Well, though it hasn't been publicized, there will be a face-to-face of more than 5 <Ned> members here in Ubon Ratchathani next week.

• Me
• Christina Jordan
• Norbert Okec
• Apichai Puntasen
• Chanbanditnant P (better known as Nat)
• Bill Dalton

The beginning of March, Christina, Norbert, Nat and I will be also joining up with Voraratana Nimboonchaj (better known as K. Khai) to make a trip to Tak Province in Western Thailand to start some work with Karen migrant children.

I am hoping through all of this activity to be able to promote <Ned> in this part of the world and increase the quality members from here. It will hopefully also inspire some activity toward one of those other <Ned> real world locations.

Sorry I could not be there (this time) Linda. Is there anything that can be cone to help you in support of how Ned could be used on the ground by people over there during this timeframe? A box of Ned/Moo cards inviting people you meet to the site? Something else?

And hey, we'll have those two Ned meetings crossed off the list by May, cool. And of course hope you will join Christina, Norbert and the gang on Salt Spring Island if at all possible.

Immediate movement on the interviews the young people are going to do would help a ton. Will show action and participation by Ubon people in the activities here.

Cards might be cool but not entirely sure it isn't too late for that... only have a week before Christina's lecture.

I think there should be some factor for distance from "home" to count as a f2f! What if only 3 people got together in Thailand and one was from the US, one from Oz and one from Thailand? :-)

How about a youtube video with an introduction to <Ned> from the founder that we could play here?

1. When I get 10 bank points, I'll start the Social Entrepreneur, Social Enterprise, & Social Business group and bring the students (and Moses) who will be doing the interviews into a thread to discuss and get it going ASAP. We already have the first people to be intereviewed, and I'm setting up more (and open to suggestions of course).
2. Cards in a week, probably to late.
3. Distance factor to could as a Ned gathering...yeah, you're right.
4. I've been thinking about a Flash introduction, how to use Ned video (not really from me, I hate being in front of the camera). Will start to think/plan/write/sketch what that might look like.

The group Social Entrepreneur, Social Enterprise, & Social Business is set up. Needs sponsors.

Linda Nowakowski said:

I think there should be some factor for distance from "home" to count as a f2f! What if only 3 people got together in Thailand and one was from the US, one from Oz and one from Thailand? :-)

I wonder who she's talking about???? I was supposed to be in Thailand in early March but things just took a turn that meant I wasn't going to get there whilst Christina and Norbert are there. (dammit!!)

Oh well - Uganda 2009 is a definite so in this case, later rather than sooner on the 3 of us together at once. Cool.

Oh and Linda needs one more sponsor for the Social Enterprise link - find it 2 above.

<edit for spelling>

Mark and linda - the social enterprise thread is live. (fully sponsored)

I knew that hours ago ;-)

Mark, I am interested in the Ned sponsors page you are developing. In addition to a nice blurb about what each organization does, can you share what they do/have done to be a sponsor? I think this is interesting - I obviously haven't been following things closely enough!

You asked, what do I want from ned. Hm, its almost like asking what I want from something I can only see one side of. So here is my limited view:

• A website to connect/engage/thrive in.
• Clarity around what constitutes the difference between what individuals do, and what ned.com counts as an accomplishment
• A business plan that articulates where ned is headed over the next two years
• Solid engine for microinvestment-making (call it "team based funding proposals" if you like ;)
• More nedsters experimenting with the Peace Tiles project as an educational tool, an income generator, and an advocacy engine

No worries.

Right now the sponsor positions (both 125x125's and 88x31's) are pro bono to any friends of Ned that get the ad unit and text to me.

The sponsorships will officially go live in early March, and the nine 125x125 sponsors will be text links at the top of the Ned site, but all text links will go to the sponsor page. Starting in April incoming paid sponsors will begin to replace the pro bono sponsors. Sponsorship could be anywhere from $250, $2,500, or $25,000 per month...it's really up to each sponsor. I've got one now thinking in the 2.5-7.5K a month range. All money/funding will be reported online and 100% transparent, of course. The board/community will figure out how to best allocate funds for community projects/models, drawing heavily on our experiences from community funding at o/net.

Cross posted.

So I get the sponsorship part. I hope some portion of those revenues will go toward overheard, and only a share of these revenues going toward community investments. I also think it would be great to set a goal for community-based revenue raising. That is a real spirit that seems to have not made the leap from O.net: I recall regular opportunities to raise and contribute funds - we had a really exciting community-driven model there. I don't have an explanation, but it seems this has decreased since migration...

>>You asked, what do I want from ned. Hm, its almost like asking what I want from something I can only see one side of. So here is my limited view:<<

What or how could you, would you feel like you could see more than one side?

>>A website to connect/engage/thrive in.<<

Please, please, please by all means add your ideas how to make Ned.com even better in this Ned suggestions workspace (and related discussion thread).

>>Clarity around what constitutes the difference between what individuals do, and what ned.com counts as an accomplishment<<

More challenging, since ned.com is us. Ned helped Atlas achieve their goal, but it wasn't a Ned accomplishment by any means, Scott and his team made it happen. Ned helped SGN with media, video distribution, and support...but Gabriel and Katie-Jay made it happen. I'd welcome more thoughts here as well.

>>A business plan that articulates where ned is headed over the next two years<<

I'll email you the executive summary.

>>Solid engine for microinvestment-making (call it "team based funding proposals" if you like ;)<<

Yeah, I've got an idea I'd like to set up to "team build" in March, and execute in April. More on that privately, non-transparency is important to the idea itself.

>>More nedsters experimenting with the Peace Tiles project as an educational tool, an income generator, and an advocacy engine<<

Please get me the following four things, ASAP

• 125x125 non-animated logo, (jpeg or gif), under 5K
• Up to 75 words of text (500 characters, including spaces), outlining PT as above
• 88x31 non-animated button (jpeg or gif), under 3K
• Up to 10 words of text about Peace Tiles

The 500 characters well written could be a very nice way to get even more Nedsters experimenting with the Peace Tiles project as an educational tool, an income generator, and an advocacy engine. Well, more members, new, old and visiting will read about it anyway and hopefully rise to the call to action.

For those wanting to see the page Lars is speaking of, here is the Ned sponsors page

>>So I get the sponsorship part. I hope some portion of those revenues will go toward overheard, and only a share of these revenues going toward community investments.<<

In its current iteration, the allocation looks like this (this is at the bottom of the sponsor page)

• // Monthly Sponsorship Allocation //
• 35% microfinance
• 35% specific grassroots better world projects
• 15% administration
• 10% better world media/marketing
• 5% web hosting & technology development

Now 15% is fairly light for admin, given I'd like to buy groceries for my family. Of course there will be a tax bite here once the revenue kicks in too. May need to reconfigure at some stage, but for now seems like this'll do.

>>I also think it would be great to set a goal for community-based revenue raising. That is a real spirit that seems to have not made the leap from O.net: I recall regular opportunities to raise and contribute funds - we had a really exciting community-driven model there. I don't have an explanation, but it seems this has decreased since migration...<<

Yes, and I will be 100% candid. I wanted some of the challenges that existed near the end of o/net to...ummm...not embed themselves here. If money had become a thing at Ned right away in September or October, the nastiness might have simply just migrated here. It didn't. It's been six months now at Ned.com, and clearly the people that migrated here from there are clearly here to support one another however they can, and nothing at all to do with money, trying to prove something about their superior technology experience or intelligence, or anything of the sort. We've also seen the many varied challenges in other possible better world networks, from Razoo to Wiser Earth, Facebook to Zaadz.

Now I think is a great time to start dipping back into some community driven funding programs at Ned.

Mark asked:

What or how could you, would you feel like you could see more than one side?

Ask me after I've read the executive summary ;) I am sure that will help. I think how Kiva loans, work in Uganda, Lesotho, Salt Spring and elsewhere maps across the plan will also help. I really don't have a framework to help me affix these activities to. They seem as much the product of who you enjoy working with, and what you are interested in as a shared strategy to build something.

Add your ideas how to make Ned.com even better in this Ned suggestions workspace (and related discussion thread).

Ah, I wasn't saying this wasn't happening - I could almost as quickly add a "check" to that item. That said, I am sure ideas will continue to surface on this topic.

Ned helped Atlas achieve their goal, but it wasn't a Ned accomplishment by any means, Scott and his team made it happen. Ned helped SGN with media, video distribution, and support...but Gabriel and Katie-Jay made it happen. I'd welcome more thoughts here as well.

Yes, its a matter of direct and indirect purposes. Ned wasn't created to make any single tactic work. Its members do benefit from interaction and the Grimes effect.

I've got an idea I'd like to set up to "team build" in March, and execute in April. More on that privately, non-transparency is important to the idea itself.

Interesting where non-transparency bumps up against helping members own a stake in the "big picture." I'm not the kind of guy who enjoys giving with one eye closed - or blind folded ;)

Please get me the following four things, ASAP...

Okay - thanks. I did, by the way, try to drop ned.com into a "wrapper" (like and iFrame) but it was redirected to the ned.com site, so I couldn't implement the "ned as peace tiles" network engine idea...

Monthly Sponsorship Allocation...

Why isn't Admin/Marketing/Web hosting all part of the Admin line?

I wanted some of the challenges that existed near the end of o/net to...ummm...not embed themselves here. If money had become a thing at Ned right away in September or October, the nastiness might have simply just migrated here.

Well, maybe I'm the odd man out on this one. I was/am looking for the microsupport, and always have been (the Dennis Kimambo trip was the last effort, Fre Fundraising being the most recent need). Timing with ned.com evolution is just a coincidence...

For goodness sake, can you guys keep typing - I'm watching this and this with great interest and at the moment, still shaking my head a bit. (bordering on a lot)

Yes, well my dilemma is that a) i'd want to be accountable for my share of "membership" as a ned.com location b) want to make sure i am not short-sticking anyone if i don't, say, commit to retail or whatever in the first year and c) there's some bounce-back (didn't the aussies invent the word/term/whatever "bouncebackability?" i guess i am thinking of boomerang.

obviously, it is what "we" make it, but there are some invisible parts, varying capacity to make decisions, etc. all of which make the "we" and "us" part a little less clear to me. not in a bad way; more like a blind guy feeling for the walls.

clearly alot turns on how much i'd want to make it ned (scary) but there is more to understanding expectations up front. so that's my orientation. i hope it doesn't feel like i'm tromping around pulling things off the shelves...!

(stop shaking your head, gayle! you'll get a cramp...)

Bloody hell - I've got 5 windows open and 2 of them are on Ned and it's still not working for me! :D

I was just about to post on the "Hub" thread but it is starting to feel like it all belongs in the one spot coz you keep writing things I agree with (at least in part and that are related) in 2 places. (How "Ned" is THAT!!!!!)

Well, if it helps: this thread is about ned, and the other one is about the hub, and where it can overlap with ned.

would you like some tomato juice, horseradish and celery with that blood?

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Well, if it helps: this thread is about ned, and the other one is about the hub, and where it can overlap with ned.

Ummm - I got that bit so no dear, it doesn't help!!

would you like some tomato juice, horseradish and celery with that blood?

Clown!!!! :)

um, okay - have another bloody whatever - and carry on! i look forward to your thoughts on all this...

Oh - be careful what you wish for, my friend - and ditto.

Must dash - but will also look forward to a Marky-M return grunt on "all this" as well.

There's a boatload in this post, but don’t really want to let it sit overnight, so here goes...

>>Ask me after I've read the executive summary ;)<<

Sent, perhaps we could have included it here. Also, it's very "high priced" at 800K and could scare some people. Things will happen or without the 800K too, just at a slower rate.

>>Interesting where non-transparency bumps up against helping members own a stake in the "big picture." I'm not the kind of guy who enjoys giving with one eye closed - or blind folded ;)<<

Hmmmm. This one Ned would be putting the funds into already, it’s the execution ideas that might need to be non-transparent, until the launch...as it where...still thinking on this one.

>>Okay - thanks. I did, by the way, try to drop ned.com into a "wrapper" (like and iFrame) but it was redirected to the ned.com site, so I couldn't implement the "ned as peace tiles" network engine idea...<<

Cool, email em anytime. Well, the whole "wrapper" thing is item #5 in the Suggestions for Ned.com: suggestions workspace.

>>Why isn't Admin/Marketing/Web hosting all part of the Admin line?<<

I suspect that web and tech development are going to be items that Jim may well be responsible for, once there is funding for those items. As the Ned.com site technology is added too, there will be a budget for him or other programmers as he sees fit. Once people on the whole have agreed certain tech changes/additions/builds are a good idea. Advertising, because it is a big enough line item to be separated.

>>I was/am looking for the microsupport, and always have been<<

It's coming around the mountain, and I can hear the whistle a blowing. And hope for various ways this could play out, so open to ideas here as to ideas on how this could happen.

>>Yes, well my dilemma is that a) i'd want to be accountable for my share of "membership" as a ned.com location b) want to make sure i am not short-sticking anyone if i don't, say, commit to retail or whatever in the first year and c) there's some bounce-back (didn't the aussies invent the word/term/whatever "bouncebackability?" i guess i am thinking of boomerang. obviously, it is what "we" make it, but there are some invisible parts, varying capacity to make decisions, etc. all of which make the "we" and "us" part a little less clear to me. not in a bad way; more like a blind guy feeling for the walls. clearly alot turns on how much i'd want to make it ned (scary) but there is more to understanding expectations up front. so that's my orientation. i hope it doesn't feel like i'm tromping around pulling things off the shelves...!<<

There is now, and there is eventually...and both are fuzzy. Each Ned location will operate in a licensee capacity, so there is no real hardcore preset performance expectations. Early partners will need to be flexible with the understanding ambiguity, change, small scale trial and errors will come with the territory. The opposite of franchises where in most cases true entrepreneurship is sucked out and operations and employee manuals, thousands of pages long, are to be followed to the letter, with no room for creativity or thought.

Let me explain how I see Ned Portland...

<begin ramble/>

80% shared office space with comfortable desks and chairs. A "third space" kinda place, in between home and work. 20% retail space with limited "partner" products and place for guests to sit down, drink coffee/team, participate in roundtable discussions on a documentary, book, etc. There is Peace Tile instillation on the wall, and initially there is one regularly scheduled Peace Tiles workshop per month. Weekly speaker series for in-house social entrepreneurs, though also avail to the public at a small fee. When visitors leave they are given a printed invitation to ned.com, and during the day while in the office the majority of the social entrepreneurs in the desks are also online at ned.com. There is free wifi for guests and perhaps 3-4 small workstations online as well for them. Not thousands, or even hundreds of SKU's (items), but each item has a story that in some way makes the world a better place the is attached to it. Some things will be local, some from partners around the world (TEN, LiA), also localization of the product mix. 12-15% of gross monthly sales, including product sales, service sales, desk rental fees, etc will be put back into Ned.com in some form of licensing arrangement. If a local product is found and sells well in Portland, it is introduced into the Ned product catalogue for other Ned locations to consider (oops, getting ahead of myself again). Some kind on online workspace HR manual exists so the employee manual becomes a living document. Some kind of revenue sharing program for staff. Desk rentals are set at $350 month, less $25 for bikers/walkers/transit members, less $25 for those that link to Ned from their main web site index page and participate on Ned.com, and less $50 for those that contribute a percentage of their gross and net to the Ned community funding pool, as outlined (or close to it) in the mediakit workspace. Ned members would also be encourage to offer some type of discount for other Ned and Ned.com members...membership has its privileges. There will be some kind of monthly (eventually weekly) local fundraising and/or local volunteering effort for members and guests. Wow, that's a load of words.

<end ramble/>

Mark Grimes said:

It’s the execution ideas that might need to be non-transparent, until the launch...as it where...still thinking on this one.

Not entirely certain I understand this within the context/value of Ned as a shared endeavor. Would seem a limited group feature within ned.com would be a great way to be both transparent and really focused...

Why isn't Admin/Marketing/Web hosting all part of the Admin line?

I suspect that web and tech development are going to be items that Jim may well be responsible for, once there is funding for those items. As the Ned.com site technology is added too, there will be a budget for him or other programmers as he sees fit. Once people on the whole have agreed certain tech changes/additions/builds are a good idea. Advertising, because it is a big enough line item to be separated.

What items do you include in the admin fees then?

I was/am looking for the microsupport, and always have been

It's coming around the mountain, and I can hear the whistle a blowing. And hope for various ways this could play out, so open to ideas here as to ideas on how this could happen.

Well, I am glad you hear the whistle. Doesn't help me understand the strategy though. Perhaps I should just start this as a discussion and the winds will blow the ship into port...

there are some invisible parts, varying capacity to make decisions, etc. all of which make the "we" and "us" part a little less clear to me. clearly a lot turns on how much i'd want to make it ned (scary) but there is more to understanding expectations up front.

There is now, and there is eventually...and both are fuzzy. Each Ned location will operate in a licensee capacity, so there is no real hardcore preset performance expectations. Early partners will need to be flexible with the understanding ambiguity, change, small scale trial and errors will come with the territory. The opposite of franchises where in most cases true entrepreneurship is sucked out and operations and employee manuals, thousands of pages long, are to be followed to the letter, with no room for creativity or thought.

clearly there is a balance. no one wants to be drilled with manuals. at the same time, strategy documents like the one you shared with me last night are helpful and i don't see a reason for keeping them off the shelf and open to input by the community.

Let me explain how I see Ned Portland...

80% shared office space with comfortable desks and chairs. A "third space" kinda place, in between home and work. 20% retail space with limited "partner" products and place for guests to sit down, drink coffee/team, participate in roundtable discussions on a documentary, book, etc. There is Peace Tile instillation on the wall, and initially there is one regularly scheduled Peace Tiles workshop per month. Weekly speaker series for in-house social entrepreneurs, though also avail to the public at a small fee. When visitors leave they are given a printed invitation to ned.com, and during the day while in the office the majority of the social entrepreneurs in the desks are also online at ned.com. There is free wifi for guests and perhaps 3-4 small workstations online as well for them. Not thousands, or even hundreds of SKU's (items), but each item has a story that in some way makes the world a better place the is attached to it. Some things will be local, some from partners around the world (TEN, LiA), also localization of the product mix. 12-15% of gross monthly sales, including product sales, service sales, desk rental fees, etc will be put back into Ned.com in some form of licensing arrangement. If a local product is found and sells well in Portland, it is introduced into the Ned product catalogue for other Ned locations to consider (oops, getting ahead of myself again). Some kind on online workspace HR manual exists so the employee manual becomes a living document. Some kind of revenue sharing program for staff. Desk rentals are set at $350 month, less $25 for bikers/walkers/transit members, less $25 for those that link to Ned from their main web site index page and participate on Ned.com, and less $50 for those that contribute a percentage of their gross and net to the Ned community funding pool, as outlined (or close to it) in the mediakit workspace. Ned members would also be encourage to offer some type of discount for other Ned and Ned.com members...membership has its privileges. There will be some kind of monthly (eventually weekly) local fundraising and/or local volunteering effort for members and guests. Wow, that's a load of words.

Yes, a load of words etc. Right now Ned is split between a crepe shop and shared AboutUs.com offices. What will it take to bridge the present reality with what you envision? is it $450k in hand, or is there a near-term goal to make it happen?