CivicActions

As we are a team of independent contractors, we must manage our time very carefully. We work very hard all day. That is why when I sleep I see Drupal, PHP, and talk to Fen about the future of the Internet (after the tubes).

After careful consideration, I have decided to start charging for when I am asleep. I do my best work at that time, and I have found people like my ideas the most during that time. I can also fly, but I haven't figured out how to translate that into services I can share with CivicActions.

You may think it's sad that I enjoy working while I sleep. But I am laughing all the way to the bank, and the CivicActions clients get SO much more value.

Here in the Brussels SAP lounge, the mood is as focused and serious as you are going to find in a culture of independent minds. Strangely there are little SAP mint candies, and if you look to the wall you may be inspired by a giant Bono poster which is next to the naked Lenny Kravitz poster (I didn't know you could sustain a piercing quite that way). The converted factory is a modernized space not unlike our ability to take old space and bring intelligence and modernization to old haunts - seems particularly European that way. An inspiring space although you'll find it easy to get a snicker from me.

Mobile Voter has just launched TxtVoter.

The new free system allows individuals and organizations to use texting (SMS) to conduct their own voter registration campaigns. Users can define their own text-in keywords, print out customized postcards, track respondents, and win prizes.

For example using your phone, you can text "civicactions" (no quotes) to 75444 and register to vote!

Sweet!

After nine months of development, The Institute of Noetic Sciences has launched "Shift in Action" 1.0, an already thriving online community of like-minded thresholders committed to personal, social and global transformation.

The tireless and amazing CivicActions team engineered the site, with partner HoloCosmos providing architecture, visual design and online marketing. Stephen Dinan, the Institute's Director of Membership and Marketing, was the visionary client and head of a talented team there.

William Greider argues in The Nation this week that the reigning political ideology has died, that the sea change is already upon us for a complete shift of the political landscape -- a chance that will be squandered if Democrats revert to giving in to corporatist expediencies. Progressives need a solid plan now, or else.

See The Future is Now

Some tidbits:

"The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around. Only government can liberate them from the harsh rule of the marketplace, the demands imposed by capital and corporations that stunt or stymie the full pursuit of life and liberty in this complex industrial society. This very wealthy country has the capacity to insure that all citizens, regardless of status or skills, have the essential needs to pursue secure, self-directed lives. This starts with the right to health, work, livable incomes and open-ended education, and to participate meaningfully in the decisions that govern their lives. The marketplace has no interest in providing these. It is actively destroying them.

Slate outlines the textbook definition of Web 2.0 success.

"YouTube claims 40 million plays a day, up from 35 million just a week ago. The Washington Post recently reported that MySpace pulls more monthly visitors than Amazon and is closing in on AOL and eBay."

Why? Because both sites recognize that that by letting everyone contribute - and reaching critical mass - the real network effect has kicked in.