Want to Move Your Industry Forward ? Watch this.....

Has the industry you work in lost its way? Sense a disconnect between what it espouses, the potential and the reality ? Many examples exist. In franchising, industry groups like IFA brag about the great success of franchising, yet research shows the majority of franchises rarely make money and have lower success rates than independent businesses. The disconnect is evident in many industries today.

Professor Terri Griffith's recent post "Can We Increase the Rate of Organizational Change" gets at this point when she references a WSJ article Online Compliments Can Haunt You, Too by William M. Bulkeley and Luis Suarez‘ post Evangelist: Think! She writes, "The WSJ article and the post both highlight that although we have the technology tools and some of the personal motivation to change our organizations — it is going to take a long time. Please let this not be true."

Why such disconnects ? Because many organizations don't work any more and until the majority of the good people who want to make a difference start adopting new means of organizing to get things done  outside of traditional models - it won't get any better. If your one of the many thousands of good people working hard in any of these or other countless organizations and industries caught up in the disconnect between leadership, purpose and reality, welcome aboard - you CAN do something about it.

Salesforce.com & Wave - Customer Service on Crack

Cloud computing is offering advanced ways for businesses to apply the most cutting edge technologies to support their key business processes - rapidly and affordably. Now there is another interesting example as the video below shows.

As David Carroll's recent post explains in the force.com developer blog explains; Google's Wave is a new and interesting seminal Cloud technology. Wave was invented by brothers Jens Rasmussen and Lars Rasmussen at Google that builds on the concepts of AJAX combined with fresh look at Operational Transformation.  The solution is so ground breaking the ways in which this technology may transform web based communication is unclear.  It will be up to the community of developers working within and without the enterprise to realize the evident potential of Wave.

From a technical perspective, Wave has the ability to interact with other cloud platforms, like the Force.com platform. Watch the video demo below which features a fictitious Mobile Services Company named Booyah and see how powerful this new technology is and what it can do for customer service.

Crowdfunding - Revolutionary Capital Formation

Web 2.0 continues disrupting industries and practices with the opportunity to create a better world. Crowdfunding, inspired by crowdsourcing, describes collective cooperation and trust by people who network and pool funds together, mainly via the Internet, to support individual or organizational initiatives. Crowdfunding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to charities, political campaigns and venture capital. This trend is yet another example of how new technologies will revolutionize the investment of funds in for profit and non-profit endeavors, eliminating the middle man while delivering greater accountability. Below is a list of crowdfunding examples and the video regarding "see the difference", a new web 2.0 platform used for crowdfunding for charities, is an excellent example of the practice.

See the difference introduction from Tom Hopkins on Vimeo.

• Artemis Eternal - Upcoming sci-fi short film being produced independently by Jessica Mae Stover. The user is invited, in a cross-platform web experience, to donate (from $1 to $100) and join "The Wingmen" (whose members hail from students to homemakers to NASA employees and filmmakers) and help to fundraise the project. Filming for the movie is intended to start in 2009.
• A Swarm of Angels is a Cinema 2.0 project to utilize a swarm of subscribers (Angels) to help fund, make, contribute, and distribute a £.1 million feature film, using the Internet and all digital technologies. It aims to recruit earlier development community members with the right expertise into paid project members, film crew, and production staff.

• ActBlue is a Federal PAC that enables anyone — individuals, local groups, and national organizations — to fundraise for the Democratic candidates of their choice. Previously, only the most well-funded and technologically-savvy groups have employed these powerful fundraising methods. But with ActBlue, groups and individuals need only choose their candidates and make their solicitations. By providing all the technical, financial, and compliance systems, ActBlue enables every progressive organization and individual to make the most of their networks - rapidly raising otherwise untapped millions for Democrats in the closest races.
• ArtistShare is a service for musicians to fund their projects outside the normal recording industry. It utilizes micropayments, to allow the general public to directly finance, and in some cases gain access to extra material from an artist. In 2004, Maria Schneider, became the first artist to win a Grammy, with an album distributed exclusively over the Internet. Distributed through ArtistShare she received four nominations for her album Concert in the Garden and won Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.

• BeerBankroll is building a community managed brewing company where members will make many of the business decisions. It only costs $50 per year to become a member and be a part of something special.
• Business Card Build-Off (part of A Million High Fives) is America's largest crowdfunded project designed with the mission of equipping those in need with the technology to be heard and providing supplies and needed items to charities and shelters across the country.
• Cameesa is the first site breaking into 'Crowdfunding Fashion,' where it encourages participation in the clothing creation process.  Members decide which designs to print on T-shirts by supporting them financially.  Once a design is 100% funded, the members who supported the design, get a special edition of the t-shirt and earn everytime it is sold.
• chipin.com, (chipin.com) Another service for creating pledge drives and campaigns to raise and distribute funds. Similar to fundable.org but the main difference is that chipin.com does not currently require a time limit to reach the target amount.
• City Budget Watchdog is a project from the Public Press that aims to fund five independent journalists to cover the San Francisco city government to produce important reports not covered by the mainstream media.
• "The Cosmonaut" (originally in spanish: elcosmonauta.es) "El Cosmonauta" (The Cosmonaut) is a feature film project by the spanish indie platform "Riot Cinema Collective". Is a sci-fi film in which anyone, from 2 Euros, becomes "producer", obtaining credit recognizement, a welcome gift pack and entering the raffle of an authentic soviet-era cosmonaut suit to be used in the film. Also, the project is licensed under Creative Commons' Attribution-Sharealike, so anybody can edit, remix, copy and freely distribute all the film materials, including all the scenes, which the creators have promised to publish in unedited HD.
• CreateaFund  (http://www.createafund.com) allows both individuals and organizations to collect money online. The site tightly integrates with services like PayPal and Facebook to ensure a cohesive donor experience from start-to-finish. Fund creators get customizable 'Donation Pages' where donors can keep tabs on a fund's progress, leave comments and invite others.
• firstgiving.com (firstgiving.com) A service that allows fundraisers to create online person-to-person fundraising pages for any US non-profit. The funds are directly transferred to the non-profit which differentiates firstgiving from other services. 
• Formosa Medical Travel is a niche oriented medical tourism facilitator dedicated to bringing uninsured Americans to Taiwan for medical care. They are currently seeking corwdfunding to finance their next expansion.

• fundavlog fundavlog was an experimental project that attempted to sustain and/or incubate videoblog related projects and events by growing a Crowdfunded Network offering configurable 'payment pages' with simple funding functionality. Reciprocity and Transparency were critical in order to build a trusted attention network of people who are interested in the videoblog culture. Users deposit money into the fundavlog bank which they then can use to fund various types of entries submited by other users. The project blog was where the term 'crowdfunding' was coined (http://archive.crowdfunding.com/community/index.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=9).

• fundable.org (fundable.org) A service allowing for the creation and management of fundable "group action" pages where pledges can be accepted. If a campaign does not reach its goal within a set time (14 or 25 days), then all pledges are negated and no money distributed.

• greedyorneedy.com (http://www.greedyorneedy.com/) Greedy or Needy (formerly Robin Hood Fund) is committed to fulfill as many everyday wishes for as many everyday people as possible. Anyone can submit a wish, and through the wisdom of crowds, wishes are fulfilled. Wishes are divided into two categories with one wish from heartfelt need and one wish from simple greed getting fulfilled. "The Robinhood Fund is different because we allow the crowd – not elite individuals such as a board – to decide which wishes should be granted." This is a Cambrian House project.

• Have Money Will Vlog (HaveMoneyWillVlog.com,)is a project that involves a group of volunteers that act as advocates for vlog proposals. The advocates promote projects they believe in to potential donors, whether they are friends and family or reaching out to those who subscribe to their blogs and related mailing lists etc. It's a very intimate affair that relies on Crowdfunding to reach the pledge drive's goals. The first few projects have all been successful.

• i am verity (iamverity.com) Fans can become a "future owner today" by helping to raise $80,000 for recording costs and charity benefits. In essence, the artist is asking people to buy an album before it exists... so that it can exist. Also, 5.3% of money earned will be used to help others succeed (vague). Another 5.3% of everything earned goes to "People Opposing Woman Abuse's" work in South Africa. Once the target of 5000 albums is sold, The hope is to increase the percentage put towards these charities and make a difference in South Africa.

• IndieGoGo is an online social marketplace connecting filmmakers and fans to make independent film happen.  The platform provides filmmakers the tools for project funding, recruiting, and promotion, while enabling the audience to discover and connect directly with filmmakers and the causes they support.  Since launching at Sundance 08, filmmakers have successfully raised thousands of dollars with DIWO (Do-it-with-others) funding.
• Kapipal (kapipal.com) enables anyone — individuals and organizations — to quickly create a crowdfunding page. It allows to crowdfund any project, e.g. a wedding registry or a money collection for a birthday.
• laraghfinance.com (laraghfinance.com) A company that raises funding for businesses using the crowd funding concept, private placements are no longer only accessible for high net worth individuals and big institutions. A large group of small investors can together come up with the total capital a company need to execute its business plans.

• PledgeBank (pledgebank.com) while not exclusively for funding has often been used to make money online for various projects and charities. For example a person might pledge, "I will give $1000 to... zarada na internetu if 50 others will also pledge atleast $50."
• ProjectFranchise (www.projectfranchise.org) is a group set out to 'Make Fantasy Sports a Reality' by charging $10 for each premium member, plus sponsorships, they seek to raise enough money to buy a minor league sports franchise and let the community vote on all major team decisions. The fans will have a say in everything from team name, mascot and logo to player personnel and game strategy to what is served in the concession stands.

• SellaBand (sellaband.com) is a service for musicians and bands to promote their work in an effort to gain "believers" who will help to fund the production and distribution of an album. Believers must raise $50k in order to graduate the artists into contractual agreements. Believers can earn money back from ad revenue used in tandem with giving away the music for free online at sellaband's site.
• Spot.Us is a site that allows independent journalists to crowdfund their freelance wages to produce news.
• twollars.com - Twollars is a currency of appreciation for Twitter. Twollars are designed to reward positive actions. You can give Twollars when someone helps you by tweeting useful information, sharing a tip, writing an inspiring Tweet or if you are just feeling generous. Besides giving them to people, you can benefit good causes on Twitter by sending them Twollars. Tweet your Twollars to a good cause.
• Tangent - Tangent is a new video series that shows you how everything in the universe is related and reciprocal. We’re going to show you how. All these rivers and oceans are connected, you know.

  Tangent is also crowd-funded, meaning our production budget is partially paid for by our viewers.

  The idea evolved from many previous crowd-funding projects. It was conceived out of need, and the thought that through the energy, commitment, and investment of many, great things can be achieved. The concept is simple and low risk – through micro-funding, Creative Commons licensing, and shared IP ownership – online video can find the financial support it needs to be taken to the next level.

• Trampoline Systems is the first technology venture to raise equity capital by crowdfunding. The London-based social analytics developer is raising £1 million from up to 100 investors with a minimum stake of £10,000. The Financial Times newspaper published a feature on Trampoline's initiative in July 2009.

The Next Billion Internet Users

The Internet reflects human society, as Schmidt observes in his keynote address at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's launch of a New Vision for global think tanks http://www.ceip.org. As more people access the Internet they will be exposed to more of the world than they know now. Will the next Billion Users create more hate groups or more saints ? Will people be gaining more freedom than they can handle; and is free choice more choice than people want ? These questions are posed by the Google CEO and are fundamental to the important value of a neutral Internet. The implications to humanity for neutrality of the Internet are profound as Dr. Schmidt's questions point out. However, the disparities between those nation's and people who enjoy freedom and those who do not are so great as to make the potential of an open Internet more difficult to achieve and more important to reflect upon.

Why A Neutral Internet Is Crucial

In the most high-profile case on net neutrality, last year the FCC ruled Comcast illegally placed limits on broadband customers using peer-to-peer services. Comcast is appealing the ruling, but this is exactly what open Internet advocates and the FCC want to prevent. Why ? Because it would adversely impact innovation and impede the potential an open and neutral internet can create.

To illustrate the importance of net neutrality consider this: if you had a choice between a large, established Internet company with deep pockets to pay for faster access; you'd be more likely to use their service over a small start-up that might have a more innovative services but lacked the money to pay for similar speeds. What the major players want is to eliminate competition and use their present advantages to snuff out future competitive threats. Remember when you had to buy your telephone from one supplier - AT&T ? Recall how AT&T fought the FCC over the deregulation of the telecommunicaiton industry ? Well we're here again, but the stakes are higher now.

In 2005, the FCC adopted four principles for net neutrality. These principles say that network operators cannot block users from accessing Internet content that is legal and they can't prevent consumers from attaching devices, like a TiVO or online gaming console, to the Internet. Basically the pipeline cannot govern content and companies with deep pockets cannot use their resources to block innovative competitors.

This week FCC head Genachowski added two new principles. Network providers can't discriminate against certain types of Internet traffic and they have to be transparent in how they manage their networks. Critical pieces to maintain the net as an open platform and despite fortunes being spent on Congressional lobbyist and contributions to candidates.

Even more profound was the decision to extend these rules to wireless networks. With mobile computing and smartphones emerging as one of the most profound innovations of our time, it's essential that these networks be kept open so that this market can continue to flourish and evolve.

The policy announcement was not a surprise given Obama's support for the cause during the campaign. If you believe in the great potential of technology and the Internet and you live in the U.S., contact your congressional representatives and let them know - we need a neutral net.