If you’ve poked around the the online giving scene, then you know or have heard about the FORGE story (Kiva is a menace – Social Edge circa 2008). Seeing that cookie crumble was enough to scare droves of Entrepreneurs from venturing toward anything remotely symbolic of the Kiva model.  However when I look at this story, I can’t help but see the environment created by Kiva to be a lot like Vegas. Many of the players and participants are of the same breed, feeding off each other, engaged in the environment. I speak of this a good way of course, but the way I see it aside from the marketing, Kiva is fundamentally a loan brokering platform.  The reality – it’s the marketing that’s brilliant.

If you were to place a bunch of Vegas die-hards in a casino for several days with booze and games, the conversations would be endless.  And the ideas, well, maybe some would be big, but not remotely close to worth betting the farm on. As for the payback, well, the good wins be shared long after that weekend and the losses, eh not so much.  Kiva works in a similar way – the most memorable stories are the ones that make the investment worthwhile.

In studying (probably too many) business models over the past couple of years, there are days that I think I have a leg up in the whole entrepreneur’s ball.  But the truth remains; Stats are stats and more businesses do fail than succeed. Many are pioneering new things and others are putting a new twist on an old game, betting on old/new odds. Still business is really a lot like life – it’s what happens when you’re out making plans. But as they say, no risk, no reward. No pain, no gain.

Many people have compared FORGE and Kiva. In a recent article from Mark Phillips (When to choose choice), Mark expresses his discernment very eloquently,  whereby money motivated participation provides the meat and potatoes for engagement.  I mean aside from the obvious “borrowing” of branding and model, FORGE really put too much in one basket and leaned too hard on depending on one leg to succeed. Kiva is what Kiva is based on what I call a triumphant three legged dog approach bearing the following characteristics:

Leg 1 – A focus on creating the right environment, targeting all the key players in your model – each has their role and each has to get their need met, tangible or intangible (with Kiva – it’s a nice combination of capitalists, risk takers and eccentricity).   This ties in to Mark Philipps commentary.

Leg 2 – Providing consistent level of multiple psychological elements and hooks going on to reel all the right players back in as you go along and give the players what they need. Reciprocity is a glorious thing.

Leg 3 – Planning  for multiple contingencies within their model.  They asked the hard questions of what happens when the desired players don’t show up? What will the business rest on until it figures out how to accomplish this? Kiva found creative ways to market, engage and sustain while the tide rolled. There should be other streams that are designed to engage when the plan starts to go awry. Because it will.

So why three legs?  Well, very few businesses actually start on all four’s which paints a clear picture as to why so few take on and succeed in creating a successful venture. So as our minds start to craft new concepts and online models, and we embark on our passionate pursuit, we still have to remember, it really is as much about the journey as it is the destination. May you enjoy the ride!

I came across this TED Talk by Simon Sinek over the weekend and thought it was well worth sharing. He articulates a complex topic – the way in which great leaders inspire customers – in a way that seems so simple and clear. What struck me was the similarity between his approach to communicating value to customers and ours at Affinity IG. It’s not about communicating the features or the services we provide first, it’s about communicating why we built our business and why we serve our clients.

Without further ado, I give you “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” by Simon Sinek:

..then you can’t give anywhere. Or you might be a real scrooge. Really. One of the things I love about living in Austin is how organic the business community is and how tuned in folks are to giving back. This week I reached out Wesley Faulkner (@wesley83), a buddy of mine who is arguably one of the most active social networkers in Austin, and someone who graciously helped me connect to the right folks when I moved here from Boston 2 years ago. First he scolded me for not being at any recent #social events, which I will take full responsibility for! Then he told me about the work he’s doing to lead #AtxTwestival this year. They are hosting a Twestival on March 24th and all proceeds will go to Meals on Wheels. This is the kind of event that makes me proud to live in Austin. During SXSW, an event and a month that is entirely self-promotion focused for most organizations, it’s wonderful to see people using their reach to give back. It’s time for me to RSVP!

Many people show up to work every day struggling with the choices they will be forced to face.  If you’ve been in the workplace for any amount of time, you’ve  been there, you’ve seen leadership fall short on a human level. You walk into work one day and suddenly you find yourself compromising your personal values, integrity and/or personal compassion, for what?

I read an article from Ode Magazine that inspired me to expand on some my personal observations and curiousity.  In an amazingly well written article The Age of Endarkenment, Tijn Touber points out something that I’ve witnessed and experienced to be universally  true.   In our pursuit of “wanting it all” and pursuing “the light” (confused by many as the beautiful material gifts, power and success that life has to offer ) we leave ourselves in the dark.  Most of us avoid looking at, acknowledging or admitting our own darkness, much less, try to challenge others on theirs.   So, when we are busy pursuing all the things we do for ourselves, what are the dark parts of ourselves we’re leaving behind, for others to deal with?

A universal purpose of why we are here on this planet is simply to help each other.  What’s so powerful about this on a much larger scale is that, together, we collectively set the bar for those who trail in our path and enter into our environments.  As “followers” we have as much responsibility as those in leadership. Leaders are only enabled to lead as long as collective bodies of people are willing to obey, follow and support them.  So, what makes us willing to sacrifice the principles we know in our heart and mind for a company or a job that we know, deep down, doesn’t equate to squat at the end of the day?  What makes us do things or behave in ways we never would in our career roles?

Let’s face it, it’s fear. We’re all humans (at least most of us I think…). We’re all going through the same fears, insecurities, doubts and unpredictable struggles.  As the author expresses, “we’ve mainly occupied ourselves with leaving “darkness” behind forever and moving toward “light.” We seek ever-greater amounts of happiness, success, power and possibility.”

This fear (of conflict, of judgment, of rejection, etc..) associated with the hard work and determination of holding each other accountable has been causing us a tremendous amount of pain as a society. We all observe, and often inflict our darkness on each other, blinded by our pursuit of “the light”. It’s both an internal struggle and disease as much as a external wound within our society.  Political correctness is great until it keeps us from the truth and allows us to ignore our darkness, then it’s pure poison.

In order for new forms of leadership to emerge we must be willing to put our darkness back on the shelf and be sure to look at it every day.  Introspection and collective accountability are the only things that will perpetually make us better.  This East meets West leadership philosophy is truly refreshing and exhilarating.  There have been many times in my life that by honoring and believing in these principles I felt like I was on an island. Many times I have felt like I lost the battle in fighting the darkness coming through my channel from another. As Tinj Touber points out, “The days when people made fun of spirituality and enlightenment seem to be over. In fact, spirituality and enlightenment appear to have become almost hip.”  I’m exited to see the awakening and am committed to pursuing my part with passion.  Are you?

• TED.com launched their own version of a social discussion platform last week, called TED Conversations. At first glance it may not seem to have any differentiating features from many of the other social discussion platforms or social collaboration tools associated with large conferences, companies or publications, such as Business Week’s Business Exchange or IDEO’s Open IDEO. You could argue that they each elevate the other, as the trend of social collaboration around topics or causes continues to grow. There are two main differentiators that TED Conversations holds:
• Thought Leaders: They have gathered a network of thought leaders on the topics of Technology, Engineering and Design around their brand over the years of their conferences. At least in theory this offers us regular folks access to thought leaders and speakers who are normally kept behind the barrier of event registration.
• Video Content: TED has done a great job of archiving and releasing video content from their conferences at a regular cadence. They how hold a large searchable index of high quality content from speakers over the years. Ted Talks have a certain prestige, and while membership to TED.com and access to all this content is currently free something tells me they will monetize it eventually.

There was quick point in time that the ambiguous buzz word, ‘Web 2.0′ faded into the sunset and ‘social’ rode in on a golden pony. When it comes to ‘social financing’ or ‘social giving’, I might criticize the how the terminology is often being overused and misapplied, but the micro channel concept is bringing on some awesome trends and new concepts to market. It’s an exciting time as the age of the Social Enterprise spawns creative and highly effective business models that inspire us to be more selfless.

Sites like Kickstarter, Kiva, Global Giving, Donors Choose and JustGive are doing a tremendous amount of good in the world.  Some of them are more cause-based and some are more market-based, but they are all Social Enterprises at their core.  We are also digging some of the newly emerging concepts like 33needs, GirlUp and BoostUp that are freshening things up.

So as we dig more into what has triggered this shift on the web, we actually see strong ties to social wave and mindset.  The fundamental concept that you have to give to get in life is gaining strong momentum on the web.  And it’s about time this mindset starts to sink in. If you think about it, giving to get is a concept that is core to all successful social programs on the web. Really, it’s not much different than life. You get back what you put in.  Helping people, extending yourself and getting out of your own head on a regular basis not only pays it forward, it pays back in many tangible and intangible ways.

What’s the beauty of this happening in the digital world?  Well, the way I see it, there’s a prominent glimmer of hope that ‘social’ is finally maturing, growing up;  Hopefully, as the trend continues to increase, our engagement and time spent on social web channels will become  less focused on ourselves and more about tuning into other’s needs.  A little less self fulfilling, more self aware.  That’s the beauty…