Solvation

Exploring Digitized Music - n00b’s Eye View

“And, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of Heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.” - Shakespeare

I was classically trained and have never made the leap from “kid who studied music” to anything resembling an adult musician. I didn’t even try. Unlike me, my brother was a professional musician. I always admired his ability to stay connected to music. And then, recently, he died.

I have been thinking of creating electronic music for a few years, but I never have. Now I have something that feels a little bit like a compulsion: could I make some music based on samples from my brother’s band’s music? It honors him, it’s an emotionally safe exercise where there’s no “right or wrong,” and just the process is itself healing. In short, it’s a nice idea. But how?

I began this journey at the SF Music Tech conference at the Hotel Kabuki.

United States-based Extreme Environments: Where are You?

After having conversations about what is maturing in this space and what is emergent, it seems that the big "buzz" is around: what about US?  And by "us" I mean the United States.

Specifically, why are we focused on extreme environments internationally when there are extreme environments in the United States?

This question was first brought up on Social Edge forum in about May 2009. (Can't find the link; will update when I can.) But it has persisted and grown, and every conference makes it more obvious that there is a dearth of socially-oriented businesses incubated in a more survival-oriented culture by those very people who have few resources... that are represented.

Is it real? If so, is it a matter of patronizing attitudes that we're unwilling to face? Is it because of an international infrastructure that makes it easier to get funding for work in Uganda than East Oakland? Something else?

Or is it an artifact of disconnected communities, where the elite-educated go one way, and the grassroots grown innovators go another?

There's no denying there are entrenched problems in the extreme environments within the United States, but there's also no denying that there is massive innovation emerging here, also. However, those stories are not making the news in the way international work is.

#socap10, #impact

Corporate Social Responsibility as a Strategic Asset

Something I've been trumpeting for a while is being picked up at its margin by SAP.

This is a great first step; of course all of CSR can be a strategic asset, not just lowering carbon emissions.

Social Enterprise Alliance Summit

A brief post: Last Thursday, I was an "Angel" at the business plan competition for the Social Enteprise Alliance Summit. Great presentations, reasonable business plans.

The very cool thing was the structure (and maybe this is ubiquitous but I've not seen it before): the 5 minute pitch was given, then the entrepreneur had to listen quietly while the panel discussed, out loud, the pros and cons of the proposal, and what they'd need to see to move forward.

Three enterprises.

And then the audience voted by allocating faux-money ($10,000) to the entrepreneurs.

Great idea, by organizers Ian Fisk of the William James Foundation and Tony Deifell, of many things; here are two: Seeing Beyond Sight and The Big Thaw.

Future of Money and Technology

I had a great time livetweeting the Future of Money and Technology conference on Monday.

Now I've had some time to reflect, and my overall impression is, as it often is, peripheral:

In a convenening of leading edge experts, there needs to be plenty of unconference time. Not "networking," which is also fun but not as crucial to the conference itself; but some mechanism of meeting people in situ and gauging their relevance. Unconference. Location-based game relevant to the topic. Table topics. Q&A of yet more entrepreneurs is a public service and it does allow people to ask questions, but it's just not as fruitful as full-on unconference dynamics.

After going through and counting the number of women on panels as well as black-looking people, Asian-looking people, and the Hispanically surnamed, diversity is still an issue. Representation wasn't horrible (it wasn't good but my expectations are very low); the issue is socioeconomic diversity - particularly in a forum about money. Convening the opinions of financially supported "global" college kids and their sophisticated parents do not make a diverse group regardless of skin color (and increasingly, country of origin). Avoiding groupthink of the innovators is crucial to the adoption of new ideas into new markets.

The second crucial issue of the conference is the difference between new people who have been reading for a year and have been forming opinions that are sometimes interesting but just as often a little bit sophomoric, vs. people who have been in the space for a decade. As always, the latter group pushes against the former's well-meaning obliviousness. And the former may become self-aware to the point they clam up, which is a bad thing because they bring new ideas and energy. It's up to the conference organizers to pull out the true experts, and when this is delegated to the panelists, they sometimes have extra-conference agendas to advance, relationship-wise. Another point for unconferences.

And last, Jim Benson and others have been urging me to find the time to write up the way I look at valuing ROI for intangible assets. The interest it garnered when I was teaching a class was surprising as well. I know it will be helpful. I need to find some reason to prioritize that as #1.

Other than that? The topical highlights

• Plenty of focus on community banks that are almost coops
• Tying virtual currency to actual currency
• Unbelievable amount of focus on mobile as exchange platform - and some things are actually nifty
• Microfinance has become a cult (well, ok, maybe not quite - but it's getting there!)
• Interesting comments about repurposing bank physical infrastructure
• Effort to create exchanges for credit card debt terms (etc.).

Oh yeah. One last thing. #futureofmoney has too many characters for a conference hashtag. If you organize conferences, remember to keep the limit is 5. Throw numbers in and special characters and keep it to 3 or less. How about #F$ ? That would've been perfect!

SoCap09: About the FOOD!

(Photo: Julie Blaustein)

One of the things I heard so frequently at the conference that I had to write up a post about it: the catering was AMAZING.

And the Flying Goat coffee was lovely, and never ran out!

I spoke with Britt Galler of Acre Gourmet, a "value-driven business" that integrates delicious, healthy food and environmentally friendly practices.  Her focus is on seasonal, local, fresh produce and food cooked from scratch in order to maintain quality, and avoid processed ingredients. Her goal as caterer was to present a diversity of local products with options that were high protein, some dairy-free, some wheat-free. 

Britt loved the energy at SoCap09, and was happy to see so many people eat so well and enjoy it so much! As she said, "It's nice to be a part of something so dynamic!"

Britt says she during catering engagements, she focuses on the quality of flavors and an elegant but not pretentious presentation.  However, Acre Gourmet does a limited number of such engagements and is very selective about the opportunities they choose -- they look to partner with people of similar vision.

Not only for those people involved in fair trade and supply chain sourcing questions, but also simply for those who live in the San Francisco area, or come for extended visits, I did want to get into the details of the food supply chain. 

I asked her about a favorite salad of mine. It turns out that it was based on a quinoa grain product, distributed by Alter Ego Fair Trade, an exhibitor at the conference.

She purchases a lot from the Marin Farmer's Market, with locations throughout Alameda county as well as Marin and San Francisco. The crackers were from the Rustic Bakery in Larkspur, the stuffed flatbreads were from Afghan family company East & West. Bars were from 18 Rabbits

The cheese was, roughly, 80% from California cheesemakers, and meats were from Fra'amani.

Thanks again for a lovely culinary experience amidst so many intellectual ones!

Day 2 Blog Roundup for SoCap09

Marc Dangeard posts a summary of the still outstanding questions and what was interesting to him.

The Philanthropic Family talks of a new API for finding members of the impact investing community.

Beth Kanter talks about socially responsible schwag as a metaphor

Nathaniel Whittemore puts out another great post for Change.org on punishing short-term exploitation; more digestible than my out-there post from yesterday.

Anshni Mohnot covers SoCap09 for PopTech and did a recap of the forecasting talk.

And TriplePundit did their own recap of Day 2.

Microsponsorship

Investment, unlike debt, can have payout in non-financial returns.

When we invest in our child's education, it's because we expect this education not only to make them a productive member of society (which we hope will lead to positive cash flow), but also because it helps them explore the world socially and intellectually. We hope this makes them more effective community members, wiser friends, or at least entertaining conversationalists.

Although community investment in individuals is something as old as family itself, recently we are able to invest in people we have never met, using online matchmaking.  Crowdsourced microfinance infrastructure such as Kiva.com was an early example of this, and we're familiar with "Friends and Family" rounds for startups. 

Now there's evidently a new activity that some engage in:  selling "knowledge futures" to their community in exchange for cash to attend a conference.

At the Social Capital Markets conference, one attendee has done just this, asking friends for $50 per person in exchange for sharing what he learns when he returns. Of the 8 he has asked, 6 have contributed, covering his residual cost. In a simple email to those he hopes would be able to benefit, he laid out the proposal of how much, and what he'd share.

Of course, we all help our friends by donating time and labor to tasks they need to get on their feet or to "level up," and certainly we lend out tangible goods, but it seems unusual to hear of people investing cash in something intangible.  I'd be interested in other examples of microsponsorship if you have them.

Finding Framework: SoCap09

Last year was the inaugural Social Capital Markets conference. In September 2008, we were amidst the financial meltdown and the 2008 election. The "vibe" conveyed the visceral fear inherent in having to make key decisions while only knowing Worst Practices. "Confusion" was an understatement.

I was honored to participate on a panel about financing trends in the non-profit world -- and it was packed; we didn't know what interest would emerge, yet there it was. The room was packed not only with non-profit folk and funders, but others trying to develop new ways of thinking about solving the social capital growth problems using non-profit infrastructure.  Like the Skoll World Forum, the brilliance in the room can be blinding.

Yet the biggest take-away from me happened when listening to the final panel, moderated by Matthew Bishop of the Economist,