The work is a collaboration between Daniel Pink, renown author and authority on modern workstyle, and RSAnimate, a division of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), a multidisciplinary cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress in the UK.

Progressives, social entrepreneurs, free-lancers, creatives and anyone else mindful of cultural transformation will find the video a great investment of 10 minutes (and if you haven’t seen the RSAnimate’s unique style, you’re in for a double treat).

Jesse Schell’s talk at the Long Now Foundation, tilted “Visions Of The Gamepocalypse” is the most intelligent and comprehensive treatise on this phenomenon.  He is an extraordinary speaker, and will connect especially well with those who appreciate the dry humor implied by the paradoxes revealed by a systems perspective.

The video highlight embedded here (chosen by the editors at FORA.tv, a cool new-to-me site with smart talks and panels from conferences), is a clip about how advertising fits into the gaming world, provides a peek into the style and pace Schell brings to the topic.

If, like so many of us these days, find yourself in uber-overwhelmsion (tip to Sally), and the idea of watching a 2-hour video is absurd, you owe yourself this treat.

This fall, we will be engaging a targeted pilot of the platform, and our team will get back out into the world, demonstrating the concept we have been talking about to you for more than a year now.

As the writing and research for the business plan slows down, I hope to have more time to get back to blogging.  If you’re not following me on Twitter, it’s a good place to see some of the pieces of things that are moving by in my field of attention.

Thanks for reading — I look forward to more engagement soon.

Still think global warming is in question?  Still think we’re going to return to the old financial stability?  Still think those two are separate issues?  The screenshot I just pulled from Google (right) is the latest in a long line of hard news (as opposed to debatable opinion) to disbuse you of that.

The earth is rumbling, as the recent global series of earthquakes can show.  The latest is the Icelandic volcano that has stranded travelers on one side of the Atlantic or the other, resulting in measurable financial impact and adding to the still-escalating costs on nearly every continent from recent “natural disasters.”

Meanwhile, the fallout from the financial crisis continues to grow, as the lead story at Google implies.  To think that the global banks are going to return to normal is sheer folly.  An unnamed advisor and thought leader in the impact investing field told us this weekend at a currency retreat (report on that is coming) that the Bilderberg group is already designing the next global currency, and that the world will have to forgive trillions of debt (much of it American) in the process of stabilizing the global economy.  Whether you believe this is conspiracy theory or a real conspiracy depends more on your world view, than on what’s actually happening.

Does the world really need another iPhone App?  w1sd0m partner Cameron Burgess ponders this on the eve of the first Startup Weekend with a triple-bottom-line frame.  Join him tonight to dig in on what that might really mean.

Triple Pundit reported on a different angle of this intersection at SXSWi, and called it the “Big Green Disconnect” between tech and sustainability communities, saying “the few green related panels were under attended and often rudimentary,” suggesting that each community is talking a different language.  Our friend and advisor Bill Shutkin had a similar, less politic rant over dinner a few weeks back, along the lines of “do we really need another Twitter app while our energy and financial systems are in crisis?.” Both comparisons were predated by Silicon Valley tech guru Tim O’Reilly’s call in 2008 to “work on something that matters,” where he beat a drum of “create more value than you extract.”

So, now the meme has been released, and some cool kids in technology (largely a comfortable-if-not-affluent crowd from a global perspective) think social entrepreneurship is the next big thing.  Mostly, this is good.  Right?

Well… a great piece in the NY Times on March 14th reported a story that pointed to an important trend — when inundated with snow, the Washington Post was not using Twitter, YouTube or Foursquare, but rather Ushahidi, an IT platform built in Kenya, to map road blockages and resource availability during the disruptive storm.

The article points out, “Ushahidi comes from another world [than Silicon Valley], in which entrepreneurship is born of hardship and innovators focus on doing more with less, rather than on selling you new and improved stuff.  Because Ushahidi originated in crisis, no one tried to patent and monopolize it.  Because Kenya is poor, with computer systems out of the reach of many, Ushahidi made its system work on cellphones.  Because Ushahidi had no venture-capital backing, it used open-source software and was thus free to let others remix its tool for new projects.”

The Washington Post serves an important lesson to the Austin-Boulder-SF-Cambridge crowd of digi-do-gooders and green lemmings at SXSW.  Even thought an important tide is tipping in the consciousness of the web-tools crowd, practical results still seem far off.  And in the (currently somewhat less) well-financed hubs all trying to “the next Silicon Valley,” e-mails about new conferences, magazines and other gathering points for this new intersection are traveling the web today.  The space will surely evolve, but today, the bottom line remains pretty much single in the tech community.

As Triple Pundit points out, much of the progressive IT community is still pretty slow to get even the second layer of complexity in the massive puzzle of global human sustainability, even as they drink the free green beer at a SXSW party called “Good Capitalist.”  In the meantime, the ability to actually get things done is created by people who have a pressing, immediate need for the transformation of data and information into the knowledge and understanding that can affect practical decision-making.  As the back-to-back DC blizzards (a climate anomaly, at least) pressed the city into micro-catastrophe, tools borne out of crisis trumped tools born out of opportunity.

Even though sustainability thinkers like Shutkin debate the value of “sky is falling” framing for the presentation of a new social innovation, we think there’s more Nairobi (necessity is the mother of invention) and less Sunnyvale, CA (wouldn’t if be cool if…) in creating social-purpose IT.  The consciousness shift will be complete when technological innovators realize that the balance is not between making profits and serving people, but between earth’s resources serving 3 billion people or 9 billion.  Until that shift happens, we’ll still be chipping ice off the icebergs for our drinks at the next party.

During what any humble, reflexively sarcastic entrepreneur would think of as a week with no other good interview candidates, we got an email from Teju Ravilochan, co-founder of Unreasonable, asking if we’d be game for the experience.

The results turn out pretty well, it seems (you might need to turn the volume up, or else the onboard speakers on this aging computer are loosing their umpf).

Would love your feedback.

Today, the re-named Sustainable Ventures meetup is consistently gathering between forty and fifty change agents (which we expect to grow) every two weeks in Denver and Boulder for an exchange of ideas, advice and learning that benefits everyone in the room.  From non-profit staffers to clean-tech execs, and including investors, advisors and entrepreneurs, the sessions are providing a venue for advanced discussions about how to run a sustainable venture, regardless of sector.

More relevant than my perspective is the feedback from members that sheds light on the experience.  When asked “why should others join this meetup group?”, Ashoka Fellow Lynn Price said, “To engage with individuals who dare to do what they think should be done – in a spirit of unselfish and supportive collaboration.”  Kent McBride, founder and CEO of the Make The Difference Network adds, “if you want to be around people who intentionally use business to improve the quality of life on the planet, then this is the meetup for you.”

More specifically, the meetup provides a chance for entrepreneurs to tap into the collective wisdom of the community.  Half the meetup is dedicated to solving problems for four entrepreneurs — from concept-stage ventures to positive cash-flow businesses — who ask for advice on their biggest challenges.  Members then break into four groups who advise the entrepreneurs in what amounts to a collective intelligence swarm review of the business.

These sessions have drawn rave reviews.  Kendall Thiessen, an intellectual property lawyer who presented his new business concept, wrote “I enjoyed the format and got valuable input on some ideas that I am trying to develop. I would highly recommend this group to entrepreneurs and change agents of all kinds.”

After these swarm reviews end, we gather again as a group to hear innovative and provocative perspectives from experienced, front-line entrepreneurs, who talk honestly about the practical challenges in living triple-bottom-line management principles.  Recently, our speakers have included:

• Bill Shutkin, the prototypical social entrepreneur that has seen more than 20 years of the evolution of the field.  Shutkin’s experience as a lecturer, and his expansive knowledge of the field kept the group buzzing well beyond our proposed ending time.  As member Karl Dakin commented, “I much enjoyed Bill’s historical observation that social enterprises need more business discipline,” echoing several other raves about his talk.
• Ryan Martens, the venture-funded IT CTO who is gaining practical benefits and direct cost savings from his participation as a B-Corporation.  Martens’ open kimono discussion of how he has integrated 3BL values into running his company helped entrepreneurs understand the practical challenges and trade-offs in raising money into an aspirational sustainable company.  Member Katherine Wardell wrote, “Ryan at Rally Software … is creating a consciousness and putting practices in place toward building a sustainable corporation which more and more corporations will find themselves moving toward.”
• Rebecca Saltman, the serial social entrepreneur, and change-maker bringing Ashoka’s Change Your City campaign to Denver.  Rebecca not only provided a sneak-preview of the wide range of activities that Change Your City will undertake, but provided everyone an opportunity to get involved in the movement before it becomes front-page news. Zenia Tata, a serial social entrepreneur, and former executive director of International Development Enterprises reports, “Excellent meeting. Nice to be part of such a dynamic group. Great presentation on Change Your City….exciting times ahead for Denver.”

More amazing speakers are signing on every day — Bill Shutkin threatens a encore performance — and other surprises remain in store as the community expands and the practice area continues to deepen.

Meetup member Noah Blessey sums up the experience in his response, “I really enjoyed my first Sustainable Ventures Meetup. This is a whole new world to me. I’m looking to transition into a creative, dynamic, innovative and socially minded career so it was great to: A.) get me thinking in these terms B.) listen to what other members of the Denver Metro community are doing along these lines and C.) collaborate through our smaller group discussion. I found I had some resources to offer others in the group and more in common with other members than I thought when I first got there.”

The organizers and supporters of the Sustainable Ventures Meetup all look forward to your participation in Denver and Boulder this spring, and beyond.

Building on crowdfunding concepts best exemplified by Kickstarter, UnReasonable believes this approach will reveal the most active, creative and resourceful entrepreneurs, while also integrating the kind decentralized funding that we need to seed the next generation of social entrepreneurs and sustainable ventures.

Four projects are already funded over $1,000, and two are 25% of their way to the $6,500 goal.  A few of our favorites include:

• Light Up Malawi — a project to get the whole country off the grid and on to renewable energy.
• Rickshaw Bank — a project to help bike-based rickshaw pullers to earn their own rickshaw, and become stable businesses.
• Swayam — a project creating equity-based education, removing the financial costs of education in India.
• Cogknit Semantics — a project that uses a hardware and software integration to speed learning in India.
• Uber Housing — a project that provides low-cost temporary shelter for refugees.

Which one will inspire your support?

“We tap into local talent, and strengthen that talent,” Amadei says about his philosophy, a more sustainable approach than typical imperialism still practiced by a majority of aid agencies.  Amadei’s latest project is recycling trash into fuel in developing countries, like Afghanistan.

Enjoy the video, a great investment of four minutes.

The project is an answer to an obvious problem: a maze of data and a warren of information stores permeates the field social innovation, rarely crossing myriad organizational boundaries and doubtfully overcoming technology hurdles.  This leaves the change agents, social entrepreneurs, non-profit execs and foundation program managers at a loss for answers to questions as simple as “What has been tried in this sector before? What has worked? What problems have stopped progress in previous attempts? Who are the experienced implementers?”

As Pete writes at the nuPOLIS blog,

“In response, social innovators and philanthropic funders and private investors in social innovations cope in various ways. Those who can afford to, such as organized philanthropies or large nonprofits, undertake costly information searches to develop their strategies and ideas; they fund staff or turn to outside experts to develop the information they need. The rest either engage in low-cost searches, finding what’s easy to find and using, rejecting, or adapting it without much comparative information or analysis, or they patch together a more disciplined and costly search that starts and continues as resources allow, but is slower than desired. In other words, rampant inefficiencies in the information market for social innovation create debilitating costs and low speed of development.”

“This almost unsolvable “information maze” is a universal obstacle to accelerating the development and spread of effective social innovations. In the “age of information” it is a notable breakdown in the field of social innovation, a missing but fundamental “decision-support” capacity for the field’s development.”

Here’s our proposed solution (PDF download). Funders are interested, but they’re not moving quickly.  Want to get involved?