It's been a while since our last blog post, but we haven't been slacking…far from it! Most of 2008 has been nose-to-the-flippin-grindstone getting the Beta site that you are now (hopefully) enjoying designed and built while at the same time scouring the planet to find the 5 green Change Agents - called Earthkeepers - that are introduced here on Changents with this site launch.

I posted this blog for the We Media conference I am attending next week in Miami. We Media “connects individuals and organizations from across industries who believe the power of media, communication and human ingenuity should be applied to innovate in business AND to make the world better through media."

My wife, the kids and I recently ducked out of chaos for a few days on a sunny island off the Florida coast. While there, we planned to sink our spirits into a local wildlife refuge known for its rare “co-habitation” among migratory birds. Here, the birds are, well, feather-blind (couldn’t resist!). All species pack it in together on mangrove mini-islands. The American brown-back pelican literally snuggles up with the snowy egret. The Ivis bunks up with the great blue heron. I’m not a card-carrying member of the Audubon Society, but I was digging the idea of this “birdupmanship,” especially after weeks of racial and gender motivated innuendos that us humans have come to accept in our desperation to elect a new president.

So, we rolled into the refuge, parked the car and headed to buy our tickets aboard the eco-friendly trolley that would roll us leisurely through the park. “That’s $13 for each adult and $8 for the kids. $42 please,” the wildlife sales clerk informed us. She went on to say, “Of course, you can drive through the park in your (insert here: gas guzzling, footprint-leaving rental) car for $5.” My wallet must have overheard the conversation, as it did a double back flip and landed safely in the pocket of my shorts. That’s all the incentive I needed to make the wrong choice. “Kids, get in the car. We’re driving.” I instructed shamelessly.

What does this have to do with the power of media to change the world and We Media? Well, quite a bit, actually. Unlike my new friends at the to-be-unnamed wildlife refuge, we have the opportunity and privilege of designing new ways that create incentives for people to make the right choice. This little experience got me thinking about a handy acronym – F.R.E.E. If you’ll indulge me, I’ll use Changents (my company) to illustrate how we think about F.R.E.E.

FAMILIAR. Innovative uses of media technology are based on familiar, instantly understandable behavior. At Changents, we’re big fans of what we call the “rockstar/superfan” model. We figured, wouldn’t it be awesome to build a social media experience that connects the coolest people on the frontlines of social and environmental change with their own mosh pit of super fans around the world to help them. When you create a sticky new context for familiar behavior, users instantly get it. We’re just getting started, but thanks to recent coverage from the Boston Globe and others, the idea is catching on.

REAL. The verdict is out on this one, especially if you are a sheep-thrower on Facebook. But from my perspective, creating social change must feel captivatingly real. The Internet has plenty of places to sign virtual petitions, write a check to behemoth organizations or join a group for your turn on a virtual soapbox. On Changents, we’ve created a mechanism for anyone who is demanding personal involvement in creating change to do so, but side by side with an extraordinary personality who inspires them. It gets pretty “real” when you become a teammate of an iconic Change Agent (in your home town or across the planet) – literally being part of their triumphs and challenges in real-time.

ENTERTAINING. If “activism” were a food, I bet it would not taste very good. There in lies the problem. If media technology is to bring about meaningful social change, the user experience must be entertaining. On Changents, explosive stories, written with edginess and attitude and packed with personal anecdotes from the front lines always grab an audience. For some, non-profit “speak” works, but I say its time to check the mothballs and kumbaya at the door.

ENLISTABLE. I know, enlistable is not a word, but allow me some creative license here. Successful uses of media technology make it easy for users to enlist themselves. They offer “enlistable” action opportunities that provide an audience flexible ways to get involved. On Changents, we enable our users to “back” a Change Agent and in doing so become part of their virtual “ground team.” Soon, Backers will be able to contribute their talents or assume a specific role (such as promoter, fundraiser, first-responder) that move their Change Agent’s extraordinary work forward. This one-to-one relationship creates a highly personalized and flexible ways for anyone to make a difference and feel plugged into heroes who are on the frontlines getting it done. What is your enlistable model?

There you have it… and it’s FREE!

Deron and I recently had a good day in New York City. It was a gorgeous January afternoon as we made our way uptown to the ABC Studios on West 67th Street. We had an appointment with ABC News Now to do a live TV interview about Changents on their Money Matters segment. The host, Daljit Dhaliwal, put us through the paces and we had to think on our feet - or, to be more specific, in our seats! You'd think it would be easy to talk about yourself and your passion project but when the lights start to burn, the camera whirs and you hear, "OK guys, 30 seconds…" let's just say you want to be using a high-quality anti-perspirant! Actually, it was good fun and it went by in a flash.

Earlier that day we met with Robert Tolmach, a kindred spirit who founded a site called ChangingThePresent.org. Robert's vision is to re-direct the pervasive behavior of giving superfluous gifts by providing alternative gifting opportunities that are in equal measure meaningful to the recipient and beneficial to the associated non-profits. We'd encourage you to check out CtP.

Finally, on the subway back to Penn Station we ran into Tim Gunn from the reality show Project Runway. Tim was really charming and undaunted when I informed him that while I do not watch his show, I see an hour of it every week because my wife is a big fan. Twice between Times Square and Penn Station Tim earnestly asked me to thank my wife for being a dedicated viewer. This guy knows how to keep his fans happy!

It was a good day.

Dear 2007, do not go gentle into that good night...
 
Actually, let's get on with it already! This has been a heck of a year and the Changents team wants to thank everyone who joined up early, jumped in to help, sent encouraging messages and otherwise got behind this little big idea. We appreciate it!
 
2008 is hours aways and we have much planned for the next 12 months. We will introduce you to lots of amazing Change Agents through their stories; welcome many new Change Agents into the community; and launch a robust tool set that will better enable team building, communication and direct collaboration between Change Agents and Changents members. If we can accomplish half of what we aspire to achieve before the ball drops again in a year, we'll be doing really well...and we're going for it all!
 
Changents V1.5 is coming very soon so please hang with us, check in often and let us know how we're doing as we push the boundaries of connecting the innovators on the front lines of social and environmental change with the people who want to help them.
 
See you on the other side!
 
 

When I learned yesterday of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto I paused from my work momentarily, sat back in my chair and asked myself, "can we change?" I mean, for real. Can humans, as a species, change? Our track record does not instill confidence. There is some irony in the fact that in the year when social consciousness, going green and corporate social responsibility have decidedly arrived on the pop culture scene, we continue to witness the murder of iconic leaders, the crackdown on the freedom movement in Burma, the global economic effects of unchecked greed in the sub-prime mortgage market and other head-scratching travesties at a pace that has not slackened one iota. A thinking person has to wonder - photo-op posturing aside - has anything really changed at all?

Sure, more people are utlizing the benefits of the hybrid car. Fair Trade coffee is easy to find and tasty too. Compact fluorescent light bulbs are pricey but, hey, even the Wal*Mart machine has gotten the green religion and is pumping them deep into the heartland. This is all good stuff but hopefully it adds up to more than just us feeling satisfied that we've done our part.

Because we haven't. Not yet. Change is slow and painful and takes more than just changing a light bulb or ensuring that our beverage is in a 10% post-consumer paper cup. When year after year we keep losing the beacons of light - think Anwar Sadat, Yitzak Rabin, John Lennon, MLK, RFK, Rosemary Nelson, Anna Politkovskaya and countless others - you have to wonder if open season on Change Agents ever really ends.

The Change Agents we celebrate on Changents are beacons of light, hope and strength. Mercifully, most are not operating everyday in the cross-hairs - but some certainly are. Real change means more than opening our wallets and slightly altering our habits of unrelenting consumption. It's about finding the courage within ourselves to really leave our mark on something that matters. Creating change should not necessitate putting our lives on the line but, clearly, sometimes it does. Sometimes it also means putting our careers, our reputations or our creature comforts on the line…and that's OK. Because anything that is worthwhile comes with risk.

We need our beacons of light. We need our Change Agents. They are living proof that we can change and examples of where we need to go. Let's share their stories, back their efforts, join their teams, carry them forward, pick them up when they fall…protect them. We need them, and they need us. On dark days it seems nearly impossible to imagine…but we can change. We can change.

We are long overdue for a blog post and this will be a quickie. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I'm heading into Thanksgiving weekend and reflecting back on what has been one of the most challenging years of my life. A lot has happened - some positive and some not so positive. So as I peer over the rim of the eternal glass half full/half empty dilemma I am forced to draw some conclusions.

Frankly, without thinking about it all that long or very hard it so clear that my cup runneth over. It has been a tough year but filled with such a sense of purpose and accomplishment. I've heard what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I'm not dead (yet) so I guess I must be stronger. That alone is cause for giving thanks!

Deron and I feel so fortunate to be working hand-in-hand with Change Agents to connect them with all of you in the growing Changents community. The privilege of shining the spotlight on people like Brad Corrigan (aka Braddigan), Tutu Alicante and our featured Change Agent Katrin Verclas and helping to broadcast their stories is nothing short of awesome. We appreciate the participation and support we've gotten from Changents members to date. We are working hard to improve the ways Changents serves Change Agents and all of you.

The Washington Post just released a great story on Changents in its small business blog. We are very grateful to columnist Sharon McLoone for writing an article that really gets to the heart of Changents as a connection point for innovators on the front lines of social and environmental change and the people who want to help them.

Launching the Changents Alpha site and email newsletter this year were a ton of work and very gratifying. Further, we are fortunate to have found kindred spirits in the team members who work with us to run Changents day in and day out and our advisors who are so generous in applying their expertise to moving us over rivers and through the woods (to grandmother's house we go?). Neither last nor least, our families have been fundamental to the effort and we could not have done it without them.

Speaking of family, my wife and I just gave birth to twins. Talk about putting everything into perspective! A start-up (and instant) family to complement the start-up venture that is Changents. Wow! Twice blessed? Thrice blessed? I am unsure of the math here but "an embarrassment of riches" only begins to describe where we are today.

It has been one heck of a year. A lot that was done and a lot left to do. Excited? Yes. Tired? Yes. Bullish about the road ahead? Yes. Thankful? You'd better believe it!

A happy and safe Thanksgiving to all.   

In our last newsletter, we told the story of Change Agent Tutu Alicante - the One Man Human Rights Operation - who is taking on the dictatorship in the small, oil-rich African nation of Equatorial Guinea. To get Changents members even more in the zone with Tutu, we put together a little quiz to test your chops: Brush Up On Your EG. We plussed it up further by offering a one year subscription to GOOD Magazine to the first couple members to score 100% on all five questions. Well, we're pleased to announce that two of you know your EG stuff. Congratulations to Michael Nwoke and Dorian Adams!    

Upon learning he was the winner of a GOOD Magazine sub, Michael wrote: "Being a native of Nigeria, I truly empathize with Tutu's audacious mission. I look forward to the day when our paths will cross as we both live out our audacity to right some wrongs in Africa." Right on.

Dorian, who is a founder of the socially-conscious site Just Cause, said: "Tutu Alicante is one of a breed of courageous individuals whose singular dedication to truth make the world better.  To recognize and honor these individuals is to be on the side of the angels."

Thanks to Dorian and Michael for playing. Now they too can be GOOD (although I get the impression they already are).

Here is a recap of the Brush Up On Your EG quiz and the correct answers:

1) Who were the original inhabitants of Equatorial Guinea?
        
The Spaniards
    
The Pygmies
    
The Fang Tribe

It was the Pygmies. When I first saw that answer, I thought for sure it was the decoy.

2) In 1996, President (and Dictator) Obiang Nguema claimed to have won the multi-party presidential election with what percentage of the vote?

51%
 
70%

99%

The correct answer is 99%. If you're not going to win by a landslide it's hardly worth running. Of course, it helps a lot when the opposition boycotts the election...

3) The Washington DC-based Riggs Bank holds the oil deposits for the dictatorship of Equatorial Guinea. What other dictator did his banking at Riggs?
        
Augusto Pinochet (Chile)
    
Idi Amin (Uganda)
    
Saddam Hussein (Iraq)

Augusto Pinochet was a Riggs customer. Next time you're in the teller line next to a dictator, you may want to inquire how one can get a country of one's own.

4) With a population of just over 500,000 (mostly living in poverty) in a country approximately the size of Maryland, guess the GDP of Equatorial Guinea.

US$560 million
    
US$2.6 billion
    
US$25 billion

The correct answer is $25 billion. A billion here and billion there…before you know it you're talking about real money. And at $50,000 per citizen, there's a lot of food, shelter, clothing, education, health care, etc., etc. that's going missing. Share the wealth, already!
 
5) What is the average life expectancy of an Equatorial Guinean?
        
71 years old
    
55 years old
    
49 years old
    
It's 49 years old. In the year 2007, that pretty much says it all.

Rock on Tutu! The world needs you and we're glad you're here on Changents.

This week was an incredible reminder of the impact of Change Agents. It was the 50th anniversary of 9 brave black teenagers ascending the front steps of Little Rock Central High School in a headwind of institutional and personal bigotry that had pinned down the status quo for centuries. The images of these kids maintaining their composure while being taunted and threatened by the twisted, malignant white faces is gut wrenching. The courage they mustered to go back to school day-after-day under the protection of 101st Airborne Division is nothing short of breathtaking.   

This great video interview with the Little Rock Nine from the NewsHour delivers the message that 'putting it on the line' - every bit of it - is sometimes the only way to get it done. For Change Agents, risking life may not be a daily part of the job description but it can be reality. 

The demonstrations in Myanmar are a fresh example in the here and now. 9 killed so far. Hundreds arrested. Amazingly, when the Buddist monks who initiated the movement were forceably removed from the scene through crackdowns and a series of night time raids on monasteries, everyday people stepped in to fill in the ranks and keep the pressure on. Again, courage that defies comprehension…unless you know firsthand what it means to live under the wet blanket of oppression. Then it starts to make sense.

Finally, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger called it as he saw it when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to campus. This was less life-on-the-line and more career and professional reputation-on-the-line, but a stark and refreshing break with the conventions of polite institutional norms. The guts to say what needs to be said in public at the risk of rotten tomatoes (or a whole lot worse) is what Change Agents are about. This is not a popularity contest and (predictably) the arrows are flying.

Let's just say I laughed, got angry, cheered and choked back sobs this week. It’s the range of emotions that comes from being a witness to courage. The goal is to increasingly be a participant in courage. To be a Change Agent.

A few weeks ago, my wife and I made a (very) short trip to Wisconsin to visit family. With Changents just recently launched it was tough to peel away, but our options were to do it or wait for at least a year. Had to happen.

While there, my mom shared the lines below about Risk. This short piece appeared in the rememberance of a young man who lived on the edge - in all the most positive and admirable connotations of the idea - and died while at the controls of a small private aircraft.

Mom recognized that Change Agents know a thing or two about risk taking and in pointing out this piece, I think she hit the bull's-eye. The author is unknown but message is indisputable.

Would it be overreaching to say that these words apply to all Change Agents? I don't think so. Thanks Mom!  
  
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.
To reach out for another is to risk involvement.
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.
To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd is to risk their loss.
To love is to risk not being loved in return.
To live is to risk dying.
To hope is to risk despair.
To try is to risk failure.
But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing.
He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.
Chained by his own fears, he is a slave.
He has forfeited freedom.

Changents, Change Agents, Agents of Change. The idea of individuals - as opposed to institutions - taking the initiative and doing cool things to create change is catching on. While kicking around the Internet and taking in the many ways in which the burgeoning change movement is building momentum, I happened upon Agents of Change - a Canadian group dedicated to "creating awareness among young people, engaging them in the fight against global poverty and growing a powerful microcredit fund entirely managed by the youth building it."

Founded by 27-year-old former banker Shawn Smith, Agents of Change is focused on microlending as a mechanism for creating direct, visible impact. In partnership with Kiva (whose founders Matt & Jessica Flannery are featured on Changents) and Nau (one of Deron's and my hero socially-responsible companies), Agents of Change are gearing up for a second 2000 mile bike ride from Vancouver BC to Tijuana to raise big bucks for making loans!

Hear Shawn describe Agents of Change and their first ride on the Kiva Podcast (download the mp3; the audio stream is the wrong version). It’s a refreshing yet sobering reminder that being a Change Agent can *hurt* - from sore muscles to having their documentary film footage stolen in San Francisco - but is invariably worthwhile.

At the end of the day, creating change is about individuals deciding they can do something better than it's currently being done. Lots of times, there is an amazing story just below the surface that needs a big spotlight shined on it. Shawn Smith and Agents of Change is another standout reminder that Change Agents are everywhere. Our job at Changents is to help these innovators get their stories out to connect with members of the emerging generation that are taking change upon themselves. The privilege is ours.