[Dev-flock] Fwd: Several Updates and topics

[Clay Ward]

Yo!  Sorry if this is redundant, but I didn't realize that dev-flock
was not on our TwoRavens group.  If you're getting multiple emails
from me after this one then please let me know.

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Hey, I had a lot of fun the other night at dinner and pool.  Thanks
for coming out on short notice, guys.  I've added some images from the
evening to our "about" page on our site.  Sorry that not everyone
could make it this time.  Lucy and I were discussing the possibility
of our using skype to get more people together next time.  Like we
could have a group work session at someone's apartment and other folks
could skype in?  Let me know if you guys want to get together more or
- well it would be hard to get together less.

I've just received the first draft of Taza chocolate's scouting report
on the chocolate industry.  It's really informative and I've asked
them to elaborate on a lot of specific details.  I expect that that
will be ready some time later in November.  I've also contacted a lot
of other manufacturers of optimistic chocolate bars to see if they'd
like to use the release of our site as a promotional opportunity.

Lucy and I are attempting to arrange a meeting with a friend,
Sharlene, who came to us for help thinking about how the insurance
company that she works for could use a friendsharing database model to
create a business to business listing of carbon footprint values and
the like.  There was also an excellent section in yesterday's NYT
about the Business of Green.  If Sharlene's company can get past the
cloak and dagger stage then we might be able to design some new
features into our system to help them.  We could allow a business the
option of publishing its information only to other businesses for
example.  Or only internally.  Or if they wanted some positive press
they could release it to the rest of our system.  The theory is still
that we want to empower individuals (even if those individuals are
companies) to be empowered to follow their own concerns.  Lots of
companies are struggling know how to buy green and we could help them.
 Hopefully companies that are trying to improve would get that there
is a value added aspect to providing more information (consumers will
actually pay more for a product that they know is worth more.)  So
we'll see how this goes and what kind of business relationship
Sharlene's company will propose, if anything.  We're not planning on
changing our function for individuals, just to be open to new sources
of data and revenue.

Fritz met with Lucy a few days ago to go over our system design.
Sounds like he mostly encouraged her to release a dirty prototype so
that we can move on the phase 2 (testing and research.)  Lucy is
aiming for an end of the weekend release of a user interface that
includes a slightly dynamic workspace.  I think that it's a really
good step and I'm totally anxious to see it.  Dan has been making the
underlying format of our various user interfaces standard so that
expansion and modification is easy.  He's planning on implimenting an
iterative process for calculating user input (I don't understand much
more than that, but it sounds like this will solve a problem in
cyclical relationships in our database until we can get someone who is
expert in bayesian schemes for data relationships on the team.)

Jamie and I are working on an application for Echoing Green.  I've
been working on a set of talking points for myself so that when our
prototype is released I can really start stumping for grants.  I've
also contacted a friend at a non-profit in NYC who might give us a
good deal on being our sponsor organization if we don't get the IRS
stuff done soon.  I've asked him to only take 2.5% of our grants, but
that's well below average so we'll see how it goes.

I'm meeting next week with several people who are interested in
helping write a long term plotline for ThoughtAndMemory.org the comic
book.  We're looking into making puzzles and other interactive
msteries that could get more people involved in the system.  A way to
bring the online communities of activists and gamers together.
Eventually I would like to see us have a more interactive user view
that included an avatar world of social research of some kind.  That's
far away, of course.

We're looking for impressive names of people who are big supporters of
ours so that we can list them on an Advisory Board (which is diferent
than our governing Board.)  CEOs of relevant tech companies, authors,
professors, and leaders of industry would all be great additions if
they really do support us.  Let me know if you have any leads.

Archon Fung just made tenure at the Kennedy School and has gotten back
to me, but we haven't made a meeting yet.  He wrote a book about
"Targeted Transparency..." that we reference in our infomercial.

Michael Pollan, who wrote "Omnivores Dilema" got back to me with
compliments.  But he's busy and it might be a while before a
relationship can be cemented.

More things are in the works, but nothing worth bragging about yet!

woohoo!