Social Enterprise & Time Magazine's Persons of the Year

This may be the year of social enterprise awakening.

With megadisasters Katrina, Rita, the Asian Tsunami, the Pakistani Earthquake, Avian Flu, the AIDS Pandemic... there is a swelling urgency to find fast, effective business models to respond to--and possibly prevent--such wide-spread devastation.

Time Magazine has selected a trifecta of megastars in this field: rock band U2's frontman Bono alongside Bill & Melinda Gates.

The accompanying suite of articles gives an intimate glimpse of daily life for these three who are focused on massive systems, namely health and economics.

From Persons of the Year By NANCY GIBBS

And so another alliance was born: unlikely, unsentimental, hard nosed, clear eyed and dead set on driving poverty into history. The rocker's job is to be raucous, grab our attention. The engineers' job is to make things work. 2005 is the year they turned the corner, when Bono charmed and bullied and morally blackmailed the leaders of the world's richest countries into forgiving $40 billion in debt owed by the poorest; now those countries can spend the money on health and schools rather than interest payments--and have no more excuses for not doing so. The Gateses, having built the world's biggest charity, with a $29 billion endowment, spent the year giving more money away faster than anyone ever has, including nearly half a billion dollars for the Grand Challenges, in which they asked the very best brains in the world how they would solve a huge problem, like inventing a vaccine that needs no needles and no refrigeration, if they had the money to do it.

Important Holiday Travel Update

Thank godness our family stayed home for the holidays!

For those unlucky slobs who had to fly out of familial guilt, make sure you check in with the updated TSA guidelines [posted on the Onion].

Scher Mapping New Shores

Forget Google Earth!
For some visceral inspiration, check out the work of Paula Scher.

Her hand-rendered maps blend sardonic commentary, maticulously reserached data, and more than a touch of Rev. Howard Finster madness. These 5' x 7' canvases have it all: meaning, abstraction, information, all compressed in a highly satuarated atlas.

from Metropolis:

In the early 1990s, renowned graphic designer Paula Scher began painting small, opinionated maps--colorful depictions of continents and regions, covered from top to bottom by a scrawl of words. Within a few years, the maps grew larger and more elaborate. "I began painting these things sort of in a silly way," Scher, a partner at the Pentagram design firm, said in a recent conversation. "And I think at one point I realized they would be amazing big. And I wondered if I could even do it. If I could actually paint these things on such a grand scale, what would happen?"

See Hillman Curtis' brief but beautiful video on Scher and her work from the 70s and 80s. In it, her face glows as she describes her love of appliqued letter forms, distressed textures and typography that serves as animated illustration.
From Apple.com:

In any field, to keep working in fresh ways after 30 years requires the ability to continually solve problems in creative ways. For Scher that means “the power of ideas have to drive the work.” Styles come and go; technologies are constantly changing, but “there’s no other way to stay alive in this profession without being able to think.”
Three decades after designing her first record covers at CBS, Scher still gets excited about the future. “My favorite job is the one I’m going to do tomorrow,” she says.

from Z+ Partners Blog:

Although perhaps better known for her graphically designed "retro-look" album covers and corporate logos, Paula Scher is also the painter behind a collection of the world's most disorienting navigation aids. Her maps chart an emotional terrain of swirling nation-states, swooning islands and claustrophobic oceans, providing a beautiful impressionistic view of globalization.

Paula Scher's bio

In the 1970s and early '80s Scher's eclectic, period-oriented typography for records and books became widely influential and imitated. She has often been credited as the major proponent of "retro" design. However, her body of work is broader and more idea-based than this suggests. She uses historical design to make visual analogies, and for its emotional impact and immediate appeal to contemporary audiences.
Scher has developed identity and branding systems, promotional materials, environmental graphics, packaging and publication designs for a wide range of clients including The New York Times Magazine, the American Museum of Natural History, the Asia Society, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Phillips-Van Heusen, Anne Klein, Citigroup, 3Com, Herman Miller, Metropolis and the New York Botanical Garden. In 1996, Scher's highly influential identity for the Public Theater won the coveted Beacon Award for integrated corporate design strategy.

Todd Kuiken and Jesse Sullivan, Mind and Body

As director at the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Dr. Todd Kuiken has found both a partner and a patient in Jesse Sullivan – a double amputee who has become the world's first bionic man.

This presentation at Pop!Tech shows Jesse as he is: a remarkable man, possessing the patience of Job and a remarkable spirit.

Dr. Todd Kuiken is the Director of the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. The Center focuses on improving the function of artificial arms using neural integration techniques.

Todd's research interests include improving the care of amputees, the control of artificial limbs, the study of bioelectromagnetics, prosthetic design & development, and wheelchair mobility systems. He is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of PM&R and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs representing the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. He is an active clinician and the Director of Amputee Services at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. His clinical activity is focused on the care of people with amputation.

click for enlargement | buy prints & cards

Todd received a B.S. degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University, a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University, and his M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School. He was the Frankel Research Fellow at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago in 1992.

http://www.ric.org/search/kuiken.php
http://www.smpp.northwestern.edu/Kuiken.htm

A resident of Dayton, Tennessee for his whole life, Jesse Sullivan worked for the city's Electric Department for twenty five years. He was seriously injured on the job on May 9th, 2001. Working with Dr. Todd Kuiken and a team at the Rehabilitation Center in Chicago, he has been involved in a major breakthrough in prosthetic technology.

Jesse lives with his wife of 21 years, and family (including six children and nine grandchildren) in Dayton. Before his accident, Jesse enjoyed fishing, hunting, camping and some farming -- things he hopes to be able to do again soon.

Globeshakers 2005 Recap

As we approach the new year, we are looking forward to many new projects that combine a whole gaggle of interests and interfaces -- podcasting, videoblogging, graphic facilitation, social innovation, and on and on.

Along those lines, if you haven't done so, take time to check out the interviews Tim Zak, president of the Pittsburgh Social Enterprise Accelerator, has done as host of Globeshakers on IT Conversations.

Since August, we've been published five podcast interviews conducted with diverse observers and practitioners within the social sector [continue reading for a full list].

In 2006, we hope to expand this series to comprise an entire on-line podcast channel dedicated to bringing important conversations about the grand challenges facing the planet, as well as the innovators who are taking those challenges head on.

As series producer, I am very interested in your feedback and suggestions. As well as ideas you may have on who you would like to hear on the show and what issues you feel are most salient to social entrepreneurs on the ground.

Don Gould, Ceramicist and Industrial Designer -- Pure Water 4 All
When people ask Don Gould how he knows that his product works, he answers: "Because babies stop dying." As part of a social enterprise consortium, Gould, who is both a product designer and ceramicist, helped to design and deploy simple, effective water filtration devices to the developing world. He talks with host Tim Zak about both the traditional production techniques and the new economy models for collaboration. Together, they deliver simple, life-saving solutions that are as robust as they are elegant.
[runtime: 00:36:43, 16.8 mb, recorded 2005-11-03]
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail829.html

Darrell Hammond, KaBoom!
Play is a crucial factor in the overall well-being of children. It affects the level of quality of life they will enjoy. Yet, play in many communities, schools, and families has been pushed to the back-burner. Darrell Hammond, founder of KaBOOM!, envisions a great place to play within walking distance of every child in America. Since 1995, KaBOOM! has used its innovative community-build model to bring together business and community interests to construct more than 850 new playgrounds and skateparks and renovate 1,300 others nationwide.
[runtime: 00:26:01, 11.9 mb, recorded 2005-11-03]
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail824.html

Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Ethan Zuckerman address the direct question: "Why should we care about Africa?" As a technologist, Ethan has spent much time on the ground working with the new generation of African entrepreneurs, programmers, organizers and young people who are hooking up the countinent to the web. These new netizens are changing the way that villagers and urban dwellers learn, organize, network and face the challenges of poverty, AIDS, political strife and making a living. [Globeshakers audio from IT Conversations]
[runtime: 00:29:23, 13.5 mb, recorded 2005-10-03]
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail753.html

David Bornstein, How to Save the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas
David Bornstein is a leading expert in the global rise of "social entrepreneurism". In this program, host Tim Zak asks how we would even know a social entrepreneur if we saw one on the street. More important, why should we even care? Who invests in social enterprise and what is at stake for our world if we don't?
[runtime: 00:27:10, 12.4 mb, recorded 2005-09-07]
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail701.html

Andrew Zolli, Z+ Partners
What are the major demographic forces driving the economies, the industries, the families and the ecologies of the 21st century? What emerging technologies hold promise in light of these grand challenges? Andrew Zolli, chief curator of Pop!Tech and prominent futurist, points to some key trends lurking over the horizon.
[runtime: 00:29:39, 13.6 mb, recorded 2005-08-11]
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail624.html

Mapping Influence

What do you think your personal sphere of influence is? What about your city's? If you live in a smaller community, what town or city has the greatest cultural influence on yours?

If you know any seniors in college, you may have already asked them the dreaded question: "So, where are you thinking of moving after graduation?"

Their answer to that question is based on soggy ground saturated with hope, fear, fact and pure emotional "guestimation".

The CommonCensus map project is a bottom-up, vote-driven mapping project in which citizens redraw their local cultural borders, ignoring state and local municipal boundaries, to reveal the cultural 'spheres of influence' that both unite and divide the United States.

This project is an intriguing attempt at emotional mapping, but the story it tells is a bit lopsided.

According to the project, which asks participants to vote on the greatest cultural influence in there region, Pittsburgh has a geographic halo reaching north to Lake Erie and south into West Virginia, and leaching over into Eastern Ohio and Western Maryland.

While this may be true in regards to attracting a regional workforce--plus all important tourists and fans of the Steelers, the Pirates and Penguins--it doesn't reflect the devastating brain drain of talent that occurs.

[See the article 'Brain drain' acute from Pittsburgh area in the Post-Gazette]

As with many once influential Rust Belt cultural centers (Cleveland, Buffalo, Detroit, etc.) the centers of excellence may still thrive (CMU in Pittsburgh, Cranbrook in Detroit, University of Buffalo) but the jobs don't.

More devastating, the venture capitalists aren't stepping up to fund and retain the talent and ideas streaming out of the region.

From Z+ Partners:

The premise underlying the project is similar to the "Nine Nations of North America" thesis first laid out by Joel Garreau in the book by the same name.