Some Serious Biking

VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo.

TED Talks: Wael Ghonim, Bill Gates

Passion For Microfinance, Passion For Social Media

Image via WikipediaWhen you are gelling the DNA of a young company, when you are laying down the rudiments of its culture, when you are slowly building a team, there are decisions you have to make.

Tony of Zappos has a few things to say about the topic. One thing Tony does is after he trains people, he offers them 3,000 dollars to leave. Another thing he does is he lets go the top talented people who deliver when they don't fit into the Zappos corporate culture.

Two obvious things I have figured out are that you have to have a passion for microfinance - duh! - and you have to have a passion for social media if you want to belong on my corporate team.

Walking/Running: Putting One Foot After The Other

Image via WikipediaDoing a tech startup is a lot like walking and running. You put one foot after another. And you can't do that unless you have a very good idea of where you are at a given point in time and where it is you want to go. Both those angles are important.

If you are just starting out, you can't act like you are in a position to hire 10 people. I have gone to events and met amazing people and I have told them I'd love to hire them. True, I'd love to, but right now I can't afford those 10 amazing people.

So the right thing to do would be to not look for amazing people to hire, right? Wrong. I could hire those 10 amazing people in my round two, which might happen in as much as six months, eight months, a year, or as little as four months after the first round of money is raised.

The right people will understand the language. I have talked to two major social media talents about my round two possibilities. And both of them took me seriously. The talk is informal, private, off the record, there is no concrete offer. But it's real.

Love Is A Symbol

Readers might have noticed a slight change at this blog a few days back.

I do love my readers. But that love sign? Okay, that was me trying to implement the new Facebook Comments thing for my blog. I obviously did not do it right. Instead of Facebook Comments, I ended up with the love symbol. Enjoy while it lasts.

Facebook Comments To Go: Facebook Nailed It

Going High Tech: Selfish Reasons

Image by liewcf via FlickrOne big reason I want to go super high tech with my microfinance startup is because I want me and my small core corporate team in New York City to be able to see all aspects of all our operations in near real time. I want my lenders - people who might put in that $100, that $200, at no interest - to be able to see much of the action in the field. I want them to experience that last mile as much as possible.

We are in microfinance, we are not in some kind of a data collection business. But I'd want my folks doing the last mile to think we are in a data collection business. People in the last mile collect data. People in the middle mile - us, the corporate team - make sense of that data. People in the first mile - the lenders - get served some of that data in palatable ways.

Microfinance Alone Can't Cure Poverty

Image by uncultured via FlickrMicrofinance is no magic bullet. Microfinance alone can't cure poverty.

Good governance, I think, is the first precondition. Yunus saw that. That is why he tried to launch a political party in Bangladesh a few years back. But looks like the politicians in Bangladesh have managed to unlaunch him instead.

Focus, Focus, Focus

Image by Austin Yoder via FlickrAt this blog I want to switch to talking primarily about microfinance and the technologies and business practices primarily related to microfinance. The idea is to keep a steep learning curve. The idea is to communicate. The idea is to enter into conversations.

I have done a lot of reading and commenting on broad developments in tech, and I want to keep doing that, but so far that has been the primary thing by a wide margin. I want to narrow that margin. I want to start talking primarily about microfinance.

The three broad conceptual jumps I have made - moving from a non profit model to a for profit model, moving from a low tech model to a very high tech model, and doing the last mile under the same brand name everywhere through the franchise concept - have to be visited again and again.

I Love This City

Every time a train slides into a train station, it feels like an action movie to me.

I love this city. I love the package deal.

I love the energy in Manhattan. I love the mini Global South of the outer boroughs. Every town on earth is represented here.

New Order: Crystal

(Via Soraya Darabi)

Bill Gates On Education: Making Sense

Image via CrunchBaseBill Gates: The Washington Post: How teacher development could revolutionize our schools

Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat. Meanwhile, other countries have raced ahead. ...... For more than 30 years, spending has risen while performance stayed relatively flat. Now we need to raise performance without spending a lot more. ....... When you need more achievement for less money, you have to change the way you spend. ....... the single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. It is astonishing what great teachers can do for their students. ...... we do very little to measure, develop and reward excellent teaching ....... The value of measuring effectiveness is clear when you compare teachers to members of other professions - farmers, engineers, computer programmers, even athletes. These professionals are more advanced than their predecessors - because they have clear indicators of excellence, their success depends on performance and they eagerly learn from the best. ....... t. The United States spends $50 billion a year on automatic salary increases based on teacher seniority. It's reasonable to suppose that teachers who have served longer are more effective, but the evidence says that's not true. ....... Perhaps the most expensive assumption embedded in school budgets - and one of the most unchallenged - is the view that reducing class size is the best way to improve student achievement. ...... get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students. Part of the savings could then be used to give the top teachers a raise. ..... 83 percent of teachers said they would be happy to teach more students for more pay

This Guy Jack Dorsey

Image via WikipediaI am reading this profile of Jack Dorsey in Vanity Fair, and it has started to feel eery. I guess I have not known some details about the guy I should have known. First let me say I am an admirer. But I also threw a gauntlet his way recently: Jack Dorsey Also Has A FinTech StartUp. It was all in good faith.

I'd compare my work into Nepal's democracy movement of 2006 to Jack Dorsey's work on Twitter. The difference is my work was so cutting edge, I have not officially been given credit yet.

But look at some of these lines:

Urban strolls are one of Dorsey’s favorite activities ......

Get out of town. Someone just described ME! Urban strolls are one of my favorite activities. The article also says the guy's dream job would be to become Mayor of New York City. Wow. First time I am hearing this. I knew he endorsed Reshma 2010, but I did not realize he was all that political. Warms my heart.

Windows Over The Years