To the Caves, Mates, to the Caves!
Off to southern Oregon…to the Oregon Caves, a National Monument celebrating 100 years of recognized bat-hood. On the way, a visit with Tom Gallagher, director of the Ford Family Foundation Leadership Institute, soft -spoken philanthropic org. helping to build leadership capacity across the state. Ford…the timber money, not the automaker.
Going to talk to him about a project near and dear to both our hearts: a biomass - to - electricity plant being considered in S. Central Oregon’s Lake county. The Lake County Resources Initiative is one of a handful of these new generation energy export ideas, making healthy forests while building community and creating good jobs.
The Oregon Caves Chateau is another story of bootstrapping economic development in hard times. During the Depression, local entrepreneurs funded the construction of this six-story, 10-sided lodge, now celebrated by PBS as one of the National Parks’ premier lodges. I’m consulting with them on marketing ideas in this their 75th anniversary year. I’ll be celebrating my own anniversary…my birth…while doing some hiking and photography in deep woods at 4000 feet with Elaine, my dear partner of some decades.
More on that story on the flip-flop. It’s a 6 hour drive from here.
Psst….Plug it in at Night!
The guy who developed the Segway is at it again…this time with an electric and steam engine hybrid. The power plant comes from the 1800s, a redesigned Sterling steam engine about the size of a modern golf bag.
Dean Kamen, who’s reworked a sub-compact Ford Think with his hybrid, named his fledgling autoworks Revolt. That’s what’s on his New Hampshire licence plate, over which the state’s motto: Live Free or Die. The engine runs on almost anything flammable: gas, kerosene, propane, hydrogen, methane…and the dream he’s got is that as a net energy exporting vehicle, people in rural areas can make money by selling excess power to the local utility. Imagine, a community with viable transportation that more than pays for itself. Is that a vision in sustainable transportation?
In a recent editorial in the new - and yet to be declared “improved” - Christian Science Monitor poured a little cold water on the electric car frenzy with the rationale that the power needed to charge even the power-stingy Lithium Ion batteries will have to come from new powerplants. And what’s the cheapest source of new electricity? Coal…soft coal, gained by sawing and clawing the tops off mountains and dumping the overburden into the valleys and watersheds below.
One potential saving - a way to avoid building 300 new, belching powerplants - would involve changing human behavior. What, again? Haven’t we had enough? Oh, and the behavior change would be simple: charge the batteries in “off peak” times. What are the chances? Probably right up there with sorting the laundry into the proper piles, closing the outside door when you walk outside and putting the toilet lid down after use.
Hope Springs Eternal for Social Entrepreneurship
Mercy Corps buys a bank in Bali. Horrors or honors?
A BusinessWeek article late last year talked about the conundrum Mercy Corp CEO Neal Keny-Guyer faced as he contemplated the daring move: if the venture succeeds, think of the value of capitalism with a deep commitment to bootstrapping the poor. If the venture fails, think of the pollution in the pool of charitable giving!
Dan Pallota, author of the critically acclaimed book Uncharitable, hopes the tables can be turned on this conundrum. From a New York Times review of the book, columnist Nicholas Kristof said: “…the aid world is stunted because groups are discouraged from using standard business tools as advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to lure capital.”
Kristof then quotes Pallota: “We allow people to make huge profits doing any number of things that will hurt the poor, but we want to crucify anyone who wants to make money helping them. Want to make a million selling violent video games to kids? Go for it. Want to make a million helping cure kids of cancer? You’re labeled a parasite.”
But social entrepreneurship is gaining traction, with adherents like Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder Bill Gates and former eBay (EBAY) executives Pierre M. Omidyar and Jeffrey Skoll. According to a BusinessWeek interview with Gates: “Nonprofits are applying what we’ve typically thought of as business strategies for better outcomes, and businesses are beginning to apply what I call creative capitalism strategies to increase the positive social impact of their work. That’s a powerful combination.”
In my own hometown, a bicycle advocacy group is teaming up with for-profit bike stores and emergency service providers to create a small business around bikes and cycling education, so that indigents and ex-felons get transportation, education and jobs. Green and sustainable companies like Kettle Foods are teaming up with Community Supported Agriculture entrepreneurs and non-profit food banks to make a business around community gardens that feed the growing lines of hungry people while supplying restaurants and organic groceries, too.
Maybe the creative capitalism fervor stems from a “there but for the grace of God go I” reaction. I’m guessing it’s more than that. Personal survival usually comes before charity in the Limbic System. What’s being felt on the streets in America, expressed by the social entrepreneurs and creative capitalists, is something grander. It may be the dawning of an evolved economy - kinder to earth and critters while meting out more equity among humankind. Making a buck and raising the bar.
Native American activist Russell Means once commented that capitalism, socialism and communism shared a common thread: each rending the earth for its resources and converting energy into food and factories for its people. Politics aside, human impacts are equally disturbing - on the environment and the poor. The experiment with creative capitalism, an awakening in the commons about shared responsibility, is flourishing for now. My hope is that the merger will yield a different result, giving Mr. Means new reason to reflect on outcomes, perhaps this time with a smile.
Web 2.0 Meets the Streets
Talk to a “tweener” and a senior about how they get news and share in community. Totally different stories. The former may prefer texting and tweeting; the other relies on voicemail and hard print. What impact do these forms of sharing have on our behavior, our methods of forming connections - interpersonally and intergenerationally? That’s part of what this blog will address over the coming months.
One of my interests is exploring how communities communicate… human society is so messy compared to a beehive, though I far prefer suffering a democracy in all it’s bumbling, spewing ways over hive life with its cruel monotony and snapshot lifespan. I want to be convinced that the virtual community being offered up by technology will deliver real-world intimacy. I want evidence that texters will be eager to put away the little black box in order to join the family for a sit-down dinner, will ask a friend to go for a walk, will still enjoy a live performance and will want to attend a meeting at city hall.
I worry that the decay in the streets, in the schools and in the economy will only worsen if the MP3 replaces the radio altogether, if the tinted windows and hooded eyes close the door on dancing, and demonstrating, in the street.
The author of reWealth, Storm Cunningham, (www.rewealth.com) sent along a note today about a UK magazine called New Start (http://www.newstartmag.co.uk) in which a blogger (Barry McCarthy) talks about a new development in local journalism.
With many local newspapers having closed over the past year … you could argue that communities will have fewer opportunities in the future for publicity on important local issues.
Local papers have acted as a vital forum over the years in discussing regeneration plans, economic development and the general improvement of an neighbourhood.
Losing this service could mean many neighbourhoods will be worse off. But the dire straits of the newspaper industry may also present an opportunity for communities.
A community funded reporting scheme called Spot Us allows locals to donate cash in order to commission journalists to write articles on what they regard as issues of importance.
The great thing about Spot Us is that anyone can pitch an idea for an article.
So for me, I’m interested in how to preserve and enhance community using new and old communications technology. How to use technology as a unifier, not a separater. I suspect there are real-world communities forming out there begun in digital land. I know several couples, for example, who met on the Web. So, while I hear that autonomony is among the heirarchy of human needs, I’m hoping that intimacy will continue to emerge as a stronger force…one that needs the light of day and touch of skin to thrive.
