Change.org - remember to vote before 12/31/08

After 12/31/08 only the top 3 rated ideas from each category will make it into the second round. The second round of voting will begin on Monday, January 5, and each qualifying idea will compete against the qualifying ideas from all other categories, and then the top 10 rated ideas will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009 as the "Top 10 Ideas for America."

If you have not done so, please consider the Entrepreneur Commons idea:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/sponsor_a_structure_for_entrepreneurs_to_support_entrepreneurs
Click on the "vote" button showing the current number of votes

And if you like the idea, please forward to as many of your friends as possible, as we need many more votes to make it to the top 10.

Thank you for your help.

Best wishes for 2009 :-)

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Social Capital and Social Business definitions

An interesting input from Michael Cayley in the Social Edge discussion regarding the definitions of Social Capital and Social Business:

Social Capital (Nan Lin's definition): resources embedded in a social structure which are accessed and/or mobilized in purposive actions

Social Business (from Michael): "ALL businesses are social in an era where meaning & perception is derived from broadband empowered individuals rather than capital intensive broadcast communication networks."

This is very much in line with what I had in mind when I started the discussion on Social Edge. And seems to fit a lot of the other comments that came up.
And it reinforce my conviction that we need something like the Vindex to attach a number to the concept, and make it easy for everybody to understand and visualize the value.


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Gizmocall.com - new cool widget

The nerd in me likes this one...
Thank you Gizmo project :-)




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Please join the "Social Business" discussion on SocialEdge

We are currently discussing the definitions of "Social Capital" and "Social Business" on SocialEdge:

http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/responsibility/social-capital-social-business

My take on this is that the success of Muhammad Yunus with Grameen bank and microfinance in general has resulted in a narrowing of the definition of "Social Business" to what he specifically focuses on: poverty.
Meanwhile there is a broader definition that we should look like, as a way to prevent the concept of "Social Business" from being marginalized. We cannot afford to fall into the comfortable idea that "Social Businesses" are focusing on fixing the world issues while the rest of us are doing business as usual. We need to reverse the trend by moving the concept of "Social Business" from being a niche to being the standard.

Please give us your input on this idea and how to go about it:
http://www.socialedge.org/discussions/responsibility/social-capital-social-business


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Linux, Open source get patent protection program

A very interesting announcement today from Information Week (thank you Elie for pointing this out):

Open Invention Network (OIN) unveiled a program Tuesday that aims to make it easier for patent and trademark office examiners -- and others -- to access prior art, increase the quality of patents granted, and decrease the number of poor quality patents. [...] The sponsors hope the program will ultimately promote their goals of greater freedom in the open source community to expand the Linux platform.

Full article here

Another step in the right direction. Sadly patents are often used as a way to prevent other people to do things. Large corporations are often times filing many with no real intent to build anything but more to make sure that if somebody else tries they will have a way to stop them or at least slow them down while they try to catch up...


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Top 150 Blogs for Entrepreneurs

>> This list has been updated - for the most recent ranking click here <<

I am using eCairn to track what is happening in the blogosphere around Entrepreneurship/ Social Entrepreneurship / High Tech/ Venture Capital (tracking about 350 blogs total), and I use eCairn's influence ranking on these blogs to prioritize my reading and commenting (see here how they do this - this is NOT about traffic but rather who links to what).
Here is the list of the top 150 blogs that I find relevant for entrepreneurs in general, with a bias for high tech and social entrepreneurship and a special interest on the funding side.

Future updates will be posted on the Entrepreneur Commons website.

Something that you may find useful for yourself...

Top 150 blogs for Entrepreneur (based on the influence ranking by eCairn):

1 http://www.techcrunch.com
2 http://www.venturebeat.com
3 http://blog.guykawasaki.com
4 http://www.gigaom.com
5 http://www.alleyinsider.com
6 http://www.readwriteweb.com
7 http://www.avc.com/a_vc
8 http://www.pehub.com
9 http://paul.kedrosky.com
10 http://www.entrepreneur.com
11 http://www.valleywag.com
12 http://www.scobleizer.com
13 http://www.thefunded.com
14 http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com
15 http://redeye.firstround.com
16 http://www.buzzmachine.com
17 http://www.smallbiztrends.com
18 http://www.venturehacks.com
19 http://www.socialedge.org
20 http://upandrunning.entrepreneur.com
21 http://blogs.openforum.com
22 http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content
23 http://www.informationarbitrage.com
24 http://blog.entrepreneur.com
25 http://www.instigatorblog.com
26 http://networking.entrepreneur.com
27 http://vestpocketconsultant.entrepreneur.com
28 http://www.gapingvoid.com
29 http://lsvp.wordpress.com
30 http://www.howardlindzon.com
31 http://inspired.entrepreneur.com
32 http://weekend.entrepreneur.com
33 http://www.vcconfidential.com
34 http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/blogspotting
35 http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing
36 http://www.texasstartupblog.com
37 http://fiveyearstoolate.wordpress.com
38 http://www.coloradostartups.com
39 http://www.markpeterdavis.com/getventure
40 http://www.startupnorth.ca
41 http://www.business-opportunities.biz
42 http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
43 http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org
44 http://campusentrepreneurship.wordpress.com
45 http://www.billionswithzeroknowledge.com
46 http://www.getentrepreneurial.com
47 http://www.nextbillion.net
48 http://philanthropy.blogspot.com
49 http://www.tacticalphilanthropy.com
50 http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet
51 http://www.newhampshirestartups.com
52 http://www.kentuckystartups.com
53 http://www.techflash.com
54 http://www.davidcrow.ca
55 http://www.bootstrapme.com
56 http://www.northcarolinastartups.com
57 http://vcmike.wordpress.com
58 http://joi.ito.com
59 http://www.ocvcblog.com
60 http://www.startupprincess.com/wordpress
61 http://blog.acumenfund.org
62 http://startup.partnerup.com
63 http://www.startupmeme.com
64 http://blog.timberry.com
65 http://www.thefrankpetersshow.com
66 http://www.growthology.org/growthology
67 http://www.montrealtechwatch.com
68 http://www.innoeco.com
69 http://founderresearch.blogspot.com
70 http://canentrepreneur.blogspot.com
71 http://bizcoach.blogspot.com
72 http://ben.casnocha.com
73 http://www.gifthub.org
74 http://www.askthevc.com/blog
75 http://www.startupcfo.ca
76 http://blog.ecairn.com
77 http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs
78 http://blog.socaltech.com
79 http://www.mvmpartners.com/blog
80 http://www.nivi.com/blog
81 http://www.allantyoung.com
82 http://coheda.typepad.com/israel
83 http://www.christine.net
84 http://www.vcrants.com
85 http://www.tjacobi.com
86 http://blogs.forrester.com/colony
87 http://www.adeoressi.com
88 http://commonangels.wordpress.com
89 http://vcinjerusalem.typepad.com/vcinjerusalem
90 http://wallen.typepad.com/wallen
91 http://thoughtsprevail.blogspot.com
92 http://www.infochachkie.com
93 http://www.afpr.com
94 http://www.epicchange.org/blog
95 http://blog.bootuplabs.com
96 http://www.skollonline.com/blog
97 http://www.dorm-room-biz.com
98 http://www.vccafe.com
99 http://marktomarket.typepad.com/marktomarket
100 http://blog.marsdd.com
101 http://www.altgate.com/blog
102 http://www.jasonmendelson.com/blog
103 http://www.wellingtonfund.com/blog
104 http://english.martinvarsavsky.net
105 http://www.socialmediaclub.org
106 http://www.toiletpaperentrepreneur.com/blog
107 http://www.delbourg-delphis.com
108 http://vcratings.thedealblogs.com
109 http://www.unleashingideas.org/blog
110 http://www.energybyte.com/blog
111 http://www.venturedig.com
112 http://www.microcapital.org
113 http://www.theequitykicker.com
114 http://www.theclosetentrepreneur.com
115 http://presspass.entrepreneur.com
116 http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com
117 http://www.change.gov/newsroom/blog
118 http://www.startuptweet.com
119 http://altos.typepad.com/vc
120 http://blog.bplans.com
121 http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress
122 http://www.onthecommons.org
123 http://www.zviband.com
124 http://www.businessblogwire.com
125 http://yallaguy.wordpress.com
126 http://laurent.pierssens.com
127 http://babblingvc.typepad.com/pjozefak
128 http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv
129 http://www.floridaventureblog.com
130 http://www.leveragingideas.com
131 http://www.allthingscahill.com
132 http://www.stetoscope-blog.com
133 http://www.johngannonblog.com
134 http://everythingstartup.blogspot.com
135 http://www.thepomoblog.com
136 http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com
137 http://www.austinstartup.com
138 http://bluepointmktg.blogspot.com
139 http://www.abovethecrowd.com
140 http://schumpeterscentury.blogspot.com
141 http://vcwhisperer.blogspot.com
142 http://www.techflash.com/venture
143 http://www.appfrica.net/blog
144 http://onhollywood.goingon.com
145 http://www.ariwriter.com
146 http://www.insidevtknowledgeworks.com
147 http://www.socialcapitalmarkets.net/blog
148 http://thebostonentrepreneur.wordpress.com
149 http://www.startupweekend.com
150 http://microfranchising.blogspot.com



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Why you should hire me as a trusted advisor

Your business needs a trusted advisor to make sure the relationship between the various stakeholders stays healthy.

A business by nature is always in transition, trying to get from one phase of the life-cycle to the next:

• creation

• growth

• stability

• closure of some sort: dissolution, merger, IPO etc...

Each of these phases require a team with a different set of skills.

And then when the transition from one phase to the other is achieved, the team needs to get re-organized to meet the requirements of the new phase the business is in.

In addition to and independently from the internal tensions created by this constant change, there are natural tensions between the various stakeholders.

And there are many of them:

• entrepreneur
• employees
• customers
• investors
• suppliers
• vendors
• external contractors
• other legal and fiscal stakeholders
  

 

Of course, you can always manage the tensions through open communication, and most of the time this is good enough. This is where a strong company culture makes a big difference, because everybody's interest tends to be more aligned, thus minimizing the risk of friction. 

But then again and typically over time untold issues accumulate. Some problems will disappear because the people involved will leave, but some tension will also slowly build up because not everybody has the option of getting out: investors need an exit strategy, the entrepreneur needs a transition plan, etc...

This is when you need a trusted advisor: think of it as your doctor, and as doing regular checkups. 

When it comes to your health, you would probably agree that prevention is better than waiting until the problem starts surfacing. 

Similarly for a business it is much better to check the health of the relationships within the business rather than wait until the business is in trouble.

And the person you need should be from the outside, free of any potential conflict of interest so that the all stakeholders can have a truly open discussion with him/her.

It should not be the company lawyer, because you would not want him to know too much about you personally. 

It should not be the company CPA because you may want to keep your own financial issues for yourself. 

It should be somebody at the heart of the business ecosystem that all stakeholders can trust without second thoughts. Somebody who can pull in the necessary resources and work with them to help resolve issues without being responsible for the direct execution a specific task (which may create conflict of interest). The general contractor who will coordinate the work between the architect and the various contractors on the job.

What you will get

• A trusted advisor who will listen and can bring into the discussion his own prospective from many years of business experience

• A trusted neutral third party to provide mediation between all the stakeholders within the business ecosystem at large

If you agree that your business would be better off with such a person, please contact me: marc at dangeard dot com

The Entrepreneur Commons concept submitted on Change.org was featured on the social entrepreneurship blog here.

Check it out if you want more details on how the idea came and how the Obama administration could help entrepreneurs.
If you like what you read, please vote for the idea here:
http://www.change.org/ideas/view/sponsor_a_structure_for_entrepreneurs_to_support_entrepreneurs
Click on the "Vote" button showing the current number of votes.

And then don't forget to forward the info to your friends, as we need a lot more votes if we want to make it to the top 10.

Thank you for your help :-)

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Please support Entrepreneur Commons on Change.org

I'm not sure if you've heard, but there's a movement of citizens inspired by the presidential campaign who are now submitting ideas for how they think the Obama Administration should change America. It's called "Ideas for Change in America."

I've submitted an idea and wanted to see if you could quickly vote for it. The title is:

Sponsor a structure for entrepreneurs to support entrepreneurs

You can read and vote for the idea by clicking here.

The top 10 ideas are going to be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day and will be supported by a national lobbying campaign run by Change.org, MySpace, and more than a dozen leading nonprofits after the Inauguration. So each idea has a real chance at becoming policy.

Can you click here to support Entrepreneur Commons?

And feel free to spread the word :-)

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Top Twitter Social Entrepreneurs

I made it into the Top Twitter Social Entrepreneurs list by Nathaniel Whittemore
Thank you for this honor :-)

Here is Nathaniel's list:

Name - Erik Hersman
Twitter - @whiteafrican
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Ushahidi, blogger at AfriGadget and WhiteAfrican, all around smart guy and great tracker of the African technology and innovation

Name - Guy Kawasaki
Twitter - @guykawasaki
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Alltop, social media evangelist and best selling author on entrepreneurship, tweets regularly with practical advice for traditional and social entrepreneurs

Name - Vanessa Mason
Twitter - @vanessamason
Why You Should Follow - Blogger and tracker about all things global health, international development, and creative solutions to poverty and inequality

Name - Marc Dangeard
Twitter - @mdangear
Why You Should Follow - Founder of Entrepreneur Commons and general advisor to social entrepreneurs

Name - Joe Solomon
Twitter - @engagejoe
Why You Should Follow - Social media consultant working with Social Actions, Joe's Twitter stream is a hub for all online social innovation

Name - VCTips
Twitter - @vctips
Why You Should Follow - An aggregator of great tips for those entrepreneurs who are pitching or looking to pitch to venture firms and angel investors

Name - Jon Gosier / Appfrica
Twitter - @appfrica
Why You Should Follow - Jon's Appfrica project does a phenomenal job keeping track of social technology innovations with ramifications for the developing world

Name - Social Entrepreneurship at Change.org / Nathaniel Whittemore
Twitter - @socialentrprnr
Why You Should Follow - Our official Socialentrepreneurship.change.org Twitter account - get updated about new posts and interesting projects

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Peer to peer lending for sustainable capitalism (in French)

Interview by David Bourgeois, COO of Altik - here

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Direct Territories

After his essay on Direct Economy, Xavier Comtesse is coming out with a new essay (in French for now) on Direct Territories.
Here a summary of the essay:

Summary


Territories as defined by government have become disconnected from the ecosystems in which people and business live and work. New ways of communicating have created an additional layer on top of these territories and ecosystems, ultimately defining new territories in which we have to coexist.
These new ways of communicating have also created a culture of participation.
As a result, governments need to reconsider their processes, they need to foster participation and learn to manage collaboration between multiple stakeholders from both the public and private sector. Rather than deregulation, this calls for a redefinition of the role of government, and of the culture we share.


Findings

Material - our physical world has evolved:
- For the longest time, territories were an administrative mapping of geographical regions.
- More recently, business ecosystems have appeared in metropolitan areas, and they typically overlap several administrative areas, creating a layer on top of the original mapping, and adding a level of complexity in the management of geographical communities.
- As a result, the administration of the physical space, and the power over what can be done where, is a conversation between multiple stakeholder that are a mix of private and public organizations.
- In addition people and companies are more mobile now than they used to be. This means that there is competition between various regions of the world through the ability of those involved to choose where they go. The conversation cannot be a one way conversation, it requires a participative process.

Immaterial - our life also happens online:
- The latest progress in telecommunication, with ubiquitous access to information enabling telecommuting, is redefining the concept of "community center". People can work from home, they can work while they are on the move (airports, hotels, cafes, etc...), the center is now a virtual place that does not necessarily map to a physical place. Yet another layer has been built on top of physical territories.
- the emergence of online communities, and of online tools to manage the collaboration between users, have created a culture of participation.

New territories - material
Where the material meets the immaterial at the most basic level is in the house, where it is now possible to navigate between the physical and the virtual space, to be in many locations at once. And therefore this is where we should look to define new territories we live in, looking at the use of the space in the house and how it creates new infrastructure requirements to better serve individuals and the community around them.

New territories - immaterial:
To foster the participation that people have come to expect, we need to implement the following:
- direct economy: involving the consumer in the value chain
- direct knowledge: involving the student in the learning process
- direct content: involving the user in the production of content
- e-government: online access to public document and online transactions
- ubiquitous connectivity: wifi or wimax everywhere
- geotags: virtual tags for physical places
- digital spaces: internet cafes, creative corners
- techno-squares: technology in public spaces
- new services: for example digital books allowing shared comments and notes
- Thinktanks open to citizens
- Digital governance: joint efforts involving multiple stakeholders from the public and private sector, managed in total transparency

Meeting these new requirements create challenges on the government side:
- grassroot power vs hierarchy
- bridging the digital gap
- government as a process rather than a solution
- from enforcement to engagement
- re-defining the role of politicians
- measuring intangibles
- re-emphasizing culture

More specifically government must foster participation through the following:
- manage change
- map the various existing layers on top of the new territories
- establish common values
- push for results
- get stakeholders buy-in
- establish a core group before allowing others interested players into the conversation
- favor a pragmatic approach rather than a decision process based on ideology
- share best practices across the various new territories
- measure progress and results

To conclude, the emergence of new territories creates the need for an evolution from democracy as we know it to participative democracy, with an unavoidable overlap between the 2 systems while they coexist, which will create tensions. But rather than deregulation, it calls for a redefinition of the role of government and of the culture we share.
A lot of work still remains to be done and we should be ready for exciting times to come...

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Can you tell me here how I am doing?

Global Entrepreneurship week - Nov. 17-23, 2008

Global Entrepreneurship week is next week.
I have submitted a challenge - change the world in one minute.
Can you do this?

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The VC model is broken - the word is getting out

Just got this PPT from VentureBeat :-)

One year after I discussed the end of the VC era (see my previous post here), I am happy to report that the word is now officially out, and the following powerpoint says it all. The one issue where help is really needed is Seed investment, and because unfortunately, as I also discussed earlier in this blog (here) Angels are not the answer. I have started Entrepreneur Commons as a way to try to resolve the issue, this latest post from VentureBeat will certainly help build momentum :-)

TheFunded - Canarie

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: investing vc)

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What is a Social Business?

I have seen all kinds of definitions for a Social Business, and often times quite narrow ones specifically focusing on the issue of poverty in developing countries. And while this is important, there are many other issues we need to deal with, and this is why I prefer the broader view:
To me a social business is any business who is focused NOT on maximizing profit BUT RATHER on maximizing Social Capital within the ecosystem it exists in, using the broad definition of Social Capital to be the credibility you have within your community.
I believe that this is the kind of business we need to change the world beyond the focus on poverty and to resolve the broader set of economical and ecological challenges we are facing today.

And to help with the process, I like the idea of trying to come up with an index that would help us evaluate the social capital of people or organization. One simple measure that you can try to optimize (because this is human, we like to optimize things and competition is healthy). I am exploring the idea with the Vindex and there may be other possible options.

In the end, the main issue at this point is lack of focus on the investment side: people know how to invest in general to maximize profit, but when it comes to social businesses, everybody has their own view of the world and their own goals to fulfill and matching demand (social businesses looking for cash) with offers (social investors with very precise ideas of what they think is wrong and a mission to change things) is hard at this point. And it will stay like this until there is a way to focus everybody or enough people involved that the lack of focus is compensated by shear volume (as it is in regular financial markets).

I think the 2nd is what we should try to push for: when people realize that what has gone wrong with the world is because we try to maximize profit, and when they will agree to move to maximizing social capital (=sustainable capitalism), and they start using an index that allows everybody to compare despite the lack of focus from one mission to the other, then we will have a good story to tell.
So if you want to help, get your Vindex now for you and your business and please let me know how it feels to you and others around you working on this as a measurement...

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From Jeff Jarvis in Dubai: "A fundamental reboot"

From Jeff Jarvis blog:

The environment and sustainability group — which called for “a fundamental reboot” in 2009 — said that the crisis in fuel, finance, and food were “just canaries in the coal mine. They are early warning signs that the system is not sustainable.”

And then:

innovation and creation and invention are the real cures and the real means for growth and I hope we concentrate on them. WEF head Klaus Schwab does address the theme in his closing: “entrepreneurship in the global public interest.”

I like that last bit. It would be nice that these people look into the financing of these entrepreneurs as a way to help them do a more efficient job at changing the world. Entrepreneur Commons is focusing on this, hopefully more will see the need...

Using the Vindex to track Social Capital

Since I believe Social Capital is an important measure we should focus on, I am hoping the Vindex can be a good measure of just that:

| View | Upload your own

If you like the concept and would like to explore further, please create a Vindex for yourself or your company here

Here is mine, show me yours :-)

Top 150 social media blogs

For those interested, my friends at eCairn just released their Top 150 social media blogs list here, ranked based on a relevance formula that mix topic and topology relevance - not crowdsourcing, actual science. It is always useful to see who matters...

Open Government

From www.change.gov

OPEN GOVERNMENT
It’s Your America: Share Your Ideas
The story of the campaign and this historic moment has been your story. Share your story and your ideas, and be part of bringing positive lasting change to this country.

Thank you Barrack Obama for pushing the vision...

Maximizing Social Capital

Building on the train of thoughts from my previous post on Financial Markets and Social Capital, and now that the world has a new US president that has been talking about hope and change, I would like to go back and explore further the value of focusing on Social Capital:
- it grows when you give, rather than when you take, 

- it does not decrease when you use it right,

- it is way more satisfying to build social capital than building capital. This is one of the reason why the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffett of the world get into it after they are done building their huge fortune. Because you get tired of accumulating wealth, but you never get tired of giving and helping (and unfortunately there is no immediate end to the need for it). And then they have come to realize that the world really needs it.

If capitalism as we know it got us where we are today, how about a capitalism where the focus is on maximizing social capital for those involved (entrepreneur, employees, customers, partners, investors, etc...)?