The Social Age

Feb 12 is quite an auspicious day.

200 years ago today, Charles Darwin was born, setting in motion the acceptance of natural selection and evolution as basic tenets of our shared ancestry. That some survive based on innate characteristics (i.e. genetics) forever changed scientific thinking and spawned great debate about the validity of the Judeo-Christian Creation Story.

200 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was born, setting in motion a course of freedom for those whose “genetics” were used against them to hold them prisoner in what Lincoln believed should be a free world.

100 years ago today, the NAACP was formed (purposefully on Lincoln’s centennial) to bring awareness of the inequalities of race (i.e. genetics) to the fore of our thinking, and create opportunity for advancement for all.

Can you imagine our country — our world — without these three tremendous forces?

Dear Friends, Readers, Social Agers and Stoppers-by

It is with great humility that I write to you today. You may (or may not) have noticed that I have not written on my blog in 10 months. Kind of crazy, right? Especially in these fracturing, social-emotional times. So why haven’t I been writing, and why am I starting again?

In August of 2007 I posted a story called The $700 Apartment Scam & Thank God for Google. The story caught fire as apartment scams were rampant. In fact, if you Google “Apartment Scam” today, you will see that this site is the top result. Response to my post was equally frenetic. As the “Apartment Scammer(s)” shape-shifted across the Internet, changing cities, names and stories, my readers used this forum as a way of protecting others against getting scammed. It was a GREAT example of The Social Age in action. They ID’s the name of scammers, tracked their movement from city to city and gave each other hints on things to avoid. This is exactly what I had hoped for. People connecting with People in ways to make the world better, more social — more Social Age.

And then the fun stopped.

Around February 2008. one or many of the “scammers” got ticked off being exposed. Clearly the scam-alerts were working — against them. And it probably cost them quite a few easy bucks. So what did they decide to do? They tried to get even. How?

1. They sent me threatening “f you” emails, quoting lines from my personal and professional sites
2. They signed me up (fake email addresses forward to me) for over 2000 newsletter lists trying to blow up my email boxes
3. They hacked into this site and started putting garbage code everywhere
4. They deluged this site with nasty, awful comments (thank goodness for approvalqueues)
5. They did everything they could to shut me down

For a while I resisted and kept writing, though I have to admit that I was more tentative. Finally the deluge of emails, comments, code breeches and newsletters got to me. Managing the “bad” was taking WAY too much of my time. So I stopped. Until now.

The fabulous Kirstin Myers of Globond has been pestering me to write again. After some resistence, I realize that she is right. I should write. With the massive changes taking place in our society, there is no better time than now to dedicate to The Social Age. So here I am.

For those of you who are new to this blog, I encourage you to visit the Post Index and see if what I am writing resonates with you. I’d love to rebuild this community. Here’s the start.

I’m constantly amazed at the human desire for stasis. The slow-burn growth of the world’s acceptance of the “social entrepreneurship” movement (in the media, academia and business-world) is in direct opposition to the actual growth in the amount of work and money being dedicated to the work of these incredible agents of change.

Perhaps today is a break-through day.

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist David Brooks today wrote a piece on social entrepreneurs. This is a great sign for the field and will hopefully help encourage continued dialog about this important kind of work. You can read the article, “Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders” here.

I went to an event recently where there was a lovely spread of cheeses, breads, dips and other yummy hors d’oeuvres. At the end of the reception, the staff started cleaning up and I asked what they did with all of the left over food. The answer, as most of you already know, is horrifying… it is thrown away.

I’ve been trying to figure the logic of this one out. You see, according to America’s Second Harvest, if we could recover just 5% of the food wasted each year, we could help feed 14 million people. But it turns out that food that has been left out at a reception must be chucked because of… liability reasons. So if I’m to understand this correctly, companies are worried about donating perfectly good food to shelters and the homeless because they are worried about being sued.

Doesn’t it seem like there is something terrible wrong here? I mean people, can’t we use some common sense? Leftover bread, crackers, hard cheeses, chips, veggies and other perfectly good food certainly have a shelf-life outside of the refrigerator long enough that it can be recovered. Unless it has been baking in the sun all day, it just seems that we should be able to do something about it.

An organization called “Rock and Wrap it Up” is taking on this issue directly. With over 150 bands participating “Rock and Wrap it Up” collects performers’ backstage edible leftover food in every arena or stadium where they perform and bring it to local kitchens and shelters. Current and recent tours contracting food recovery with Rock and Wrap it Up! in their rider include Tom Petty, Phil and Friends, Allman Brothers Band, The Dave Matthews Band, Nickelback, Kenny Chesney, Christina Aquilera ,Martina McBride and The Indigo Girls. The clincher is that all donors are protected from liability by The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996.

So I’m going to go back to the place where I went to this lovely event and talk to them about signing up for a food recovery program to help those in need and steer clear from fear of litigation. You can learn more about donating surplus food and find resources from the EPA by clicking here.

I recently returned from The Gathering of Leaders, an event by and for social entrepreneurs hosted by New Profit Inc. It is truly an honor to be included in this event. For three days, from 7:30am - 10pm, I was in the presence of really amazing agents of change. Folks from CityYear, CitizenSchools, YearUp, Prison Entrepreneurship Program, RARE, Echoing Green and 1Sky were among the 160 people gathered in sunny Miami.

It was an inspiring and exhausting few days, filled with true action-tank type of interactions as we worked together to make social enterprise and social entrepreneurship into a recognized, appreciated and adopted field of work.

The roster of speakers and panelists was inspiring and the stories awesome. In fact, it is my intention to conduct and post a few interviews with some of the remarkable changemakers that I met. But perhaps the best part of the Gathering was to be engaged in a community of kindred spirits — people whose personal missions include making the world a better place. Every conversation compelled me to want to work harder, try harder and be better. Around so many accomplished individuals, it’s easy to feel insignificant or lost. But this was a community of people where everyone friendly and everyone was game. It was so refreshing

One interesting thing I learned from the Gathering is about group dynamics. I observed that in every group, there are “the seekers” and “the sought after”. Those who are sought after, like Greg Dees from Duke or David Gergen from Harvard, are the gurus of the field and enjoy a certain amount of celebrity status at conferences like these. These “sought afters” are able to focus all of their energies on engaging in conversation because they are not using any of their energies to find people to speak with; others “seek them out.”

It was such an interesting perspective to gain. I was able to objectively see how much I have grown in the field. The measure? My “seeker to sought after” ratio. As a sophomore attendee, I knew more people this year, knew more organizations this year and had more to say this year. It made me a happier, more engaged, and more “sought after” participant. It also taught me that in my field of work — that of social change — the balance of power between the “seekers” and the “sought after” sits at a really good equilibrium. There is a general understanding that all of us are equal, that we’re all doing great work, and that we can all benefit from the knowledge of others, no matter their level of expertise.

So the question is, what is your seeker to sought after ratio? Do you “seek” 100 times for every 1 time you are “sought after”? A high seeker/sought after ratio like 100:1 tells you that you have an opportunity to become better known in your field, your work, or your community. A low ratio, 1:100 like that of David Gergen, who seeks 1 person for every 100 hundred that seek him out, means that as an expert in your field, you might not be surrounding yourself with people who can positively contribute to your continued learning and personal growth. I posit that the right ratio is 50:50. Half the time you are being sought. Half the time you are seeking. This way, you are constantly helping others with your knowledge and learning from others and their knowledge. So that’s what I’m going to focus on for a while. How to bring my seeker/sought after ratio into balance.

So what’s your seeker/sought after ratio? How does it make you feel? Do you want to increase it? How can you increase it? I look forward to your comments and answers.