Too Soon to Turn Out the Lights?

Congress is mandating the elimination of incandescent light bulbs by 2014. I think that we shouldn't write off incandescence quite yet. First, compact flourescents contain mercury and thus environmental problems with disposal.

Second, flourescents can't be dimmed nor are they always bright enough. I've tried one in my desk lamp and it is just too dim. I'd miss being able to adjust the level of light to set the right mood or create the right environment for dining, watching a movie, or reading. About half the bulbs in our house are compact flourescents but in the other half of the fixtures they would be an inferior choice.

Third, "incandescence" is such a wonderful world. It rolls around the tongue and slips out like an early morning whisper. It speaks of warmth, of a special glow, of an ethereal quality.

GE claims that it has an incandescent bulb that will be as efficient as flourescent by 2010. We ought to allow -- and encourage -- multiple paths toward the goal of greater energy efficiency. The government should not mandate technologies; they are too susceptable to the pressure of lobbyists and the deliberative legislative process is a mismatch with the fast changing world of technology.

If incandescents are to go the way of the buggy whip, I'd rather it be because consumers choose an alternative rather than having no choice at all.

Social Network for Non-Profits

I was at the AlwaysOn Media conference in New York last week. It was mostly a caucophanous jumble of people hoping to get funding for the next generation of technology that can insert advertising in yet more places (watch for ads dynamically embedded in video and queued to the spoken text in the clip soon -- it's going to make ads even more ubiquitous than ever). The lesson these whiz kids need to learn is that an ad isn't relevant because it is aligned with the content; it is relevant when it is aligned with a consumer's desire to buy. Only a fraction of one's Web activity is shopping.

But one company I was pleased to learn about is ammado.com. They are a social networking platform specifically for non-profits and the philanthropic community. Their primary focus is to provide a networking tool to organizations with a widely dispersed staff, volunteers, and supporters (e.g. there is a network for Amnesty International). They aren't a network looking to aggregate individuals but rather to facilitate organizations doing.

There seems to be a dozen new social networks every day. "Hi, I'm starting a social network" seemed to be the standard opening line at the cocktail party at this event. But I think that these folks are on to something. They have an impressive roster of organizaitons signed on to date. It's nice to have a social networking environment that is more contextually appropriate for non-profits that the big public sites. On the other hand, there is a limit to how many networks one can maintain.

Social Enterprise Presidential Debate

The social entrepreneurs I've met in the U.S. are among the most innovative, passionate, and thougthful people in the country. They are in touch with many of the pressing social and environmental challenges that will face the next president.

I would like to propose an on-line debate among the presidential candidates moderated by and with questions posed by social entrepreneurs. It can be online -- let's keep the carbon footprint small, the reach large, and the time impact on the candidates' schedules minimal.

And if the candidates themselves won't make time for us, let's take surrogates for the candidates. It might actually make it a bit easier to focus on the issues rather than the personalities.

For McCain, Romney, Huckabee and Paul it would be a chance to engage with the entrepreneurs they continually celebrate in their speeches. SEs are (often) providing free market solutions to societal challenges. For Clinton and Obama it would be a chance to engage with a group driven to address the problems of poverty, hunger, health, environmental degradation, and other issues that they say are at the heart of their campaigns.

For all of us, it would be a chance to get beyond the usual questions and canned answers that everyone must be tired of by now (Wolff Blitzer was still asking Hillary to declare her Iraq war vote a mistake -- no matter how you feel about the vote, you know she's responded to this about a million times so far).

Join me. Let's pressure the campaigns to address social entrepreneurship.