Micropayments, yes! The problem with this adoption lag is we simply don't have the infrastructure in the US today. However, as NHIN is built out and open source medical banking infrastructure is developed, for instance, initiatives like the Charitable Communities Network will be able to transfer micro as well as macropayments. As m-commerce finally hits US phones (like in Scandanavia where you can charge snack food to your cell), and digital chips, and smartcards, and rfid passports, etc. allowing the cellphone companies to become the new mortgage brokers (hello, ernie: geolocate this property -- I want to make an offer -- am I preapproved -- great! Press seven for downpayment). Do you think Nokia announced that tablet the other day for a whim? And then add that Apple open source browser project and Osirix for medical record storage on iPods (and why don't they just relaunch the Newton now -- we're ready for it this time!?!) Remember Motorola's set top box with the eCommerce slot and USB port -- think truly interactive TV when you're taking a course via TV (teachers have you studied the balanced scorecard movement? -- finally you'll be paid what you're worth -- is that a blessing or a curse?) and your connecting your medical device for monitoring and you have to buy new prescriptions. Press Remote Control button 7 and removes $ from Health Savings Account.

Micropayments, yes! The problem with this adoption lag is we simply don't have the infrastructure in the US today. However, as the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) is built out and open source medical banking infrastructure is developed, for instance, initiatives like the Charitable Communities Network will be able to transfer micro as well as macropayments. As m-commerce finally hits US phones (like in Scandanavia where you can charge snack food to your cell), and digital chips, and smartcards, and rfid passports, etc. allowing the cellphone companies to become the new mortgage brokers (hello, ernie: geolocate this property -- I want to make an offer -- am I preapproved -- great! Press seven for downpayment). Do you think Nokia announced that tablet the other day for a whim? And then add that Apple open source browser project and Osirix for medical record storage on iPods (and why don't they just relaunch the Newton now -- we're ready for it this time!?!) Remember Motorola's set top box with the eCommerce slot and USB port -- think truly interactive TV when you're taking a course via TV (teachers have you studied the balanced scorecard movement? -- finally you'll be paid what you're worth -- is that a blessing or a curse?) and your connecting your medical device for monitoring and you have to buy new prescriptions. Press Remote Control button 7 and removes $ from Health Savings Account.

We're not yet in a networked social service economy, yet we're headed that way.

One statement in Deborah's blog was:

In the networked economy, we'll be users rather than consumers - and peers rather than employees. We'll all have more autonomy, and engage in more collaboration, as the economy goes online and becomes decentralized.

I feel that this statement offers much hope in solving the problem of generating revenue through the infrastructure of social service organizations and entreprenerurs.

We're just not in a networked economy, yet.

We're part of an economy with thousands, perhaps millions of large and small networks that are not connected to each other in any consistent or strategic manner.

Thus, we don't have all of the right people in a conversation like this, nor enough of the right people. We're preaching to the choir when we talk about not having consistent revenue to support our full time engagement in social services. We don't have enough of the people who provide the money, volunteer time/talent, or visibility needed to generate a revenue stream to support the efforts of the millions of people involved in social services and/or social enterprises.

I run into this problem all the time. Many CEOs of major companies recognize that as we proceed into the 21st century, unskilled or low-skilled workers will fill less than 15% of jobs. In addition, high school students and recent HS graduates are competing with retirees and, in some cases, even their parents, for entry level, low-skilled jobs, which have in the past provided the work experience youth used to transition from school to careers.

To meet these challenges, many companies are investing time, talent, dollars and other company resources in a variety of programs intended to help young people stay in school, build workplace skills, and be more successful moving to jobs and careers.

Some of these programs have been going on for many years. Some are just starting. However, most of them are conducted within the corporate environment, and are led by people who have many other job responsibilities. While many of these companies may connect their volunteers with each other, and with information (the networked economy) that helps them do their jobs, I don't know of too many who are connecting their employees, with each other and with information that helps them in their volunteer roles, or in their efforts to help kids reach careers.

Thus, while there are networks of people beginning to build a personal commitment to helping kids born in poverty reach jobs careers, these networks are not open to you and me, nor are they systematically connected to similar people in other companies, or other cities.

In many cases, the organizers of corporate volunteer programs intentionally limit the amount of connectivity between volunteers and each other in the community with a protective "they don't have the time" excuse for not creating collaboration portals that might draw volunteers into a networked social service economy.

Thus, we have people inside of companies spending lots of time/talent to do the same work we in social service and people in public schools are trying to do. Yet we're not connected so we're working with limited information, limited resources, and using random acts of kindness instead of a blueprint for change in building a 21st century workforce for America.

I mention all of this because it is people in business who have the dollars that can support our work. These dollars could come to us via workplace fund raising campaigns such as those conducted by the United Way. They could come via personal contributions of people who are personally committed to our work. Ultimately they could come from social enterprises who dedicate a portion of profits to social activities that align with the strategic goals of a business.

While some of this may happen just by accident, unless we find a way to engage corporate volunteers and social service leaders and the people we serve in this networked economy, we'll fall short in any efforts to generate the resources (dollars, volunteers, ideas, technology, etc.) to make a significant dent in the number of kids completing high school with momentum leading them to a job/career.

I describe Deborah's case through the eyes of my own non profit, and so so with the passion many of you have for your own causes. It's this passion and commitment for a cause that motivates someone to make an ultimate sacrifice.

The technology that is emerging gives us the potential of a networked economy, but it is the passion of leaders who will draw people into networked portals that focus on specific social issues.

A few weeks ago Deborah posted information about the Boston Innovation Hub. Ever since then I've passed on this link: http://www.tbf.org/indicatorsproject/hubofinnovation/innovation.asp every day to people all over the world. It illustrates an entry point into a networked social service economy. It show many issues, and by connecting them in a circle, shows that the issues are all connected to each other. Just addressing civic health, without addressing the economy or education will not make Boston a healthier place to raise their children.

It's only by addressing all of these issues in an on-going process that the city will solve complex problems by creating a networked economy of people who are concerned, passionate, personally involved, and financially supported.

I've emailed the Boston people at least three times telling them what a great web page this is and asking to talk so we might borrow their graphic to use in Chicago. So far I've had no response.

However, many of you are in Boston and might pass this email on to the leaders of the Boston Innovation Hub. That personal introduction from someone in their own community might motivate someone to take a deeper look at the Tutor/Mentor Connection in ways that might lead to some collaboration. I don't need to recreate this if I can borrow this. But if I cannot borrow it, I need to recreate it....and I'll innovate ways to make it better.

This wheel ought to be a graphic used on web sites like the Digital Divide, so that as like minded people (technologist) gather, they can move through hubs like the innovation wheel into specific issue areas where people are working on that specific issue.... and are connected to similar people around the world who might have come into the issue area via the same graphic on the Tech Soup, or Social Edge, or Omidyar.net or Tutor/Mentor Connection web site.

Once we create entry points, then we each can work to draw people from behind the iron curtain of corporate security and into an open forum that engages workers and activists in social change.

I'm in the process of launching a new version of the www.tutormentorconnection.org web site, which has had 105,000 visits since 1998. The new portal is at http://msg.uc.iupui.edu/TMC/html/index.php. This is where I'd put a version of the Boston Innovation Hub (with some innovative additions).

I hope you'll all take a look and become partners of adding links that relate to ways people in business and non profits are helping kids move from a birth in poverty to the beginning stages of jobs/career by age 25.

Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
I also posted this in my Blog at http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/dbassill1

Dan Bassill points out that businesses are trying to meet their need for skilled workers while nonprofits are trying to help kids develop their skills and leadership abilities so they can go on to higher education and higher incomes in the future. He suggests that the businesses ought to be paying us nonprofits to do the job for them instead of reinventing the wheel.

Sounds good, in theory, but there are two related problems with this approach. One: increasingly, corporations are looking to put even their "philanthropic" money into programs that benefit their bottom line directly and measurably. (See "Philanthropy, Inc." by Keith Epstein in the current issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.) So, they are not interested in a lot of our less specialized programs. The article quotes the corporate contributions director at Raytheon, for instance, as saying, "We have engineers and scientists, and we need engineers and scientists. Why would we fund a program for nurses aides?" (The fact that the community they do business in may need nurses aides doesn't cut much ice with them.

Second, we may not want their support if it comes with too many strings attached. Some corporations view philanthropy purely as PR, and taking their money may cost more than refusing it--and they won't care. Also, one of the time-tested, proven ways of raising people's income is by getting them into a union. Try doing that with corporate funding!

All of which is not to say we shouldn't forge partnerships with progressive-minded businesses when it makes sense to do so--keeping both our mission and our bottom line in mind. It's just that there aren't as many good opportunities to do so as one might think.

Many thanks to Ed Dodds for the links and Dan Bassill for these reflections!