Accordingly, I was delighted to read the announcement out of the FORTUNE: Brainstorm TECH Conference about the first-ever Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize of $1,000,000 for technology that offers practical and sustainable innovations that accelerate prosperity:

The first-ever Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize was announced today by FORTUNE managing editor Andy Serwer during the FORTUNE: Brainstorm TECH Conference. The Prize fund of $1,000,000 will be awarded annually to for-profit organizations, or individuals, whose application of technology solutions has demonstrably improved the quality of life amongst impoverished populations in developing countries.

“This new Prize will help us seek out, recognize, and honor individuals and organizations that demonstrate the impact of technology on intractable development issues, establishing these visionaries as role models for a world ready for new solutions,” said Serwer.

Legatum is a privately owned international investment organisation, whose primary focus is commercial investment and which also applies its investor’s expertise in tackling long-standing development challenges around the globe. The partnership between Legatum and FORTUNE highlights a shared belief in business as a powerful force in development and the need for greater engagement in emerging markets.

“History has taught us that technology is a key driver of increased economic prosperity and has the real potential to improve lives in developing countries,” said Mark Stoleson, President of Legatum. “The Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize is designed to identify the very best technology companies that are bringing innovation to frontier markets around the globe. Our goal is to highlight new model for effective development, and stimulate an escalating cycle of innovation and new investment.”

Competitors for the Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize will be nominated by a network of technology experts and evaluated by a panel of eminent judges from the worlds of technology, business and development. Under the leadership of Iqbal Z. Quadir, Director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, the judges’ experience will encompass grassroots development programs, private equity investment, academia, and policy-making.

The program will culminate in the presentation of the first $1,000,000 Legatum FORTUNE Technology Prize at the FORTUNE 500 Forum in Washington, DC in December 2008. For more information, please visit: www.fortunebrainstorm.com/tech.

If you’re applying, let us know in the comment section!

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ColorTree Inc. of VA is a leader in the custom envelope industry. For over 20 years our commitment to deliver outstanding service and quality to our customers keeps us a step ahead. Our investment in training and technology insures that our interns enjoy a meaningful work environment that is engaging, rewarding and fun.

Intern Activities:

• Organizing work flow and supporting the transition to a Prinergy Workflow System
• Providing support to account executives using Synchrono and other tools
• Proofing tasks; supporting the integration of Canon C1 Proofer
• Trapping and color issues
• Plating
• Monitoring performance data
• Special projects such as developing media for in-house skills training programs and other business initiatives

Requirements:

• Attention to detail in a production environment
• Ability to work quickly and accurately
• Excellent communication skills
• Preference given to those with a relevant internship in a fast-paced environment
• Be available to start by mid-August.
• 8:00AM to 5:00PM work schedule preferred

To apply, contact Rick Carr, Director of Human Resources or fax your resume and cover letter to the Colortree Human Resources Department at 804-545-9873.

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Ok, it’s new to me, but if you’re on Facebook, why not add me?

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The findings identified some key behavioral patterns in participants:

Rather than analyzing the content of these newsgroups (hard to do, as they’re huge), Smith and his team looked at structures. They did a great deal of network mapping, graphing the posts and responses, and seeing the structures that emerge. At least three types have emerged:

- Answer people - these people almost never post new threads, but answer the queries of a large number of unconnected people. In network terms, they’ve got high out-degree and low in-degree. These folks are utterly essential in the functioning of technical newsgroups, as they’re the folks that newbies end up getting support from

- Reply magnets - some people have a gift (or a technique) for posting in a way that gets responses. Reply magnets are the opposite of answer people - they post infrequently and everyone answers. Smith sees roughly 0.5% of these people in newsgroups, but their posts get 30% of the responses from roughly 30% of all users. Basically, these folks are specialists in setting the agenda, which has interesting implications for political discussions in newsgroups, as these folks are capable of nominating agenda topics with much more success that the average user.

- Discussion people both post and answer a lot, and have long, sustained connections with lots of people. They’re the classic discussion group user, but they’re less common that we tend to assume.

This echos what I’m seeing in the community behavioral analysis I’ve been performing; while there is some movement between behavior types, it’s typically incident based. Once the incident that prompted the change in behavior ends, so does the change in behavior.

Oh and the title? Well, as you might have guessed, I fall into the answer type, so feel free to ask away in comments!

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Matthew Morreale, 24, could help answer a question that vexes advocates, politicians and parents of autistic children: Can we help these adults be more than a tax burden? Matthew is thought to be the first local example of a statewide trend. He runs a microenterprise, a small niche business that can be launched with minimal funding yet make a steady profit.

There are adults with developmental disabilities running mall kiosks and selling hand-made bags. They own floral businesses and they stage puppet shows for children’s parties.

Matthew runs the Matthew James Co., a shredding business that began this year with a single client but is already looking to hire additional employees. His brochure promises that he’ll “shred the competition.”

Matthew is one of a growing number of disabled entrepreneurs who are successfully running their own business. By focusing on his abilities and interests, his job coach, Cassandra Novak at Goodwill of Orange County helped him craft a self-employment plan that could help Matthew live independently.

While I’m annoyed by the default assumption that people with disabilities = tax burden, I’m delighted to read about another case of successful self-employment. This is the type of outcome we designed Active Gray Matter to support, because everyone deserves the opportunity for self reliance and independence.

Well done, Matthew!

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Look what showed up in the mail today!

They made a good choice - I’ll probably use both the cookbook and the apron.

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His most recent trip video was just released, and I passed it around to some of my clients as an example of the impact of viral videos. That led to the question of whether Stride had seen a boost in sales & or brand recognition as a result, and although I assumed so, I dug in to find out specifics.

Stride has been able to capture a significant share of online traffic:

Note: Compete’s chart embedding feature only supports 13 months. Click here to view the full 24 months of traffic data.

Attention (time on site) followed a similar trajectory:

As you can see from these charts, StrideGum.com has seen major traffic spikes corresponding to each new video Matt has released, increasing Stride’s brand recognition and website visits.

Did the dollars follow? In 2007, Cadbury Schweppes Plc said confectionery sales and margins beat its targets:

U.S. gum operations, including Trident and Stride, pushed market share to nearly 35 percent compared with 27 percent before Cadbury bought the business in 2003. [Source: Washington Post]

The 8% of U.S. market share had to come from somewhere:

Sales of chewing gum brands such as Doublemint and Big Red are sagging — and some analysts say there aren’t enough new ideas in the pipeline to juice up growth.

Meanwhile, British archrival Cadbury Schweppes PLC is riding high on the most successful new gum launch in the last five years: Stride, which has already captured 3% of the U.S. market since its June debut.

Cadbury’s U.S. gains come at a time when Wrigley’s domestic business appears to have hit a plateau. U.S. sales were flat in the fourth quarter of 2006, as declines in sugary gum brands “significantly offset” growth in sales of sugar-free gum, Wrigley acknowledged earlier this month. [Source: Chicago Business. Crain Communications Inc.]

Obviously, dancing videos aren’t going to work for every organization or situation, but this should be a compelling case study for anyone who thinks online video is a waste of time or effort.

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Technology Programs That Engage and Support At-Risk Youth
Designed by Karen L. Michaelson | Tincan

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The Search for Sneezers: How to Find First-Time Donors in Epidemic Proportions
Designed by Philip King | Artez Interactive

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Building, Growing, and Sustaining a Vibrant Online Community – How to Reach Beyond Traditional Tools into the Web 2.0 Sphere
Designed by Ms. Susan Tenby | CompuMentor/TechSoup

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E-Advocacy: Mission over Membership
Designed by Mr. Charles Lenchner | DemocracyInAction.org

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I hope to do more in my 43rd year on the planet than I did in my 42nd.

I’m starting with a request - if I’ve helped you, or you’ve found this blog useful, would you consider helping my colleague Beth Kanter have a great 51st birthday? She’s set a challenge goal of getting 51 unique donations for the Sharing Foundation, which is helping to meet the physical, emotional, educational and medical needs of orphaned and seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia. If they are one of four top causes to get the most unique donors, they will win $50,000 for the Sharing Foundation as part of America’s Giving Challenge.

With a $10 donation, you can help improve the lives of over 1,500 children in one of the world’s poorest countries.

I’ve already donated, and I encourage you to do the same if you can.

With that, I’m off to the beach to celebrate properly! I’m taking Nick Carr’s new book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google along, so look for a review next week along with the official call for content providers for my latest project, Active Gray Matter.

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Collective bargaining has a role in this world – to set standard contract terms or percentages for royalties and residuals – but individual negotiation is where the big money lies. Many technicians and writers are freelancers because it suits them: they get greater freedom to work across the industry and earn more.

Where collectivism could bring unadulterated rewards is outside the workplace – by providing health and pension benefits that freelance workers do not get. It is no coincidence that the MTV freelancers were angered by having their health benefits reduced. If you do not have health insurance in the US, you take a huge financial risk.

and asks -

Gapper is onto something here. The struggles that will define the creative age are just emerging. Right now we have a system rigged to benefit superstars and winners. In terms of historical analogies, the current creative class movement bears some resemblance to the early organizing struggles of old American Federation of Labor? But, later we say the rise of mass production unionism with the rise of the Congress of Industrial Organizations? Is a similar divide emerging between creative and service workers? What institutional solutions are needed to include and reward more and more of the growing ranks of creative workers - and what about the broader issue of the service class? What would a new movement and structure for building a workable creative economy look like?

Structurally, I think it looks like more individual agents collaborating through cooperatives, sole proprietorships and corporations. Miriam Cherry, writing about Decentering the Firm: The Limited Liability Company and Low Wage Immigrant Women Workers, 39 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 787 (2006) at Concurring Opinions said -

In the article, I look at the low-wage jobs held by many immigrant women workers and conclude that part of the reason why so many of these jobs – often in positions such as nannies and housecleaners – are paid so poorly and are so exploitative – is because of the intersection between several types of oppression: gender, ethnicity, race, and immigration status.

When one takes a job in the underground economy, many of the typical benefits that we think of as being associated with work simply don’t apply. Obviously, the situation is worse for undocumented workers who are hesitant to enforce their rights (for fear of being deported), and because they may not even be able to receive any remedies (the Hoffman Plastics precedent).

As a – partial - solution to this problem, I talk about re-organizing these types of work, eliminating the intermediary who normally sets up the work and takes a profit, and transforming the workers into owners who are members of an LLC. This allows for collective benefits – such as health insurance and workers’ compensation – and allows for the LLC to pay taxes, so that if a worker is able to regularize their immigration status, they will not have tax problems.

While creative and service class members are not illegal immigrants, they too could collectively benefit through creative uses of existing corporate structures and more in depth knowledge of the bargaining process.

They have natural allies in the buy local, buy handmade movement (via Fred Wilson); what is urgently needed, however, is better, more accessible access to expert help, advice and capital to execute.

More thoughts? I’ll be around all week to discuss these ideas so feel free to add your feedback via comments!

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