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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Janine Shea

Janine Shea

The 15 Best Facebook Pages You've Ever Seen - 0 views

  • Threadless also carries over important functionality from its core website, allowing users to vote for t-shirt designs and enter design contests. Threadless does a great job of creating a fantastic user experience that doesn't require the user to leave Facebook
  • The company also shares a ton of great images on its wall that generate a huge amount of engagement.
  • It uses social proof and data from Facebook to actually show why people like the Bing page
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  • They have a like gate with a very compelling call-to-action. They also have a customer photo generator application that allows users to customize their Facebook profile picture with their favorite NHL team.
  • Zappos has an amazing like gate that sits next to a featured photo submitted by one of its fans. Users can also easily join the company's VIP program from the page.
  • Beyond an awesome gift card app, Starbucks uses its page to run contests for seasonal products and also offers a slick store locator application.
  • The Burt's Bees Facebook Page uses a customer tab to aggregate the global online word-of-mouth buzz about its products in an interesting and unique way.
  • Sometimes the best way to build a community is through a shared cause.
  • interesting and engaging content. It shares a TON of great videos that are both educational and entertaining.
Janine Shea

Is Crowdsourcing The Right Choice For Your Business? | Fast Company - 0 views

  • Harnessing the power of crowdsourcing, viral branding, and service outreach
  • "extended enterprise"
  • the necessities to extend collaborative relationships between internal and external organizations.
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  • BMW is crowdsourcing designs for a 2025 version of the BMW and MINI.
  • the global giant knows the public offers direct insight into what consumers want.
  • Participants made suggestions in a structured multimedia environment, where they could view, evaluate and build upon proposals made by other participants.
  • Remember it’s intelligence you’re interested in, not just information.
  • Face it, Facebook isn’t for everyone and it’s certainly not right for every business.
  • get a pulse of the quickly evolving consumer base.
Janine Shea

Ed Norton's Crowdrise Brings Fundraising (And Fun) To The Masses | Co.Exist: World chan... - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      "GroundUp is a personal narrative platform where you anchor your local life." Envision a future where folks are as closely identified with their 'local community personas' as they are with their broader 'second lives' on Facebook and Twitter
  • There’s a new era of social networking that’s taking shape around charitable giving. Younger people are rapidly adopting these new tools, and learning to use them in more and more substantive ways, to go beyond mere socializing and make these tools extremely productive. We’re seeing the sphere of social networking mature in a way that’s very exciting. People who continue to dismiss these social platforms as "a waste of time" or "just social chatter" are missing the boat. This is how people interact with each other and get things done. They share their personal and professional lives online. It should be no different when it comes to their philanthropic lives. More and more, we’re seeing the Crowdrise community share their charitable efforts with their social networks, both as a way to highlight their own commitment to a cause and as a very efficient way to turn their friends and family into new supporters.
  • They say “time is money,” but time is also an irreplaceable and personal connection to a cause.
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  • that time binds you to the mission of an organization in a way money cannot.
  • I like to give my time because it feels good to connect personally with a cause. If you’re someone who is fortunate enough to be able to commit both time and money to a cause you care about, well that’s double the happiness.
  • I realized there needed to be a way for people, including myself, to give and fundraise money for causes in an easy and fun way.
  • I think generosity can take many forms … financial, effort, emotional … but at its core it’s rooted in the realization that you get a good feeling from seeing happiness bloom in someone else
  • healthy environment
  • All the young people I see using Crowdrise every day, putting their creativity and effort into making a positive impact on the world. 
  • United Airlines committed to match every dollar up to $100,000
  • ountless Crowdrise users have started their own campaigns to support relief efforts in affected communities.
  • hat tends to be through peer-to-peer fundraising, and Crowdrise enables people to get the word out quickly to their networks and raise as much money as possible in a short period of time.
  • It’s a platform to allow anyone to fundraise for a cause, and it does it with a laid-back and funny attitude that undermines the self-seriousness of a lot of philanthropy.
  • I think people like our voice because it’s authentic. We believe giving should be easy and fun. People like engaging with something that is real, not some generic text.
  • Crowdrise is based on an idea of "sponsored volunteerism."
  • cultivated a new generation of young activists who manage not to take themselves too seriously in the process.
  • Why does the Crowdrise brand of irreverence and humor work?
  • We’ve found the more off the wall the incentives, the higher the engagement
  • there’s truth to our saying
  • “If you don’t give, no one will like you.”
  • You have called Crowdrise a “personal narrative platform where you anchor your activist life." Do you envision a future where folks are as closely identified with their "giving back personas" as they are with their “second lives” on Facebook and Twitter?
Janine Shea

Create Solar Energy Together | Mosaic - 0 views

  • Every Mosaic project is carefully vetted and structured to minimize risk while maximizing benefits to investors and to the planet.
  • Mosaic aims to open up this historic opportunity to everyone by democratizing the way energy is produced and financed.
  • You shouldn't have to choose between making money and making a difference. We created Mosaic to give people a secure place to invest directly in things that are real and create lasting value.
Janine Shea

How Mosaic brings cleantech investing to the masses | GreenBiz.com - 0 views

  • Invest as little as $25, or as much as you want, in clean-energy projects. Earn a princely 6.38 percent interest annually for the next five years. Make the world a better place.
  • Mosaic, based in Oakland, Calif., has figured out how to crowdsource solar projects in a way that seems to be a win-win for everyone. For each project, it seeks investors — smaller fries, like you and me — to fund a given project, promising a respectable rate of return. As loans get repaid, investors can roll the proceeds back into new projects, or take the money and run. Think of it as Kickstarter for clean energy.
  • He dropped out of Yale in 2002 to help build a youth movement for climate solutions.
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  • “30 under 30” in energy by Forbes.
  • Their company started slowly, garnering interest-free investments from individuals to fund solar installations on five community projects. They range from homes on a Navajo reservation in Arizona to the Asian Resource Center in Oakland. All are smallish installations
  • I invested $100 in the Asian Resource Center installation in 2011, in equal parts to support the fledgling company as well as a social-service organization in my hometown
  • Those first projects were funded using a zero-interest investment model similar to Kiva, where investors get their principal back over time but no interest. This allowed Mosaic to avoid federal regulation and to go to market, learn the business, get feedback, and show traction for the idea. At the same time, it launched into the process of registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that governs investment firms.
  • More recently, the company started raising money for projects in which it would pay interest. It can do this while waiting for SEC approval thanks to something called Regulation D, which exempts from regulatory oversight the offer and sale of up to $1 million of securities in a 12-month period.
  • A small group of investors was invited to put in as little as $25 and have been promised a return of 6.38 percent over five years.
  • The project is projected to save the youth center more than $160,000 through reduced electricity costs.
  • I invested $200 in this project as part of Mosaic’s private “beta” investment round
  • nlike investing in CDs, there are risks in Mosaic’s projects. The solar-installation customer could default on its monthly payments. The solar anels or installation could be faulty, tying the project up with repairs, negotiations, or worse.
  • If I want, I can reinvest the earned interest and repaid principal in other Mosaic projects with the click of a button.
  • “As an asset class, the default rates on solar leases and power purchase agreements are extremely low,”
  • There are a lot of unknowns: the number of people willing to invest sums, small or large, in energy projects offered by a start-up with a very short track record; the cost of attracting and servicing these investors; the number of available investment-quality energy projects; the actual performance of those projects during the life of the investments;
  • Together with a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy
  • , the company aims to scale its offerings, including geographically, to get millions of Americans involved with funding clean-energy projects.
  • It’s a bold idea: Raise money from the masses in order to bring solar to the masses, providing value to everyone along the way.
  • Having proved the concept, Parish and Rosen are now ready to kick things into high gear, throwing open the doors to all qualified investors.
  • “The economics of solar have begun to make sense in more places, and online investing and peer-to-peer finance are becoming widespread. Those are the two big forces that we’re a part of.”
  • I asked him why no one had done this before. “It’s a really difficult set of skills and competencies that you need to pull together on one team to make this business model work,” he explained. “You need the securities law expertise. You need the solar project finance expertise. You need the technology expertise to build the online investment platform, and you need the marketing expertise to get people to invest in the projects.”
  • For each project, Mosaic provides the underwriting and due diligence. “If we like it and it meets our investment committee’s criteria, we make a loan offer to the project developer or the project owner, and negotiate a loan to them.” Mosaic takes a servicing fee (the difference between the interest rate charged the developer and the rate pays investors) and an origination fee of between 3 and 5 percent of the loan, which the developer pays. Mosaic doesn’t do the installation itself — it contracts that out.
  • Clearly, not yet a pathway to riches. What’s needed is volume.
  • “Our goal is to be doing billions of dollars of investments a year in clean-energy projects,
  • “We have already had a lot of developers coming to us," he says. "We’re interested in offering high-quality, clean-energy projects for people to invest in.
  • We believe clean energy is good in and of itself and is a great asset class for investment. So we’re looking at all kinds of projects.”
  • It’s not just solar. Parish and Rosen are looking at a broader category of projects to finance — what they call clean-energy infrastructure. That includes other forms energy as well as energy-efficiency projects and electric-vehicle infrastructure.
  • All told, 51 investors ponied up $40,000 for the 106-panel installation; the whole project got funded in just six days. I’ve already received my first interest payment.
  • However it plays out, it’s a compelling and potentially disruptive business model. Allowing smaller investors to participate in clean-energy investments is an exciting possibility. And the relatively predictable returns of solar
  • can make these investments a safer bet than many traditional Wall Street investment vehicles.
  • And not for just small guys. Imagine if larger mission-driven investors, including pension funds and university endowments, started pouring money into Mosaic. The expanding investment pools could rapidly accelerate the growth of renewable energy and efficiency projects in the marketplace.
  • “I think a lot of people are just excited about the model,” says Parish, “and have been wanting to find a place that they can feel good about investing, that they can also generate pretty good yield from. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”
  • Parish makes a point: Some of this is an exercise in feel-good investing. But that’s nontrivial: How many of your investments do you feel good about? Even some of the so-called socially responsible funds hold stocks of fossil-fuel companies and other corporate nasties in their portfolios. If the nascent trend of disinvestment in fossil-fuel companies takes off among climate-minded investors, where will they next put their money? If Parish and Rosen have their way, there will be a new generation of cleaner investment alternatives to be found — perhaps, like me, right in your own community.
Janine Shea

State Impact Newsletter | Michigan Outreach - 0 views

  • It is my pleasure to introduce you to Michigan Impact. The University of Michigan is having tremendous impact throughout our communities. From the downtowns of Detroit and Grand Rapids and the shorelines of Traverse City and Muskegon, to the community colleges of the Upper Peninsula and the medical clinics in mid-Michigan, U-M is committed to improving the quality of life in the Great Lakes State.
  • A new $9 million U-M Great Lakes research and education center will guide efforts to protect and restore the world's largest group of freshwater lakes by reducing toxic contamination, combating invasive species, protecting wildlife habitat and promoting coastal health.
  • Nearly $1.7 billion in support for the U-M comes from donors and gifts from every county across Michigan. Support also comes from alums, and that happened in a significant way this year in the arts at U-M.
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  • Long-standing collaborations with urban, rural and Native American communities around the state—in issues of the environment, K-12 education and higher education preparedness, public health, community and economic development and more—continue years later to contribute to the well-being of the state of Michigan and its citizens.
Janine Shea

Measuring Shared Value: Not Your Father's CSR - Net Impact - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Benefits to end-user engagement 
  • Similarly, Intel has achieved global market leadership in the growing global technology education market through its rigorous approach to measuring shared value. Key to Intel’s success, says Barbara McAllister, is understanding “what works” for students and teachers and to incorporate that knowledge into product design and deployment. Ongoing tracking of product performance in the classroom, as well as post-sales measurement of educational outcomes, provides insights to improve the product design and delivery, which ultimately improves the effectiveness of Intel’s education technology solutions and leads to additional sales and greater market share.
Janine Shea

Small Steps, Big Wins: Turning Millennial Optimism into Positive Impact - Net Impact - 0 views

  • People are fundamentally resistant to change, argue Chip and Dan Heath in Switch, but there are ways to make positive behavior easier and more likely. One method: shrink the change. It’s easier for people to take a small step like washing the dishes than a large step like cleaning the whole apartment. But once they take that small step and reap the rewards, they’re more likely to continue and expand on that initial behavior.
  • We’ve already been blown away by the excitement and energy exhibited on campuses across the world. More than 1,100 students are taking actions like riding their bikes instead of driving, getting a dose of inspiration from a Ted Talk, and volunteering with a local nonprofit. They are competing against each other for prizes big and small. The competition feeds the program’s growth, expanding the impact of each small step,
Janine Shea

So You Call This CSR? Or One of Its Many Other Names? - Forbes - 0 views

  • Sustainability, on the other hand, is the more widely term used in Europe and is also my more favored term. And it’s not my favorite one simply because I regularly take “mental vacations” and imagine myself nibbling Parisian croissants by the Seine. Rather, sustainability connotes that a company is truly incorporating social and environmental issues into its business model. CSR or CR tends to be a collection of programs that address social and environmental concerns. Sustainability, however, makes these issues a part of the company’s DNA.  And ultimately, that is what my profession is striving toward: making sustainability “business as usual.”
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    Preferred term: Sustainability (vs. social responsibility, citizenship, etc.)
Janine Shea

How Patagonia Makes More Money By Trying To Make Less | Co.Exist: World changing ideas ... - 0 views

  • Thus, Patagonia’s audience trusts the brand, admires its values, and aspires to live by the same principles. Very few brands can compete on quality and price alone. Your brand doesn’t necessarily need to invest in the environment or take such risky maneuvers. However, it can’t be built exclusively through great products and great advertisements. That model is antiquated. Consumers have too much information and too few dollars. They want to invest in brands that have similar values to their own. Perhaps that simply means your product has more advanced engineering, is more user-friendly, or has better customer service. Those are all viable brand elements that create a powerfully rational connection with consumers. Ideally, your brand would also embody behaviors that elicit an emotional connection, such as investing in social, educational, or environmental responsibility. Building a brand platform like Patagonia’s is difficult, expensive, and somewhat risky. But, when brands reduce the amount they spend on paid media, they can invest in building a brand which will help their paid media work significantly better, and more importantly, create brand evangelists.
Janine Shea

To Fight Climate Change, College Students Take Aim at the Endowment Portfolio - NYTimes... - 0 views

  • In recent weeks, college students on dozens of campuses have demanded that university endowment funds rid themselves of coal, oil and gas stocks. The students see it as a tactic that could force climate change, barely discussed in the presidential campaign, back onto the national political agenda.
  • “Our students are already demanding action, and we must not ignore them.”
  • But at colleges with large endowments, many administrators are viewing the demand skeptically, saying it would undermine their goal of maximum returns in support of education.
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  • At Harvard, which holds the largest endowment in the country at $31 billion, the student body recently voted to ask the school to do so. With roughly half the undergraduates voting, 72 percent of them supported the demand.
  • Mr. McKibben’s goal is to make owning the stocks of these companies disreputable, in the way that owning tobacco stocks has become disreputable in many quarters.
Janine Shea

The Challenges of Living Large: Scaling Up Sustainable Urban Growth | BSR Insight | BSR - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Get city departments talking to each other - breaking out of their silos! More accessible ways to communicate with each other - CASUAL, i.e. social network
  • Just like in corporations, setting goals and having a vision proves to be an essential start for cities that want to engage business.
  • Matthew Lynch, the project lead, said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “
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  • The companies in the UII are engaging collaboratively with cities upstream in the planning process, demonstrating the value of the early involvement of business and showing how a multisector group of leading companies can help cities find integrated solutions to interconnected challenges,” he said.
  • The “solution landscape” presents a menu of potential options for cities to address their key sustainability challenges. Lynch said one of the main success factors is the opportunity for direct and open dialogue. “Business adds value by being involved in the beginning, looking at the big plan, and looking at the issues landscape and challenges,” he said. WBCSD decided to work with multiple companies as opposed to a more ad hoc engagement to encourage the idea that it was business, not just individual companies working with cities.
  • The WBCSD expects that companies will use the landscape reports to refine their own approaches to working with these cities, targeting specific challenges and opportunities.
  • One significant challenge with deploying sustainable infrastructure solutions in cities is the vastly different time cycles used by business and government.
  • “Our experience is that building trust is critical.
  • there’s a “need for better coordination and understanding among governments, industries, and NGOs so that cities holistically plan for and build the infrastructure of tomorrow rather than create an infrastructure of mismatched components and potentially stranded assets.
  • “The aging population is the fastest-growing cohort, yet most of our cities are designed by men for young men in commerce,” he noted. How will women, children, and the elderly thrive in those cities?
  • At BSR, we know that when business engages stakeholders proactively, the insights gained will lead to more informed decision-making, more valuable collaboration, and more inspired business models.
  • The sooner meaningful engagement is at the forefront of the sustainable urban infrastructure agenda, the sooner we can hit fast-forward and have a chance at truly sustainable growth.
Janine Shea

Thanks for Not Sharing - NYTimes.com - 0 views

    • Janine Shea
       
      Social pressure compels greater use!
    • Janine Shea
       
      Or avoidance...let's test what's more common
  • But there is a new urge to behave as if life were some global high-school reunion at which everyone has taken some horrific tell-all drug.
  • But that would be to debase the word “information.”
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  • oversharing and status anxiety, the two great scourges of the modern world.
  • being anxious that our status might be falling or — the horror, the horror! — disintegrating
  • Number of Twitter followers shrinking or not growing as fast as your friends’? Status anxiety attack begins. No e-mails or texts received in the past 78 minutes? Status anxiety attack accelerates. Got unfriended or discover by chance on LinkedIn that your 29-year-old college roommate is now running an agribusiness fund out of St. Louis that has assets of $47 billion and owns half of Madagascar? Status meltdown kicks in. The only antidote, the only means to push that status up again, it seems, is to keep sharing more and more.
Janine Shea

Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act: Frequently Asked Questions About Crowdfunding Inte... - 0 views

  • How do I register with the SEC as a funding portal? Answer: The SEC must adopt rules governing funding portals before permitting anyone to register with the SEC as a funding portal. These rules will address the form and process needed to register with the SEC as a funding portal.
  • The JOBS Act requires these intermediaries to, among other things: provide disclosures that the SEC determines appropriate by rule, including regarding the risks of the transaction and investor education materials  ensure that each investor: (1) reviews investor education materials; (2) positively affirms that the investor understands that the investor is risking the loss of the entire investment, and that the investor could bear such a loss; and (3) answers questions that demonstrate that the investor understands the level of risk generally applicable to investments in startups, emerging businesses, and small issuers and the risk of illiquidity;  take steps to protect the privacy of information collected from investors;  take such measures to reduce the risk of fraud with respect to such transactions, as established by the SEC, by rule, including obtaining a background and securities enforcement regulatory history check on each officer, director, and person holding more than 20 percent of the outstanding equity of every issuer whose securities are offered by such person;  make available to investors and the SEC, at least 21 days before any sale, any disclosures provided by the issuer;  ensure that all offering proceeds are only provided to the issuer when the aggregate capital raised from all investors is equal to or greater than a target offering amount, and allow all investors to cancel their commitments to invest;   make efforts to ensure that no investor in a 12-month period has purchased crowdfunded securities that, in the aggregate, from all issuers, exceed the investment limits set forth in section Title III of the JOBS Act; and any other requirements that the SEC determines are appropriate.
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