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Small Change: Does 'Microlending' Actually Fight Poverty?

Like just about everyone else, I am a fan of microfinance. Although there is a lot more to economic opportunity than loans, it has always seemed to me to be part of grassroots empowerment. But I suspect that I've formed my opinion based on prevailing opinion, powerful stories, and the way the model suits me as a donor (or lender). It seems that the actual effectiveness of the model in fighting poverty is, at the very least, in question. In Small Change: Does 'Microlending' Actually Fight Poverty?, Drake Bennett of The Boston Globe reports on two new studies coming out of MIT's Jameel Poverty Action Lab. They are probably "the most thorough, careful studies yet done on the topic. What they find is that, by most measures, microcredit does not offer a way out of poverty." Posted: 10/20/09; 4:23:44 PM #

The 15 Laws of Meeting Power

Venkatesh Rao decided to look at meetings as a problem in multi-agent systems design - what he describes as "thinking of humans in unforgivably simplistic and reductive ways". But the resulting 15 Laws of Meeting Power are really very interesting. This is definitely my kind of thinking - not short and sweet sound bites, but rather rigorous and disciplined thought experiments. In brief, his 15 laws are: (1) The Power Of The Obvious, (2) The Power Of Polarization, (3) The Power of the Dancing Referee, (4) The Power of Positioning, (5) The Power Of Listening and Citation, (6) The Power Of Non-Trite Compromise, (7) The Power Of Vocabulary Expansion and Contraction, (8) The Power Of Controlled Aggression, (9) The Power Of Brinkmanship, (10) The Power Of Emotional Control/Lack Thereof, (11) The Power Of the Me-Too, (12) The Power Of Non-Egalitarian Engagement: Dare To Be Rude, (14) The Power Of Non-Zero Sum Engagement, and (15) The Power of Humor. Do you spend more than an hour or two in meetings a week (meaning a hundred hours a year or more), then you ought to spend some time with these ideas. Posted: 10/20/09; 4:16:26 PM #

Stephen Downes' Thoughts on Trust

I recommended The Trust Blog, by the staff at GuideStar, to you recently. And I've been teaching seminars on the topic of trust building, networks of trust, and related topics for many years. So, I was really pleased to see Stephen Downes (of whom I am a huge fan), offer his Thoughts on Trust. I think he nails it when he says that "discussions of trust get started precisely in cases where there is no trust." Although the context of his post is new technology, his observations are entirely applicable to the widespread issues of trust in civil society. Posted: 10/20/09; 3:41:45 PM #

10 Golden Rules of Social Media

Yes, the title is linkbait, but I like it anyway. Aliza Sherman has been doing this almost as long as I have and her digestion of 20 plus years of experience into 10 Golden Rules of Social Media are utterly simple and powerful. They could easily be a checklist for any social media project or campaign: (1) Respect the Spirit of the 'Net. (2) Listen. (3) Add Value. (4) Respond. (5) Do Good Things. (6) Share the Wealth. (7) Give Kudos. (8) Don't Spam. (9) Be Real. (10) Collaborate. In fact, it makes me think that I ought to see if I could build some research around this list. Unfortunately, the most important one (indeed the one that leads to all the other nine, as far as I'm concerned) is a challenging one to test. "Respect the spirit of the Net." I have a solid idea of what that means and oddly, I think it's a large part of what people pay me for. But could I build an instrument for it? I'm not so sure. Posted: 10/20/09; 3:35:53 PM #