The Ultimate Mash-up

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the tenth annual Microsoft Imagine Cup, the world's largest student competition for software. Here is an article I sent to Microsoft Europe.

The Ultimate Mash-up

The prospects for Europe's youth were never bleaker; the prospects were never brighter. You cannot pick up a local paper or magazine without reading about the staggering unemployment and growing frustration among youth in European countries.  Even the best educated have had to ratchet down their expectations to find work, and even then there a few guarantees.  We could stop the story here and allow pessimism to win the day.

But the lessons of the Imagine Cup tell another story.  Team after team with project after project defy the odds with innovation.  I have often counted off the "no's" of Imagine Cup students:

1) No business experience
2) No marketing experience
3) No money
4) No time
5) No sense of limitation

It is that last one that makes all the difference. The contestants I have listened to over the past five years as a software design  judge are not limited by statements like "that will never work here".  They just "do" with whatever means they have within their reach, and then some. And their enthusiasm for their solutions is contagious.

This results in some interesting discoveries that are what I call the "three mash-ups". The first is mashing-up common components in new ways. For example, the team from Jordan, a winner in 2011, duct-taped a WII box to a monitor, pulled the diode from a TV remote and mounted it on a baseball cap, and wrote software so that a young paraplegic woman could simulate a mouse and operate a cursor on a PC by tilting her head and pausing to click.   Watching the team's video is a moving experience (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHP67hrhEWs).  In her words, the OaSys System gave her back her life. Notice the technology pieces that were used; nothing new or extraordinary; but the connection of the parts is brilliant.  The innovation is in the mash-up of the everyday tech.

The second mash-up is in the opportunity for one team to join up with another at the Imagine Cup finals and talk about combining their projects.  At the 2009 competition, I saw an amazing application from the team from Poland that translated music to braille and back again.  The software and use of a Windows phone was extraordinary.  But the braille reader component they used was expensive. The team from China, on the other hand, had invented a braille reader from off-the-shelf components for a tenth of the cost.  At the showcase, I introduced the China team to the Poland team and asked them to do a demo for each other.  The conversation began for how they may combine efforts, mashing up their solutions, if you will, for something that could reach more people.  The key is to find each other and work together.

The third mash-up is combining the inventor-entrepreneur with humanitarian work. The Imagine Cup has encouraged students to write solutions that address the UN Millennium Development Goals.  Each team must demonstrate how their application addresses one of the MDGs.  Most teams focus on improving health or the environment. And the solutions are creative indeed, as shown by the examples above.  Going forward, there is an opportunity for Imagine Cup finalists to take their ideas to scale at humanitarian organizations like the International Red Cross and Red Crescent.  Perhaps as volunteers, or interns or employees of the future.  That is my wish, and something for which I continue to advocate.  I believe this will be the ultimate mash-up of talent and need for the greater good in the world.

What are the three most important words in this article? Find, mash-up, and together.  I can think of nothing more optimistic in my conversations with students at the Imagine cup finals in Sydney this week.




"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

IT Annual Reports

The following Blog post was originally published on the NTEN.org site.

March 5, 2012

One of our senior managers asked me soon after I started at IFRC, “Why is ISD the largest department with the largest budget in our division; what are you doing?”  This is not an unusual question; however, it was wake-up call that the value that IT was adding (and could be adding) to the organization was invisible.

I was first introduced to IT Annual Reports by the CIO Executive Council, where a number of members posted their reports as examples.  None of them grabbed me.  They were too technical, too tactical or too focused on internal customers.  Last year I discovered the annual Intel IT Performance Report.  It was clear, easy to read and answered the fundamental questions of what value are we adding, what are the issues we see for the organization, and where are we going? We set out with this as a model.

As we were setting strategic goals and objectives, we also asked ourselves: how do we know if the Information Services Department (ISD) team has moved the needle at the end of the year? What does success look like and who cares?  This is not a frivolous question.

Since the ISD team is about serving our customers (I take issue with those who say we don't[1]), we need to be clear about the audiences we serve.  We see five:

1. Beneficiaries (everything we do must be measured ultimately by its impact in improving the lives of the most vulnerable).
2. Field-workers in our National Societies who work directly with beneficiaries, delivering our programs
3. Regional offices who work directly with local National Societies
4. Headquarters staff who provide support for all of the above
5. Our senior management team and governing boards who oversee our work

Your audiences may differ, but be clear about who benefits from your programs and who works closest with them.

When Tom Murphy, former Chairman and CEO of Capital Cities / ABC, Inc., was Chairman of Save the Children's Board, I asked him what was most important to him in taking the pulse of how an international child-focused organisation was doing.  He noted four questions, which became our (more positive) Murphy's Laws:

1. Are we reaching more children?
2. Are donations growing?
3. Is the press good?
4. Are employees happy?

These became the core questions that we reinterpreted for an IT organisation.  For our year-end scorecard, we posed ten questions from the standpoints of our audiences and our strategy as leading indicators of how we are doing. Here are the ten, with some sample things we measure for each:

1.  Are more beneficiaries being reached?

We track technology used by beneficiaries (the top of the pyramid[2]), our beneficiary budget spending versus lights-on spending, and number of National Societies completing our Digital Divide capacity building program.

2.  Is our technology investment growing?

We benchmark IT spending against revenue and operating expense.[3]

3.  Are the customers happy?

We survey users annually on all aspects of our IT services and publish our customer satisfaction index for headquarters and the Field.[4]  We also track the number of thank-you notes we receive each month from our employees.

4.  Are my problems getting solved?

We look at the percent of service calls solved on the first call and related data from our satisfaction survey.

5.  Are my projects getting done?

We track timeliness and cost of our larger "flagship" projects against original forecast.  We also track the project team's "confidence" index for completing projects on target.[5]

6.  Are new technologies being delivered?

We monitor adoption rates of new products like mobile phones, and those selected by users. We also report out on new capabilities we deliver like HD video conferencing, on-line meetings, larger email-boxes and other “goodies”.

We also survey users on use of emerging tech tools or applications.

7.  Are National Societies getting stronger? (Is the Field getting stronger?)

Our Digital Divide program and number of countries assisted is our key metric. We track MOU΄s signed, projects completed, and the ratio of budget spending for beneficiaries to IT costs.

8.  IS IT getting greener?

We count servers retired and on-line meetings held instead of travel for in-person meetings.  We also calculate savings in our carbon footprint.[6]

9.  Is IT using financial resources efficiently?

We report budget versus actual and a handful of ratios that we benchmark against other international organisations annually.

10.  Are our systems reliable?

We track "good days" and "bad days" and chart these monthly[7]

Answering these ten questions tells our audience how we are performing for them. If I had to pick two, growing our reach to those in need, and happy internal customers would be at the top of my list.   What value do we add to the organization?  As the title of our inaugural Annual IT Report states, we deliver mission relevant IT.  Ask our customers in the Field and HQ if we deliver on this promise.  We did.

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[1] See Wikipedia the discussion and references on internal customers, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer ; for an interesting comparison, see http://ezinearticles.com/?Myth-of-An-Internal-Customer&id=2578986

[2] For a discussion of the IT Pyramid, see my Blog entry on “Six Views on Innovation”, section 4.

[3] We benchmark against the Gartner and the CIO4Good NGO surveys.

[4] A US colleague tracks one metric: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?"  See the Net Promoter article in Wikipedia, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

[5] The Project Confidence Index is a periodic average of the front-line project team’s individual and subjective assessment on a 1-10 scale how likely the project will deliver on its objectives (on time, on budget, and within scope.)

[6] We use the carbon footprint calculator from Terrapass (www.terrapass.com). See their paper on Carbon Offsetting & Air Travel for a good review of the carbon savings data.   The Nature Conservancy also has a calculator worth comparing. 

[7] See Hallmark case: James R. Johnson, “Magnifying the Problem “, CIO, November 15, 1992, pp. 34-38.

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Ten Ways Small NGOs Can Collaborate

I made a presentation last week on NetHope and Collaboration to one of the 2012 MBA classes at Tuck/Dartmouth (For a copy of the slide deck, see the Presentation and Articles link on my web site at http://www.eghapp.com/). During the Q&A, someone asked "what can a small nonprofit do to benefit from collaboration?"  It's a a question I often get asked.  Here's an excerpt from my current book project, with the working title "Collaborate or Perish."  I welcome your comments.

* * * * *

I often get the comment during a leadership seminar I teach that goes something like, "Well this is all well and good for large organizations, but what about my twelve-person NGO?" What can small nonprofits do to benefit from collaboration?  Here are ten practical things you can do, starting tomorrow:

1)      Join a list-serve or social media group.  Pick one that fits your size and mission, and addresses technology.  NTEN and TechSoup list a few[1].  The MobileActive listserv is a good one for phone-based app’s.[2]  You can also join Interaction or the CIO4Good forums[3]. Search LinkedIn and Google groups[4]. Social Butterfly has an interesting list of helpful list-servs.  Try one.

Now here's the rub: for this to work for you and the community, plan to answer twice as many questions as you ask. The benefit?  First, the help you receive is proportional to what you give.  Second, it helps build a community of trust and collaboration: the "I know I will get three or more good ideas" as well as, "I had that experience!"  Can't answer what you don't know?  Share your technology experiences and frustrations. These will resonate with the audience.

2)      Partner in Learning. Training on a hoard of ICT topics is available on-line and in the classroom.  Some are free.  For example, LINGOs has a free nonprofit learning catalog.  And the IFRC, my prior organization, has a Learning Network with many free courses for volunteers.

However, many of the in-depth classes cost a bundle and take a week or more of your time.  Even the one-day seminars can be pricey.  What to do? Larger corporations have training departments and a multi-prong syllabus.  The GE Crotonville Center is the legendary example[5]. There are even corporate universities.[6] An easy “ask” for your local corporations is: can I get a donated seat in your classroom?  And while you’re at it, invite the seminar graduates to help implement what you learned.

3)      Partner with colleges and universities.  Students are among the most technology savvy people I know. I volunteer as an Imagine Cup judge each year, and I can tell you first hand that their caliber of technology resourcefulness is extraordinary[7].  These are among the most mission-driven, idealistic people on the planet. And increasingly this includes High School students down the street.  Call your local school and sign 'em up! 

4)      Share an application with an organization in your sector.  Has one of your volunteers, interns or tech-oriented employee developed a cool app?  Donate it! At NetHope we have a project underway to create a technology catalogue of useful apps.  Like old book exchange, give one, take one.  TechSoup has a variation on this called App It Up.  The idea is, the more we share applications, the more likely we will find really useful ones for our specific work.[8]

5)      Share some services with an organization in your sector and split the costs; start by sharing a person.[9] While I was on sabbatical at Tuck/Dartmouth, one of the things I heard from small NGOs in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, is that they couldn't afford a staff position to manage their donor data and systems.    But they were open to sharing a person. We recommended creating a support consortium. Sometimes this can be informally done, especially with volunteers, but you'll likely need an MOU that covers what each participant commits to and someone to coordinate it.

The After-hours Help consortium is a case in point.  It began with five NGOs in the UK, including four NetHope members, who shared a need to provide service coverage for employees working after hours at home or travelling.  They decided to share a remote help desk service for hours outside UK business hours. The group has an informal oversight Board run by one of the member CIOs.  They contracted with Microland in Bangalore.  IFRC joined in early 2011. For us the value proposition was clear: increase our service desk to 24x7 for less than $2 per hour.  That’s affordable for even the smallest nonprofits.

6)      Sign-up for donated software from TechSoup and Idealware.[10]  TechSoup began by offering sales demo copies of WordPerfect to non-profits. They now offer hundreds of titles from nearly 50 technology-related companies in more 35 countries, primarily serving smaller NGOs.  They also support a community of practice, noted above.  The members support each other with advice and experience. No nonprofit should be going it alone and buying software and hardware retail.

7)      Partner with a corporation to get their laptops and other equipment coming off lease. Many corporations lease their PCs and laptops, often over two years with a $1 buy-out.  These are perfectly good machines for most NGOs and should last another three years. And the donating company may also be eligible for a tax write-off at fair market value.  That's a win-win. Ask for them.

8)      Rent your software on-line.  Non-profits need to get out of the business of managing infrastructure. Technology companies are much better at this, and the incremental costs for NGOs to do this themselves becomes less attractive as the use of technology grows. And it will!  The cost of renting applications is falling and many technology companies will provide these at cost for non-profits.

9)      Develop a partnered IT strategy.  Plan with other local NGOs and create an informal board of IT advisors.  Every NGO needs an IT plan, as much to avoid costs as to invest in the gains technology makes possible. This presupposes a strategic direction for where you want to go.  As the Cheshire Cat remarked, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.”[11]

Going in any direction with technology may result in a downstream cost. This may especially be true for donated hardware, software, and even consulting services.  What is free today may be a cost you can't afford tomorrow.  If you think through a plan and to total cost of ownership (TCO) you can avoid this common mistake.[12]

Take the opportunity to plan together.  This may be counter intuitive for any organization.  Why would nonprofit want to collaborate on IT Strategy?  Because many of the services IT provides are commodity functions that offer no competitive advantage for doing it on your own.  See the shared after-hours help desk, above, as a case in point.  Shared donor management databases may not make sense, but sharing other applications and tech services may be a way to afford the technologies that one small organization cannot. 

10)  Form a cooperative for experiments like I4D.  Most NGOs cannot afford to experiment. Donors want us to implement the "tried and true." This can be the kiss of death for innovation.  Joining a group is one way to mitigate the risk, much as buying shares in a mutual fund reduces the risks of betting on individual stocks.  NetHope has run Information Technology for Development (I4D) pilot programs in half a dozen areas, including mHealth, mEducation and Microfinance.[13]  Once the proof of concept is established, members can adapt the application to their organization and take the successes to scale.  The cost of failed experiments is a sunk cost in the membership fee.  That’s a lower risk way of experimenting your way toward innovation.  Can’t find an organization like this that you can afford to join?  Band together with some other nonprofits and create one.  That’s what we did at NetHope.

That’s my list of ten practical things you can get started on tomorrow, … if you are willing to collaborate and share.  The question I’ll leave you with is why not do this; what’s standing in your way?

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[1] See NTEN’s networking opportunities and Techsoup’s community forums.

[2] See http://mobileactive.org/ and join their mailing list.  With nearly 6 billion cell phones sold to-date, it is the technology of choice to connect not only with your donors, but more importantly to your beneficiaries.

[3] See Interaction’s Working Groups.  For the CIO4Good listserv, send a note to Dave Simon at Sierra Club (dave.simon AT sierraclub DOT org and convert the caps).

[4] A Google search for “nonprofit listservs” has over 830,000 results as of February 2012. 

[5] See the GE Leadership Programs for example

[6] See Mahboob Mahmood and Gurpreet Minhas, “Corporate Universities and Learning Centers: A Primer,” April, 2011 

[7] I’ve written at length about my Imagine Cup experiences in my Blog.  For example, see: http://eghapp.blogspot.com/2011/07/imagine-cup-day-one.html

[8] This is the iPhones or Android App’s store model applied to NGO applications.  See https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/  

[9] This is exactly what two US-based NGOs did to afford an IT Leader; they split his costs and share his time.

[10] See the Stock arm of Techsoup at https://www.techsoup.org/joining-techsoup/how-to-join-techsoup and the software advisory services of Idealware at http://www.idealware.org/

[11] As the Cheshire Cat said in Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865.

[12] For a good review of TCO, see the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_cost_of_ownership

[13] See NetHope’s Solution Center 

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Lessons from the Philosopher Chef

Paring back to essentials is a liberating act.  It focuses the mind and muscles.  In times of crisis, complexity, and competing demands, it is often helpful to go back to things, the nuggets in our memory, that intuition that this just feels right, or it doesn't.

 Chef Moreno of Il Caminetto, high in the hills above Varenna, Italy, teaches a cooking class that is more than creating great pasta.[1]  He is also part historian of the local culture, part philosopher, and part humorist.  It is no wonder how he has built the highest rating in Tripadvisor for a wide area in the lake region of Italy and beyond.[2] 

While making the dough for tortellini, he first creates a circle of flour and hollow out the center to hold the eggs.  He begins the mixing with his fingers only, moving from the center outward, taking in more and more of the flour. 

“How can you tell if the dough is mixed well.” we ask?

“Close your eyes and touch the dough. Think of a beautiful woman, and touch the dough.  You will know when it’s ready.”

This is the building of the visceral, the “muscle memory” that knows the texture without a measure or timer, or—God forbid—a dough machine.  With Chef Moreno you are out in the wilderness of the Outback with only a swag and a book of matches. 

He goes on to say, “Usually when you follow your instincts, the first thing you do is the right thing; with too much technology, you lose touch with that instinct.”

Someone asks, “How do you know when the dough is rolled thin enough?”

“When you can see the wood grain [of the table] through it, it’s thin enough.”

How do you measure that?  “In a recipe, you must do interpretation.  A recipe is a base, but without passion, it is nothing… [you must] show out who you are, what you are.”

Lest we think that he is not a perfectionist, he corrects someone who says the tortellini is perfect: “Not perfetto! Everything can be good, but it can be better.”

This kind of connection with the soul is a well-spring of creativity that leads us to make things, to share what is simple and basic and visceral is easy.  Ask Chef Moreno.

A priest once told a story of an amputee, still flexing the toes of a lost limb.  The muscle memory was so strong; it was present even in its absence.  That’s the kind of visceral connection with our instincts to share that we need to develop in our organizations.

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[1] See the restaurant and cooking web site, here: http://www.ilcaminettoonline.com/lezioni_e.html

[2] The Il Caminetto review is here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187837-d1091635-Reviews-Ristorante_Il_Caminetto_Cookery_Lessons-Varenna_Lake_Como_Lombardy.html

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Why is the Digital Divide so important, and what can you do about it?

Last week I had the honor of speaking at the Youth Action and Volunteering Development meeting on the day before the opening of the 18th biennial session of the IFRC General Assembly in Geneva.  My topic was "Why is the Digital Divide so important, and what can you do about it?"  Here is an expanded version of my brief remarks:

We are all aware of the digital divide in our world: those who have free access to information and the tools to make it useful for us, and those who do not.  In a recent study, we found that this divide exists in our Red Cross Red Crescent Movement.  We have an internal divide that makes it difficult for us "have equal status and share equal responsibilities" –from our very principle of universality that we so value.

Why is the digital divide so important?  I think there are three reasons.  First, information through the Internet is the great leveller; it allows all of us to learn and discover in the same school, so to speak.   Second, we have seen how with the access to technologies, the last can become first, and the first can become last.  This is the other side of levelling the field.   But the third is perhaps the most important: it is about the opportunity to lead.

Why work on the digital divide?  Because you have the opportunity to lead and to help others to lead, and be a part of this great conversation we call the Internet. This is perhaps the greatest volunteer work we can do in the digital age as digital citizens.

What can you do about it?  How can you help bridge the digital divide?  Rather than give you a specific assignment or recipe, I want to challenge you with five broad principles. Think of these as the three D's, an O and an M.

1)   Dream big 

2)   Do the homework 

3)   Dare to remove obstacles

 4)   Seek and stand on Others' work 

5)   Mash-up pieces in new ways

First, dare to dream big.  I have found that the successful efforts come from the many tries and the audacious attempts.  Take for example the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition story.  College students from over 200 countries compete each year.  I’ve been a software design judge for three of the past four years. I view this as part of my giveback to the community of IT workers in nonprofits (and beyond).  The Imagine Cup is about the IT workers of the future who focus on software that can have an impact on achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, the context for the competition.

These are big dreams.  This year, 400,000 students registered for the competition; 3,000 made it to the country competitions, and 400 of the best went to New York to compete in the finals for 27 awards.  These are the best of the best ideas.

In one week I saw more innovation than in years before.  Why is that?  These students have no business knowledge, no marketing experience, no money, and little time.  But they also have no sense of limitation.  And it is this last one that makes all the difference in world.  They dare to dream about what technology can do.  These are your peers.  Your dreams can be every bit as big.

Second, do the homework.  Think about how to make solutions sustainable, to cover their costs and deliver a valuable service to customers.  Mohamed Yunus talks about services for the poor that are economically sustainable, and which produce social good as their profit^[1].  This means thinking through the basic business case for your idea.  Interestingly, only one team in the twenty I saw in New York at Imagine Cup this year did this homework. 

Third, dare to remove obstacles.  The story of the frogs illustrates this in an interesting way.

Story of the Frogs^[2]

"Once upon a time there was a bunch of tiny frogs who decided to stage a climbing competition. The goal was to reach the top of a very high tower. A big crowd had gathered around the tower to see the race and cheer on the contestants.

The race began...

Honestly, No one in crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower. The crowd yelled statements such as:

"Oh, WAY too difficult!!!”

"'They will NEVER make it to the top.”

"Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!”

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one. Except for those, who in a fresh tempo, were climbing higher and higher.

The crowd continued to yell, “It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!”

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up. But ONE continued higher and higher and higher. This one wouldn’t give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who, after a big effort, was the only one who reached the top! THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how he had found the strength to succeed and reach the goal? It turned out that the winner was DEAF!"

The moral of the story?  Turn a deaf ear to the “nay-sayers,” those who say it can’t be done,   those who point to all the obstacles.   Just do it.

Fourth, seek Others' work. This is just plain old good engineering. Find those who have solved some of the problems and stand on their shoulders. Don’t fall victim to the “not invented here” syndrome. Seek out the good work and build on it. Your mantra should be “no solos.”

Our new Technology Catalogue is built on this premise. We believe there is more to gain in discovering others’ technology successes in the Movement than in building our own. We have discovered over 850 applications the process. This requires what I call “headquarters humility.” It also means being open to “good enough” solutions.

Fifth, mash-up pieces in new ways. One of the top three contestants in Imagine Cup was the team from Jordan. They took a WII receiver and duck-taped it to a PC monitor. Then they took apart a TV remote control and mounted the diode on a baseball cap. Finally, they developed a program so the WII tracked the motions of the baseball cap and caused the cursor to move on the screen. With a pause, the cursor clicked and selected an item.

No big deal, right? Except the paraplegic women who had lost the use of her arms and legs told us in a video how she had gained her life back[3]. This system allowed her to create Facebook entries and keep in touch with friends, and dial cell phone numbers in her address book to communicate with family. She had her life back. That’s the power of software.

The interesting footnote is that they didn’t create anything new. They took existing pieces off-the-shelf and put them together in a new way. The creative may be in the combinations of the existing. That’s a powerful principle in technology.

So I challenge you today to think about how you can dare to dream big, do the homework to make it sustainable, dare to remove obstacles, seek and stand on others' work and mash-up pieces in new ways. If you lead by doing this, you just may change the world!

__________________________________

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

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[1] Muhammad Yunus, “Social Business,” December 25, 2007,   http://www.muhammadyunus.org/Social-Business/social-business/

[2]See http://mylifemantras.blogspot.com/2009/12/be-deaf-to-negativity-lovely.htm

[3] See the video of this woman’s testimony on YouTube, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGmmzXHheWE

A Tale of Two Dreams

Here is a paraphrase of the remarks I made at the NetHope Tenth Anniversary celebration in Dublin, Ireland.[1]

I’d like to tell two stories.

The first is about my generation.  Ten years ago, seven NGO IT leaders got together in San Jose.  Some of my colleagues around the table tonight were there at the Cisco Campus and Dipak Basu’s dining room table in September 2001.  We all faced a common problem about how to take technology out the last mile to where our organizations work in the field.  We had a shared need.  More importantly, we believed that technology could make a difference in the work our organizations were doing in the far reaches of our programs.  We could see it working. We had connected the dots in our imaginations.  And we dared to trust each other to do something about it together; because none of us was going to succeed going it alone.  This was how NetHope got started.

Our dream was that we could bring technology to where it was most needed faster, better and cheaper if we did it together.  And we believed that as a group we could be a stronger partner with the technology companies with whom we needed to work.  Both of these goals have proven to more true than we ever imagined ten years ago.  There are more than 200 professionals here tonight, and all of you are passionate about what we are doing to bring IT where it can do the most good in the world.  But this would not have come to be if we did not dare to dream around that modest table in San Jose.

The second story is about a new generation, the college students who each year compete in the Imagine Cup Competition.  I’ve been a software design judge for three of the past four years. I view this as part of my giveback to the community of IT workers in nonprofits (and beyond).  The Imagine Cup is about the IT workers of the future who focus on software that can have an impact on the Millennium Development Goals, the context for the competition. 

These are big dreams.  This year, 400,000 students registered for the competition; 3,000 made it to the country competitions, and 400 of the best went to New York to compete in the finals for 27 awards.  These are the best of the best ideas.

In one week I will see more innovation than in years before.  Why is that?  These students have no business knowledge, no marketing experience, no money, and little time.  But they also have no sense of limitation.  And it is this last one that makes all the difference in world.  They dare to dream about what technology can do.

During the NetHope Summit this week, we took a tour of the Intel fabrication plant in Kildare.  It was truly an awesome experience—a geek’s heaven, if you will.  During the tour, our guide mentioned that at Intel they talk about the big numbers, and the small numbers.  The enormous and incredibly expensive tools that create the inexpensive, tiniest circuits we know.  I think this speaks to what we know: that big dreams with small groups can change the world.

So I have a great hope here tonight: that if we dare to dream big, like we did as a small group ten years ago, as a much larger, stronger community today, we will create the greatest use of technology for good in the next ten years.  Thank you.

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[1] The slide deck for my "NetHope Chairman's Report," NetHope Summit and Tenth Anniversary at Intel's Campus, Kildare, Ireland, November 10, 2011, is on my web page, here.

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."

Scarcity

Scarcity

At breakfast today we learned that Steve Jobs had died.  The icon of business who built technology “for the rest of us” had passed.  Our group of colleagues and Fellows at the Bellagio Center offered their thoughts about how his work had changed us: “persistent innovation,” a “knack for the user,” a “brilliant designer,” a “great comeback,” “only 56.”

I remember reading his address to the graduating class at Stanford in 2005[1].  His most quoted phrase, from the back of the last issue of The Whole Earth Catalog was “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”  Yet it was his third story about confronting death that was most poignant and personal.  Having faced and beaten pancreatic cancer in 2004, he said “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.”

Yesterday was my turn to give a presentation on what I was working on at Bellagio.  During the question and answers that followed, something happened that I’ve learned to look for: out of the give-and-take came a way to reformulate something, to say it in a new way.  What I said was that it’s somewhat ironic that there’s value in scarcity.  It may be a reversal of what you’d expect.  It may drive people to work together because they just don’t have the resources to go it alone.

I think Jobs was saying something similar, but perhaps in a more ultimate way: that life is the great scarce resource.  And that is a positive; it makes the status quo smaller, and opens up the possibility that change can happen before it’s too late.   Perhaps staying hungry may just be the way to dial up the creative juices and fulfill something.  Thanks Steve.

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[1] Full text is on the Stanford web site, here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

"The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent positions, strategies or opinions of any of the organizations with which I am associated."