Troy Angrignon - Adventure Capitalist

President Bush has signed into law the complete destruction of Writ of Habeus Corpus - the U.S. govt can now put legally put anybody in jail and hold them there indefinitely. 200 years of Constitutional protection gone.

Troy Angrignon — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:47:16 -0700

Ben Franklin said it best: "Those who would trade liberty for a bit of safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This is appalling.

I urge everybody to watch this:

Best business movie of the year: Kinky Boots

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 08:04:27 -0700

This is without a doubt the best business movie of the year for its content. And it is probably one of my favourite movies of the year for its film quality as well. This movie is BRILLIANT.

It is the true story of a men's brogue shoe factory in Northamptonshire, England that in order to survive, stopped making men's brogues, the market for which had been swamped by cheap Eastern European knock-offs, and found their "niche market" - kinky boots for drag queens and transvestites.

It is: a story of commtment; advice on how to be open and flexible to changes in your business environment; a treatise on finding opportunities in the strangest of places; a tale about how to be true to oneself; a lesson on respecting others even if they are different than you; and finally a lesson on leadership.

The other thing that I love about this movie is that it has a strong story, a lot of heart, it used fantastic venues (a one hundred year old factory), and it employed a bunch of the shoe factory employees in the movie. The writing was great, the scenes that were awkward and tense were intentionally written that way and it was not played up for laughs. There are a lot of moments in the film that you really want to end because they're uncomfortable. But that's the magic. Those uncomfortable moments are there in life!

Go rent this movie. And if you are a business school leader, show this to your class. Here are some great lessons that I found. Which ones will you find?

A company is a collection of individuals who have committed their time and energy to the enterprise. Respect them and respect their commitment. Show them your loyalty - they deserve it.
If disaster strikes and you have to lay people off, don't make excuses. Do it quickly and cleanly. It will suck and that's life.
Before you lay them off though, ask them for their ideas. They are close to the work. They will surprise you and may even save the company.
Look at your business environment for big changes. When they come, change your business, change your product, change your service. Adapt or die.
Look for new opportunities every where you go. Do this by finding somebody who is in pain from an unfulfilled need. Don't try to create a market - find one that is underserved or not at all served.
If you and your life partner don't want the same things, you'll never really reconcile it. You're better to move on and live out your lives apart.
Also, if your life partner can't support your 100% commitment to your business, your partnership will fail. It's hard enough to run a business. It's impossible to do it when your partner isn't there to support you, or worse, is acting against your effort.
Work with your customer to build rapid prototypes and get rapid feedback. If they tell you it's wrong, then go back and do it again.
Forget your old business so that you can learn your new business. The old assumptions and beliefs and goals are probably not true. (In this case, the factory went from selling "life-long comfort" to selling "Two and a half feet of tubular delicious SEX!")
You can push your people hard but only if they know that it's for them and not for you.
Sometimes the tide of attitude can shift away from you or towards you on the suggestion of just one person in your team who holds a lot of sway. Earn that person's respect and you have earned the respect of the group.
Aim high. Choose big hairy scary goals that are way beyond your comfort zone. (I disagree with the "S.M.A.R.T." goals approach in life.)
You can run from your childhood but you can't hide. You don't need to "deal with it" all first, unless it's getting in the way of your life. In which case, go figure it out and then get on with things.
Life, relationships, business, sex, gender, psychology - they're all messy and uncomfortable. And that's the way they're supposed to be.
Find something you want to do. Pursue it with all your heart. And share that adventure with people you care about.

Border wars: Plumbers union fights green building because the waterless no-flush urinals will "spread disease". Um, don't you mean they will spread "less work for plumbers?"

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 13:23:14 -0700

I'm intrigued by stories such as this one in the ABC News about the plumbers union in Philadelphia who claim that no-flush green urinals are a health threat. I wonder if the union sees them more as a health threat to the UNION DUES than to the USERS.

Does anybody have any information on negative health effects of waterless urinals??

The First Annual "30 days of sustainability" has launched in Vancouver!

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 22:13:11 -0800

(If you are looking for the 2007 event information, please click HERE.)

I am very excited about our launch of the 30 Days of Sustainability. For the month of March, Vancouver will host a cornucopia of events and activities, all focused around bringing sustainability to our lives and our city.

One key component of the 30 Days of Sustainability is a dynamic, interactive website, which also launched on March 2nd, 2006. To learn more about the 30 Days, check out http://www.30daysofsustainability.com.

Special features of the website include:

a comprehensive event calendar, listing the dozens of workshops, sustainability cafes, speakers, and so much more taking place through the 30 Days;
a collection of photographs that will be taken by attendees at events all month;
A What's New section that lists all of the news updates;
an interactive 30 Questions section, where a new question will be posted each day, and the public will have the chance, along with our panel of sustainability experts, to discuss actionable things we can do to advance sustainability.

This website is our primary tool for getting the word out about all the exciting events taking place this month. Please take a minute to forward it far and wide to your sustainability / environmental / social change networks, and encourage others to do the same.

Thanks so much!

Web 2.0 Primer: Welcome to the Me-sphere - Your digital identiy is here and it is made up of: Linked In + Testimonials + Dating Website + Blog + Comments + Flickr + del.icio.us + Skype + Trackbacks + Pubsub + Google + Wikis (UPDATED)

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 13:47:23 -0700

It is only when you take into account the sum total of a person's associations, actions, talk, relationships, you get a more complete picture of them in the real world than if you just listen to their words. The corollary in the web 2.0 world (or web 1.0 world for that matter) is that the more data points and links you have connected to a person, the more complete the picture of their identity.

There are side effects of this fact. Namely, that some peoples actions do not align with their words. Hence the old "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon. But it is possible to construct a fairly trust-worthy identity by connecting yourself to your activities, friends, colleagues, and related organizations and then having some of those people endorse you. Think about your online identity as you would for a company. Both a company and you need to be found, identified as unique, associated with certain character traits or skillsets, verified as a trust-worthy entity to do business with, and so on.

Could somebody forge a fake identity on the web that is complete, convincing, and well-connected? Yes, of course. Just the way those same people do in the real world. Because your ability to forge an identity is separate from the type of identity being forged. The converse of that is: are there really amazing people with fantastic connections, amazing skills, incredible work-ethic, engaging personalities and impeccable integrity who are difficult to find either in real-life or on the web? Again, yes.

What is the final message here? Work on both parts. Be the person you want to be in the world. But then make sure that your online presence is aligned with that reality as well. Make sure that there is substance first, and visibility and style second.

Celebrated authors of "The Frog and Prince" - one of the best networking books in the world - expand to the United States with their new release "Work the Pond". I highly recommend this.

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 14:01:39 -0700

Back in 2003, I attended a pivotal event at the Vancouver Enterprise Forum. Normally, these events generally follow a predictable pattern. People fill in the room, buy a drink and wander aimlessly. The venture capitalists avoid the nervous entrepreneurs with the bad pitches and the keen students stand nervously in the corner, not sure who to talk to. Old friends meet up and chat and newcomers do their best to try to look as comfortable as the old-timers.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is not a comment on the Vancouver Enterprise Forum, which does a great job of bringing these people together time and time again. It is a comment on the state of networking generally in this city, if not the western world.

But that evening was different. Darcy Rezac, Managing Director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, got on stage with a microphone, introduced himself, gave the group some ground rules and "permission to network".

Some of his rules included:

* it's about them, not you - find out what you can do for the other person;
* put your name tag on your upper right chest so that when you shake hands, the other person can see your name tag;
* invite others into your group and make the introductions so that people feel comfortable;
* look the other people in the eye - focus on them, and not on the venture capitalist walking by that you REALLY wanted to talk to;
* keep your cards handy in one pocket and use another pocket to store the cards you receive;
* when you offer a card, make sure you get the other person's card
* try to get 7 cards minimum per event that you attend
* give yourself permission to go out and meet people so that you can see how you can help them.

The energy that this talk unleashed was enormous. People laughed and chatted and exchanged cards. In fact, it was hard to shepherd them out of the room to the upstairs theater for the actual talk! This evening was a turning point in my own understanding of networking and I will always remember it. I bought Darcy's first book "The Frog and the Prince" that night from Gayle and read it that night.

Well, I'm pleased to report that Darcy Rezac, Judy Thomson, and Gayle Hallgren-Rezac are at it again and are releasing "Work the Pond - Use the Power of Positive Networking to Leap Forward in Business and in Life" on October 4, 2005.

No matter what you do - business, government, or non-profit work - if you need to work with people and build out your eco-system of "weak links", you need to read this book. I highly recommend it.

Congratulations Darcy, Judy, and Gayle!

44% of Amerikans think that Muslim-Americans should have restricted rights. What a surprise. This must be counteracted by sane people everywhere

Troy Angrignon — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 17:36:10 -0800

A Cornell university study has found that 44% of Amerikans favoured "some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans." But remember George Bush, "this is not a war of Christian against Muslim or Westerners against Easterners, it is a war on terror." Umm, yeah, right. Shockingly, those who were most inclined to vote this way were either Republican or "more religious." Given that the local Muslims were probably not voting for their own civil liberties curtailment (but then again who knows? The Christians have certainly agreed to it), I am guessing that the "religious" people in question were the more fundamentalist Christians.

QUOTE

The survey showed that 27 percent of respondents supported requiring all Muslim Americans to register where they lived with the federal government. Twenty-two percent favored racial profiling to identify potential terrorist threats. And 29 percent thought undercover agents should infiltrate Muslim civic and volunteer organizations to keep tabs on their activities and fund-raising.

UNQUOTE

The original Cornell press release link is here.

Currently listening to (ironically) Robin S - Show Me Love (Stonebridge mix) from the album "Club Sounds Vol. 27 CD2"

(Thanks to William Gibson's blog for the link)

Woman kills young mother, cuts her baby out of the womb, and then takes the baby home to her husband and kids as her own newborn. WTF?

Troy Angrignon — Sat, 18 Dec 2004 13:53:03 -0800

If you have not read about this horriffic case yet, Lisa M. Montgomery of Melvern Kansas had a baby girl fourteen years ago and then had her tubes tied. Since that time, she frequently claimed that she was pregnant to her ex-husband, current husband, and fellow dog-show attendees. Even more recently, she claimed on a rat-terrier computer forum that she was carrying twins and that she lost one of the twins in the early stage of the pregnancy. But it was all a lie. "None of the rat-terrier people believed she was pregnant," terrier breeder Nanci Strudl told the Kansas City Star. "She never gained an ounce."

Her ex-husband was filing to take custody of their children, and Lisa was desperate to have another child with her second husband. Meanwhile, she had been attending various dog shows, where at one point, she had her photo taken with a young expectant mother-to-be named Bobbie Jo Stinnett, Lisa came up with a fake name (Darlene Fischer), contacted young Ms. Stinnett on the internet and claimed that she wanted to come over to look at Ms. Stinnett's rat terriers in order to purchase one of the pups. That morning, Lisa Montgomery went to the Wal-mart to pick out baby clothing. One lady thinks that it may have been Lisa who approached her in the Wal-mart that morning, offering to hold her baby while she shopped. Her motherly instincts told her this was not a good idea so she didn't allow the stranger to hold her baby. In any case, Wal-mart officials did see Lisa on the security tapes that morning buying clothing. Then she went to the young mother-to-be's house. Bobbie Jo Stinnett had been on the phone with her mother and told her mother that she had to go meet a new customer who was interested in pups. When she opened the door, Lisa Montgomery strangled her, cut the fetus out of her womb while she was still alive, cut the umbilical cord on the child, cleaned and dressed the baby, and then called her husband to tell him that she had delivered the baby while she was out shopping. Lisa Montgomery's husband and kids met her near Topeka, Kansas the next day and the "new family" went home. Bobbie Jo Stinnett's mother found Bobbie Joe laying in a pool of blood, called the ambulance, and unfortunately Bobbie Jo died on the way to the hospital in the care of the paramedics. She was 23.

When I read stories like this, I do my best to try to understand what would cause somebody to commit such an act. Given that cases such as this occur with some regularity, the first lesson I take away is that once again, this is a reminder that we are biochemical animals with intense biological imperative drives. We are shocked because the acts seem to be the act of unreasonable people. And that's the point. Reason would not enter into it, given that it is a higher level brain function, separated from the lower instinctive drives to mate, run, kill, eat, and nurture. I will never know what Lisa Montgomery's issues were. But if I had to guess, there might be shame at having lost a child, fear of an angry husband if she told him she lost it, and the innate desire to mother that had been cut short and that needed an outlet.

It sounds like she had been a pathological liar about being pregnant and had finally worked up the courage to steal somebody else's baby and claim it as her own. So the lower instinctive drive activated the higher-level social skills, got her near a potential target, and then she killed another woman and took that child as her own. This is something that sometimes happens in the non-human animal kingdom as well. We are not as far away from it as we would like to think. Sure, we are separated by ethics and morals. But some people don't have those. My friend and mentor Peter Koestenbaum recently wrote an appropriate article in his weekly leadership newsletter:

CHOOSING ETHICS

Being ethical is always a decision. Animals may have feelings, capable of bonding and attachment, but we don't say they are ethical. Being ethical is typically human. And humans who tamper with their ethics endanger the integrity of their very humanity. The difference lies in the zone of freedom. For we choose our behavior in accordance with the criteria of what is ethical and what is not. A person may commit a heinous crime, but if that person lacks judgment, cannot reflect, cannot think, that person is given treatment instead of punishment.

Human freedom is rooted in the human fact of free will. And free will is scary. Why? Because we can choose anything we want. In the purity of our philosophical truth, the truth about freedom is that, like it or not, we are at least potentially and theoretically free to choose whether we are to attach ourselves to something, like our child, or whether we want to distance ourselves from, and do not care what happens to, people at the other end of the world. We can also choose the reverse....

December 20, 2004

[From The Philosophic Consultant, 2002, Koestenbaum]

What I want to know is, exactly how clueless is her husband? Her previous husband knew that she had her tubes tied. You would think that her current husband would know that. You would also think that he would notice if she had added 20-30 pounds of fat and was cycling through the standard pregnancy biochemical cycles for eight months. She managed to cover it up long enough to find the young mother and take her child. That alone seems bizarre and hard to believe, but perhaps she wrapped herself up with blankets around her waist to cover up the obvious or perhaps she was bearing a lot of extra weight so it wasn't noticeable. But if the rat-terrier people didn't believe her, then why did her husband? Did they never have sex? More likely, he knew she wasn't pregnant but didn't want to know where the baby came from. That is only my speculation though.

The child was taken from its womb at eight months. Who knows when it was actually scheduled to arrive, but it was brought into the world sooner and much more abruptly than anticipated, and by all accounts she is doing fine. That is the resiliency of life and I think it is quite awesome. It makes me think of my favourite line from Jurassic Park: "Life always finds a way."

I feel horrible for Zeb Stinnett, husband of the dead young mother-to-be, who will now have to live with that death and will have to raise his child by himself all because some crazed biologicially driven woman from another state murdered his wife and stole his child. And for Mr. Montgomery and his kids who will have to sit through a lengthy trial while their wife and mother is charged with kidnapping and murder.The kids are in school so I can't imagine how that is going to affect them. Fortunately, they have been handed over to Montgomery's ex-husband, the kids' biological father. Not that that will make it any easier for them.

Bobbie Jo, rest in peace. And Baby Stinnett, welcome to the world. Hopefully that will be the worst thing you will ever experience while you're here.

Rewriting school books in Texas: Sex is bad, abstinence is good, condoms are missing, and gays are depressed, suicidal drug-users

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 05 Nov 2004 23:27:36 -0800

Book-burning and more importantly, book-re-writing has been used throughout the rein of man to erase the collective knowledge and to curb dangerous thoughts and direct society. This infamous technique for hiding knowledge continues unabated today in Texas. Dubya and the ideologues (sounds like a great rock band title), continue to push their ideological and theological worldviews on youth, ensuring that the kids know little about sex education, thereby ensuring their continued Top 5 spot on the CDC's "child pregnancies per capita" list. In case that's not clear enough, I'll translate: Our view on what you should do is more important than not bringing unwanted babies into the world.

While they were at it, Terri Leo, one of the members of the 15-person Texas Education Board made sure that all homosexual code words like "couple" (gasp) and "adults" (shriek) were properly changed to husband, wife, mother, father, where appropriate. Thank God and the Republican member for getting that straight (pun intended.)

My favourite part of the article was this one:

The board rejected a proposal from Leo asking for language saying: "homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behavior like depression, illegal drug use and suicide."

How long will it be until they remove all of the science texts that reference evolution...or have they done that already. Then I guess we'd pretty much have to ensure that the kids don't hear about our newly discovered hobbit-like brethren from Flores Island or the genetic discovery that humans and mice came from the same genetic ancestor about 75 million years ago. We wouldn't want the kids to know that either. They might question the Bible, turn gay, have sex out of marriage (or in marriage), think for themselves, and grow up to be intellectually engaged adults.

Rat neurons used to control a flight simulator, and a monkey brain controls a robotic arm (UPDATE)

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 25 Oct 2004 08:53:36 -0700

My nephew Matt sent me a link to this Wired article on rat neurons being used to control a flight simulator. In essence, they have plugged the feedback and the control systems into the neurons and have found that eventually the neurons learn how to "fly" the virtual plane.

Now, I have heard of using neural networks connected to wings or to legs and then letting them learn how to walk or fly. But I have never heard of using live brain material to achieve the same thing.

It brings to mind (no pun intended) articles I have read on teaching the body to "feel" fake limbs as well as on retraining sexual stimulation (teaching quadriplegics to attain orgasm through touch stimulation of their head for example rather than their genitalia), many of which point to the somewhat universal nature of neurons and their ability to remap to different inputs and outputs by simply retraining them purposefully.

The fascinating thing for me about this work is:

• the brain works without a heart (or so it appears unless I read the article incorrectly) which makes me ask, what is feeding it? Also, it's interesting to me that all you need is the core material and then it just works - it does what it is supposed to do, which is receive inputs, establish communication channels, and drive outputs.

• it is a true bionic hybrid, similar to the guy who sent email via his thoughts recently.

Matt asked me what I thought of the ethics of this work. I don't think there are any ethical problems with designing and building hybrid bionic creatures to understand the cognitive systems and signalling networks.

Although I do admit that the idea of fleshy brain material being inside this device did give me pause for a moment for some reason that I still can't articulate.

UPDATE: This Wired article discusses research at Andrew Schwartz's neurobiology lab at the University of Pittsburgh that allowed them to train a monkey to learn how to use a robotic arm simply by sending it brain signals, in essence, re-mapping some small subset of neurons to the inputs and outputs of this robotic arm. The monkey could then use the arm to feed itself. Once again, this seems to point to the brain as being quickly able to adapt to new limbs, new motor skills, and new sensations or at least the sensation of sensation.

Farming for gold: Using plant crops to remediate soil, remove contaminants, harvest gold, and keep ex-miners employed (UPDATED)

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 11:47:06 -0700

I love stories like this one at the Christian Science Monitor about Chris Anderson, a New Zealand scientist using crops to clean up contaminated mines. (Thanks Z+Partners for the link.)

In one fell swoop, he has come up with a process to improve the environment (both by having plants around and by having the plants decontaminate the soil), make money (enough to pay for the process AND make a profit), and also keep small artisan miners in business, although now they are watching over crops instead of pouring chemicals into the old mines.

UPDATE: Closer to home, Matt brought my attention to a successful joint effort between Teck-Cominco, Western Bioresources Consulting, and Celgar Pulp Mill. Thanks Matt!

These are great examples of triple-bottom-line thinking.

Massive Change - the future of global design

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 22 Oct 2004 20:32:14 -0700

This is an extremely long post on Massive Change, the multi-media exhibition that is intended to be the starting point for a global discussion on the role of design in creating our world. Here is a bit from their website that gives you a sense of the goals of the project.

My favourite author Ray Kurzweil talks about living to 120 years old, human/computer integration, and nano-medicine

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 18 Oct 2004 00:51:56 -0700

I love Ray Kurzweil. Here is a short but interesting interview from CIO magazine where Kurzweil predicts things that will sound outlandish to most people:

• outsourcing is a good thing and in the bigger picture not an issue because it's not a zero-sum game - he gives a 200 year view of these similar trends;
• China is committed to building 50 MIT equivalent institutions;
• their move towards generating intellectual property may result in them actually caring about same;
• computer technology will disperse and become ubiquitous - routers, desktop computers and servers will disappear - [I have a hard time with the server part.]
• IT departments will become Information Departments, focused on privacy, data protection, and security against pathogens;
• humans and machines will merge through the application of nano-machinery and nano-computing intelligence added into the body and brain;
• culture shock won't happen because of the boiling frog theory (my paraphrase);
• biotech is just beginning [I agree, we're only 36 years into what may well be another standard 80-100 year technology cycle.]
• we currently have the means through diet and supplementation (he takes 250 supplements per day) to slow down aging such that the person can still be around to take advantage of biotech discoveries that will allow them to rebuild their bodies and brains in order to live a longer life;

I love Ray Kurzweil because his interviews and writings are always so completely outrageous to most people.

And my favourite quote of all was when the interviewer, in response to the augmented intelligence comments, asked him, "Aren't you smart enough already?"

Ray replied:

QUOTE

"Absolutely not. Are you kidding? A major focus of my interest is in tracking technology trends, which requires me to get my intellectual arms around a lot of diverse fields. It's really an opposite activity to what a lot of scientists do, which is to become more and more narrow. So I'm a neophyte in just about every field I run across."

UNQUOTE

I love this because I relate! I am interested in so many fields that I find it difficult to specialize and deepen my skillset in any one of them.

Cherry OS Mac OS X emulation on PC may be a complete sham

Troy Angrignon — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:44:41 -0700

See this link with lots of detail over at Macintouch, including some sleuthing from my friend Trevor Inkpen at Quill Services. Smells fishy so far....

Gaming the system: Building fake websites in order to generate Google bucks

Troy Angrignon — Wed, 13 Oct 2004 07:08:55 -0700

I'm pretty sure that I did not get 27 referrals from www.diamondweddings.com yesterday but that's what my Blogware is reporting. So I checked out their site and they seem to be some sort of aggregator that points to other sites and it is plastered with a row and a column of Google ads. The whole thing seems very suspicious. Would anybody care to comment on this whole business of building fake websites designed to get Google bucks? Then Google passes on the cost of that to their advertisers who are paying for more "eyeballs" but in reality it is for these bogus sites. Has anybody written a really good overview of this mess?

I'm entirely on Martha Stewart's side

Troy Angrignon — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 08:49:58 -0700

The whole Martha Stewart débacle fiasco pisses me off. That's the most eloquent way I can put it. The larger macro-trend is that the government has been under pressure to "do something" about corporate malfeasance. So do they do something about people who are really committing heinous crimes and defrauding people of millions of dollars? Well, no. They decide that they will make an example of Martha Stewart who allegedly executes ONE insider trading tip. Was it unethical? Yes. Was it illegal? Yes. Was the time and money spent on this case justified in comparison to all of the other cases that could have been worked on? I highly doubt it.

Humans are funny creatures in that we have no sense of scale or proportion. We will spend $50,000USD to rescue one dog in an emergency, rather than take that money and sponsor the ongoing care of 500 pound dogs. We will spend millions on a trial to put Martha Stewart behind bars for a single sell-order rather so as to be SEEN to be doing something rather than apply those funds to finding and prosecuting real criminals. We go from disillusionment with our government on the one side to throwing them entirely out of power on the other side. (That last item is particularly British Columbian.) As a society, we seem to have no sense of proportion at all. Our irrationality and emotional nature seem to conspire to make us see-saw from one extreme to the other in an instant because that is easier than maintaining focus in the long-term on a particular direction.

We are like a short-sighted, stupid, and temperamental ogre - oblivious to most things and quite unable to plan long term, but once riled, quick to act and extremely out of proportion in its response.

Fast Company writes about the rise of Social Entrepreneurship in MBA programs

Troy Angrignon — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 07:25:41 -0700

Fast Company has a brief article on the rise of social entrepreneurship and how that is being reflected in the courses that are being designed at the various MBA programs.

QUOTE:

More young people "want to make money and produce profits, but they want their work to have meaning and a social mission." As awareness of business as a tool for social change spreads, MBA programs are drawing a different type of student, too. Jessica Droste Yagan, 26, majored in public policy as an undergraduate and worked on inner-city economic development before entering Stanford's MBA program. "I've become convinced that the market makes the world go around," she says. "If I want to make a difference, I need to learn how to use those forces for good."

UNQUOTE

It might be the bias inherent in my own network of friends, particularly because of the fact that many of us went through the Leadership Vancouver program here, which is focused very heavily on community development, but it certainly feels to me like many of the entrepreneurs I know are also more interested in building companies while having a positive impact on the community around them. Some of the examples of this are particularly obvious in the bioproducts arena where many of the technologies are truly green.

Another great example is the work being done by the people over at BC Technology Social Venture Partners in association with many of the local social entrepreneurs.

George W. Bush: Keeping America Scared media remix - This is a must-see

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:54:24 -0700

This new 2 minute clip on how the Republicans have managed to distract Americans despite an entire four years of failure is almost as brilliant as This Land.

Look for web-reports that the author of this will surely exceed bandwidth limits on his/her Earthlink site soon.

Something rotten in the State of Florida

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 15:58:13 -0700

What a nightmare this year's election is going to be in Florida. For any of you who are interested, I HIGHLY recommend reading this very long article at the Independent.co.uk website on the state of the Florida election systems. It's absurd.

Republican party admits that they told Americans that Kerry will ban the bible - unbelievable but true

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 08:05:38 -0700

Thanks to Fred Wilson for pointing out this NYT article that documents the direct mail campaign that the Republicans used in Arkansas and West Virginia - traditionally religious states.

QUOTE

mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians.

A liberal religious group, the Interfaith Alliance, circulated a copy of the Arkansas mailing to reporters yesterday to publicize it. "What they are doing is despicable,'' said Don Parker, a spokesman for the alliance. "They are playing on people's fears and emotions."

In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings.

UNQUOTE

This is divisive, deceitful, manipulative, blatantly wrong and untrue, and unfortunately par for the course for a party that can't seem to come up with a vision going forward to dig themselves out of the largest fiscal hole in years and the quagmire in Iraq. It's juvenile and irresponsible - which is wholly consistent with how this administration has acted for the past four years.

I've Been Hired!

Troy Angrignon — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 18:22:16 -0700

I believe that Vancouver can become a global center for technology excellence. Because of that, my goal is to do everything I can to contribute to that community, including learning how to build technology companies, developing our technology community, and working with the greater non-tech community to ensure that the entire fabric of the community is strong and functional.

I am pleased to let everybody know that effective January 4, 2005, I will begin working with Business Objects in their Enterprise Sales group. Thanks to everybody for the leads, contacts, and suggestions. I'm totally excited about starting with these guys for the beginning of the year. Business Objects not only leads globally in the Business Intelligence software business but is very active socially and is well-respected as one of the best companies in Vancouver. I'm looking forward to contributing to their continued growth as well as learning from the people who work there.

Open any Kryptonite bike-lock with a Bic Pen in 2 seconds

Troy Angrignon — Fri, 17 Sep 2004 07:30:44 -0700

Ouch. This article from Wired Magazine confirms that the 50 year old barrel lock design used in all Krypto bike locks and in many other applications, can be opened with a Bic Pen. The funny part is that this has been known for at least twelve years. This story illustrates so many things.

• It has been common knowledge but Kryptonite has not done anything about it; now that the poop has hit the fan, they will "upgrade" owners to a different lock - for a fee;

• locks are funny things in that they are lousy, and we know they are lousy, but they are adequate so we continue to buy and use them - not because they're GOOD - but because they make us FEEL GOOD.

• there is an interesting cross-over point in this story. Real computer security professionals know that "security through obscurity" is a doomed strategy and that if there is a security hole, you are better off to report it and patch it, than to hope it goes under the radar. It's funny to watch that ethos play out here in the meatspace world.

Amnesty International issues damning results of racial profiling study in the U.S. - 1 in 9 Americans have been harassed by racial profiling; 1 in 3 are at high risk for these abuses.

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 19:43:00 -0700

I highly recommend reading this open letter from Curt Goering, Senior Deputy Executive Director of Amnesty International, on the results of their first ever racial profiling report on the U.S.

Mr. Goering powerfully states that the results of racial profiling are not helping and indeed are hindering the war on terrorism, and that like so many other things, Bush pledged to end it, and it has INCREASED on his watch to all-time highs.

Rebel scientist using tissue from dead children to attempt to clone them again for their bereaved parents

Troy Angrignon — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 22:39:48 -0700

Life imitates art. Art imitates life. "Godsend", a movie opening August 17th, starring Robert de Niro as a doctor who clones children for parents who have lost a child due to early accidents or other loss, has a real-life equivalent. Or so says the man in question - Doctor Panos Zavos.

Quoting from a news.scotsman.com article:

Doctor Panos Zavos injected cows’ eggs with the genetic material to create cloned hybrid embryos.

At a news conference in London yesterday, he claimed the achievement was a major step forward, paving the way to creating cloned babies from dead tissue.

One of the "donors" was an 11-year-old girl, Katy, killed in a car crash. Another was an 18-month-old boy who died after surgery, and the third a 33-year-old man thought to have died after a road accident. In each case relatives contacted Dr Zavos’s team at the Centre For Reproductive Medicine in Lexington, Kentucky.

I am intrigued by this because:

• while countries and the international community will try to ban it, people will still try to do it;
• it points to our continued lack of mechanisms for meaningful global discourse on these subjects;
• the "GodSend" film production company, our very own Lions Gate Films, set up a website which is set up to look like a functioning cloning institute in the U.S. Their 800-number is receiving several hundred calls PER DAY from people who are unhappy about the idea of the clinic and who are calling to complain;

Lessons from eBay on community, doing what you love, and being an enzyme (catalyst) for change

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 12:21:38 -0700

Fast Company linked over to this Tufts University transcript of Pierre and Pam Omidyar's commencement speeches to the Class of 2002.

Some key lessons from Pierre and Pam's speeches:

• Prepare for the unexpected - prepare lots and learn lots but don't feel that you have to connect all the dots at the same time; stay flexible; build yourself a platform of value that will serve multiple purposes because you don't know where you may end up next;

• Understand and live by your core values;

• embrace (don't just accept or tolerate) diversity - it is the glue of community;

• find your own balance between private life and public service;

• Be an enzyme (or catalyst) for change;

• Do what you love and love what you do for it is the energy that drives the change forward;

White House lied about air quality post 9/11. This is what the EPA Inspector General says in their new and damning 160 page report

Troy Angrignon — Thu, 19 Aug 2004 12:48:18 -0700

Here are a couple of articles on the new report from the Inspector General of the EPA where he states that the White House directly changed the language in the press releases before they were releaased to the public around the time of 9/11.

Now there is still a huge amount of pollution, possibly including PCBs, Mercury, dioxins, asbestos, and others permeating the buildings across Lower Manhattan.

I actually understand why, from a National Security perspective, the nation-state would insist that it was okay to go to work. They needed the financial district to be rebuilt as soon as possible and didn't want to scare people away from doing that.

But it is unconscionable to now have those people who may have sacrificed their long-term health for that effort, to not be taken care of. Apparently as many as 40% of the people affected do not have any healtchare coverage at all.

Here is a quote from one of the articles:

QUOTE

I think also the most important thing I think out of the report that has not gotten a lot of attention is that the I.T.'s office looked at the current clean up that the E.P.A., finally after months and months of criticism and public outcry, agreed it was going to do a clean up of lower Manhattan, but decided only to do residential apartments and only those where people requested it. The inspector general's report says quite clearly that this clean up is inadequate--that the only way that a real clean up of downtown Manhattan can happen is, number one, if buildings are cleaned up as systems. If you have a central air conditioning system and three or four apartments want to be cleaned up but the whole building is not cleaned up that pollution can travel through the HVAC system back into apartments that have been cleaned.

The Inspector General is recommending that buildings be cleaned all together, all at once and also the inspector general is saying that the commercial office buildings have to be cleaned, not just residential buildings. And the E.P.A.'s response to that is that’s going to cost a lot of money. So the inspector general reminds E.P.A. in his rebuttal or her rebuttal that President Bush and Christie Todd Whitman originally said that no expense should be spared for the people of lower Manhattan. I think that is the battle that is still being waged by people like Congressman Jerry Nadler and Senator Hillary Clinton. I think they will have a press conference today about it--that the full clean up of lower Manhattan still has to be completed because if there were pollutants, and there were, that made their way into buildings that have not been properly cleaned, then that pollution and those toxic chemicals are still there, circulating in the air.

UNQUOTE

Timing is everything: Will Bioproducts (biomaterials, biochemicals, and biofuels) finally get their own association in British Columbia?

Troy Angrignon — Thu, 12 Aug 2004 00:35:05 -0700

Everything old is new again. It's all about timing. These are only two of a few choice phrases that may describe something that is afoot here in British Columbia. Some major global, national, and provincial forces are in play that are driving the development of a new (to us) association that may be created in order to "advance and promote" BC Bioproducts to the world.

Daily, we are pummelled with news of global warming, the leaching of petroleum based chemicals into the environment, and energy dependency security problems. Simultaneously the global agricultural producers are taking a beating as their crops are either commodified driving the prices down, or their crop-seed stocks are enclosed by patent and the wide varieties of natural genetic stock supplies are cut back, leading to crop failures due to massive consolidation of seed-stock into fewer and fewer genetic strains. It seems like nothing but bad news.

But there are many, many people currently working on these issues in the international arena: energy security, climate change, and sustainable development to name some key ones. And they are making some real progress.

Nationally, here in Canada, we have some things happening that are contributing some energy to these areas: our signature on the Kyoto Agreement; a movement towards alternate energy sources; a focus on sustainable development; and a desire to find a way to let rural agrarian Canada share in the spoils of the new biotech riches.

Provincially, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries is taking the lead in attempting to form an association dedicated to the advancement and promotion of a BC Bioproducts-based industry. They are currently doing some research with the Innovation and Science Council of BC to lay the foundation for a potential new body.

All of these forces - international, national, and provincial - are conspiring to create a renaissance of sorts. I say renaissance because bioproducts have been since Mankind started burning wood for heat and light. But now we have the beginnings of genetic understanding (I say beginnings because we have a LONG way to go before we REALLY understand things.)

So, what are Bioproducts anyway? Well, there are lots of definitions but a broad one would be: any commercial or industrial product composed in whole or in significant part of biological products or renewable domestic plant, animal, marine, or forestry-based material, that generally does not contain synthetics, toxins, or environmentally damaging substances. (I used this definition by merging two other definitions that I have recently read. It is not a formal definition by any means.)

In short, you take bio source materials such as barley, corn, wheat, soybeans, wood wastes, aquaculture wastes, animal rendering wastes, or municipal wastes, and then through a series of bioprocesses convert it into either biomaterials (including cosmetics, cells, high-value molecules), biochemicals, or biofuels (such as ethanol, biodiesel, or hydrogen.)

By using industrial waste outputs as inputs into other products and services, we lower the total waste, lower our Carbon emissions, develop new bioprocesses (which we can resell), and increase our ability to build sustainable and environmentally sane communities, cities, and countries.

Examples would be converting animal rendering plant wastes or lumber mill wastes into energy; or converting corn into biodiesel, which has extremely positive benefits such as no black filthy smoke, many fewer toxins, and better mileage. Another great example would be using corn-based products to create wood-like substances that can be used to build furniture that has no detectable chemical emissions and which will readily biodegrade.

Like all emerging sectors, in order for our province to seriously develop it, a concerted effort will be required to connect policy development, markets, environmental groups, manufacturers, crop farmers, funders, and researchers.

I look forward to seeing how this initiative develops here in British Columbia. I will write more about it here as things develop.

Bio and Obituary of Laurance Rockefeller, one of the fathers of venture capital

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 19:28:10 -0700

Here is a wonderful article on Laurance Rockefeller, philanthropist, philosopher, mediator, venture capitalist, conservationist. It is inspiring to say the least.

Social software, web-friends, blogs, human connection, gender-swapping, breach of trust, deceit - just another day on the internet folks, nothing to see here, move along.

Troy Angrignon — Mon, 28 Jun 2004 18:14:37 -0700

I'm attracted to this weird piece for so many reasons. It contains social networking, human connection, breach of trust, and one man's story about how he is managing to handle (or not handle?) his life.

It is the story of a man named Odin Soli who created an online persona named Layne Johnson and wrote detailed, personal daily diaries about her life, her loves, her trials, and her tribulations. Layne "met" many of her readers online, she was available to be contacted on all the social networking sites, and she developed a large social network of people who directly and indirectly shared their own lives with her and her community. And then it all stopped. It turns out that Odin got too busy to keep up the charade and so he pulled the plug on this project.

This story says so many things. It speaks of the human connection that so many people seek and more and more people are going online to find it. Hence the boom in online dating. It also speaks of the complexities of human emotion when people have trusted in somebody and then had that trust broken. Some of Layne's community feel that the creator owes them an apology, others think he should be congratulated for having created such a compelling story. It also speaks of the complex processes inherent in dealing with and handling one's own life. This guy decided to handle his impending shortened life by writing a two-way dialogue with a community of people. This guy in a different article managed to work out the issues in his life by building a car completely covered in shells. Who needs a therapist when you can paste 400 pounds of shells on your Honda or build a three-year running web-series with a huge subscriber base? And the story also embodies something that has been noticed about the internet community as far back as the text-based MUDs (multi-user dungeons) adventure sites - namely gender-swapping, just because you can. For an interesting paper on this, I recommend reading Amy Bruckman's paper that she wrote at MIT back in 1992.

Bio-ethics, Eugenics, Abortion, Disease, & Genetic Screening: The new birthing decision process

Troy Angrignon — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 01:12:51 -0700

If you were having a baby and the test showed that the baby would have Down's Syndrome, Tay-Sachs, deformed limbs, a cleft plate, deafness, dwarfism, skin disease, or any of a host of other known diseases, would you still have the child? (Link to the original story in the New York Times. Subscription required but worth it.)