Acknowledgment Tools

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I just had a fantastic conversation with Eric Harris-Braun of
Open Money. I am really excited to share this with you. Eric has started talking about currencies in a new way. He talks about wealth acknowledgment.

Open Money, of course, is a group of people (Micheal Linton, Jean-Francois Noubel, and Eric Harris-Braun) working to open up currencies.

Open Money is still in development on the tools (anyone want to help on this open source effort?). But soon to come will be a widget that can be put on any webpage that will be connected to a system tracking these acknowledgments–whether that is reputation or more traditional forms of transactions.

This is a critical piece we have been looking for–a tool independent of the particular implementation. So it doesn’t matter if you are using a Drupal site or anything else, you can use this system for tracking one or more currencies/acknowledgments. Also, this is a critical piece in the sense of explaining currencies in a way that is graspable to many. Eric said that after years of trying to explain currencies to people, he is finally able to get people to understand and, even better, get excited about using currencies/acknowledgments.

We are also talking about how acknowledgments help facilitate network weaving, helping make more dense networks.

I will be opening a conversation on Omidyar.net for open discussion of what they are doing. I will put it in Targeted Currencies group. (Arthur Brock and Eric are good friends of course.)

I would like to see two things come together, so let me know if you are interested in either or both extended conversation around this breakthrough or the development of the tools and implementation of them in spaces like AboutUs.org, Hooze.org, and CatComm.org among others.

Let me know if you are interested in continuing to learn about this powerful way of transforming our world together.

Growing Leaders

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Who is a leader? Who is not a leader? What qualities do nurturing leaders hold?

Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible — the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. Virginia Satir

I don’t think leaders are people who tell other people what to do. I think they are much more nurturing than that. To me, a great leader is someone who maximizes the abilities and actions of those around them. They aren’t focused on problems or on overcoming problems. They focus on bringing out the absolute best in the people around them, so that the whole team can use their talents to achieve something wonderful together.

Leaders ask: “What is this person’s best qualities, and how can that best serve this effort?”

Extraordinary leaders ask great questions that assume the competency of their team. They are not fault-finders. Leaders give attention to what works and strive to create more of it. That is not to say that great leaders deny difficulties. It takes a certain degree of accepting what is and flexibility to adapt to the environment.

Leaders ask: “What is working here, and how can we model that to achieve success in other areas?”

They seek evidence of progress in small and large ways. While hurdles may arise, a leader offers positive feedback to what is going well. They believe in their team’s ability to be successful to the extent that they assume success is imminent. As if it is already arriving not as possibility but as destiny. For example, they think in the following form: “We are going to put a man on the moon, how are we going to do that?”

Leaders ask: “If we step into the future and achieved our goals, what did we need to do now for things to turn out successfully?”

That doesn’t mean denying that there is hard work to do and complexity to relationships. Great leaders create safe spaces for real heartfelt teamwork and personal discussion. They model connected and genuine conversation showing their care and compassion for their teammates.

Leaders ask: “What can we do here to honor the whole beings with complex lives who are driving this work forward?”

Real leaders, in my mind, don’t strive to be seen as heroes. They give time and opportunity for feedback. They don’t expect themselves or others to be flawless, and they have real curiosity about where there might be room for improvement.

Leaders ask: “What could I be doing better to serve and nurture my team?”

Leaders show they feel accountable to their team and their goals. And when successes, large and small, are achieved, extraordinary leaders share the glory.

Leaders ask: “How can I celebrate the contributions of the team members?”

A debt of gratitude for training received and research done by Tim Hallbom in noticing and developing these key attributes in leaders.

One Web Day

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Where would I be without the web? One Web Day celebrates the connection and collaboration that the web enables us to have.

I couldn’t do the work I do without the web. I have serviced clients without ever meeting them or even talking on the phone. And those that I do meet or call also connect with me online. I live in Illinois, but most of my clients are not in Illinois, some are not even in the US. Some of my friends like to remind me that the work I do is something I could, because of the web, do from anywhere there is an internet connection. Anywhere. And this is just the beginning. In the last month, I have started wiki collaborations. Several ideas I have brewing heavily involve online collaboration, often by international participants. Not only couldn’t I do my work without the web, more and more my work is the web.

My personal life? Yeah, well with friends spread from sea to shining sea and beyond, the web connects us. Whether it is sharing ideas and photos of potential bridesmaid dresses or talking on Voip, the web connects us, enables us to talk in ways we couldn’t have done as freely without this medium. I have friends from my online community, some I consider good friends though I may not even know their home address. And my intereactions with them are all web-based. In fact it is odd when you do finally meet them face-to-face to start to put a body with a writing style or opinion.

I do much of my volunteering work virtually too!

Okay, I admit it. I am on the computer a lot! I love the internet! Long live the internet!

Giving in More Ways Than One

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We need a better world. And to have that better world, we will need better models. Ned may be the brand behind better worlding to come.

Mark Grimes, founder and serial enterpreneur committed to doing good, describes Ned:

Ned (a philanthropic franchise) is a small retail location in Portland, Oregon that is part better world membership group, part community center, part retail, part office space, part Starbucks, part 10,000 Villages, part Grameen bank, part Ashoka, and very interactive…all aimed at creating a better world experience. It exists in both the real world physical location…and online. The brand of doing good things. This effort has been bootstrapped, meaning being done with a budget of near zero and tons of sweat equity.

Ned will have weekly and monthly meetings on better world topics ranging from Millennium Development Goals, poverty, trafficking, HIV/AIDS, education, art and much more. There will be group documentary screenings, speakers, and various ways to people to connect with their community (and globally). Space will be given for free to local nonprofits for members meetings, board meetings, and fundraising events.

Product sales information “goes beyond” traditional fair trade in that it will be (and buy from organizations that are) 100% transparent (open) about finance, governance and operations. Ned truly desires that each and every transaction (financial and social) make the world a little better place in some small way. A percentage of gross and net sales will be distributed to grassroots local, regional, national and global nonprofit, nongovernmental and community based organizations. The Ned Giving Project members (invitation only based on personal friendship, reputation, and trust) who pay a $31 monthly membership fee (90% going to the orgs) decide the monthly categories of giving, and the groups that receive the funds.

Mark is certainly meeting my criteria for doing good in the world. I look forward to seeing Ned grow and replicate.

I am not the only one noticing. There is already a review on Tribe.

Jean’s Idea of the World We Want

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The question has been asked: What is your idea of The World We Want?

I have chosen to answer.

I have been reflecting on this question for a long time now. And while my answers are not yet complete, I am ready to share my first draft with you…

What is your vision of a better world?

A world in which many revolutions converge to change this world into a world with more honor, respect, and ecological awareness.

What converges?

The eradication of major diseases. Small Pox down, Polio close, Measles next, then each one or even many simultaneously. And more and more of this being achieved by organizations working together as a global health community using more and more complex and responsive information tools. More safe drinking water made available through coordinated efforts using community-labor and resources along with global data tracking and local/global teams which share and transfer expertise. We begin to take care of the bottom of the Maslow pyramid for all people. Put a bottom under it so all people do really and truly have a chance to have dignity and health.

WEB 2.0—mass communication centered on user-experience. The many edges all empowered by mediums of information conveyance to speak across traditional boundaries and be honored in a customized user-driven fashion. Power to the edges, baby!

Increased transparency of our resources above and beyond money including:

Social Network Analysis—beginning to map and value the actual relationships that exist between us rather than the relationships placed on us by org charts.

Community Asset Mapping—tapping into the greater wealth of our communities—our connections, the resources we can bring to bear. Going beyond money to do more and see clearly, visually, what is available so making intentional choices is easier.

Open Source—community working together producing property for the commons and changing the model for developing intellectual material.

Volunteerism on the rise as more and more boomers get back to their ideals. Retirement moves from retiring/resting from work and community for an extended vacation to giving/contributing supported by financial independence and allowing the vast intellectual and social wealth of the Boomers to be reused and shared through extensive volunteer and community efforts. (Get that writer a decent editor!)

The Organic Movement and other ecologically sensitive movements growing in popularity. People more and more realize the cause and effect relationships of their consumption and for their own health and the health of the world make different more sustainable choices.

The rise and flourishing of our neglected gift economy via increased information sharing, matchmaking of needs with resources, and spiritual sense of oneness promoted by globalization in the best sense.

What are the conditions needed to realize it?

That the converging efforts find support and common cause and so unite and reinforce each other bringing together multiple upward spirals to change the overall flow of our culture.

What are the obstacles?

  • Old thinking which focuses too much on immediate needs, get me mine thinking.
  • Fear and scarcity thinking.
  • Old established systems slow to change.
  • Over-focus on band-aid efforts like micro-lending or over-glorification of system-reinforcing work that plays itself like change such as the Grameen Bank (which perpetuates debt-based systems).


Based on your experience, what parts of the vision are realistic and what ideas, strategies and plans can make it so?

My vision is not only realistic; it is already in motion. The main question is about timing. How soon will we change? How many of us need to have an awakening in order to tip the change?

I partner, as I can, with those who are doing everything they can to enable the dawning of a new age of sustainability, respect, honor, and ecological awareness. I spread the word to you, and you pass it on. If it is a message people are ready for, it will spread virally far and wide. If not, we re-work the message, lay more groundwork, develop more tools, share more information, and reach out to more hearts.

I believe…
I have a dream…
I hope.

Open Space Onet

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Discovering our power to make good things happen

Please join us for a three-day event of, by and for the omidyar.net community and friends — to build our capacity to make good things happen.

What: Discovering Our Power to Make Good Things Happen

When: July 14-16, 2006 pre-set schedule

Where: Carleton Hotel, Oak Park, IL (http://www.carletonhotel.com and href=”http://www.omidyar.net/group/conference/ws/DirectionsToConference/”>DirectionsToConference

You’re Invited: This conference is for omidyar.net members, friends and anyone else to come together, make connections, have fun, do as much good work as each and every one of us can… and then go home, more connected, energized and capable of doing more and more of whatever we call good in the world. Come join a good party getting better! …and bring your good friends, too!

Since you are reading this invitation, we know that someone thought you might be interested in joining this work.  Please join us to make good things happen!

  • What kind of good things are happening because of the work you are doing in the world?
  • What do you need to do in order for more good things to happen as a result of the work you really want to do?
  • What skills, resources, gifts and connections do you have to share?
  • What would happen if you could grow and get and share?

Come to Oak Park, Chicago and find out!

View the full invitation.

Women and Power

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The thing women have got to learn is that nobody gives you power. You just take it. ~Roseanne Barr

Absolutely Roseanne! Power is not a gift, an object to give from one person to another, power is only visible when being used. Much like an electron, we only see it when we test it. I have long thought that the reason some men have tried to oppress and contain women is because of the power women have. When a woman gives birth to a child, a man gets to be witness to the power and strength that a woman has. In this, he is fearful–fearful that this woman, experiencing such a transformation in her body, proves that she is stronger, more flexible, more persistent, and more resilient than he is. To be a woman is to embody the process of becoming, regardless of whether one begets children or not.

So professionally, she who brings forth the world, she who can bring children into being, should not play coy or suppress her power in some odd attempt to make man feel secure. No, indeed, she should show that in more areas of her life she has the power to bring forth. To bring forth ideas, to bring forth action, to bring forth results with strength, flexibility, resilience, and perseverance. Woman does not need to wait for man to acknowledge her capacity nor her power. Woman proves her power through her action. And she does a disservice to herself if she attempts to do it in the way a man needs to do it. Let the hunter be a hunter. And let the one who brings forth do her best to bring forth.

Here are some of my etiquette tips for women (and all people for that matter) in the post-pomo era:

  • Whoever reaches the door first holds it for the next person (or people) regardless of anyone’s sex or status.
  • When speaking with others, don’t look down. In animal speak this is an act of empowering the more dominant animal. And men come from hunters, they use this amongst themselves. Let them see into your eyes, and they will know the depth and strength of your heart. Chin up! Eyes up! Nose down.
  • Whoever reaches for their money first gets the honor of paying the bill when among equals. When among seniors, let the senior most person decide who pays the bill. When with clients, let the buyer buy the meal (they will pay for it indirectly or directly, why not give them the chance to be gracious and feel generous).
  • Neither hide your body and your beauty nor flaunt it as a manipulation of the hungry hunter. You are yourself and should be proud to be it without needing to demonstrate the power your body holds. They sense it already. Be beautiful for yourself.
  • Smile. It disarms most who would try to hold you back and encourages those around you to be happy.
  • It doesn’t do anyone any good if you are so humble about your power and your talent that you don’t acknowledge it. Temper arrogance with curiousity rather than with self-doubt.
  • Women, generally speaking, intuitively understand the power of community and collaboration. Use it.

Here are some of the qualities that this Caliper study on Women Leaders showed as strengths great female leaders possess:

  • Persuasive
  • Empathetic
  • Flexible
  • Assertive
  • Willing to take risks (and ignore rules)
  • Sociable
  • Learn from adversity
  • Inclusive and team building

Check out the article itself for a more thorough explanation. Thanks to my incredible cousin Kim Olson for the link.

It is a female thing

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It is a female thing There is a difference between people qualified by a ton of credentials and people who make the world work better. And that thing is a female thing, if I may say so. That thing is a way of being in the world. It is a way of coming from the heart and spirit instead of solely from the mind.

I know the power of this thing because it is a critical difference in my business. People can hire editors and coaches with more credentials. Yes, but when people hire me — I have found — it is because they embrace my way of being. They can sense that by working with me, I will honor who they are and what they are trying to achieve. It is the difference between being good (doing all the right things) and being genuine, authentic, and unique.

That is not to say that there are not men out there who have this quality of being genuine and heartfelt. I know some. There are. However, I see far too many people fooled by marketing buzz words, and the people I work with aren’t. They want the real thing. They want authenticity. Theirs. Mine. Ours. It isn’t all soft and gooey necessarily. Even that can be corny, cheesy, silly. Puff.

The mind part is easy. Logic. Language. Clarity. What is hard is the stuff that has to be real. Something I think women are good at. The qualities that build long lasting relationships filled with love. These come from the heart, the soul, and even deep down in the gut. They can’t be faked. And most people can’t be fooled.

This is where you come when you realize money is simply one form of exchange, and a pretty shallow one at that. This is where you come when you want to be acknowledged within yourself and by others for your unique contribution to the world and your loving intentions.

So, if you want to spend some time being yourself, contact me. But leave your coat and all the outward “male” signs of success at the door. Let’s sit over a cup of tea and discover who you are and what you want. I am really curious.

Philanthropy, Social Justice, and Tax Incentives

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A Failure of Philanthropy American charity shortchanges the poor, and public policy is partly to blame By Rob Reich

Interesting article. It is a reframe for me, since working with a financial advisor, I am used to the government "discount" on giving being a positive thing that helps people give. However, when I came across this statement, the whole thing started to fall apart for me:

A $500 donation by the person in the 35 percent bracket costs the person less than the same donation to the same place by the person in the 10 percent bracket. Because the same social good is ostensibly produced in both cases, the differential treatment appears unjust. If anything, lower-income earners would seem to warrant the larger subsidy and incentive. [20]

[20] The upside-down phenomenon is not specific to the tax deduction for charitable donations, of course. Deductions in general overwhelmingly favor the wealthy. In 1999, 50
percent of all tax deductions were claimed by the wealthiest decile of earners.

Because rewarding the lower-income earners for giving when it is harder for them and de-incentivizing those who can more easily afford it would seem to lead to a grosser disparity! The rich, with less of a carrot on giving, would give less, aka keep more, while the poor/middle class, with more of a carrot on giving, would give more, aka keep less! Does
that logic make sense to you?

I am interested in how we can incentivize giving to social justice. And I get that the article is in opposition to the "Greater Good" argument that philanthropy saves capitalism and democracy. However, I think they should have stuck with the question of: "How do we incentivize giving specifically to social justice through tax law?" That seemed a stronger and more robust case to me.

Peer to Peer

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Catalytic Communities recently celebrated their successful fund-raising drive through the peer to peer network activity of Pledgebank by drawing a lucky winner for a trip for two to Rio. A doctor, Jason Yax, won the trip, and he says he will be taking his brother Justin. Both Jason and Justin focus their attention on infectious disease and international work. Look for future updates from Catalytic Communities on their new blog.

Peer to Peer network activity seems to fit strongly with my values. And there is something in the network analysis information I have read from Valdis Krebs which makes me think there is a clear argument about how peer to peer networks have great strength as opposed to top-down networks which restrict information flow and dis-empower people at all levels. I will be reading more about network analysis, and let you know. For now, check out the network analysis papers Valdis has listed on his site, orgnet.com.