IGNITER

Yesterday’s, NYTimes article on Union Square Ventures (USV) entitled “A New Kind Of Venture Capital Firm” is an interesting read and I’m glad to see the media beginning to pick up on this.

I’ve been following USV for a whlie now and actually interviewed Brad Burnham in preparation for a session at the Open Everything Retreat on Investing in Open. They seem to have a knack for investing in webtech ventures like Twitter and Wesabe that have models that can be deeply disruptive to the systems they are taking on and where the question of how they are going to make money from them is far from answered. And now they’re turning more of their attention to conventionally ‘social’ issues including education and the environment.

Coming off my latest exploration of the social venture capital sector, I’m looking forward to seeing USV coming into this space – and I don’t think it’s much of a stretch. Investments like Twitter and Wesabe are not too dissimilar from making investments in social change and innovation. Both are venturing toward systems level change – and come with a high degree of complex ambiguity.

At the same time, we are beginning to see a new mode of organization taking shape that challenges how ventures are built and therefore how we invest in them. Where all of these things come together is where I’m betting we are going to find some deep innovations on the new kind of venture capital firm I think USV and others are all working their way towards.

In the meatime, if you’ve encountered – or are thinking of – any innovations in this area please pop them in the comments or over in the public wiki on ‘Investing and Open‘. I’m playing with some ideas myself and will be adding them in there and here on this blog as they develop.

Image via Wikipedia

The chaos of the financial markets is a major break in conventional structures and systems of our society. The intensity of it along side the growing crises in energy, food, and water coupled and the associated geo-political instability is really shaking things up. Oh, and mother nature is giving it’s own share of kicks amounting to what I hope is one big wakeup call.

So what could we wake up to?

Robert Paterson has an interesting post positing that 2.0 world will emerge from the ashes of the Financial Capital World.

We cannot know in any detail what the future will now bring.

All we can know is that the nimble and the smart will do better than the clumsy and the unthinking. All we know is that any model based on large amounts of capital will not make it – so forget nuclear as an option for energy.

The new of course exists in proto form today as it did when the dinosaurs roamed. The new will be based on network models. It will use the network effect and it will use social capital to do big things. It will use its distributed intelligence to “see” what to do and to undersatdn the chaos that we will be living in.

The time for a world based on a model that is itself based on nature itself rather than a machine is dawning.

Understanding the “natural economy” , the “natural organization” and social capital will be the key to your survival. Not just in business but in every part of our lives.

For we as citizens of the “machine world” gave up all control to the “System”. We became isolated and helpless. We lived in the Matrix. We did not even know what we had given up.

Umair Haque also talks about the opportunity ahead of us.

Now is the time for revolutionaries to step up and build something better, something more real, and something greater.

There will probably never – at least in our lifetimes – be an opportunity for total economic reinvention this tremendous.

Or this meaningful. Because that’s what it’s really about – not shareholder value, money, or “competitive advantage”.

But doing something that means something.

I’ve also written about it before as the ‘Great Remix‘ (and here).

What’s different now than in the Great Depression for example is that we are globally at the limits of what our societies and planet can handle. We can’t get produce and consume our way out of this one. People and the planet have no more to give in that model.

What I’m focused on is helping whatever emerges to come from the common values and mindset that unite the ‘open’, sustainability, and social justice movements. Organizationally it will have profound effects – some of which I’ve posted on here and in the Open Organization exploration on the OpenEverything wiki (jump in if you are interested).

The time is now – if we don’t pay attention to this wake up call we risk falling asleep again until it’s too late – or at least we can be sure that the next call will be even more forceful. I know I don’t want to sleep anymore.

cc-by-nc-ca Duncan Work

Off the cuff, I’ve been talking about building a ‘social capital supercharger’ over the past few months. It’s actually something that I’ve been working more deeply with Duncan Work (DW), Duncan Holmes and few others.

Well DW has launched a simple survey to start capturing some experiences around using LinkedIn and Facebook in organizations. Needless to say we’d be very interested in how you use them. If you’re up for taking 5 minutes – you can take the survey here.

We’ll share the results we come up with as soon as we can.

In the meantime, DW’s post introducing the survey also has a bit more background (he’s also got some great posts on social networks in general).

Birth is the most human and universal experience. We, as humans, are at our most powerful and our most vulnerable. It is the most natural process and a major life moment for both baby and mother.

Somehow though, in our society we have institutionalized birth and made it something impersonal. We are fortunate to have all the technology and knowledge we have that can helps us deal with things that go awry – but why is it that we start out treating pregnancy and birth as something that has ‘gone awry’.

This perspective is what has systemically limited and discouraged choices available to mothers in birth.

Enter BOLD. BOLD is a global movement to create childbirth choices that work for mothers. And this year, my life partner is bringing BOLD founder Karen Brody’s play “Birth” to Canada. “Birth” brings together artists, community groups and childbirth leaders to bring the issue of childbirth choices for mothers centre stage.

“Birth” is a critically-acclaimed documentary-style play that tells the birth stories of eight women, painting an alarming picture of how low-risk, educated mothers are giving birth today. Hailed “The Vagina Monologues for birth” by women’s health expert Dr. Christiane Northrup, over 100 performances of the play Birth are happening in cities across the world  during September, the month of Labor Day, to raise awareness and money for childbirth choices that work for mothers.

“Birth” will take the stage September 25th at Wolf Performance Hall, Central LIbrary, London, Ontario.  Tickets and additional information are here. Proceeds from performances of Birth in London will go to to Heartspace, a program supporting pregnant and parenting women who are substance involved, Addictions Services of Thames Valley.