn (sp?) is wondering if it might be possible to deliberately plan cosi10 alongside their Ted event... it's still in my inbox from last week to explore
[02:17:11] Christina Jordan: lets talk later?
[02:17:19] Jean M Russell: I wouln't worry about it too much Danielle. In places like NYC and SF, there are always several events to choose from. People who want to be active come to COSI and people who want to passive hear inspiring stuff go to TED

[02:17:22] Matt Nathan: Also: taking action together, not just another talk-fest.

[02:17:25] Danielle Lanyard: yes. i'm game. i just found out on friday and was waiting to tlak to you all about it

[02:17:33] Danielle Lanyard: jean. word :))

[02:17:34] Pallavi Keshri: LOL!!! Jean

[02:18:15] tahitian_coconut: agree with jean :)

[02:18:36] Christina Jordan: WOW WOW ok this is great stuff. I'm going to work from the above to give the press release writers some quotes and bullet points from you all.

Can we try to quickly do another one please?

[02:18:36] Jean M Russell: in fact, I think it helps remind of us of part of our edge to push in our marketing

[02:18:46] Jean M Russell: yes

[02:18:51] Christina Jordan: +1 Jean

[02:19:08] Jean M Russell: really enjoying the interchange with everyone. All have great comments

[02:19:48] Jean M Russell: #gratitude. so glad I was able to get online in time to catch some of this.

[02:19:51] Matt Nathan: Thanks all -- honored to be in this with you!

[02:20:31] Danielle Lanyard: i think cosi and TED have a shared ethos, but cosi is all inclusive, grassroots, globally connected, but localized - and intended to disrupt...but not from an individual voice, but from all our voices at the global roundtable.

[02:20:38] Pallavi Keshri: Good one Christina. Helps to hear wha I can say to people to come to us

Headline Topic 2: Are you building a better world through innovative entrepreneurship?
--------------------

[02:20:39] Christina Jordan: Headline Topic 2.
Are you building a better world through innovative entrepreneurship?

Headline Topic 3.
Social innovators band together to shape the coming decade

Headline Topic 4.
Many timezones, many cultures, many plans for a better world

PLEASE TYPE THE NUMBER OF THE TOPIC YOU'D LIKE TO EXPLORE IN OUR REMAINING TIME

[02:21:08] Bonnie Koenig: Danielle - that's great language "intendedto disrupt", now that's different!

[02:21:12] Jean M Russell: #3

[02:21:18] Christina Jordan: THAT'S WHAT I WAS HOPING WE'D ALL GET OUT OF THIS PALLAVI. JEAN THX FOR GOING THE EXTRA MILE TO BE HERE!

[02:21:18] Pallavi Keshri: #3

[02:21:47] Danielle Lanyard: topic 2. why innovate, if not to disrupt the complacent fabric to bring about needed change.

[02:21:54] Christina Jordan: oops sorry for shouting (chuckle)

[02:21:55] Jean M Russell: We all made it a point to be here....I just got gliched noticably.

[02:22:01] Mark Grimes: #2

[02:22:17] Danielle Lanyard: is gliched a hybrid of glitch and cliche?

[02:22:44] tahitian_coconut: #3

[02:22:45] Pallavi Keshri: hahaha... wonderful learnings... gliched = glitch + cliche

[02:22:53] Jean M Russell: lol

[02:23:23] Jean M Russell: can we talk about #2 or #3 for 5 minutes?

[02:23:48] Pallavi Keshri: I like the whole idea that this is meant for "disruption"

[02:23:49] Matt Nathan: LOL - "gliche" is a keeper. ANd I vote for 2

[02:24:06] Pallavi Keshri: Why innovate IF NOT for Disruption

[02:24:23] Danielle Lanyard: (handshake) to you all!

[02:24:27] Jean M Russell: okay, so what I like about #2 is that it invites the reader to consider whether they are one too.... so I expect to read about what the qualities of an innovator are

[02:24:31] Christina Jordan: I also think number 2 addresses bonnie's earlier question:

[22:29:05] Bonnie Koenig: For those not familar with your definition of social entrepreneur or social innovator how will they know you are targeting them?

[02:24:41] Christina Jordan: ok so...

[02:24:54] Mark Grimes: +10 Pallavi

[02:24:54] Christina Jordan: What is innovative entrepreneurship as we are using the term? (is there a better term that encompasses social enterprise and innovation?)

[02:25:13] Danielle Lanyard: e

[02:25:20] Danielle Lanyard: oops. 'enterprise for social impact'

[02:25:21] Jean M Russell: (what I like about #3 is the decade outlook)... and what I didn't like about #4 is that it sounds scattered

[02:25:35] Pallavi Keshri: Thanks Mark

[02:26:01] Jean M Russell: well entrepreneurship itself is supposed to be innovation, so it sounds a bit redundant, right?

[02:26:03] Danielle Lanyard: also, back to bonnie's question. these terms do have different connotations by region. is there a globally accepted lexicon?

[02:26:54] Christina Jordan: no, danielle, there really isn't. That's why we need to think about all of the terms we are using globally and strategically use them all to our maximum advantage if we can

[02:27:02] Jean M Russell: as far as I have experienced, there isn't a gloabl one Danielle. When I was in Sweden, they really didn't get "social" entrepreneurship... and they spoke to "public" instead

[02:27:06] Pallavi Keshri: I am not so sure about that Jean... Not all entrepreneurship is Innovation...

[02:27:07] Matt Nathan: yes to disruption, AND I think a lot of what's different and promising about cosi10 is that we aim to go BEYOND disruption, to co-construction

[02:27:13] Jean M Russell: and they thought it was a bit obvious...

[02:27:25] Mark Grimes: All great VCs and angel investors are looking for disruptive new business models. And those are the models we should be exploring as well.

[02:27:38] Danielle Lanyard: co creation. love this. 'whats the opposite of war? creation"

[02:27:41] Christina Jordan: nice headline material Matt!

BEyond disruption to co-construction

[02:27:42] Jean M Russell: BINGO Matt. Yes, not just to disrupt, but to erupt with something new

[02:27:52] Jean M Russell: co-creation +10

[02:28:03] Pallavi Keshri: Co-creation is great!

[02:28:40] Christina Jordan: NOT JUST TO DISRUPT BUT TO ERUPT WITH SOMETHING NEW

[02:28:44] Christina Jordan: I like that too.

[02:29:18] tahitian_coconut: Creative commons entrepreneurship, there's a good philosophy of co-construction in the creative common movement

[02:29:22] Pallavi Keshri: Can I throw a spanner in the works??!!! Going to be disruptive

[02:29:38] Jean M Russell: yes, please

[02:29:42] Mark Grimes: not sure what a spanner is, but sure

[02:29:44] Matt Nathan: "entrepreneurship" itself is tinged with Western worship of individualism, Ayn Rand etc. Personally, I think what's most needed is a mode of innovation and production that is still emerging. Bill Drayton talks/writes about "collaborative entrepreneurship"

[02:29:48] Jean M Russell: just no spammers, ok?

[02:29:55] Matt Nathan: spanner = wrench

[02:29:59] Mark Grimes: thnx

[02:30:12] Christina Jordan: LOL - what is it Pallavi dear?

[02:30:25] tahitian_coconut: in france Social Entrepreneurship is perceive as only NGO and associative stuff, nothing to do with business...it's sad

[02:30:26] Pallavi Keshri: LOL:) Ok so what we are essentially talking about is ways of making this world a better place...

[02:30:29] tahitian_coconut: go pallavi :)

[02:30:51] Christina Jordan: Yes - leading to my next question - PLEASE ANSWER: How will innovative entrepreneurship help to build a better world?

[02:30:53] Pallavi Keshri: So if we are talking making people economically stringer so that they become empowered to build themselves a better world

[02:31:09] Pallavi Keshri: Does it all have to be "innovative"..."disruptive" "new"

[02:31:10] Matt Nathan: Funny watching all those little animated pen icons moving at once!

[02:31:12] Bonnie Koenig: Matt - That's important, the more you can break down terms that don't mean the same in all places to more commonly used English terms, the more globally understood they will be.

[02:31:47] Matt Nathan: bonnie, that's part of why I like "changemaking" & "changemaker"

[02:32:11] tahitian_coconut: Innovative Entrepreneurship will help build a better place if they take into account their social impact in their business models

[02:32:22] Christina Jordan: I've always been partial to "Better World Builders"

[02:32:32] Pallavi Keshri: For places like India.... It is important that people get the basics... which could be something simple.. something done before... something "easy"... maybe something which can be copied.

[02:32:33] Jean M Russell: Collaborative entrepreneurship will change the world by (excuse me being such a theory-head) = working at a more complex system level than the problems it addresses. ;)

[02:33:06] Christina Jordan: @pallavi I don't know that "economically" better is the only form of a better world I am personally talking about

[02:33:06] Mark Grimes: +10 Pallavi again

[02:33:06] Danielle Lanyard: i'd like to also throw in global social justice movement lingo. social justic through enterprise and innovation. empowerment

[02:33:47] Mark Grimes: Pallavi, that's why one org I like is Drishtee...biz models in a box for rural India

[02:33:50] Christina Jordan: webbed empowerment = WE

[02:33:51] Pallavi Keshri: Agree Christina, product & service aimed at a better quality of life

[02:34:01] Jean M Russell: +1 Christina

[02:34:08] Christina Jordan: aimed at building a thrivable world

[02:34:09] Pallavi Keshri: unfortunately the discussion on "alternative currency" is still on

[02:34:19] Matt Nathan: Status quo is taking us all to extinction -- so yes, something needs to be NEW. Personally, I think what's need most is PROCESS INNOVATION -- we've got product innovation and it is not enough to get us to thrivability.

[02:34:37] Jean M Russell: agreed Matt

[02:34:39] Danielle Lanyard: jean - there is a big drive here to 'formalize' collaborative innovation so that this can be profitable for the innovators who are freely sharing their brain and ideas to make something great.

[02:34:54] Matt Nathan: (that was in response to Danielle's early Q re whether we need "new"

[02:35:08] Christina Jordan: redefining the currencies that connect us is a huge part of the equation, I think. Can't wait to see what the Brussels event brings on that front

[02:35:42] Pallavi Keshri: Mark, I like Drishtee to

[02:35:46] Matt Nathan: oops I meant Pallavi's Q

[02:35:49] Jean M Russell: i we understand that innovation is risky... and that not all of the process can give rise to income...I am open to formalizing some of the process to help support those doing it.

[02:36:05] Danielle Lanyard: re: redefining currencies: http://www.greenamericaexchange.org/ - is there a global version?

[02:36:06] Mark Grimes: and Honeybee Network in India is GREAT too

[02:36:09] Pallavi Keshri: My point is such organizations in these conditions are far & few... so are we to focus only on those?

[02:36:19] Christina Jordan: GREAT - now.... let's drill down on this:

What ‘value added’ can innovative entrepreneurs expect to gain by being part of this network?

[02:36:55] Jean M Russell: Danielle - if Chris Lindstrom is in NYC this summer... I suggest you meet him (currency guy)

[02:36:57] Christina Jordan: This network that WE (all of us chatting here) are daring to attempt to create.....

[02:37:10] tahitian_coconut: all your remarks make me think about this idea for the press release, cosi is like an attemp to create an Open source operating system for social innovation apps !

[02:37:18] Jean M Russell: and thank you Christina for bringing us together

[02:37:23] Mark Grimes: It seems they would want, more sales, more product distribution, more capital, more social impact

[02:37:30] Pallavi Keshri: So can we then say we are ONLY looking at "innovations" either processes or products or services etc.

[02:37:38] tahitian_coconut: +1 mark concerning the honeybee network, great grassrotts innovators !

[02:37:55] Mark Grimes: thnx TC

[02:38:13] Christina Jordan: projects - even of an experimental nature, should also be in that mix...

[02:38:31] Danielle Lanyard: i think ideas can come to market quicker if they know how they can integrate with other existing technologies, improve in both directions. cosi can bridge this, the world over.

[02:39:01] Danielle Lanyard: jean - can u connect me to chris, if you know him. thx.

[02:39:07] Jean M Russell: sure.

[02:39:10] tahitian_coconut: yes, we should experiments of create workshops where we hacks business models and innovation to give them a bigger social impact

[02:39:17] Pallavi Keshri: Agree Danielle

[02:39:22] Matt Nathan: yes to open source, but I think what we're about here with cosi10 is pre-OS... more exploratory, experimental. Perhaps more like web standards, think early days of Berners-Lee and W3C

[02:39:32] Pallavi Keshri: I think thats a great output

[02:39:42] Mark Grimes: Good one TC!

[02:40:14] Pallavi Keshri: Nice one Christian

[02:40:26] tahitian_coconut: Danielle gives the idea of iteration in innovation +1

[02:40:43] Jean M Russell: I gotta take my kids to their dad... sad to leave you all. Thank you for the amazing chat!

[02:40:53] Mark Grimes: see ya Jean

[02:40:56] Danielle Lanyard: i'd also like to focus on regional resources. NYC has tons of untapped resources that we could share with the world, that we can't even interconnect locally. how to harness this, is a constant question of mine, to raise via cosi 10

[02:40:58] tahitian_coconut: As cosi events happens regularly it's also a place to iterate social innovation to fine tune them event after event

[02:41:01] Danielle Lanyard: bye jean

[02:41:04] Jean M Russell: (wave)

[02:41:05] Pallavi Keshri: Grt stuff Jean.. Thanks for coming by

[02:41:12] Christina Jordan: EXACTLY - that's what I would LOVE the case-study building breakout sessions turn into - hack the business models and rebuild them stronger through the crowdsourced wisdom - refine the plan through the process and then fund the best of in December

[02:41:46] tahitian_coconut: bye jean

[02:41:54] Matt Nathan: Agreed re all the above -- and thanks Jean

[02:42:13] Christina Jordan: nye Jean - thank you SO much for being here, and for adding your talent to the mix

[02:43:31] Matt Nathan: Re experimentation, iteration, meshing efforts and bizmodels locally / globally -- I think it is crucial that we differentiate cosi10 from all the variants of a pitchfest that are burgeoning.

[02:43:59] Pallavi Keshri: yes thats important

[02:44:05] Pallavi Keshri: +1 Matt

[02:44:12] Matt Nathan: Pitchfest approach is mostly atomistic / competitive / one-off

[02:44:31] Matt Nathan: We want holistic / networked / collaborative / ongoing

[02:44:55] tahitian_coconut: ...quantic ! :)

[02:45:18] Christina Jordan: Which leads to my final planned question for this topic:

Which cosi10 activity highlights will excite potential participants the most?

- In-depth conversations about socila impact in the sectors they are reaching
- professional skills exange fora
- the crowdsourced planning/resource matching/financing opportunity
- the networking
- the ......

[02:45:39] Danielle Lanyard: i agree with nathan. pitch fest model uses competition to drive enterpreneurs, but does little to foster innovation

[02:45:50] Christina Jordan: The topic: Are you building a better world through innovative entrepreneurship?

[02:45:53] Bonnie Koenig: I am going to have to sign-off as well. Great skype chat and good to "meet" you all.

[02:45:54] tahitian_coconut: the Hacking Sessions ;)

[02:46:02] Pallavi Keshri: hacking it is

[02:46:07] Pallavi Keshri: +1 TC

[02:46:08] Mark Grimes: See you Bonnie

[02:46:16] tahitian_coconut: see you bonnie

[02:46:16] Christina Jordan: thx for joining us Bonnie! we're wrapping up soon

[02:46:31] Pallavi Keshri: Thanks Bonnie

[02:46:40] Danielle Lanyard: Bye bonnie!!

[02:47:00] Christina Jordan: and THANK YOU for helping to add structure to this process!

[02:47:11] Christina Jordan: Yay Bonnie (clap)

[02:47:27] Pallavi Keshri: (y)

[02:47:35] Matt Nathan: thx Bonnie - great to v-meet you

[02:48:07] tahitian_coconut: (flex) --> bonnie

[02:48:09] Mark Grimes: One challenge, most entrepreneurs don’t know what they don’t know. So it’s hard for many entrepreneurs to then explore the things that are keeping them from getting to their next level

[02:48:25] Mark Grimes: Hacking Session will help them

[02:48:27] Christina Jordan: REPEATING:

Which leads to my final planned question for this topic: Are you building a better world through innovative entrepreneurship?

Which cosi10 activity highlights will excite potential participants the most?

- In-depth conversations about socila impact in the sectors they are reaching
- professional skills exange fora
- the crowdsourced planning/resource matching/financing opportunity
- the networking
- the ......

[02:48:31] Danielle Lanyard: great point mark.

[02:48:58] Mark Grimes: thnx DL

[02:50:16] tahitian_coconut: hacking sessions

[02:50:24] tahitian_coconut: crowdsources ressource planning

[02:50:35] tahitian_coconut: Wow moment when discovering innovations

[02:50:37] Pallavi Keshri: I think #1 & #3 Christina

[02:51:48] Mark Grimes: I agree, #1 and #3

[02:52:06] Danielle Lanyard: i think cosi participants will want something that is a cross between a pitch fest and a fail faire, where they can both incubate, know what they don't know, and still launch/expand/scale - openly, and with local help and a global network

[02:52:34] Christina Jordan: #1 actually excites me the most personally... I think when we can shift our focus to thinking about the impact we are planning - and momentarily away from resource scarcity issues - then suddenly things tend to become much clearer in this field

[02:52:40] Matt Nathan: Yes, Mark -- so we need to emphasize that it is hacking-with-a-purpose, to help them get their own venture to next level, and to move collectively to next level of solutions.

Also, I like "hacking" and it doesn't necessarily resonate with non-techies. "Building" "Experimenting" "Strengthening" are some alternative words...

[02:53:53] Christina Jordan: love the hacking analogy! would like more reasons why that's important - what it can lead to - ....

[02:54:35] Danielle Lanyard: hacking also connotes that you are going to find something you didn't necessarily expect! like the guy who tried to make superglue and hacked his way into inventing ice cream.

[02:54:54] Pallavi Keshri: We will have to be careful with the hacking... though we need it... We should "lead" people into solutions as opposed to "providing" solutions.... could very well be the mentoring that is required

[02:55:09] Mark Grimes: Hiow do I say this without sounding mean. Some business miodels should simply just not launch. Just because the entrepreneur likes their own idea, it still may be, well, not a great idea. All good entrepreneurs understand the demand for their product/service. Heck, myself and 6 people spent a weekend years ago asking if SnapNames was an interesting idea, or an actual business model. We could have decided to kill it

[02:55:50] tahitian_coconut: mmm perhaps not decide to kill it or not but to transform it

[02:55:57] tahitian_coconut: this could lad to a lot of experimentations

[02:56:05] tahitian_coconut: concerning the social impact

[02:56:23] tahitian_coconut: cosi could be a place where we share the lastest research in this field

[02:56:27] Christina Jordan: co-creation is what I'm after

[02:56:44] Pallavi Keshri: and innovations... most entrepreneurs also see the opportunity and should reach for it in terms of modifications to existing plans

[02:57:08] Mark Grimes: We decided it was disruptive and created a secondary market for domain names. Co-creation towards...better, quicker, measurable socail impact?

[02:57:13] Danielle Lanyard: co-creation, yes! and with mark's point that create solve problems, not to impose solutions.

[02:57:13] Christina Jordan: I think we may well be the latest research in this field, of this deep qualitative nature anyway

[02:57:17] tahitian_coconut: evaluating to social impact in different sectors : it's only the beginning of the research , so perhaps cosi10 could be a really cool place for searchers in this field meeting with practitioners

[02:58:15] Christina Jordan: yes, TC

[02:58:28] tahitian_coconut: co-creation / co-piloting / co-evaluating

[02:58:40] Christina Jordan: exactly - I so want what we're able to harvest from cosi10 to be valuable to researchers

[02:58:42] Pallavi Keshri: I am going to keep playing devil's advocate. I apologise for that.... but we have to understand that we are trying to make a LEVEL PLAYING field here..... the distance between the worlds is way too much...some pits have to be filled

[02:59:45] Christina Jordan: PLEASE SPEAK TO PALLAVI'S COMMENT:

How will cosi10 contribute to levelling the playing field?

[03:00:08] Mark Grimes: +10 for one thing (again) to Pallavi

[03:00:18] Matt Nathan: Message to entrepreneurs:
Explore options, get feedback, learn, strengthen your venture -- and connect it with others in practical ways for greater impact.

[03:00:28] Danielle Lanyard: 'enterprise' as vehicle to level the playing field. enterprise as vehicle to bridge divides through empowerment.

[03:00:45] tahitian_coconut: by structuring knowledge

[03:00:49] Pallavi Keshri: Define Enterprise.

[03:00:59] tahitian_coconut: and working with researchers ( answer to pallavi )

[03:01:09] Mark Grimes: Maker Faire Africa is meant to empower local African solutions to local problems with local innovation...we're (the MFA team) is just the organizing body

[03:01:12] Danielle Lanyard: 'innovation' as opposed to enterprise?

[03:01:45] Christina Jordan: needing to wrap up in Brussels soon but (inlove) deeply in love with this conversation

[03:02:13] Mark Grimes: innovation, inventions, amd makers...most of whom are selling something, so enterprise, yes

[03:02:50] Pallavi Keshri: When we say "enterprise" as a vehicle for levelling the field... brings me back to economics...They way I see it the two co-exist... but might be mutually exclusive!

[03:03:17] Christina Jordan: To wrap up on topic 2

PLEASE SPEAK TO PALLAVI'S COMMENT:

How will cosi10 contribute to levelling the playing field?

[03:03:34] Matt Nathan: This is like Maker Faire Global -- aim of cosi10 is to organize fora and processes for makers to learn, connect, sell, collaborate to solve probs

[03:03:46] Mark Grimes: Pallavi, can you ellaborate please?

[03:04:51] Pallavi Keshri: This was in respect to Christina;s earlier comment on how we might lok at economics as the only means of social impact..but in my mind when we speak enterprise as Danielle just mentioned it connotes economics

[03:05:00] Mark Grimes: And what we found wit MFA is some ideas are very local, some regional, and some global...and most people could not really evaluate their own idea (as often happens in US as well)

[03:06:05] Pallavi Keshri: Hence my question... can what is the defining line... Isnt the basis of an enterprise economics? If yes then no questions but if no then how are the two separate from each other

[03:07:22] Christina Jordan: organization = enterprise = venture = idea = level playing field?

[03:07:35] Danielle Lanyard: Pallavi - I think this question is importan to ask for the big picture, but it differs by actual venture. I personally don't work on a venture that isn't aimed to 'level the playing field', and then i ask the questions Mark raises, to as many experts possible. This process, is like an open collaboration, and part of what I'd like to see all ventures do when they are seeding things.

[03:09:11] Pallavi Keshri: @ Mark: With MFA when you assess or evaluate an idea what is the benchmark? global or local?

[03:09:22] Mark Grimes: Nice one Danielle

[03:10:37] Pallavi Keshri: Thanks Danielle. So I would in that sense say anyone who has an idea with respect to levelling the playing field is welcome on board!

[03:11:25] Danielle Lanyard: it seems this great group KNOWS what questions to ask, on how to level the playing and what this looks like. but what of the people who don't know? how can cosi10 be a community to ask? and how does 'levelling the playing field' differ in meaning, globally?

[03:11:45] Christina Jordan: re: "enterprise" economics - i guess at the end of the day, the word we use to describe it is not as important as simply "finding ways to make good things happen." Revenue based, crowdsourced, alternatively jump-started through resource matching and hacking sessions with other smart people... finding innovative ways to make things happen that maybe are neither pure enterprise or charity models

[03:11:54] Mark Grimes: Good question Pallavi. That's exactly what we're doing this year. Last year was to see if innovators, makers and inventors even showed up. This year the team will work closely with all makers to evaluate their "invention" from an overall business model perspective. Helping with milestones, and deliverables for them to get to the next level (assuming, that is what they desire)

[03:12:25] tahitian_coconut: agree with Christina

[03:13:48] Mark Grimes: a very good entrepreneur Paul Graham put it like this...and I love it..."make stuff people want"

[03:14:17] Pallavi Keshri: aaah... thanks Christian.... so then we come down to forms of existence of an organization be it for-profit or non-profit or hybrid 3LCs(???) in the US?... Just wanted to check how we would like to define who participates...

[03:14:35] Pallavi Keshri: Sorry that was Thanks Christina

[03:14:58] tahitian_coconut: perhaps we can focus not on their legal status but on the vision of the entrepreneurs

[03:15:10] Danielle Lanyard: pallavi - people here in NYC want to focus on corporate structuring and 3LCs/finance. will definitely be a focus of the NYC event for sure.

[03:15:10] tahitian_coconut: do they want to tend to a sustainable kind of approach

[03:15:16] Mark Grimes: great point TC

[03:15:32] Pallavi Keshri: Absolutely TC... that point is what I needed... sorry to get to it in such along-winded way

[03:15:41] Christina Jordan: we talked earlier about making sure we remain open to the different interpretations of the terms

[03:15:48] Christina Jordan: whoever shows up is the right people

[03:16:03] Matt Nathan: Here's my mundane response -- not addressing the enterprise definition aspect:

cosi10 helps level playing field by being:
-- open in eligibility and process
-- affordable
-- in-person as well as online (and not dependent on broadband connection)
-- transparent
-- emergent & continuously improved
-- iterative (sufficient time and slow enough pace to be inclusive, help good people / idea / ventures not get lost)
-- facilitated (by a diverse team with knowledge/skill re issues of power/equity etc)

[03:16:25] Mark Grimes: Lately I've suggested to people, start your business under another existing entity, then inorporate LLLC, LLC, s-corp whatever...only after you have $10,000 in sales

[03:17:05] Pallavi Keshri: Thanks for your answer Mark. I asked the question because like you said first it is important that people should show up and then to see what they need

[03:17:16] Mark Grimes: zactly

[03:18:07] Mark Grimes: MFA the first year was not event a registered org, it was just 5 people doing something interesting

[03:18:17] Pallavi Keshri: Got round-up Christina. Thanks a ton people. This might seem like goin back a few steps for you....but I am trying to level the playing field :) Thanks for holding up

[03:18:34] Christina Jordan: Wow - what a bundle of energy this group is. Thank you thank you thank you for all of your input tonight!

(clap)

I will be posting the transcript of this chat in the host backchannel space, and will be sending it to the press release writers

[03:18:48] Christina Jordan: I would also love to post it on the Evolutionize it blog if y'all are agreed.

[03:18:56] tahitian_coconut: agree :)

[03:19:02] Christina Jordan: What a wonderful discussion t's been!

[03:19:03] tahitian_coconut: Thanks a lot everyone

[03:19:06] Pallavi Keshri: Sure Christina...

[03:19:06] Mark Grimes: fine by me

[03:19:31] Danielle Lanyard: yes. thanks to you all. big kudos to christina, and thanks to our mothers for birthing great open minds! :D

[03:19:33] tahitian_coconut: it was cool to talk with you on skype :) it changes from corporate kind of conf call hehe :) thks christina for the animation !

[03:19:41] Christina Jordan: y'all rock, and it thrills me to think about rocking the world just a little bit with you all!

[03:19:41] Pallavi Keshri: Mark, would like to discuss MFA a little bit with you sometime... It might be a format we look at for cosi10 local paticipation

[03:20:00] Christina Jordan: (ninja)

[03:20:09] Matt Nathan: OK, great to think together about what we're trying to help happen with cosi10 -- thanks everyone!

[03:20:09] Mark Grimes: happy to chat

[03:20:23] tahitian_coconut: bye :)

[03:20:26] Pallavi Keshri: Thanks a ton.. whenever conevenient for you....

[03:20:33] Christina Jordan: I'll send out a roundup note first thing in the morning

[03:20:59] Christina Jordan: The next virtual planning session is Thursday - esp important for the September event hosts if you can make it

[03:21:02] Danielle Lanyard: and we all owe pallavi 1 good night's sleep - trooper winner of the group!

[03:21:14] Pallavi Keshri: LOL... I dont think I am sleeping now

[03:21:16] Pallavi Keshri: Its 3.30

[03:21:25] Pallavi Keshri: And am way too charged up to ge any sleep

[03:21:38] Christina Jordan: yes Bravo Pallavi - you deserve a good night's (morning's) sleep!

[03:21:49] Mark Grimes: Sleep deprived = good creative time

[03:22:01] Christina Jordan: Thursday AUGUST 12 - 6am PST | 9am EST | 1pm GMT | 11pm NSW
Introduction to the ned.com platform features & host backchannel space

[03:22:03] Pallavi Keshri: hahaha... I think so... definitely more productive time

[03:22:12] Matt Nathan: We need to level the sleeping field!

[03:22:28] Pallavi Keshri: mmmmmm!!! Go Go Mark!

[03:22:39] Danielle Lanyard: thanks again all. off to level the sleeping playing field bye

[03:22:43] Christina Jordan: http://www.google.com/calendar/render?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=OHJtMDdmMXAyY2FqMWh0dXJyYXVzNG4wZWMgY2hyaXN0aW5hc3d3d29ybGRAbQ&tmsrc=Y2hyaXN0aW5hc3d3d29ybGRAZ21haWwuY29t&sf=true&output=xml

[03:22:57] Mark Grimes: see everyone

[03:23:04] Christina Jordan: Thank you soooo much to everyone - look for a roundup message from me tomorrow with the links to this transcript

[03:23:13] Matt Nathan: bye

[03:23:17] Christina Jordan: (clap)

[03:23:21] Christina Jordan: (yawn)

[03:23:23] Mark Grimes: thnx all

[03:23:29] Christina Jordan: (F)

[03:23:52] Pallavi Keshri: Good morning everbody! Have a nice day.. .

[03:24:01] Pallavi Keshri: (sun) Cheers!

[03:24:20] Christina Jordan: So very lovely to speak with you all! Bravo to all on a job well done. I feel great about what we accomplished tonight. Kudos!

[03:24:20] tahitian_coconut: cheers !

[03:24:53] Christina Jordan: (o) gnite

[03:25:08] Mark Grimes: be well

[03:25:20] Pallavi Keshri: Mark trying to add you on skype unable to

[03:25:39] Mark Grimes: I will try to add you again

[06:34:15] Jean M Russell: gratitude all. Caught up on this thread and so amazed at the conversation. Can't wait to see Christina's brilliant synthesis. (clap)

[07:13:53] Luke Grange: Thank you for including our Ubuntu Australia group on this and look forward to planning more with you all (handshake)

Radical Real Time : Evolutionizing Transparency

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:01:00 +0000

In early June I participated as a virtual facilitator of a breakout session at Radical Real Time - a virtual unconference on redefining collaboration. I chose to host a conversation about transparency in collaboration for social change using skype text group chat.

Below is a transcript of the very rich discussion, reposted here from http://radicalrealtime.pbworks.com/Transparency-in-collaboration-for-social-change (which also includes transparency-related reading materials I posted before the session).

[15:24:35] Christina Jordan: Sitting outside in my garden, on possibly the warmest, sunniest day in Brussels so far this year. Getting ready for our chat on transparency in collaboration for social change in an hour. Welcome!

[15:25:02] Sari Stenfors: beautiful!

[15:25:30] Christina Jordan: Where are others chiming in from?

[15:27:30] Raj: Good morning to Sari and good afternoon Christina

[15:28:42] Raj: I am Raj from Kathmandu, Nepal

[15:31:00] Ron Davidson: Hello everyone - it is good be here. I'm Ron in the UK.

[15:31:07] Christina Jordan: Hi Raj! How's your internet connection in Nepal?

[15:31:28] Christina Jordan: Welcome Ron - how's UK weather today?

[15:31:46] Raj: It is fairely good today, Christina

[15:32:08] Ron Davidson: Hah - warm with some clouds..very pleasant..

[15:33:19] Ron Davidson: @Christina - just got your email - Skype is faster...

[15:33:24] Christina Jordan: Just to let you all know, I decided to make this session text chat only - not voice - so that you can dip in and out of other sessions at the same time, if you'd like to. There's a lot of great sessions going on during our time slot!

(idle chit chat deleted)

[15:48:59] Christina Jordan: While waiting for the opening plenary...

To get some thoughts flowing around some of the issues that "transparency" evokes, there are a couple of links/articles up in the documentation session herehttp://radicalrealtime.pbworks.com/Transparency-in-collaboration-for-social-change

[15:49:23] Christina Jordan: oops - section, not session

[15:49:34] Christina Jordan: (chuckle)

[15:57:54] Christina Jordan: The opening plenary will start in about 3 minuteshttps://sites.google.com/a/radical-inclusion.com/rrt-auditorium/home

[16:19:07] Wendy E Brawer joined the chat

[16:19:13] Mats Lönngren joined the chat

[16:20:16] David Marsilia joined the chat

[16:24:05] Wendy E Brawer: Wendy E Brawer set topic to " please click the chat button! "

[16:25:42] Tony Mann: lot of typing?

[16:27:03] Wendy E Brawer: click the chat button

[16:27:03] Tony Mann: please click thr chat button to get in the chat

[16:27:35] Christina Jordan: hmmm are you talking to me?

[16:28:02] Tony Mann: no somehow I'm in a chat conference as well???

[16:29:01] Joitske Hulsebosch joined the chat

[16:29:29] Christina Jordan: Christina Jordan set topic to " Transparency in collaboration for Social Change "

[16:29:39] Joitske Hulsebosch: Hi Christina

[16:29:54] Christina Jordan: Hi Folks - this is the Transparency in Collabroation for social change TEXT chat

[16:29:58] Wendy E Brawer: 97 old state, 01011 usa

[16:30:12] Wendy E Brawer: tell us how to find it

[16:30:16] Christina Jordan: had decided to do this one text only to allow you to join other sessions as well

[16:30:29] Christina Jordan: Wendy, are you in the right place?

[16:30:43] Wendy E Brawer: is this the right place

[16:30:53] Wendy E Brawer: ?

[16:30:59] Joitske Hulsebosch: I thought someone was trying to call me :)

[16:31:02] Christina Jordan: Wendy where do you intend to be?

[16:31:26] Wendy E Brawer: this is fine

[16:31:41] Christina Jordan: ok everyone sorry for the tech difficulties

[16:32:06] Christina Jordan: Can we get some introductions going maybe?

[16:32:22] Joitske Hulsebosch: Sure

[16:32:23] Christina Jordan: My name is Christina Jordan - I am a “serial social entrepreneur” and a global gypsy. I currently live in Brussels, having recently moved back here after 10 years in Uganda, East Africa.

[16:32:53] Joitske Hulsebosch: I'm Joitske Hulsebosch also lived 10 years in Africa :)

[16:33:04] Joitske Hulsebosch: Kenya, Mali, Ethiopia and Ghana

[16:33:28] Joitske Hulsebosch: Now in the Netherlands working on facilitating learning and km

[16:33:50] kathie wallace: Kathie Wallace Vancouver Canada Hello! I am a community engagement facilitator passionate about bringing everyone to the table as equals ona level playing field.

[16:33:52] Joitske Hulsebosch: Moved back in 2003 already

[16:33:54] Raj: I am Raj, lecturer at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal. TEaching management courses

[16:34:03] Wendy E Brawer: Wendy Brawer, founding director of Green Map System, which has a network of locally led Green Map projects in 55 countries - i live in NYC amd have a coop organic farm where i am now. Have lived in Asia and US

[16:34:05] Tony Mann: Tony, Living in England, working across Europe and the Middle east

[16:34:27] John Stephen Veitch joined the chat

[16:34:31] Ron Davidson: Hi I'm Ron Davidson. I live in England. Full time work is engineering governance, also developing a consultancy supporting SMEs. I'm interested in OD, transformation and change.

[16:34:41] John Stephen Veitch: John Stephen Veitch is using an older version of Skype that does not support multi-person chats and therefore can't join

[16:34:41] David Marsilia: David, USA Texas in transition currently looking for opportunities

[16:34:50] Christina Jordan: Welcome John - we're introducing ourselves!

[16:35:29] Christina Jordan: ok so I wanted to chat about Transparency... here's a bit of background on why that topic:

While in Uganda I engaged in an experiment in organizational transparency - connecting local communities of beneficiaries I was working with directly to groups of global supporters online. Sometimes that worked really well - sometimes it was really challenging to manage the organization’s operations and image.

[16:35:44] Wendy E Brawer: I hope some of you can visit http://GreenMap.org later and see if our approach to connecting community and sustainability will work for your home place....

[16:35:57] Mats Lönngren: I am Mats and i live in Switzerland and Finland. Lived in in Germany and France. Recently graduated industrial designer

[16:36:06] John Stephen Veitch: John Veitch, New Zealand. 2.30am here.

[16:36:49] Mats Lönngren: nice to meet people behind greenmaps..been there before

[16:37:29] kathie wallace: what does "really challenging to manage the orgs operations and images" mean? with reference to transparency?

[16:37:46] Christina Jordan: Looking forward to learning more about greenmaps!

So personally, I believe in the value of transparency, but have learned that we shouldn’t treat it dogmatically. There are parts of transparency that are good, useful, necessary. But sometimes we need to know where the lines need to be drawn

[16:37:48] Wendy E Brawer: thanks Mats! we are growing fast - now over 600 projects, and it's harder to collaborate so I want to learn more from this session and group

[16:38:23] Christina Jordan: @kathie with beneficiaries talking to supporters directly there was a whole lot of messaging that became uncontrolled

[16:38:47] Christina Jordan: which can sometimes be really great, and sometimes be tricky when people start talking about each other

[16:39:06] Heidi Massey joined the chat

[16:39:19] Christina Jordan: Hi Heidi!

[16:39:27] Heidi Massey: Hi Christina!

[16:39:48] Heidi Massey: How do I see what everyone is chatting about or the history...have you started?

[16:40:11] Christina Jordan: So that's just some background to say that transparency is really interesting, but can be challenging. I'll give you a few scenarios later

[16:40:32] Christina Jordan: but first, I wanted to toss the question out there: When you hear the term transparency, what does it really mean to you?

[16:40:50] Christina Jordan: TRANSPARENCY = what?

[16:41:02] kathie wallace: does transparency have to do with who has the control of the scenario? is it being mediated?

[16:41:18] Joitske Hulsebosch: No hidden agendas

[16:41:19] Hempal Shrestha joined the chat

[16:41:42] kathie wallace: transparency for me means no hidden agendas, no middle man mediating and controlling the experience

[16:41:48] Heidi Massey: Transparency is making things clear for people to see what is happening...input into the process

[16:42:09] Joitske Hulsebosch: Being clear about your assumptions and ways of working

[16:42:20] David Ewaku joined the chat

[16:42:34] John Stephen Veitch: Transparency is openness, a willingness to let other people see what you are dibng, no hidden agenda, sicerity of offers, willingness to trust.

[16:42:39] David Marsilia: Availability to information

[16:42:49] Heidi Massey: Clear about goals too...why doing certain things

[16:43:12] kathie wallace: if the people who hold the power are the only ones in the discussion what does that mean?

[16:43:53] Ron Davidson: The norms, control, rules working processes are visible and accible by all involved, but also to other interested parties

[16:44:23] Christina Jordan: Hi David! we're asking what does Transparency mean to you?

[16:44:30] David Marsilia: Unobstructed with equal capabilities shared amongst all parties including stakeholders in the public domain

[16:45:29] Wendy E Brawer: also sharing the perspective and views of others without judgment

[16:45:35] Heidi Massey: I love what David said about unobstructed with equal...SO important in low income communities. We block transparency sometimes by making things inaccessible!

[16:45:41] Mats Lönngren: Transparency is honestly..honestly in what you do and how you treat people

[16:45:55] Ron Davidson: For those holding the power - it is been able to see or understand where their power comes from

[16:45:55] Mats Lönngren: sorry honesty

[16:46:08] Joitske Hulsebosch: Not in every situation there is equal capabilities? I wonder about that

[16:46:30] Christina Jordan: Here's a different take on the question... Is transparency good for the world? WHY?

[16:47:17] Heidi Massey: Joitske, sometimes even lack of internet access blocks access to the process and thus transparency

[16:47:30] Raj: Transparency is good. But, to what level/extent

[16:47:53] David Marsilia: Context for contribution comes from richness and depth of information shared. You can only add value if you already know whats been done and what the goals are.

[16:48:00] Heidi Massey: I think that it depends on the situation...but we tend to err on the side of too little transparency in our organizations and too much in our personal lives!

[16:48:21] Christina Jordan: That's a great point Heidi!

[16:48:35] John Stephen Veitch: Transparency allows other people to more correctly understand what their real options are. So they can participate as equals. Transparency allows them to ne peers. Surely that's good.

[16:48:37] Heidi Massey: David, another awesome comment! So true...easy to keep people out by withholding info

[16:49:10] Raj: Everything can be transparent everywhere? In certain cases people do not want to disclose the reality

[16:49:35] Christina Jordan: Is there a mandate for organizations in the social change space to be more transparent than traditional corporations?

[16:49:36] Ron Davidson: @Heidi good point considering all the information that is available on each of us, but the intimate details of some companies operations is very hidden

[16:49:52] David Marsilia: The organization weakens itself if it cannot or willnot share

[16:50:12] Heidi Massey: I know there is a LOT of fear of transparency...what might happen if people know the truth...but I think the truth sometimes, the vulnerability draws people in, instead of repelling them

[16:50:36] Joitske Hulsebosch: @Christina I think it should be yes for nonprofits

[16:50:56] Ron Davidson: @Christina

[16:51:01] Joitske Hulsebosch: but I think it is almost less

[16:51:03] kathie wallace: if you have nothing to hide, no problem being transparent...re having no defenses...only people/orgs holding power and controlling others struggle with transparency and have to have defenses

[16:51:16] Raj: Another point to consider is 'to what extent to be transparent to whom?'

[16:51:29] Joitske Hulsebosch: Good point!

[16:51:42] Heidi Massey: I just read about how we are drawn to vulnerability and repelled by those people/organizations that seem powerful...Oops, gotta pick up daughter...bbl. Sorry!

[16:51:44] Christina Jordan: Yes, Raj - that's my next question - how far does transparency have to go?

[16:51:47] Joitske Hulsebosch: Can't explain everything all the time

[16:52:03] Joitske Hulsebosch: Bye Heidi!

[16:52:10] David Marsilia: Nobody, no organization is perfect. To claim otherwise sets up barriers to potential contributors.

[16:52:22] Ron Davidson: @Christina - sorry do you know of any study/research findings on how much social organisation have as opposed to private ones?

[16:52:25] Christina Jordan: By Hiedi!

[16:53:03] Christina Jordan: How much transparency? no I don't know of any research on that, only know thet it's a huge buzzword that seems very ill defined

[16:53:20] Christina Jordan: Does it mean open decision-making?

[16:53:29] Christina Jordan: does it mean sharing financal information?

[16:53:41] Raj: In my opinion, to that extent that does not kill the secrecy of doing it, and again does not affect in sustaining the business/operations

[16:54:13] Christina Jordan: does it mean acknowledgement of stakeholder opinions?

[16:54:19] Christina Jordan: Does it mean pleasing everyone?

[16:54:21] Joitske Hulsebosch: There has been a study in the Netherlands from foreign affairs about transparency in development cooperation

[16:54:46] Joitske Hulsebosch: Was very much about sharing the results of your work and the process

[16:54:52] Raj: no, no. In most of the cases stakeholders do not know all about, specially in social change process

[16:55:06] kathie wallace: is transparency not required for true collaboration?

[16:55:19] Ron Davidson: @Christina yes and there is transparency as far a accounting goes, but as for intentions of the organisation's.. transparency can bre a very different matter

[16:55:31] Raj: Pleasing stakeholders, sometimes against the mission of the organization

[16:56:19] Joitske Hulsebosch: There is a role for intermediaries too, to interpret information

[16:56:21] Christina Jordan: Right, so that's where issues of "controlling" the messaging come up

[16:56:25] Joitske Hulsebosch: like journalists

[16:56:36] Christina Jordan: Contolling is a word I don't like much

[16:56:56] Christina Jordan: Kathie, in collaboration I think transparency is really key

[16:57:06] Christina Jordan: But not all partners will

[16:57:09] Raj: I mean, we all know that change is different than usual. Very few people understand and acknowledge the benefits/change need in advance

[16:57:33] Mats Lönngren: Me too Kathie. In order to collaborate you need to evalutate the extent of trust that is built between people / organisations.

[16:57:44] Joitske Hulsebosch: Are you talking about transparency as organisations or individuals? I'm a little lost

[16:57:54] Christina Jordan: Here's a scenario:

[16:57:56] Christina Jordan: You are leading an initiative that involves several players from around the world, working together in a collaborative space online. One of the key players refuses to discuss things openly, but insists on only private conversation with you. How do you handle that?

[16:57:57] kathie wallace: I find current buzz words like collaboration and self-organizing are used by orgs/groups while they hold the power and run the show themselves which adds to the confusion as we shift to a more level playing field at this time

[16:58:59] Joitske Hulsebosch: I think there is nothing wrong with one on one (private) conversations

[16:59:21] Joitske Hulsebosch: Thanks not necessarily counter-transparent - what do others think?

[16:59:49] John Stephen Veitch: I'd ask the the individual who acts in that way to put his point in the public space.

[17:00:13] kathie wallace: that key player is pulling the energy from the group experience to her/himself=control so solution it to name it

[17:00:15] Mats Lönngren: But there is a problem in case the "rules" of the collaboration involves discussion and knowledge sharing..

[17:00:35] Raj: It is very normal and usual. It happens even in face to face conversation and in physical settings. We cannot ignore the role of informal relationship. One way could be bringing the outcome of the private conversation in front after a while

[17:00:44] David Marsilia: In Christina's scenario: it can be important to allow for moments of side conversations as long as the purpose is to draw the outsider in towards transparency. This allows for expression of doubt that any one party may feel about the process or organization. The goal is full disclosure not necessarily the starting place

[17:02:08] Christina Jordan: So "safe space" could be really important in moving toward transparency?

[17:02:18] Joitske Hulsebosch: there may be good reasons for one of one conversations

[17:02:39] Christina Jordan: What should stay private, what should be shared among collaborators? What should be public? Where are the lines?

[17:03:15] Joitske Hulsebosch: I guess you have to see when it becomes detrimental to the trust

[17:03:32] Joitske Hulsebosch: undermining the process

[17:03:40] Raj: There is varieties. Common interest could be the bottom line

[17:03:43] Christina Jordan: good point - does trus build transparency or does transparency build trust?

[17:04:37] John Stephen Veitch: There may be excellent reasons for one on one conversations. To clarify a point, to make it clear why full details cannot be made public. Toprotect the privacy of someone else. None of thses cases requires public disclosure.

[17:05:02] Joitske Hulsebosch: (or a simple helpdesk :)

[17:05:10] Joitske Hulsebosch: not to bother the whole group

[17:05:21] Christina Jordan: Great perspectives folks. I appreciate your involvement in this discussion.

[17:05:22] Hempal Shrestha: trust makes the environment for transparency

[17:06:13] David Marsilia: This is why it is so important for the organization to have the highest level of tranparency from the outset. No limitations beyond propritetary (sp) or copyright information.

[17:06:53] kathie wallace: what prompted the question? the most difficult and critical thing for us to do on the planet at this time is open and be vulnerable to each other and lower our defenses=transparency

[17:06:57] Ron Davidson: @Hempal is tha ttrusting someone to be open about their thoughts, ides, poiont of view...?

[17:06:58] Mats Lönngren: Christina: good question..in a relationship for example, trust is something that builds upon experience and time and some kind of access to your real self: transparency?

[17:07:24] David Marsilia: @ John Yes you've got that about right

[17:08:01] Christina Jordan: ok, so talking about trust... here is another scenario to consider:

[17:08:03] Christina Jordan: Your NGO/project is in partnership with another well-known organization for a project you are implementing together. You find out over time that the partner organization is dramatically mismanaged - there is corruption. What is your obligation to transparency in this case? To whom? What do you do?

[17:08:31] Hempal Shrestha: @ Ron, may be not exactly the case, but it developes an situation which creates a comfortability for transparency,

[17:09:19] Ron Davidson: @OK where the other person feels they can be open..

[17:10:22] Joitske Hulsebosch: Well transparency means not saying everything all the time

[17:10:22] David Marsilia: In any case were a partnership organization is breaking the law and you become aware of it any and all information should immediately be passed on to the appropriate authorities.

[17:11:08] Joitske Hulsebosch: So be open about what you observe and feed it back

[17:11:19] kathie wallace: i answer only to myself and my personal integrity...in the past i have named the corruption...and been fired ;- )...I spoke to the person in control who had the responsibility to admit and change and didn't...other times I have spoken to other entities in charge o/s of the org...what i have found is people who want to hold power don't want to hear about the corruption because they themeslves are complicit

[17:11:50] Christina Jordan: Unfortunately that's been my experience too, Kathie

[17:11:51] John Stephen Veitch: Been there @Christina. First of all you have to try to verify your information. Good record keeping is critical. Your FACTS will be challenged. What appears to be will keep changing. When you approach the organisation direcly and put your cards on the table, they will try to make you look like a traitor.

[17:12:17] Christina Jordan: and they will fight back

[17:12:24] Raj: Kathie, I had got life threat in the similar case

[17:12:45] Wendy E Brawer: we had a situation... we sent a letter to them and the funder with suggestions to the partner on how to remediate, and that if they would make the changes please contact us again. But until then our relation was over. yes we kept all the records.

[17:12:51] Ron Davidson: @Christina in the scenario, some care may be needed in disclosing something you discover about the other organisation made in confidence. Maybe in the extreme you have to walk away from the project to maintain your integrity.

[17:12:52] Christina Jordan: Which goes back to what @Kathie said, yes I think it is so important to lower the defenses and be more vulnerable to each other. But the flipside is we may get hurt

[17:12:58] kathie wallace: there is a limit to what we can do within the power structures themselves...now i work outside those structures to address these problems

[17:13:21] Christina Jordan: Can you elaborate on what you mean by that @Kathie?

[17:14:05] Christina Jordan: Sounds like many have had similar experiences. what is the obligation to other stakeholders in this case?

[17:14:29] Joitske Hulsebosch: a project lowered corruption by increasing transparency about forms and costs

[17:14:29] Christina Jordan: Do you let other partners/beneficiaries/donors know?

[17:14:34] Christina Jordan: or only authorities?

[17:15:13] kathie wallace: it is a huge topic...my session is the start of an elaboration...first we have to understand power dynamics...letting others know=many still choose to buy in bec' they don't think they have a choice e.g. will lose their jobs

[17:15:22] Joitske Hulsebosch: I think you should talk to the people involved first ...

[17:16:43] John Stephen Veitch: @Kathie. Power structures. For instance a board meeting, which can exclude staff. Or a board meeting that's open for staff to attend, them chooses to go into committee. Or the Chairman comes to a meeting with the decision already made and the votes in his pocket. Before you've put your case.

[17:16:47] Raj: In most of the case, it relates to the presence of government/good governance. We have to explain the case differently in different situation

[17:16:55] David Marsilia: The power of integrity with transparency creates greater collaboration with higher value parties. What may seem good in the shortterm because of time and resources already commited can all go to ruin when corruption is discovered down the road. Even if the corruption never becomes public the mission is cheapened.

[17:17:39] Joitske Hulsebosch: I know a case where an NGO used money 'creatively' on different budgets and the peace corps volunteer reported them as corrupt to the donors, this damaged their image, whereas it was a case of more flexible use and accounting than we are used to

[17:17:52] kathie wallace: is not corruption perhaps always about people holding power, taking from others, and abusing others in that?

[17:17:57] Joitske Hulsebosch: ( in my opinion :)

[17:18:23] Joitske Hulsebosch: What is abusing to some, may be normal practice to others ..

[17:18:30] Heidi Massey: So Joitske, if they had been more transparent about their budgeting, maybe they wouldn't have suffered after...

[17:18:55] Joitske Hulsebosch: Sure, that's the importance of transparence, fully agree

[17:19:10] Christina Jordan: Indeed @David. For me it's about mission. @Kathie, yes, I think corruption is usally about power.

In the time we have left, I want to move on to some slightly different angles:

1. What keeps more organizations from operating transparently?

and

2. What are the tools that organizations in the social changer space can use to increase transparency in concrete - visible - ways?

[17:19:30] David Marsilia: Transparency prevents shocks of misunderstanding to crop up later in relationships.

[17:20:03] Joitske Hulsebosch: I think organisations want to look good and start with small lies and it grows

[17:20:11] David Marsilia: That's the way its always been done mentalities

[17:21:19] Joitske Hulsebosch: depends also on the culture in the sector?

[17:21:30] Joitske Hulsebosch: like banking sector

[17:21:38] David Marsilia: tools: social media participation, wikis attached to web space

[17:21:56] Christina Jordan: 1) I think organizations in the social change space deal with issues where there are really tough challenges, and few easy answers. They make mistakes, and may fear that disclosing mistakes will result in loss of the support they rely on... but I also think there's ways to flip that and make it positive

[17:22:08] Joitske Hulsebosch: tools: sharing more work through social media

[17:22:10] kathie wallace: Those of us who want a new world have to model it, without attachment to preaching a "better way" yet showing that the new way is so cool and fun and powerful anyone would want to be part of it!

[17:22:14] Raj: To the first question, in my opinion- we have to develop 'culturre' by meeting basic requirements; and in case of second question- I have a concept of 'What is with it"

[17:22:44] Christina Jordan: what is with it? what do you mean Raj?

[17:23:06] Christina Jordan: Kathie, do you know Hildy Gottlieb?

[17:23:25] Joitske Hulsebosch: I know Hildy from cpsquare!

[17:23:44] kathie wallace: no, I don't know hildy yes, social media has the power to change everything if

[17:23:51] Raj: We have to start from what is known/available/familier......

[17:24:19] Joitske Hulsebosch: Raj, can you give an example?

[17:24:28] Christina Jordan: I love her take on transparency! She talks about "gardening in the front yard"http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/11/30/transparency-community-engagement-part-1/

[17:24:58] kathie wallace: social media done with awareness of what the power dynamics are and how they have to be changed=delete the middle man between people communicating with people to change eveything

[17:25:27] Joitske Hulsebosch: tools: countervailing power

[17:25:36] Christina Jordan: So kathie, does that mean deleting organizations from the equation?

[17:25:57] kathie wallace: oh...so...yes... to life!

[17:26:10] Joitske Hulsebosch: Kathie who is your middlemen?

[17:26:18] Raj: We have to answer a question- how do we make a person understood about curruption, if he/she has ever heard it in his/her life?

[17:26:36] David Marsilia: The organization morphs into a conduit instead of existing as a barrier

[17:26:40] Raj: I mean not heard

[17:27:01] kathie wallace: i don't have one...I am a sovereign being bec' i live on welfare :- ) suffering for FREEDOM

[17:27:36] Joitske Hulsebosch: :)

[17:27:39] Christina Jordan: yes, David - that's exactly what I tried to do in Uganda - let the organization serve as a conduit instead of a barrier

[17:27:53] Joitske Hulsebosch: I meant I didn't understand your phrase Kathie

[17:28:15] kathie wallace: invisible structure and background facilitator=equality and tranwsparency

[17:28:27] John Stephen Veitch: LOL @Kathie - Ben there too. Connect to more people -You are doing that. Find me on LinkedIn, or Ryze

[17:28:38] Christina Jordan: so the challenge came when WE as a group would get support for a project WE as a group had defined together, but then ONE person would disagree and be very publicly loud about it

[17:28:42] John Stephen Veitch: Been there too.

[17:28:53] kathie wallace: [8:28:15 AM] kathie wallace: invisible structure

<<< sstructure="">

[17:29:11] David Marsilia: excellent question Raj, this is how transparency works as an energizing and educating phenomena. What isn't known becomes known. What was misunderstood becomes apparent.

[17:29:55] Christina Jordan: being transparent is great when it works, but without 100% consensus the risk is that there will be individual disruptors who channel their anger into the public arena

[17:30:23] Raj: Therefore, Christina, 'what is with it'

[17:30:24] Christina Jordan: @David your comments are so insightful

[17:30:33] kathie wallace: people need to be taught a new way of communicating in groups/orgs that ends the dominator energy

[17:31:02] kathie wallace: deep thanks everyone

[17:31:11] Joitske Hulsebosch: is that social media?

[17:31:20] Christina Jordan: I can't believe it's been an hour already!

[17:32:12] Christina Jordan: A huge thank you to everyone for joining in here! Feel free to keep sending thoughts into this space

[17:32:14] John Stephen Veitch: This process has worked very well Christina, well done, and congratulations.

[17:32:27] Joitske Hulsebosch: Yes, good luck

[17:32:37] David Marsilia: Very energizing

[17:32:44] Christina Jordan: Thanks John - I've done twitter chats before but this was the first one on skype - a very different experience!

[17:32:44] Joitske Hulsebosch: Intriguing

[17:32:51] Raj: Congratulations to all of us!

[17:33:05] Ron Davidson: @Christina thank you Very interesting and rewarding

[17:33:17] Christina Jordan: Indeed @Raj - congrats to all... hope to see you in some of the sessions later

[17:33:20] Wendy E Brawer: thanks to all!

[17:33:20] Joitske Hulsebosch: Are you going to summarize ?

[17:33:38] David Marsilia: Yes, thanks to everyone

[17:33:44] Christina Jordan: There will ba a transcript of the chat in the documentation section later

[17:33:47] Raj: See you again

[17:34:25] Christina Jordan: @joitske I will attempt to summarize a bit in an intro, but in the interest of transparency will include all the comments :-)

[17:34:45] Hempal Shrestha: i was the bumble bee, will follow in the chat archive, thanks

[17:35:00] John Stephen Veitch: Hope you will also correct the spelling.

[17:35:10] Christina Jordan: not a chance @john!

[17:35:14] David Marsilia: Indeed as Thomas L Freidman says, The World is Flat

[17:36:29] Joitske Hulsebosch: We have a break now?

[17:36:45] Christina Jordan: Yep - reconvening for session 2 in 24 min.

[17:37:33] Christina Jordan: Thanks for being here everyone! Off for a coffee break now

[17:37:48] Raj: Thank you David

Quick Help Needed on a Big Decision!

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:41:00 +0000

Advice please!

I've recently sourced some designs through 99designs.com of a new logo for Evolutionize It. The design brief asked for original designs that would convey positive, collaborative action in a changing world. The designers were also asked to include green in the color palette.

Over 100 designs were submitted - some were interesting, some were horrible. In consultation with the Evolutionize It Board, we've narrowed it down to 4 final design options. Now it's decision time, and I'd love some input in making the right one!

Option 1:
People Theme

square version | horizontal version

Option 2:
Evolution Theme

square version | horizontal version

Option 3:
Creative Theme

Green/blue version | Blue/green version

Option 4:

Invoke the money back guarantee, and find another designer to do something better/different than any of these.

So what do you think? If you had to pick one of the 4 options above, which would it be? I need to make a decision by early next week. Much appreciation in advance for your comments (and your eyes)!

Event planning project update

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:17:00 +0000

Things are heating up a bit for Evolutionize It. Plans to launch a 6-month global event series concept I've been working on with some allies since the first ned.com unconference are now starting to shift gears, toward making 4 launch events happen in July. As Matt Nathan from w1sd0m in Denver said this morning in a call we had at 5am my time, "The train is leaving the station, and it's a cool train to climb aboard, cuz we're all laying tracks as we go."

The webbed event series concept as it currently stands here has evolved (and is still evolving) through practical experimentation and conversation with Mark Grimes at Ned.com, Matt Nathan at w1sd0m , and Alex, Antoine and Simon of the HubBrussels team. As usual, Jean Russel at Thrivable has also been super helpful. The event name keeps changing, but the concept seems to be becoming increasingly clearer as I work to massage the feedback from each conversation into the concept framework.

I am now trying to pull these US and European voices together with contacts who've indicated an interest in holding events in China, Kenya, Uganda, Haiti and Brazil in a group call sometime within the next week. Feedback from them also needs massaging into the concept before I'll feel comfortable promoting the events worldwide as "global."

This evening I will meet with the Ashoka Support Network in Belgium and present this event series as the concrete project that I could use their focused expertise and support in. My 3 slide presentation to the ASN is here (excuse the formatting which may not have saved well in conversion to a google doc).

I'm reaching out with intent through this blog post to the Evolutionize It board and to some other really smart people who I hope will weigh in here with thoughts, feedback and advice :-) There's even an image sandbox if you'd like to play. The next big push will be to build a social media campaign infrastructure for the local events and finding all 20 event hosts. Exciting stuff! Here's hoping that it works well.

why #oxfordjam will sing in #socent #4change event memory

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 19:53:00 +0000

I've been thinking a lot lately about the role Evolutionize It can play in organizing events for social entrepreneurs, so when the invitation to participate in #oxfordjam came through my friend @amyrsward, I jumped at it. Before I knew it, I had 2 sessions to throw together - one of them a collaboration dinner that ended up being full of surprising lessons. This post isn't about what happened at my sessions, but about what happened as a result of @BenMetz's initiative to co-create an event with others. As you may have already guessed, I'm singing praises.

What I really loved most about the Oxford Jam event was that it brought together a wonderfully interesting mish-mash of event styles. Cliff Prior of Unltd. UK did a fabulous job of facilitating the sector skill swap, with physical movement in the room and brightly colored post-it's pasted on our clothes. Ethical Property created a game that gave us each monopoly money to invest in 5 very different kinds of social sector investments. The inspiring afternoon Ted style talks gave people doing amazing things the spotlight to tell others about what they were doing and invite discussions to learn more. Perhaps my favorite session was the Patient Opinion session on gift economies, where - for some reason I've yet to fully come to grips with - the hair on my neck stood up when we got to the bit about monetizing the part where the highest social value lies.

The patchwork of session styles, all designed by really smart people to push and pull at my brain, did just that. The "Let it all hang out" evening cabaret with Liam Black was surely a highlight, but it unfortunately came with a high price. My one regret is that my body is not accustomed to functioning on so little sleep. Being late to breakfasts with the social enterprise investment infrastructure people from the Skoll World Forum was really a bummer, in the end. Those are the discussions in which I had the most aha moments.

The cross-pollination between the Skoll World Forum and the Oxford Jam helped me to see that the kinds of investment vehicles the "investor" crowd are talking about creating are actually realistic for a very small, tiny subgroup of the social entrepreneurs I know. Not only do I wish this group would widen their view to study what kinds of investment vehicles social enterprises around the world actually need, but social entrepreneurs need to be groomed to be able to absorb the kinds of structured investment amounts and formats that the investors are talking about. "We need a Kiva for social enterprise" rolled off my tongue in a number of conversations at the Oxford Jam event. Those are the conversations I look most forward to continuing with folksat the Shine Unconference in London next month.

Amanda at @RedButtonDesign was kind enough to share a ton of insight into what worked and didn't work with the event's online strategy. I also learned a whole lot about better world video production (and synthesized many collaboration dinner lessons) with a sweetheart of a woman named Denise Kirtley who was there making a video of the event for the OxfordJam crew. I hope to write more about those lessons, and how I'm seeing them play out in my own imagineering in future posts here.

Since coming back, I have been in deep underground imagineering mode for an event concept that I've been nurturing in dialogue with others. OxfordJam's brilliant patchwork approach, the local burlesque flavor, old industrial architecture repurposed for the cross-pollination of ideas, opportunities for entrepreneurship and interpreneurship at Evolutionize It... all of these have me thinking about what makes an event sing in the memories of the people who attend. The first Oxford Jam will always sing through the video lens of my personal memory, with a great beat and an intellectually jazzy Oxford tempo that made me want to catch more of it.

Responding to some post event twitter buzz I'm seeing, please, YES! Let's make OxfordJam a thrivable yearly gathering place for showcasing the Social Enterprise building song. If @BenMetz and co-conspirators can pull it off again in 2011, I hereby pledge to SING at next year's OxfordJam cabaret (which, by the way, featured far too few of our sector's women with hidden talents this year!)

My Notes from #OxfordJam on new trends in #4change events

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:20:00 +0000

The following are my notes from the breakout session on new trends in social enterprise events that happened during the Oxford Jam Sector Skills Swap, facilitated by Cliff Prior from Unltd. UK.

New trends in #4change events

Tracey: 13th street theater

idea - social enterprise musical

socents listed in profile

donate part of proceeds to socents

themes in story

Christina: Evolutionize It

Global unconferences

webbed for impact

more news soon

Sharifa: lien center of social innovation (singapore)

focus in on an issue (migration)

planted actors in audience & lunchtimes who posed as migrant workers

audience: mix of entrepreneurs and academics

divided audience into upper/middle/lower class wrt food served

built roleplaying into conference

audience preferred lower class

Kate: Coin street (own & manage 13 acre transformed site)

Master classes

shared experience plus - peer learning events

based around skills required to transform asset based orgs

Dave: social entrepreneurs in health / nurse entrepreneurs

how to compromise btwn participation shaped events and more structured events that cover (by mandate from companies sending people) specific events

benefit/challenges of integrating sociual media

Sean - workshops for social entrpreneurs

how do you get the right people at an event?

@DaveDawes 2 best #socent events Voice & Shine

My Notes from the #OxfordJam Gift Economies discussion, facilitated by @paulhodgkin

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:53:00 +0000

Christina's notes: Gift economies (Paul Hodgkin, Patient Opinion)

how to mix financial and gift economies in digital activities
wikipedia
linux movement
amazing things happening at scale

what is a gift economy?
system of social incentives where you are judged by how much you give, not by how much you have
pre-dated marketed economies by a millenium
evident in families, in well working teams

no money attached to the gift
if you think “if I pay for this, i’ll screw it up” ie don’t pay your mother-in-law for dinner she cooks
the gift always travels - what goes around comes around
- asynchronous return - invest now by giving for a return someday

market norms vs social norms
intrinsically motivated, not extrinsically motivated
intrinsic motivations come from the heart - healthier to us

how complete or incomplete is a gift economy

malcolm gladwell - 150 optimal size of a functioning group
web changes dynamic
endless supply of goods
network effect

gift economy effect- find meaning in the gift economy
digital effect - reduced cost of giveing & distributing
network effect - the one with the largest network wins

yum-yum objects - love, play, art, - unlimited supply
monster objects - oil, money, etc.

we need “we can change the world” objects

problem of freeloaders - everyone wants something for free - now freeloaders become active audience

there are disincentives for for corporations to run gift economies
gift economies in government are seen as a problem - corruption
govt. also have a need to make sure things are functioning so can’t rely on volunteer time gifts

what does it mean to “run” a gift economy?
differentiate between exchange system and infrastructure that facilitates exchange

pirate bay/wikipedia examples: large network where exchange happens; small part of it monetized to keep infrastructure running: how small must that remain in order not to ruin the gift economy?

13 Lessons Learned from Social Enterprise Start-ups

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:10:00 +0000

In the Micro-Success social enterprise start-up support group that I facilitate at Hub Brussels, 7 entrepreneurs (including me) meet monthly to share experiences and talk through the issues we are facing in building our social enterprises.

One of the homework assignments that group members prepare before coming to the meetings is to identify a lesson they have recently learned. The following is a list of some of the lessons group members have shared since January. I thought it worth sharing more widely.

assess your work volume & set clear times to work on your project vs paid work (Bess)
keep things simple - Don’t try to do too many things at once (Martina)
less is more. Focus on 1 project at a time. (Filip)
don't drag things out with intense perfectionism (Martina)
don't overbook yourself at holidays or when visitors in town (Christina)
figure out what to focus your time on; learn to delegate (Phillippe)
be the authentic you - don't put on a show (Geert)
come to grips with asking people to pay for services (Geert)
understand your cost structure details - including hidden items (Martina)
stress management - respect days off for yourself (Phillippe)
define your deliverable (Bess)
define and accept your own limits (Antoine)
collaborative approaches take time (Christina)

Collaborator backgrounds in the shaping of ideas

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 07:54:00 +0000

As I set out to build the evolutionize it core business models, my thinking is influenced quite a lot by the collaborative relationships I am currently engaged in. As I'd hoped, investing in an unsalaried year of gathering social enterprise collaboration experience first hand is sparking a lot of focused thought on how to build a business that contributes meaningfully to the development of collaborative systems in the social change sector.

I have been talking with a lot of folks lately about facilitating collaboration through different kinds of "webbed events": from 100% virtual events, to face-to-face conference events and dinner parties that "web" themselves into a living interactive virtual state, to kickstart viral collaborative action.

The people I'm talking to about that are bringing several layers of depth into the product development process. I am acutely aware that right now I am not a social entrepreneur with an idea that sports the Ashoka label, but in start-up mode once again, with untried ideas. In that reflection on transition in my own career, one of the things that is fascinating me recently is the variety of career paths behind some of the fellow social entrepreneurs I'm interacting with regularly right now.

I have been tempted on more than one occasion to post the skype chat and/or voice notes from the conversations I've been having with the people I've listed below, and may still do that with their permission. I' feel it's important to document who they are and what they bring to this process.

- Ben Metz is a social enterprise strategy consultant and former director of Ashoka UK who is spearheading the OxfordJam event, that's scheduled to run parallel to the Skoll World Forum next month. Ben shares my zeal for encouraging changemakers to develop stakeholder collaboration strategies, and has worked with me to set the parameters for some practical labs that will experiment with collaboration strategy building approaches. I am equally excited about Friday morning's FREE Social Media and Collaboration session: transforming the value of your networks, and Thursday evening's Big Collaboration Dinner we're cooking up (£25) to evolutionize collaboration through team-play. The push is on, so book your tickets to both events now!

- Suresh Fernando brings a background in investment banking, tech financing and philosophy into my professional sphere. He is currently having some high level email conversations about financing models for collaborative systems building that I would love to see taking place more publicly, with more players who have an interest in that particular field. In the true spirit of collaborative integrity, Suresh agrees but refrains from calling that conversation himself. I have volunteered to think about convening a fishbowl discussion that includes Suresh's group as well as collaborators on a couple of related projects I am aware of. I am chewing over the best tools to use to create that online conversation event, and kind of excited about it.

- Mark Grimes has been a close collaborator and friend of mine for the past 6-7 years, both during my time in Africa and more recently. Prior to embarking on building the ned model, Mark created some of the web's earliest viral marketing successes. He currently operates 2 co-working spaces for tech startups and changemakers in Portland, and owns the online wiki/discussion space for better world builders at http://ned.com. Mark shares my will to take risks and "just do it" when it comes to simple, good ideas. There's a lot of trust and loyalty between us. He and I are having some exciting conversations about tweaking and replicating the unconference event we co-hosted in Portland in February. I'm also talking to him about maybe putting the collaborative systems building discussion with Suresh and others at ned.com.

- David Ewaku helps me connect the pieces of new and old concepts. David and I imagineered ideas together in Uganda as far back as 2002. He worked with me while he was in law school in Uganda, and his current UK course of study as a CPA specializing in network security makes him a really great thinking ally. David has been a party to the evolution of these concepts longer than anyone else, so I am able to talk to him about how the pieces fit together in ways that I can't with anyone else.

- Tom Dawkins is the social media coordinator in the Ashoka Washington office. It is ironic (but pleasant) to have an active working relationship with the inner Ashoka now that I'm no longer officially a fellow. Tom and I co-hosted the recent #4change chat, which gave me a nice opportunity to experience a fast-paced conversation event. I really appreciated his willingness to let me take the reigns, and forgiveness for my mistakes. We've also talked some about ways to engage more fellows in shaping Ashoka's social media presence. Tom doesn't know it yet, but I have some ideas for helping him to do that brewing, that I plan to share with him soon.

Product Development: Hosting a collaboration dinner event

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:07:00 +0000

I am currently exploring the value of "webbed" collaboration event design as an economically viable product to build the Evolutionize It core business model on. This involves creating contexts for collaboration to take place that integrate participation at online and offline venues for change.

The social impact objective is to develop easily replicable event models plugged into social media tools that can create a momentum of full-sensory participatory collaboration experiences which continue to live online.

So I was recently invited to host a dinner event at the upcoming OxfordJam, whose working title is "The Big Collaboration Dinner." My basic idea was that we design a team-based game that would involve creating some concrete collaborative action plans around the dinner table. My first game idea was too intricate, but then I had a wild thought:

What if the purpose of the collaboration game was to work together to enable the whole room to make a social impact; a practical exercise in building a stakeholder collaboration strategy.

Ben Metz liked it. We connected by voice, and had an exciting chat at which I took the following notes.

private room
[1:54:39 PM] C: 7-8 square tables
[1:54:45 PM] C: 5 people on each
[1:54:56 PM] C: 40 tickets
[1:55:38 PM] C: plan over-engineered
[1:55:48 PM] C: elitism in culling of winners
[1:55:55 PM] C: find a way to keep everyone playing
[1:56:19 PM] C: let people bring their own issues to the table
[1:57:09 PM] C: each table agrees to focus on an issue
[1:57:24 PM] C: table agrees to brainstorm interventions it can create
[1:57:44 PM] C: hearts/minds - technology - legal structures - financing (crowdsourcing)
[1:58:20 PM] C: rather than winner - we have 8 actions to take
[1:58:25 PM] C: central circle: idea
[1:58:31 PM] C: 2nd: people around the table
[1:59:12 PM] Ben Metz: 3rd = the whole room
[1:59:17 PM] Ben Metz: 4th = everyoines networks
[1:59:40 PM] C: use hashtags to map out impact
[1:59:50 PM] C: and other ways of keeping track
[2:00:06 PM] C: keeps building - waves of inclusion & collasboration
[2:01:46 PM] C: gift economy
[2:01:53 PM] C: food price 25
[2:04:00 PM] C: 7 pounds of dinner for everyone - contributes to breaking even
[2:12:33 PM] C: draft text about concentric circles
[2:14:09 PM] *** Call ended ***
[2:14:44 PM] Ben Metz: great chat

Yowza! I'm so excited to have the blank canvas of a dinner event upon which to design a flash collaboration game.

Here's what's tentatively on the evening's menu:

Connect-It Cocktails

Identify people working on issues you can agree to put your passion behind. Align yourselves into 5 man teams; 1 team per table.

Decide-It Dinner

Explore the assets at the table that can be combined to create a social impact your team defines. Sketch out a collaborative plan and a 1 month timeframe for measurable action that includes opt-in ways for everyone on the other 7 teams (and their networks) to participate.

Do-It Dessert

Announce your team's call to action to the other teams. Describe your action, and tell others how they can help.

Drink-It Uplift!

Toast to each other's great work, and pledge to act in support of your favorites. Let the games begin as the room starts tweeting their networks to do the same!

One month later, we'll compile an impact oriented roundup of what each of the 8 teams has achieved.

So what do you think. Could it be fun? What would you change?

Want to come? Click here!

Draft Notes: first General Meeting of the Evolutionize It Board

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:24:00 +0000

16 March 2010, 10am - 12pm @ the "siege social" of Evolutionize It

Introductions

Present were Christina Jordan, Olivier Gaillard, Walter De Schepper, David Ewaku (on speaker phone).

Olivier is an Ashoka Fellow, also active in collaboration int he social change sector. He met Christina for the first time 1 year ago shortly after her arrival in Belgium. Is leaving Belgium end March for 1 year in the USA, working with Ashoka's Youth Venture project in Washington DC.

Walter is a private development consultant, who worked with Christina professionally at 2 consulting companies 1994 - 1998. Walter looks forward to understanding more about what social enterprise is.

David and Christina have worked together periodically since 2002. David is Ugandan, and once served on the Board of Life in Africa Foundation while Christina was chairman.

Christina's intention in founding Evolutionize It is to create a structure through which a number of project ideas to facilitate social sector collaboration might be realized.

Operational Logistics

Evolutionize It Blog - Christina introduced the Evolutionize It Blog and proposed that it should be used as a main tool for Board communication. Others will see it, but content written with the board as a primary audience in mind. The blog will also be seen by others - the suggestion is to stay as completely transparent and interactive with others as possible in building the business model. Everyone present agreed with the idea.
Titles/Bios/Contributions: We looked at the bios posted on the blog and discussed titles. Christina's title changed to Chairman. Walter & Olivier changed to Board Executive Member; David & Sarah changed to General Member. All members of the board have author access to post at the Evolutionize. It blog on issues relevant to the topics of Social Enterprise, collaboration for change, and/or Evolutionize It's development (posts might also include questions from our board members who are not yet well versed in this field). Christina suggested that all Board members should have a LinkedIn profile.
Christina's Volunteer Status - Christina will not receive a salary this year. Any income earned by Evolutionize it will be used to help pay operational and travel expenses. Income earned beyond expenses will be budgeted in 2011, and may or may not include any salaries. In order to be registered as a non-paid worker in Belgium, Christina and Evolutionize It will sign an official volunteer agreement to be registered with the proper authorities. Olivier to forward the relevant documents.
Bank Account: the suggestion had been made earlier by email to consider opening a bank account for Evolutionize It at Triodos bank, who is known for their sustainable investment practices. Christina presented the forms for an online professional account, requiring signatures by Christina and Walter as designated operators of the account. The forms called for us to determine the maximum amount any individual could authorize. Euro 5,000 was agreed upon.
Meetings: While the Evolutionize It statutes call for annula meetings, the Board agreed to periodically meet via pre-scheduled conference calls using skype, as needed.

Income Opportunities:

Life in Africa products: while at Life in Africa, Christina purchased a stock of paper bead jewelry. Investment in one social enterprise feeds another - Evolutionize It is now selling the jewelry via a display at the HubShop in Rotterdam. In addition to what they have already received 10% of Evolutionize It's sales will go back to Life in Africa; 90% to the Evolutionize It account. We need to talk to an accountant about how to reflect the jewelry stock donation to Evolutionize It. Walter will make introduce the idea to his accountant to see if he can work with us.
Internet4Change training: Christina is developing a social media curriculum for social enterprises, which she will schedule into the summer school series at HubBrussels. Each class in the course will have a fee, with a discount offered for following the complete curriculum.
Collaboration Event Planning: Following success of the Feb Unconference experiment in Portland, Christina is discussing the development of a replicable event series with several potential partners. The model for this and other events should be self-sustaining, with event proceeds priced at levels that finance online media coordination and local partner facilitation.

Partnerships:

General: we agreed that partnerships/collaboration frameworks should be formally documented when possible. Those agreements are assets to the organization. David suggested that we separate out financial agreements from work agreements, giving room for money flows to grow/change in the future.
Ned.com: looking at possible co-branding agreement re: unconference series collaboration that includes more than ned.com user agreement.
Thrivable: is also a start-up, not yet formally incorporated. Memorandum of understanding can be enough for collaboration between Evolutionize It and Jean (Thrivable project founder), but if there are money flows then Evolutionize It takes the management lead.

(David left the meeting)

Long Term Projects

Micro-Success: income generating model for social enterprise collaboration. Objective for 2010 is to create, participate in and document collaboration experience; objective for 2011 is to develop/launch incentive systems that draw on lessons learned this year. Currently in progress: 6 month local social enterprise start-up support group (Brussels), planned for July-Dec: online social enterprise support group, possibly to work together toward commonly established objectives.
Internet4change: collaboration Agent/Agency concept for underconnected regions, to be developed by David/Christina for simultaneous implementation in Asia and Africa late 2012.

(Walter left the meeting)

Learning/Leadership Opportunities

Christina briefed Olivier on current learning/leadership opportunities, including

co-hosting the #4change chat
Participating with Radical Inclusion in planning of a Virtual Unconference
exploring potential collaboration with OpenKollab
presentation opportunity at OxfordJam

Other Business

Olivier had some excellent advice & observations to share.

Board Books: Need to start a file with all official documents and board meeting notes signed by 2 Exec members. Don't forget to include a signed page stating that the Board resolved to incorporate the organization.
Project selection process: if we want Evolutionize It to be a platform for launching collaboration-related projects, we will need to have a process through which projects are chosen, and a clear framework for project management work undertaken by a project's initiator. We will need to think about financial agreements and performance risk issues, in particular.
Performance Indicators: It would be useful to identify indicators for the various activities so that it will be easier for the Board (and others) to assess organizational performance. Indicators can be simple, like how many participants, trainees, events, partnerships, countries, etc. Set goals for the year and keep count; at a glance we'll be able to see what we are achieving or not achieving.

(meeting adjourned at 12:15pm)

What next? Board members please add your corrections in the comments section below. Comments from non-board members are also welcome, but will not be included in the printed notes included in the Evolutionize It Board books.

http://Evolutionize.it springing into action

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 02:04:00 +0000

I'm having a ball developing Evolutionize It.

Today is the first day of spring, and the foundations of an organization are emerging... like the budding leaves on the Japanese Cherry trees lining the streets in my lovely neighborhood, which will bloom in powerful pink glory about a month from now. Lots is going on with Evolutionize It that's still only barely visible to naked to the eye.

Our registration was finalized here in Belgium in January, just before I travelled for a month to the US. Last week we had our first general meeting of the Board, I've just bought the domain http://evolutionize.it, and ordered some mini MOO cards. Tomorrow I'm opening an Evolutionize It online banking account with Triodos Bank.

I have yet to write up the Board meeting notes. It's on my list for this coming week. Following the Boards agreement to use this public blogspace as our primary mode of communication, I will be posting those notes here. I will also be sending each of the founding board members an invitation to post here, with their thoughts about social enterprise, collaboration, and Evolutionize It's strategic development. In addition to falling behind on the Board meeting notes, I have also fallen behind on my participation in the World Bank's Urgent Evoke game. (If by chance you're also playing, please connect with me there!)

But while I haven't managed to achieve everything I'd hoped to have done by now, collaborative activity over the past week and a half has been quite busy:

I am engaged in a couple of ongoing early discussions with potential partners (including Ned.com, HubBrussels, and w1sd0m), in developing a replicable series of financially viable, co-branded unconference events, that facilitate concrete offline and continued online collaboration between the changemakers who attend.
I also reached out to some really smart people I know to get their impressions on some plans that Jean Russell of Thrivable.org and I are getting ready to embark upon, in the context of creating a proposed guide to collaboration in the social change space online. We are currently working on developing structures through which stakeholders of the guide can participate in it's development. My old ally Thomas Kriese and my new ally Allen Gunn both offered some very useful feedback. Jean has sent requests for feedback to her friends Kevin and Greg. We're both looking forward to their input as well, in finalizing the next steps in our stakeholder engagement strategy.
Amy Sample Ward was kind enough to invite me to host a session on Social Media and Stakeholder Collaboration at the upcoming OxfordJam event. This past week, I've been working with the event's initiator Ben Metz (who served as Ashoka's UK director for 3 years) on possibly co-facilitating a dinner event as well, and am having some good fun imagineering participant experiences.
Last week was also when I hosted my first #4change chat on Twitter, learning by doing at another kind of collaboration event. Tom Dawkins of Ashoka, and the collaborators he has assembled in the #4change crew, have developed a system for managing the monthly chats that I am excited to be learning from. The chat itself was also lots of fun (though I will admit to being a tiny bit nervous behind the scenes!)
Earlier in the day of the #4change chat, I delivered a practical seminar for the @HubBrussels host team on developing a team approach to using twitter, in a way that builds their personal profiles and promotes a dynamic twitter presence that serves the #HubBxl community. I am thrilled to have recently joined the Board of Hub Brussels, and look forward to playing a continued active role in Hub community development.

The upcoming week's highlights include a discovery call scheduled with Suresh Fernando of OpenKollab, a Micro-Success offline start-up support group meeting, my first scheduled meeting with the Radical Inclusion virtual unconference planning team, and a weekend with Ashoka's Francophone Europe region Fellows and Investor Support Network members in Lille, France, where I get to invite folks to a 1.5 hour Evolutionize It strategy development session.

All in all, I am tremendously grateful to the universe right now for all the social enterprise collaboration work I've had the opportunity to embrace in recent weeks and months. Nearing the end of Q1 in our first year of existence, I am delighted with how Evolutionize It's structure and portfolio of experience is shaping up.

Happy Spring!

#4change Twitter Chat: How Social Media Can Enhance Events

noreply@blogger.com (christina) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 12:09:00 +0000

I've recently joined the collaborative crew behind #4change, a monthly global chat on Twitter that discusses a variety of issues related to social media and social change. The #4change chat has been happening every month since early 2009, and was originally initiated by Tom Dawkins, the Social Media Strategist at Ashoka. I have participated actively in the past, but this week will be my first opportunity to co-host a #4change chat. I'm looking forward to it!

The following is cross-posted from the #4change blog:

In the wake of South by Southwest in Austin, and in anticipation of some exciting social media and social change gatherings coming up on the 2010 events calendar, we thought it could be useful to explore How Social Media Can Enhance Events as the topic for the March #4change chat.

I’m excited! Not only is this a topic that I personally want to learn more about, but it’s going to be my first time as part of the #4change collective to co-host a chat, together with Tom Dawkins (@tomjd). #Gratitude in advance for your patience, as I find the right groove!

Some pre-chat food for thought:

My new Mac’s thesaurus offers several alternative terms we could use instead of enhance:

enhance (verb) increase, add to, intensify, heighten, magnify, amplify, inflate, strengthen, build up, supplement, augment, boost, raise, lift, elevate, exalt; improve, enrich, complement.

Most of us would probably agree that social media indeed can enhance offline events, but does it always? For whom? The thesaurus also tells me the antonym to enhance is diminish. Can social media also diminish offline events?

There are so many tools we can use to try and enhance offline events. What we hope to explore in Thursday’s chat is how.

#4Change March Chat Questions:

What’s the potential benefit of using social media to cover events? For whom?
What makes a good events coverage strategy?
Are there examples of specific events that really did the social media piece well?
Which Social Media tools are best suited for covering live events?
How does online reporting affect the experience of participants at an event.
Is it possible to imagine online participants actually engaging in offline events remotely through social media, or will there always be a disconnect?
How can the continuation of conversations held at live events best be continued online? Is it realistic or unrealistic to expect that they will?

Join the Twitter chat:

If you want to contribute to the conversation, you’ll need to have a twitter account (it’s free).

To follow the conversation (whether you are planning to contribute or not), use http://search.twitter.com or another application to search on Twitter for #4Change
Jump in to the conversation by adding #4Change to your Twitter message
Feeling brave? Check out TweetChat – it’s a great application that integrates with your Twitter account and makes chats more fun! You can turn it off after the chat.
Please introduce yourself in 1 tweet at the start or when you join in

Details

Date: March, 18th 2010

When: 2 – 4 pm US Pacific Time, 5 – 7 pm US Eastern Time, 9pm – 11pm London, UK (NOTE: check your local time carefully, as the US changed to daylight savings time earlier this week)

Where: Twitter (search for #4Change)

Topic: How Social Media Can Enhance Events