Also, moved Citizen Life Magazine to Parking (and PM'd with Craig about it) along with Orijiro and Luke.

Will check with Jean, Ted, Sandra, Rheanni and David about their current project status and how that related to the Food Chain group.

Also, moved Citizen Life Magazine to Parking (and PM'd with Craig about it) along with Orijiro and Luke.

Just to be clear, is it Orijiro or me that's being moved? And is it free parking (like in Monopoly) or by the hour? And what if I lose my ticket?

It's just like Monopoly; you get $500!

David Evan Harris is rocking with Global Lives; we're staying in touch on intern/web/community/video ideas while he seeks new funding from a handful of sources.

We are preparing for investor and foundation meetings (the seventh meeting with one particular client-to-be) and Jean Russell is joining us for a discussion in Chicago on Friday. We're crunching on a Toyshoppe release for this weekend, a new health/nutrition/food project in Second Life that's an amazing collaboration of businesses and advocacy groups.

The bottom line is a mix of clients (a delicate balancing act); foundations (worthwhile, helpful to build good relationships); existing support networks (ONet community and donors and advisors who've helped us grow for the last three years).

SElearninggames REDESIGN is now open for public PLAYTEST

The redesign focuses in on a few simple "tools & rules" we can use to get started discovering the common questions and answers that social entrepreneurs face every day, balancing mission and money goals.

In fact, the answers to our first question are our questions!

I think the redesign makes it clearer how we can use integrated wiki and blog, and other web2.0 tools - together - to improve profitability for our earned income ventures. But the only way to tell if it really is better is if some folks play it.

So -- YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO COME OVER AND PLAY.

The later discussion in our April thread, plus the title of this May thread - totally brings this issue of earned income profitability to the forefront. The kinds of things that came up in the April thread, and the kinds of things likely to come up in this May thread -- are exactly the kinds of things that would constitute the "meat & potatoes" elearning game content that I believe we can create.

The redesign integrates a tool called BrainReactions (not unlike the Zooleo tool, with which we are familiar). BrainReactions allows us to not only generate our questions, but also to rate our questions. This rating capability enables us to discover the PATTERNS of the questions we have in common.

Then, we can pop our common questions back into the BrainReactions tool - generate answers - rate answers -- and discover the PATTERNS of the answers we have in common.

Once we have these sets of our common questions and our common answers, then we can discover the RELATIONSHIP between our common questions and our common answers. We discover that, most of the time, when most of us do "X", then, most of the time, "Y" happens. The relationship between our common questions and our common answers are the strategic meta-pattern solutions to our profitability problems. We can apply what we discover in the game to change the profitability outcome for our real-world venture.

That's my theory about how making this elearning game together will work for us.

We can harness our collective intelligence and our collective experience. My greatest passion is to create a space for us to do that in.

This is an invitation to play. (not a request for feedback on redesign (altho I'll certainly listen if you want to tell me something)) I'll feedback to you how its working!

We are ready to move forward, and willing to come off the queue into the fold Mark. However, the project is now called Nurture.biz. We are managing some of our work on the nurture.wagn.org site. I created a blog to share some knowledge and develop an identity as NurtureGirl at nurturegirl.net.

Next week I am attending a coach training with several masters in the field, one of which talks about multiple streams of revenue (Andrea J. Lee), so this will certainly be on my mind. What are our multiple streams?

• coaching for social benefit leaders
• mapping and visualization for groups
• consulting around community/network development and community/network weaving
• communication strategies and materials

We need to develop strategies around creating revenue not tied to consulting hours. And define our path for creating mapping tools to deal with more complex and organically-evolving data.

Actions this month:

• Meet with Eugene folks re: collaborative building and collective intelligence (and update Onet space on Collaborative Building)
• Meet with Mark Grimes in Portland and get Grimy on the details
• Spread the wealth acknowledgment idea and support the development of communications and tools related to that for Open Money and Targeted Currencies (will need this for our long-term efforts)
• Blog 4x a week at nurturegirl.net
• Strategy retreat in Oregon and afternoon with Michael Maranda on next steps
• Release nurture.biz website with services and team clearly defined, edit and refine why we do what we do and who do we do it with
• proposal development with John Abbe on mapping tools
• Visioning meeting with Grass Commons (will need them for long-term efforts)
• Update Food Chain space and answer Food Chain Hot Six
• Explore opportunities with Jenny Yancey of YouthGive
• Support Evonne Heyning and Amoration
• Follow-up on Inspired Legacy Partners event and nurture that community
• Take up the weekly Food Chain calls
• Create Community Stories group on onet to capture stories of how good things happen possibly for later mapping of a visual history
• Support and nurture other strategic alliances
• Deliver on client projects and services

I am in full support of bringing in Global Lives. I am a David Evan Harris and Global Lives fan. I have no objections to any shifts people need to make onto or off of Food Chain.

fwiw i've been using phpProjekt to manage my activities this year.

For the present, I develop and sell business software and support services. This being owned by myself yeilds revenue free of supplier overheads so a substantial portion of revenue can be delivered to overseas efforts. The UK's Department of Trade and Industry categorise such an approach which delivers more than 50% of profit as a qualifying form of social enterprise.

"Share some of your earned income strategies and various income streams if you desire. How much from where? Who pays and why? What else could they buy from you? Who are your customers? What is most important to your customer, quality, service or price?"

If you are a mission-based organization -- that means a nonprofit organization -- your earned income strategies need to fit your organization's MISSION. Otherwise, not only does the IRS start having a closer look at you, but your potential supporters will wonder why you are engaging in activities that aren't tied to your mission (the YMCA, for instance, gets put under government scrutiny when they seem more focused on making money from their exercise programs than promoting their mission).

Goodwill is a good model of balancing mission and earned-income activities: the staffing and management of their stores is integrated into the organization's mission of helping people with special needs or particular barriers find employment and opportunities.

mission based does not mean non-profit exclusively. In fact on this website the minority of mission based organizations are non-profits. It seem to me one of the key opportunities of social enterprise is to move beyond the constraints of non-profits.

It's fine for profit-based initiatives to want to engage in community development. I was just posting some advice for nonprofit endeavors -- they often get advice from for-profit folks about income generation that the IRS frowns on. That was my only point.

Then we agree Jayne, there is a lot of bad advice given to no profits who want income generation. It is in vogue now.

It's everywhere. My husband Brent formed Toyshoppe Productions LLC to take on the commercial production aspects so that Amoration could stay focused on the educational integration and development for global bridgebuilding endeavors.

The Toyshoppe is doing well; cover story of the Chicago Tribune business section Tuesday has our photo along with a mention for our work in Second Life. Unexpected.

I am trailblazing in developing some new revenue generating mechanisms for the LiA community right now. Very excited about a new website I am working on for launch later this month - part of it at least should be up by next week. This version is getting very close to the website I was always supposed to build - which I've tried to describe in words as an online superstore of alternative impact mechanisms for Africa.

At the new lifeinafrica.com you will be able to buy locally made food, toy and clothing items for delivery to needy Ugandan children, order community crafted items customized for your cause, sponsor a day of breakfast or a year of school fees on recurrent subscriptions with a peacetile from your sponsored child in return... All this (and more) alongside a few gift items for export.

In the post 9/11 years when I was researching and visualizing how to build what I was seeing so clearly in my mind's eye, all I could come up with were frameworks empty of content. There was always this chicken and egg dilemma- what comes first, the community or the platform? After these 2.5 solid years of building offline communities, the old webbed concepts are snapping together beautifully, so I guess I answered my own question! Pretty excited to be able to share more soon.

As I write this I am sitting in the door of Emancipation Imports, the firstt retail store for TEN. We dont have the sign done yet and there are a lot of things to do to, but all the inventory is here now, we are fulfilling e-commerce from here, and the staff works from here.

Visit if you come to Cape Cod 606 rt 6A in Dennis.

congratulations john! smaller news out "west" - had a great workshop with about 20 vermont americacorps/vista leaders from across the state. introduced the process, context, materials etc and in about an hour they produced a lovely grid of tiles. i was having such fun neglected to photograph - loser. we'll see what comes - i'd love to see the process take root among these community leaders.

also, update on the kits in stores: they are selling, and i've been asked to produce more - they help move collage product too, so this is good for many parties. can't wait to see whether anyone uploads them to peacetiles.net, though i noticed an americorps volunteer did :)

This is such awesome news all around! Go Food Chain Go!

I can't wait to see more fruit of this labor of love.

Anybody who's in Ireland tomorrow is invited for a world class performance of Antonio Breskey's nomadic ensemble in the National Concert Hall (Dublin -Ireland).

I've a few free tickets left in my name, so if you can make it, i'll see you at the entry hall.

Together with the Prince from Burkina Faso

Gabin Dabire

And the legendary Ronnie Drew.

Sound and vision coming soon.

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

congratulations john! smaller news out "west" - had a great workshop with about 20 vermont americacorps/vista leaders from across the state. introduced the process, context, materials etc and in about an hour they produced a lovely grid of tiles. i was having such fun neglected to photograph - loser. we'll see what comes - i'd love to see the process take root among these community leaders.

also, update on the kits in stores: they are selling, and i've been asked to produce more - they help move collage product too, so this is good for many parties. can't wait to see whether anyone uploads them to peacetiles.net, though i noticed an americorps volunteer did :)

Excellent work, Lars!! Thanks for sharing the update. Go Peace Tiles, Go!

Do you have a list of retail stores where Peace Tiles are sold?

thanks dominique (and for zipping by youtube too - that mario is AMAzing! anyway, kits at only one store soon - i need to get to the next stage and see what happens with kits in, say, 5 stores. say, dominique, i can't play music worth a hiccup but will have some drums and we can make some noise!

Si Si....

However there's plenty noise that's very important but has been neglected.

Leave me for a week or 2 .I can organise something with Mario if you're up for it...

:)