How to live in a world of your own design?

I just finished watching the PandoMonthly Fireside Chat with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky right now and I enjoyed his stories about his time at RISD and "building a world of his own design."  I agree that entrepreneurs and innovators can start with a simple concept of how they want to change the world on a major scale.  So what is an example of how I might live in a world of my own design?

My current entrepreneurial project revolves around injecting trust into society.  While I'm not going to go into all the details in this forum, the basic idea is to make it impossible for people to lie about where and when they went to school and what they studied there.  This has nothing to do with valuing a degree or comparing individual performance (i.e. GPA).  It has to do with the fact that the group of people that claim to have graduated with a particular degree is often larger than the group of people that actually did complete that particular degree.  This difference represents false claims, and reducing this number to zero would represent a positive iteration of the world in which I live.

At this point, let's take a step back and analyze this from the perspective of a social enterprise.  A traditional business generally needs to create value for its employees and its customers.  Tim O'Reilly, a favorite famous person of mine, alludes here to a third output of creating value for "others whom you may never even meet." It is this tenant that is the driving force behind the third bottom line of social enterprises, regardless of whether this empathy for unknown people is important to the founder or to the consumer.  For example sending a free pair of shoes or glasses to someone in need is a moral good for the entrepreneur and the consumer, and it falls under the category of charity.  Charity is a moral action, and many consumers purchase goods without knowing the tertiary value that is being provided by a triple bottom line business.

O'Reilly "urges companies to create more value than they capture" and I am curious as to how I might measure the value created on my mission to inject trust into society.  Maybe TOMS Shoes can provide shoes and glasses for everyone in need, but they are definitely making a great impact that they can measure how many pairs are delivered.

My goal is more abstract in that I am trying to remove the ability to lie about one particular thing from all society.  Will it be measured by the decrease in the number of people that are caught with inaccurate education histories? Or by a greater acceptance of people who have unfinished degrees or no degree at all?

Rekindling the XodpoX

It's been a while, yes.  I've been busy since 2010 working at Event Farm, and having moved on to re-start development on CertiServer my development skills have been dusted off a bit.  One development primer project, working with the SurveyMonkey API, is ideally suited for collecting the xodpox definitional zeitgeist.

So stayed tuned, and let's see if I can get a survey up here for the word debt.  It's back in the mainstream conversation, only this time it's not personal debt, but national debt.  Maybe I should target policy makers and see how their definition of debt differs from that of the average citizen.

A new definition of xodpox.

If you haven't noticed, the word xodpox is a visual palindrome. The fact that it can look the same but be flipped over symbolizes how some words can look the same but have their meaning "flipped over" or mis-understood. This phenomenon of xodpox, or definitional inversion, can have an impact on behavioral trends in society.

I am shifting the focus of this blog to discover, research, and explain instances of xodpox in society. In cases where certain perceptions of definition are better than others, we will identify ways to reinforce better perceptions of definition.

Identifying instances of negative xodpox and efforts to "flip back" to a state of positive xodpox will lead to positive social change. There is also potential to measure the current state of xodpox for key terms in society and day-to-day life. We aim to identify these key terms and generate indices of xodpox.

Young Athlete Aims to Break World Record: Running a Marathon on Seven Continents for Seven Charities

Young Athlete Aims to Break World Record: Running a Marathon on Seven Continents for Seven Charities

Tomorrow night in NYC there will be an event with Girls on the Run.
Here are the details:

In the Running and our N. American partner organization, Girls on the Run Manhattan, invite you to "Break the Ice" at our winter fundraiser. Join us for some frosty beverages as we help send Erin off to her next marathon: Antarctica!

Thursday, February 21, 7:00PM

Red Sky Bar & Lounge
47 E. 29th Street (btw Park and Madison), New York

3 hour open bar (beer/wine/soda) plus appetizers and a silent auction with all proceeds going to benefit GOTRM.

Tickets: $45 at the door


--The In the Running Team

Angry about the dollar?

Should we launch our next venture in the US? Or should we start in Europe? The venture is targeted at helping small-businesses, a sector that the US has led. Many people think that the dollar is not the place to be, and yes I would rather be paid in Pounds right now, but then again there's nothing like a little macro-level competition between currencies. Yes the US may be living beyond it's means, but that's just going to force us to become even more productive... Let's see if Nostravo / xodpox can help trigger the next wave.

It's been a while, so I'd better post something...

Here are some thoughts on virtual reality vs. a natural higher state of consciousness... yes it is mostly questions:

The race between virtual reality (ala matrix) and the discovery of the physical world being better.

Team 1: Dropping into a virtual reality (i.e. focusing the human experience purely on the brain and maintaining the body as the support system for shared conscious through tech). Techno-shared-conscious.

Team 2: Uncovering the subconscious might allow us to have shared conscious without technology (this would probably be an evolutionary jump). But will having a man-made artificial reality accelerate or cut-off the next step of the pure brain experience? Which would be better? An understanding of the subconscious would be required in order to create the artificial bond through technology, but we run into a chicken and the egg scenario where we are forcing acclimation through the assumed paradigm that we use to create the techno-shared-conscious.

Is there a shared conscious? Shared experiences create intersections in time between individuals. What is conscious?: the ability to process critically within a personal context. With a shared or hive structure, the context needs to shift to the group. What issues and thoughts are unique to a group conscious? What are the potential benefits to a group conscious? As individuals are we blind to facets of reality that can only been seen by a shared conscious? If so, how can individuals "create" a virtual reality with the purpose of transcending to, or just seeing, new facets of reality. Is there a way to enhance reality through the virtual? (what are the definitions of reality and virtual)


What is the interaction between humans and machines? Will this be a progressive bridge, or the ultimate block to achieving shared conscious? Will the mechanism for a techno-shared-conscious virtual reality divert us from a natural evolutionary path to shared conscious?

If so, people might have to pick a path which may lead to a rift between the techno-shared-conscious & natural shared conscious groups.

NFTE Project 762 update:

NFTE's project, Project 762, a documentary about youth entrepreneurship coupled with educational materials, has been chosen as one of the Top 50 projects by American Express cardholders! Once the winning project has been selected, American Express will donate between $1 million and $5 million to bring it to life.

If you are an American Express cardholder, please register and vote at http://www.membersproject.com/ for Project 762 by Sunday, July 15. The top 25 project ideas will be announced July 17. You can find it under "Business and Finance" and titled "Inspiring Kids..."

Voting for the Top 5 projects will taking place July 17-22, with those winners being announced July 24. The final round of voting occurs July 24 - August 5. The Winning Idea will be announced on Tuesday, August 7.

You can place one vote for each American Express Card that you have, so if you have a corporate card, please register and vote with that one in addition to your personal card! And encourage your friends, family members and coworkers with American Express Cards to vote as well.

Please vote for Project 762! This documentary will help bring much-needed attention to the importance of entrepreneurship education in the lives of disadvantaged youth.