activefreemedia

Transparency Archives

The integrity of our economy and democracy only exists if citizens and investors have perfect information. That day will come when all of us -- corporations, politicians, consumers, and private citizens -- are transparent about our costs and impact.

April 5, 2008

Social Innovation Camp in London this weekend

This weekend in East London is what looks like an amazing first of it's kind event that hopefully will be replicated across the world soon. Based on the Barcamp / Unconference events that have blown up over the last year or so, Social Innovation Camp puts teams of techies with social entrepreneurs whose 5 ideas have been chosen before the weekend event.

My housemate Seth actually submitted one of the selected ideas, which is Stuffshare, Freecycle meets Street Car . The idea that actually seems the most similar to my own vision for Open Green is Barcode Wikipedia:

A site for storing user-generated information – such as carbon footprint, manufacturing conditions and reviews - against a product, identified by its barcode number.

Even though I'm a bit disappointed to not have submitted an idea to the perfect event for my converging interests (too much of my time focused on my job), it'll be cool to attend the final session tomorrow afternoon.

Posted by Colin | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 5, 2008

OpenGreen - Draft Presentation

A draft presentation that seeks to demonstrate the value of open value chains for inspiring consumer behavior and demand toward a green culture and responsible economy. Definitely looking for feedback as I move this forward. Note: The audio for some reason became out of synch when uploaded to youtube, and will be corrected shortly.

Posted by Colin | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 1, 2007

The Evolution of the Digital Bumper Sticker

From conversations back in 2002, and then resurfacing when discussing life visions while my brother Adam was visiting me in London on his way to Ruanda, I have the following vision for a digital bumper sticker.

Disclaimer: There are others (Killer Cotton, Tonkatronix, and MotionLed, which seems the most evolved with LED messages powered by the cigarette lighter.

The key breakthroughs that I would like to help make happen are the following:
1. solar powered to remove the need for charging and improve eco footprint
2. enable submissions of text and images via mobile device (bluetooth or equivalent)

I think the LED text is fine for promotions or expressing road rage, but for enabling people to communicate some of their personal values and identity, we need more graphical and font creativity. Also, connecting it to mobile devices like phones will enable more network effects and interesting uses we haven't even thought of yet.

Does anyone know someone who could help with this?

Posted by Colin | Permalink | Comments (2)

June 24, 2007

My Google Map of Life in London

After a conversation where Christie expressed some desire to visualize where these different parts of London were that I had told her stories about, I realized that maybe there was a way to do it in Google Maps. Two hours later, here it is. You can see it in regular map view, hybrid, or even better, check it out in Google Earth with the KML file.

Posted by Colin | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 21, 2007

Lessig moves onto Corruption

After 10 years of free culture advocacy, it looks like Lawrence Lessig has been inspired by Obama, Gore and others to move on. And his new direction is Corruption. My initial thoughts are that the connection is transparent systems.

Keep up the good work Larry, and I'm sure we'll keep moving forward and with you and independent from you.

You can watch his 30 minute announcement at the iCommons summit in Dubrovnic, Croatia at youtube or enVio.

Posted by Colin | Permalink | Comments (0)