Every so often among the 400+ feeds that I follow, I come across something that stops me in my tracks.
“In My Language” by Amanda is directed by a non-speaking autistic person who is able to communicate directly in our language via the web by using a voice synthesiser, video and blog and in Second Life (- which might be one of best uses of that mode. )
“Her blog is a lens into the world of autism that most of us have never experienced. And she takes it to the next level by posting videos about her life on YouTube. Because she’s unable to speak, she communicates through a voice synthesizer, typing the words and letting the computer talk for her”
The idea that autism has its own language is new to me. This piece gives us a glimpse into a world that we may have ideas about but we don’t ever get to hear the language being translated / decoded directly by the actual person (Amanda) in the situation.
Amada’s broadcast gives us a unique perspective and entirely new framework for thinking about language and communication as well as changing our ideas about autism.
I’m not sure that this post is relevant for business - except that it reinforces the need to respect each other and listen well - so perhaps that’s more of a universal truth.he advent of blogs and web 2.0 tools is enabling us to hear very different voices for the first time.
Andy Carvin again
“I’d like to introduce you to Amanda Baggs. She’s a prolific blogger, an avid user of the virtual reality world Second Life, and a popular video blogger on YouTube. She also happens to be severely autistic, and she’ll change the way you think about the role of Web 2.0 in people’s lives”.
Amanda herself describes the video as below
“The first part is in my “native language,” and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. This is not a look-at-the-autie gawking freakshow as much as it is a statement about what gets considered thought, intelligence, personhood, language, and communication, and what does not.”
Note: Found a media plugin that works well at Anarchy Media Player but have deleted the embed because it slows down the pageload too much. Click on the YouTube Link above for Amanda’s “In My Language” - it is worth some thinking time.
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Or alternative title - “How to amplify relationships & build trust in banking” using the power of of social peer networks.
About 5 years ago I wrote about the potential of the web to change the finance sector in new and exciting ways. The example at the time was Grameen who pioneered microfinance loans in Bangladesh which was set-up by Muhammad Yunus. Since then Yunus has won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Part of the thinking was to be able to use technology to amplify relationships and be able to deliver a level of trust outside the conventional wisdom of the day. This allows donors or funders to take part in micro-credit and makes it much easier to do so.
Some of these ideas were discussed in Kevin Kelly’s “New Rules for the New Economy” 1999 book where he correctly picked the rise of peer networks and the positive effect this could have on the quality and quantity of those commercial relationships.
Given that the web and all the social tools and relationships built up around the wider use of technology has now progressed; it should be no surprise that web based loan markets have started to develop in a much wider context. Imagine an angel capital market register for consumers, because that has started happening now. Here are 3 examples.
ZopaWeb in the UK is based on the big idea of social lending. To quote from their about section:
Social Lending is a financial category of genuine and increasing importance.
It’s been happening on a small-scale in a families and social groups for hundreds of years and the internet has opened it up to everybody.
It’s the biggest development in the world of money for decades, as people deal directly with other people, cutting out the banks.
And…from their FAQ 3. Why has no one done this before?
The principle behind Zopa is very similar to local micro-lending schemes that operate in Asia and Latin America. Families, neighbours or friends will lend amongst themselves, often a very structured way, to the benefit of the community. Because the groups are closely knit, trust is not usually an issue.
The growth of the internet, the advance of verification and credit scoring technology, and changing attitudes to corporate institutions have combined to mean this method of lending and borrowing is now viable for everyone.
The Zopa site was launched in March 2005 and currently has 105,000 users according to a news report.
As Kelly expressed it in 1999 - “The central economic imperative of the network economy is to amplify relationships.” *Or as you may prefer it better “Its not Kansas anymore; its Oz” from the Wizard of Oz.
Prosper in the U.S is based on similar thinking and claims 180,000 members and $36m in loans to date. It was launched in February 2006 and interestingly Benchmark Capital is an investor in both Zopa and Prosper. The Prosper system allows users to put a human face on their loan needs.
The way Prosper works is intuitive to people who have used eBay. Instead of listing and bidding on items, people list and bid on loans using Prosper’s online auction platform.
People who want to lend set the minimum interest rate they are willing to earn and bid in increments of $50 to $25,000 on loan listings they select. People who lend can easily diversify using “standing orders”, which automatically make many small loans to different borrowers.
Kiva whose tagline is ”Loans that Change Lives” has a different business model. According to their stated objectives loans are interest free to micro credit lenders who then charge their own interest rates. PayPal provides free processing service and while you stand to get your loan back - eventually; the service is still refining its business model. It plans on charging 2% interest to field partners (actual micro-credit loan managers) who then onlend at rates much lower than other finance sources, if there are any.
”Kiva is using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.”
It is clear that using the web for social re-engineering in the three examples listed above represents quite a significant shift in the way that loans can be raised. It is also likely that over time the business models will change a bit so that the balance between social conscience and viable returns will be sustainable.
Personally I’d like to see interest rates on Kiva loans come down - however the irony is that the field partners costs are still quite high exactly because of a lack of technology at that end of the equation. In the Zopa and Prosper examples, because there is pervasive technology on both the lender and the borrowers’ situation - the net result is not only that loan costs can be reduced in some cases below the commercial rates but that they get access to loans at all.
And for those borrowers who were previously unable to access a loan at any rate - this is certainly creative banking.
Highrise Contact Manager will be one to watch out for because its a 37signals product.
37signals are proud of the fact that their products “do less than that of the competition”. They are most famous for Basecamp (Project management and collaboration) and Ruby on Rails which is an open source development framework.
The 37signals product philosophy is to “focus on executing the basics beautifully”.
To quote:
“Yesterday 37signals founder Jason Fried posted about the team’s upcoming contact management app called Highrise. The goal of the app is to help you manage contact information in a better way than relying on post-its or your current software-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Think of it like a Rolodex but with collaboration and more space to write things down. Many people can have access to the same records at once, and from the announcement, 37signals thinks they can do better than your current CRM. In many ways Highrise is a solution for a problem with Web communication technology: we have these great contact management tools with services like Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Plaxo to bring them all together, but no way to share them, and add notes or related items. There are a few Web based CRMs out there, like Funclient and absoluteBUSY, but none that have the potential to tie into a suite of highly successful Web apps (see Basecamp and Writeboard). I can also see a big use for this for keeping track of friends or colleagues as they move all over the place, more so than relying on LinkedIn or social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Fried made no mention of pricing or a release date in the Highrise announcement, but noted that the 37signals team is “very happy with it.” We’ll post a hands on as soon as we get our mitts on it.”
Highrise is a shared contact manager that helps you keep track of who you talk to, what was said, and what to do next. Like Basecamp helps you collaborate on projects, Highrise helps you collaborate on people. You can use it alone or with your co-workers. You can think of it as a company-wide, web-based, shared address book with a few twists.
For some clues on what the point of difference is Fried also comments later in the post:
Chris: Highrise won’t have pipeline reports or any numbers. It’s not a CRM tool in the traditional sense. It’s a lot closer to an address book than something like Salesforce.com.
Just as Basecamp doesn’t have traditional project management staples such as Gantt charts, Highrise doesn’t have traditional CRM tools like sales pipeline reports or charts.
Highrise is about people, communications, conversations, and tasks. It’s not about numbers.
Traditionally CRM has been very focussed around salesforce automation and more recently with marketing automation and services delivery systems. The usual defining split between a contact manager and CRM has been that CRM is more about process and workflow.
It is a very crowded application space although some niches are still available - like business on the mac. This product may suit those who are also looking at Daylite for example. The product is separate from Basecamp and the other 37signals applications although potentially some linking between them would be desirable.
However - in my view any disconnected application “island” needs to be very, very good to justify the need for a new product.
I’m looking forward to fresh thinking in the area. Also wondering how this will compare to Daylite which seems to be a mid ground system that allows easy linking with mac. CRM is a collaboration strategy designed to be shared space. The “right” software always helps but is only part of the equation.
So far 37signals have shown they know how to deliver products which are simple, clean and easy to use which means that Highrise is one to watch…
“aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on the activity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Parliament.
You can browse parliamentary debates going back to November 2005, grouped by their relationship to Bills, Ministerial Portfolios, Committees, and MPs.
Voting record analysis by party will be available soon.”
It is based on a more developed UK site with similar objectives - they work for You.com.
Rob McKinnon was out here recently for Kiwi Foo camp and took part in some digital democracy meetings. He does this on a voluntary basis and leverages open source software to provide the publishing framework.
The summary version I heard was - politicians are real people. They also need to hear from others who are interested. The current process can get in the way. This project removes some of the access barriers and the upside will be - better quality debate; via informed responses from and by a wider selection of people.
Expected result: more informed action/s including submissions from a wider range of people - who might not have taken part before.
I like the idea and this is one project that I will follow.
Kiva
micro-credit
Zopa
micro lending
Prosper.com
p2p lending
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