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Change.gov - a sign of things to come.

Within 48 hours of becoming President-elect, Barack Obama has launched Change.gov.

This is the website of his transition from President-elect to the White House. What is amazing, besides the fact that he got a website up at a .gov domain so amazingly quickly, is that the transparency he showed during his campaign seems to be continuing.



This is exciting to me, as I assumed his days of blogging and online community engagement were over, along with his campaign.

The site has a blog, requests for people around the world to share their stories, news and even the ability to apply for jobs (I may apply to be Secretary of Online Community).

Glad the man in the white house knows how to use the Internets.

Labels: obama, politics, social media

posted on Thursday, November 06, 2008

16 comments | make a comment

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Welcome back indeed.

Labels: politics, usa

posted on Wednesday, November 05, 2008

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Muhammad Yunus and the concept of social finance.

At Vancity, where I work, we recently created a division called Social Finance. This is where our Business Banking department now resides, as well as Commercial Mortgages and our amazing Community Business Banking team, where many of our most innovative and socially relevant products and services are generated.

Creating and naming this new division was an interesting risk, and as soon as I heard the name Social Finance, I thought to myself: Holy crap I can't believe I get to work here.

What's even more amazing is that our executives created this new name and division based on an understanding of what Social Finance could be, but without a nailed-down definition of what it means for us. That's the work of whoever gets the gig of SVP Social Finance.

Last night we at Vancity brought Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus to town. He received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of British Columbia for his amazing work as Banker to the Poor at Grameen Bank, which he founded in his native Bangladesh specifically to help the poor. He spoke about the power of small amounts of money to transform people's lives, and the role private businesses can play in creating change in the lives of our poorest citizens. In the past he has endorsed Vancity's Microcredit Toolkit, and we recently announced that our own microfinance-driven term deposit would now be funding local initiatives.

He calls it Social Business, and it's the subject of his new book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. We call it Social Finance. It's something that has to be framed for many people, because we have it ingrained in us that there are two options in life: charity and profit.

But there is room for a strong middle ground. Businesses can have as their focus socially responsible goals as their main driver and still sell their products and services in a business-savvy way, repay their investors, pay their employees well and thrive in the business context, and drive their profits back into the work they do. Their work can be of tremendous social value and significance, and yet be no less business-like.

As we deal with issues of climate change and social equity, these kinds of business are cropping up. They could be used to solve the health care crisis in America. To clean up the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver, reduce our carbon emissions, provide inexpensive and nourishing food for poor families to feed their children, vaccinate the third world.

The money invested could be reinvested and continue to solve our most pressing problems, rather than giving money away which has no lifespan beyond the initial donation.

Last night was an amazing time. I was so fortunate to be invited to a small private reception to meet Professor Yunus, and then go to hear him speak to several hundred people about his work serving the poorest people on the planet. His work is actually reducing poverty in Bangladesh by significant amounts. He has opened specialized services focused on beggars, and creating Social Finance opportunities such as Grameen Danone and Grameenphone, Bangladesh's largest mobile phone company owned in part by the 7.5 million co-operative owners of Grameen Bank.

A Vancity board member asked me at the reception why I had come down to hear Muhammad Yunus speak, and I replied that this kind of activity is the very reason I initially chose to do my banking at Vancity, and why I later decided to work there. Banking is really only marginally interesting to me, but using the platform of banking to solve social problems that we face in our communities is a powerful draw for me. Exploring that intersection where money and community come together is extremely powerful and much needed.

Last night Muhammad Yunus proved how true that is.

Labels: corporate responsibility, credit union, microcredit, politics, poverty, underbanked, vancity, yunus

posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008

9 comments | make a comment

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Ex-Aide Says He's Lost Faith in Bush

A fascinating piece in the NYTimes about Matthew Dowd, a Bush strategist who's changed his mind about a thing or two. (may require registration)

Labels: media, politics, usa

posted on Sunday, April 01, 2007

0 comments | make a comment

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Gitmo in Black and White

From Slate Magazine: This week marked the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war. Our partners at Magnum Photos are commemorating the event with an interactive audio slide show about the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. Photographer Paolo Pellegrin photographed the camp and its prisoners in 2006. The essay also includes photos of released detainees in London, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Afghanistan.




See the source page.

Labels: media, politics, video

posted on Sunday, March 25, 2007

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Steve Jobs Announces the iRack

MADtv's great parody on Apple's newest invention - the iRack.

Labels: apple, funny, politics, video, web

posted on Saturday, March 17, 2007

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The only Oscar I cared about.

So happy Al Gore won!

Labels: climate change, environment, media, politics, video

posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007

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My Panel at Northern Voice.

The panel I was on at Northern Voice today went pretty well. We had a great discussion on how to include a social aspect to the work being planned for New Media BC's World Centre for Digital Media. Here's the wiki we created at the event.

Labels: azaroff, canada, corporate responsibility, politics, vancouver, web

posted on Saturday, February 24, 2007

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Mandatory recycling in Vancouver?

Friends in Seattle told me recently that their city has mandatory recycling, and that those in violation are fined. The city performs random inspections of people's garbage to check.



On that note, there's a poll this week on ChangeEverything.ca about mandatory recycling in Vancouver. If the results are strongly in favour, we're taking our case to city hall. Cast your vote now.

Labels: azaroff, canada, changeeverything, climate change, corporate responsibility, environment, media, politics, vancity, web

posted on Monday, February 05, 2007

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Try the BBC Climate Change Game.

Labels: climate change, environment, media, politics, web

posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2007

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An Inconvenient Truth Mashup

An Inconvenient Truth and Malphunktion

Labels: canada, climate change, environment, politics, vancity

posted on Friday, January 26, 2007

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Global warming: the final verdict

A study by the world's leading experts says global warming will happen faster and be more devastating than previously thought.

We are like alcoholics who have got as far as admitting there is a problem. It is a start. Now we have got to start drying out - which means reducing our carbon output.

The report is devastating.

Labels: climate change, environment, politics

posted on Wednesday, January 24, 2007

0 comments | make a comment

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Net Neutrality in Canada

The Tyee has an excellent article on the lack of interest around the issue of Net Neutrality in Canada. I remember when I was working at Telus during the strike in 2005 and they blocked access to the site that the Telecommunication Workers Union created, I was shocked. It was so dramatically undemocratic. Now, that action has been cited south of the border as a worst-case scenario.

Worth a read: Canada Sleeps Through War to 'Save the Internet'

Labels: canada, media, politics, web

posted on Monday, January 22, 2007

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O'Reilly and Colbert

Well it's finally happened. On the exact same day Stephen Colbert appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly appeared on the Colbert Report. The circle is complete.

Labels: media, politics

posted on Friday, January 19, 2007

0 comments | make a comment

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