Waterloo, Web & Whimsy

This weekend I've been in Toronto for the G8 & G20 summits supporting CIGI's G20Net project with OpenText and DFAIT. It has been an interesting experience camping here at the International Media Centre while chaos abounds in the streets...the juxtaposition of riots just outside this building filled with suit-wearing soccer fans is intriguing. I began this post as a discussion of these contrasts, but quickly realized that there was too much to sum up let alone explain. And so, in the spirit of brevity, I present the G8/G20 Summits in Haiku (where appropriate, I've hyperlinked the content):

Spring time photo ops
With worlds busiest people
Great Medvedev Tweets

Hunting for sound bites
Global news teams lean closer
Cheer! Germany scored!

Summer festivals
Contrast burning police cars
@Spaiken tells the tale

Billions of dollars
Healing mothers and children
Who will pony up?

Rich bank poor bank all
Subject of key tax debates
But no one's moving

Chaos causing thugs
A subset of peaceful crowds
I'm kewl kthxbai

Strong words from G8
Condemning terrorism
Ironically vague

Disclaimer: yes, I realize these don't adhere strictly to the rules of haiku. If you have any you think are better, post them in the comments.

There's a great discussion going on at Venture4Change today, and one of the topics is on the role of the Leader/Entrepreneur/CEO in a Social Enterprise or NFP - the consensus at the table is that social enterprises need to eliminate the role of the "Celebrity CEO" and rather focus on building depth and breadth in their organizations.

I couldn't disagree more.

Although I do agree with a strong emphasis on sustainability, succession planning, and other core good governance topics, one of the reasons that for-profit entrepreneurs can be so successful is that they don't hesitate to jump in with both feet; they don't hesitate to let their venture define their identity.

If someone is launching a social enterprise (something that I would argue is far more difficult than a for-profit enterprise), they can't afford to launch a project while keeping one foot out the door. By refusing to adopt the mantle of "Celebrity CEO", a social entrepreneur is squandering their most valuable resource during the start-up stage: their story.

Here are some examples of Celebrity CEOs that social entrepreneurs can use as touchstones:

• George Roter &  Parker Mitchell => Engineers Without Borders
• Craig Kielburger => Free the Children
• John Wood => Room to Read

As crass as it may sound, donors and partners are like customers in that they don't want to have to think more than absolutely necessary. It behoves a social enterprise to make it as easy as possible for a donor or partner to understand the story and value. Tying the Founder's or CEO's identity to this story makes the process much easier.

Yes, as an organization grows, it needs to be about more than just the Founder/CEO. However, discarding the value of a "Celebrity CEO" for the sake of long-term sustainability goals, is simply road that will be longer, harder, and less likely to succeed.

I've recently found myself getting frusrtated at products that don't close the loop - meaning they don't come back around and solve their original purpose. Here are three quick examples and my recommendations on how to fix them. If you're a product designer on any of these products, please feel free to implement any of these features and charge me more for the product - these fixes would be worth higher prices to me.

Google 411

Google 411 exists to solve the problem of not having immediate and easy access to a phone number. The voice-activated interface is easy-to-use, and it does a great job of putting you in contact with your target, but it fails in the home stretch - it doesn't eliminate the root cause: the lack of easy access to a phone number. As much as Google 411 may be easy, it's slower and more lumbering than simply looking up the number in your phone book. Google could close the loop by automatically sending me a text message with the phone number (like Canada 411 does) or even better - by sending me a vCard with the address & phone number. In fact, I would go so far as registering my phone number and email address in my Google account if Google would then email me a vCard.

Bluetooth Headsets

Bluetooth headsets exist so you can keep your hands unfettered, and your eyes on your road/sidewalk/papers/etc. There's a dissapointing trend towards single-button control systems for bluetooth headsets (like these motorola headsets) - you hold the button till a light flashes to connect, hold it longer till the light flashes in a different pattern to disconnect/pair/etc. The issue is that for the 5-10 seconds that you're holding down the button and watching flashing lights, you can't be holding a steering wheel or watching where you need to be. Slap a slide-switch on there, and we're good to go - hands back on the wheel in a couple seconds and eyes never leave the road.

Events Registration Systems

I'm an avid user of EventBrite and Guestlist, but both solutions (and everything else I've tried) fall short of the mark. People run events to help an audience engage with eachother and/or with the facilitators. Events registration systems do a great job of collecting my information, but they fail to actually help with the engagement. For example, why not automatically include a feedback survey after the event, or reach out to me (as an attendee) to help me reconnect with other attendees? Even easier, why not ask the admin what hashtags are going to be used, and create ScribbleLive-like feeds? As it is, to run a web-savvy event and retain the audience, I likely need to use a combination of Event Registration + Engagement (Newsletter or User Survey or Live Blogging) - a tool that actually took me past simple data-collection would be a huge boon.

Tonight I attended an interesting meetup of young arts/culture enthusiasts, where the topic of discussion was the Waterloo Region Creative Enterprise initiative and the local cultural scene in general. Although there was some great discussion and debate - here are a couple of the highlights for me:

• It was suggested that in the efforts to build a more vibrant community, that the University of Waterloo is both our largest asset and our most potent enemny. Although I agree for the most part, I'd further suggest that it's not the University as a whole, but the co-op program specifically that's to congratulate and blame.
   
• There seemed to be great support for a book club of sorts (less the books). The idea is a group that agrees to collectively visit at least one significant cultural event per month, and to meet for coffee or beer afterwards to discuss and chat. Note - if you're interested in participating in this, comment on this post or drop me an email (I'll be coordinating). Or, you can just sign up for the first event.
   
• A lot of the attendees will be attending CultureCamp, and afterwards meeting at the Kitchener City Hall Williams to discuss how this informal "young influencers" group can help forward a creative community agenda. Should be a good chat!

There were also a lot of questions, but I'm hoping that ongoing meetups like this will help answer some of them, and provide further food for thought. In the meantime, it's given me some fantastic new people to connect with over coffee, and some interesting ideas that will need further investigation.

And yes, if you'd like to join this Culture Club idea, drop me a line and get an invitation.