Content of the Presentation

We could start structuring the outline in this part.

Discussion

Hi Sam,

Just throwing a couple of questions for the presentation

1) what format will we eventually use for the slides? I have powerpoint, but I understood that you don't. I could probably easily install open office on my laptop. What are you using?

2) what kind of projects do we want to talk about: developping a product, creating a company, developping a community like BarCampBank.

My view is that all these projects have a lot in common, and that screening is necessary in the different aspects, but the wording might be different at first to avoid misunderstanding.

3) if we take the track of speaking of projects that could lead to for profit companies (which is actually my first understanding when I usually use the word project) we could take the approach of the entrepreneur (screening meaning, when should I stop this project) or from an investor (screening meaning, whare are the minimum criterias that should be met to enter my scope?).

Let's start iterating.

Cheers,

-- FredericBaud

Frederic:

1) I am currently using open Office, and don't have any microsoft office products (I use a mac). We could try it out with you using powerpoint and me using open Office, as I have gotten it to work in the past. Or, you can download open office if you'd like. I also have an alternate proposal: We could use SlideBliki, and create our slides in any program that we choose individually, and then upload them to a SlideBliki that I can create for BarCampBank use. What do you think about that? Then, during Flashmeetings, we could simply direct everyone to this SlideBliki and walk them through the presentation.

2 & 3) You make some good distinctions,a nd I think that we should focus on for-profit investment screening.

The reason being that not-profit investment is generally donation, or an investment of time, and not-for-profit genrally "screens" projects either through a decision making body, like a board, or through community discussion and deliberation, in the case of projects like open source software development. (sometimes both, as in Wikimedia foundation).

We could mention these differences in our presentation, however, just for informational and context purposes.

The interest that I have in BarCampBankProjectScreening is primarily in a for-profit investing context. specifically in relation to the proposal that I put up at BarCampBankDiscussion

Based on The Solari Model

As we discussed in BarCampBankFlashMeeting1 with Ori, we could create a version of the Solari model. We could modify the Solari model to create a BarCampBank DoTankInvestmentNetwork? model. One difference from Solari is that, our group could be based on a network of people, and not based on a location. We can help groups with Solari-concept services likeConsumerAggregation support, Small business incubation, “back office” and Pinko marketing support, as well as support in BarCampBank concepts like implementing open business models, helping other groups in creating effective knowledge commons via wiki, and WikiNet concepts, and other social software tools, information visualization, trust and value metrics, Pinko marketing, and more.

I propose that we create a structure where we define all who are currently listed as BarCampBank members become DoTankInvestmentNetwork? “A” shareholders. This means that they have a vote when our DoTankInvestmentNetwork? articles say that a vote is needed for decision making. Yet, at the same time, we try to DevolvePower in our network so that most decision making is done through ConsensusGroup when possible. When voting is needed, we can look at models like BeyondYes. Also, this governance discussion is of course open to everyone else’s input. If they leave, they sell their “A” share back to the group based on nominal value.

So, we can then create “B” shares that are based on equity pools that we collectively create and manage. (We can always change the what we name the shares, this is to demonstrate the concept). These “B” shares could be issued used to raise money when we have helped to build something up to the point that we believe it is ready to be funded. We would build it up by:

• Attracting people who have ideas with potential (demonstrative example: ProWiki).
• combining our talents to help them accelerate research of the existing opportunities, market conditions and potential markets, open business model opportunities.
• Use this research to help them implement ways for them to put into place the infrastructure needed, with as little overhead/upfront cost as possible. And attract and seek out communities of users/customers, and to foster an open value network around their activities and connections.

We would do this research and building up of infrastructure in open and transparent ways whenever possible. We can then serve as a more transparent venture captalist/angel investor, to help the start-up group avoid these 10 reasons to usually shy away from venture capital, by first helping them build up their enteprise/idea, then acting as an intermediary to help them fund the idea once we help them prove that it can work and generate revenue on it’s own. We issue “B” shares on behalf of the start up, and we seek investment in proven ideas. Then we pay ourselves for the work we have put into this based on a percentage of the “B” shares sold. Each person from our network who has contributed work on ech project can opt to receive a predetermined payment amount, or payment in the form of “B” shares that they can sell later.

This is a very rough draft of a model. Let’s have some dialogue with everyone involved who is interested in this idea, and see what grows out of that.''

The above idea actually does incorporate some of the project screening ideas from not-for-profit open source software development projects, where people mostly invest time/ \"sweat equity\". I guess this falls under the heading "helping to find and grow for-profit companies and projects". I agree we should keep the subjects seperate to avoid confusion.

Basically, it proposing that a group, like ours, could potentially open up, and make transparent some of the screening, and later development processes of some projects that we would potentially seek investment on behalf of, or that we would contribute "sweat equity" to.

Under this scenario, I propose that at least some of the fundamental properties of a potential project would be:

Initial Screening

1. Outstanding Ideas- Detecting and determining outstanding ideas is as much art form as science, IMO (perhaps more art form than science?)

1. Committment to Ethics By Potential Project Participants This seems important, IMO, and we can expand upon it if you agree. Ethics like transparency, ethical/pinko/open marketing, sustainable design, fairness, quality, responsibility, etc. Otherwise, we just become another part of what we are attempting to innovate our way out of with BarCampBank.

1. potential markets although detecting and determining outstanding ideas is arguably largely an art form, there are some frameworks for looking at disruptive technologies and ideas, and judging their impact, and potential markets. These include frameworks like Clayton M. Christensen's Seeing What's Next (will outline here later).

Deeper Analysis

1. Deep Collaborative Analysis If we do an initial check of ideas, ethics, and potential markets, then we should spend time with deeper collaborative analysis of the project.

This can include:

• Futures Workshops (impact analysis, scenario building, backcasting, Causal Layered Analysis, Psycho social review/impact)

• Collective Intelligence deliberation of group, or groups (see: http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2006/12/03/wisdom_of_crowd....html for difference between collective Intelligence and Wisdom Of Crowds). Deliberating groups can be given incentive/reward based on group, not individual, performance, for instance. This helps create conditions where individuals are more likely to reveal their hidden knowledge profiles because their incentive is tied to the group (see: Cass Sunstein's Infotopia). Groups need not compete against each other to create these conditions. But individual incentive is best tied to group. So, the group collaboratively deliberates about project. And the outcome of that deliberation is used in the final decision making process.

• Wisdom of crowds individual incentive Here, both Prediction markets, and The Delphi Method can allow people to exercise independent decision making without group pressures. And incentive can be based on individual performance.

This is a rough framework. I'll come back and elaborate more once you have a chance to give your opinion. Pleae feel free to refactor, add, or totally change direction if you would prefer to cover something else for BarCampBankProjectScreening. This is what I have in mind. Although, I am open to covering something different, of course, if you prefer. --SamRose

Hi Sam, I'm fine with working on SlideBliki.

I can see a lot of convergence with what I had in mind. The difference may be that I had a rather generic framework in my, that could subsequently be applied to the Solari model or standard VC screening.

As a quick example to give more content to what I mean, I could relate

1. Outstanding Ideas- to technologies

1. Committment to Ethics By Potential Project Participants to assembling a team

1. potential markets - exact matching, I'm very much in line with a lot of ideas presented by Clayton Christensen

This could continue with standard strategic questions like defensible position, core strategic assets,..

Maybe we could start throwing bullet points on SlideBliki. We may double/triple some slides when we want to keep different tracks of ideas in perspective (e.g. Solari stages, VC stages, generic stages) and use this Wiki to exchange broader discussions on the different slides.

-- FredericBaud

Frederic, ok, I think it can make sense for us to start out with something more generic. Maybe you can flesh out what you have in mind here. Although, I can tell you that the way that standard VC screening works cannot really be applied to the types of for-profit cooperative, and Solari-based models that I am talking about.

None the less, I agree with you that it can be useful for us to start out talking about the generic and basic concepts of VC Project Screening, before we get into ideas about changing them. So, I'll export a lot of what I have here to some other wiki page soon. And, in the mean time, if you'd like, we can start laying out a generic overview. I like the umbrella subjects of "Technologies", "assembling a team", "potential markets", "defensible position", "core strategic assets". What else would you liek to include? -- SamRose

So, I'm going to summarize what we have so far:

• Technologies: Including the core ideas of the project
• Assembling a team: Which can include looking at reputation, committment to ethics, etc
• Potential markets:

Clayton M Christensen gives a general overview of users of disruptive technology with the following framework in his book “Seeing What’s Next”:

1. Current non-users (sometimes called “new market” consumers): These are people who previously did not use this type of product or tool at all, because it required too much expertise. Once the product or tool becomes simple enough for them to use, they become the “new market” for it. They will be totally new to this type of technology, but the technological innovation allows them to do something that only experts or Pro-Amateurs were able to do previously.
2. “Overshot” users/customers: these people are current users of this type of product/technology/tool who find existing products or services too complicated, and too expensive. They are already looking for the existing technology in question, but they are seeking it at a lower price, and higher ease of use, more reliability. These people people are still trying to do the simpler things/functions of that the technology or tool accomplishes most of the time, while the improvements and innovations of the type of product or service they are using has actually passed them by. What they want to get done remains consistent, while the products/tools they use tend to be improving at a fast rate.
3. “Undershot” customers: These are current users who actually want more features and more complexity and functionality, and are willing to pay more, also sometimes known as “lead” users, CommunityWiki users, pro-ametuer user (see Von Hippel’s “Democratizing Innovation” for a description of this user).

• Defensible Position
• Core Strategic Assets

Once we decide which basic generic topics we want to cover, we can then use them to as the basic skeleton of the presentation, and flesh out with examples. Then, we can plug this into a template that I have for creating presentations, if you want, which allows us to create a kind of "story board" for the presentation, and we can decide what kind of visuals we want after we nail down the text content of the presentation.