There are many pressing problems in Oregon. I would put unemployment near the top, and I like the idea of incubators, but it doesn’t do any good to start a company, and then have it fail later because lack of capital to take it to the next stage.

The best use of funding would be to use it as leverage to greatly multiply its effects. My idea is a variation and an expansion of the MMT’s own contest idea. The idea is to channel the vast cognitive surplus of the world to solve real problems. See:
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html

People of the world have over a trillion hours a year in free time. How large is the untapped market of brilliant, creative people, with time on their hands? While it’s good to exercise your brain, think of the millions of people that use their cognitive surplus to only “solve” crossword or seduku puzzles everyday?

My idea is to create a website to assist people to collaborate on solving meaningful world problems.

After the initial startup and development costs, the website would be self sustaining. The website itself would create jobs in Oregon, and could also spin off new local startups, but Oregon would also benefit directly and indirectly as world problems are addressed. Any problem that needs to be solved is fair game - political, social, technological, etc., but the focus would be much more than a sounding board or brainstorming forum, it would focus on taking solutions past the “good idea” stage, and making them happen. The website could be hosted and run anywhere in the world, but by having it in Oregon, we would be best placed to access and reap the rewards of the words brain reserve.

The website would basically be a forum type of website where registered members join for free and can suggest a problem to work on, or help solve listed problems. The website would be highly structured and organized to allow for easy scanning. It would use hierarchical nested replies, and have other useful features, like, interesting topics and replies are automatically moved to the top (as voted on by members). I like the nested topic/reply format found on many websites, but to be more useful for real collaboration, the information bandwidth has to substantially increase. In addition to text and links, the replies also need to be able to support embedded graphics, videos, logic diagrams, flow charts, stored files, etc – everything needed to do real innovation.

Contributors would participate for several reasons:
1) They are contributing to making the world a better place.
2) People are motivated to increase their “rank” and social worth. Doing tasks to get a merit badge, advance to the next karate belt, or increase your characters “hit-points” are all motivators using the same principle. On the website, people increase in social worth by getting points by contributing good ideas (or even supplying a reason why an idea won’t work). Points are given by other members (votes from members with higher points carry more weight).
3) Unlike some inventor websites, where an inventor has to pay to submit their good idea, small prizes and money can be awarded to people with the “best” idea, or as they reach certain point levels, as determined by members. Substantial prizes and money could be awarded by sponsoring companies.
4) The website would make use of the standard social networking tools, like allowing members to network with chosen friends, having private chat and messaging, etc. The usual stuff.

For real problems that are being solved, members can offer good ideas, suggest critical feedback, play off of other good ideas, and even revise or rework the problem statement. True collaboration requires the problem and solutions to morph as needed, and the website would graphically track the changes so that a topic doesn’t become overwhelmingly cluttered. The website would go much farther than just developing good ideas, the website would help to link up solution providers, investors, other contributors, NGO’s, non-profits, etc., to turn the idea into reality, and then continue to track it’s success.

I can’t list all the great features of the website in this pitch, but one suggestion is that if a user registers him/herself as an expert in “x”, they could choose to be directed automatically to problems that need their expertise.

Once the site is up, it can be self supporting in several ways:
1) Advertisers: A collection of “creative people actively participating in solving world problems” is a demographic that many advertisers would like to tap into.
2) Sponsors: For a fee (sliding scale), non-profit and for-profit companies can have their own “problems that need solutions” featured.
3) Since the website is designed to be used for innovation collaboration, “private rooms” with encrypted data could be rented to companies for private use.

Oregon certainly has the resources to make this website happen, and it could start immediately. This is a shovel ready project. And, once the website is up, it could be used to refine and implement all the other good ideas submitted in the MMT contest. Everyone’s a winner, here.

Borrow eBooks from the E-Brella.

A large umbrella on Waterfront Park provides collaborative public art:

* The WiFi spash page provides free ePub ebooks, created by local schools.
* The umbrella handle, resembling a small tree trunk, is created from hundreds of recycled cell phones. They randomly ring with bird and animal songs.
* The umbrella would be 12 feet in diameter and composed of LEDs (or microprojectors), changing colors depending on twitter activity.
* Electro Luminesent wire (ElWire) would delineate 8 sectors and “sweep” like a radar
* An iPhone, Android, or java applet, could be downloaded into cellphones or laptops to create a collaborative musical composition as the radar sweeps around the umbrella.
* Cell phones would control this public art project. It would display a variety of visualizations, from traffic to weather or tweets from actual birds using TwitterVision and TwitPic.
* An Open Source architecture encourages application development.
* A picnic table under the umbrella provides shelter.

(www.dailywireless.org/2009/04/10/sensor-nets-get-social)
(www.dailywireless.org/2009/09/28/solarbrella-powers-laptops)
(www.dailywireless.org/2009/04/03/bar-code-redirects-to-newspaper)

A database of public and private organizations for directing volunteers into areas of interest and expertise. This will capitalize on a great resource, including retirees, who wish to give to community with time and talent, when they may lack monetary resources.

There are many ways to give to our Oregon that don’t necessitate gifts of dollars. In looking particularly at the rising number of seniors, many of whom are service oriented, it would be helpful to have a database that will list ways to become involved in various areas such as tutoring, driving to appointments, painting, yard work, etc. Keen minds, generous hearts and willing hands will go a long way if we can just know whom to contact and how to become involved. There are many public and non-profit organizations that have their own volunteer lists, but if these could collated into a massive database, it would expedite and increase citizen involvement. Also, such a repository would likely inspire the creation of new venues and possibilities. Let the matching begin!

This idea can start in Oregon and came out of the very real need I see around me in Oregon, but then can spread elsewhere. It starts with helping neighbors and it ends with helping the whole state, then the nation and then the world.

Issues
We all are born into blood families and in these tough times we may find help there. Many of us have no family to turn to or have family far away and unable to help. But what about friends? We make our own extended families of friends wherever we go. However, the ties of duty that are built into blood families are different in friend families and we muddle along more than have a plan or duty. If you're middle class things are even more complicated as we can't support another's middle class lifestyle and are often struggling with our own. So, how do we help each other? Maybe the web can help?

Barter sites exist, but there's no trust and we're helping someone out there without knowing if they need the help or are just making money on the side, or worse, taking advantage. Further, those sites tend to be used as needed, so we may not even know that we have a friend who is short of cash and who has the same skills who could have done the same thing.

Overview
Here's the gist of the idea, a community website that starts from the bottom up. It starts with simple relationships, the people one considers to be family, be they real family members or friends. Ultimately extending this relationship circle to friends of friends, and maybe another level out would also be a part of the plan (similar to LinkedIn's 3 tiers). So this first part is simply to create a virtual mirror for the friend families we have in real life, but one that is based on real friendships and real degrees of separation, bringing much more trust into the picture. Plus, since you can't replace Twitter and Facebook, it does not seek to replace existing social media, but rather to incorporate them and have some overlap with their services and community.

Main Thoughts
Now, how do we use these relationships? Well, what do we need? Barter is a part of it, as are commerce and employment. Plus we can help our communities and be more aware of what the needs around us are. Here are some examples:

Things
Scenario: I have an old couch you could use and you have an old desk I could use; let's trade. Or sell, as someone may just need cash and we could allow for that too.
Approach: Services like Craig's List would be better, so it would be important for this service to talk to them. The difference this site will give is that the people involved might be more comfortable/interested because of the relationship involved. So we need a list of things that people want to trade/sell/give away.

Skills
Scenario: I can fix your broken toilet and you can fix my computer; let's trade. Or I need cash and these are the things I could do for you to earn it. I could mow your lawn, I could make you a website, I could redo your roof, I could file your taxes, whatever.
Approach: We allow people to list skills they have that others may not realize, or menial jobs they are willing to do. In some cases network members will see skills on display from a friend in need and it will spur them on to take advantage of them. Members can otherwise see a list of available services and can search for them. Need a stopped up drain fixed? Then search and see if your extended family can help you.

Cash
Scenario: Although the primary intention is for an exchange of some kind, we could allow for pledges of cash gifts or loans. Someone might be unable to meet a rent payment, or might need stuff for the baby, etc.
Approach: These can be anonymous or public, depending on the parties. This would be good in cases where a party is ill and cannot earn the money they require, or where they cannot earn all they need. Members can see where the needs are and respond if they are able.

Riffraff Requests
Scenario: We can also allow for odd little requests, like, "I need a ride to the hospital," "I need help moving to a smaller apartment," "Can I loan a power saw?" or "I need help finding a job." Even requests for information like, "How do I apply for unemployment?" or "How do I get an extension on my taxes."
Approach: Members will be pinged about requests from their family. They will be able to filter these by degree of separation, or turn them off. Again, we might interface with Craig's List and other services.

Security and Privacy
Scenario: Users would have to be able to specify who can see their information as it will contain very personal data. They will also be able to control who can contact them and how severe the need has to be, etc.
Approach: Initially I envision 5 levels of access to information, or at least to these collections of data, namely hidden, show family, show family second tier, show family third tier and show all. Other measurements, like severity of need, can also be brought to bear. Notifications will be similar.

Barometers.
Scenario: Kind of like a personal Security Alert. How is each family member doing? Similar to Homeland Security's chart:
* Severe (red): severe risk - For us: On the verge of losing everything... or worse
* High (orange): high risk - For us: In deep trouble, barely keeping afloat.
* Elevated (yellow): significant risk - For us: Tough times, but we have hope.
* Guarded (blue): general risk - For us: Getting by, but concerned.
* Low (green): low risk - Doing fine. Looking to help others.
Approach: Members will be pinged about family members who get into dire straits. They will be able to filter these by degree of separation and/or level, or turn them off.

Ratings
Scenario: Because there is always the potential for abuse we need to be able to allow users to flag other users as a concern. We also want to allow helpful community members to grow in standing within the community.
Approach: We can have both Concern Points and Karma Points that can be awarded by other members of the community for misdeeds or for good deeds. All of this will for a kind of community policing, peer pressure if you will, that could minimize abuse, but more that this, the karma points will encourage participation. People with good karma can be featured and are more likely to be trusted. The two scores could be combined for a "good citizen" rating. In some ways this is similar to the way ebay ranks sellers.

Notifications
Scenario: We'd need to be able to notify a family structure of changes, for example someone announcing that they've lost a job and need help finding a new one, or someone who can't make a house payment and needs side work.
Approach: Like all the above notifications, this would have to be either at the site only, or emails that show notifications from different levels of family, once someone announces that they are in trouble/need. We could also notify the group that a member has been flagged as abusing the system or that a member has changed their barometer.

Reporting
- What are the averages for the family on ratings, barometers, barter, loans, etc.
- How much activity is going on within the group.
- What is the overall health/need of the group

Family Discussions and Blogs
- Discussion group for discussing issues and common approaches to those issues, as well as other general chatter.
- Blogs for all users and feeds by family, but mainly so that people can expand on their situation some and keep people informed on their progress. Here, me may just want to interface with other Social media. One idea is, for example, showing all my Tweets from Twitter. I can have two settings, All Tweets and Only Tweets with the hashtag #ff.

Broader Services to the Community
We can also allow for opt-in groups, for example a homeless shelter, Oregon Public Libraries, OPB, cleanup efforts in parks and national parks, and so on. In fact any nonprofit/cause can set up a group. Family members can join these groups and recommend them to their families and members can be pinged about community needs in their area, for example a food drive, a cleanup drive, a shelter about to close, etc. It also lets those in need earn community points and standing, which may bring opportunity. Further, for unemployed people, volunteer jobs often lead to paying jobs, plus they keep people involved and busy, often to the point where these activities can appear on a resume.

Groups can also be set up with all of the above features, if needed. For example, a nonprofit in big trouble could set their alert status to red.

Advantages:
- This system would allow for charity and can put money into the hands of those who need it.
- More importantly, it would also allow people to earn help and keep their pride intact.
- It is a tool that makes helping each other much easier and can help both draw out requests for help and help us to find ways to help.
- It fosters a feeling of, "Pay it forward."
- It strengthens friend-family bonds and connections.
- It empowers us to make a difference that has very direct, immediate and personal meaning to us.
- Unlike other barter sites it is about an inner trusted community that we have a greater stake in helping and that we have a greater ability to trust.
- It's a solution that can be applied to friend-families or blood families or combinations of both.
- It's a solution that serves the middle class, a group generally less served by nonprofits, government and other groups who help us out in times of need.
- I wanted to start this myself, but it was beyond my available time, so I'm putting it back into the community. I own the URL friendfamilies.com and would be happy to gift it to an effort funded and approved by MMT.

Disadvantages
- Needs funds.
- Large project that will need leadership and a team approach.
- Complex and may need to be realized in stages.

Related services:
http://kossacksnetworking.ning.com/
http://www.brightneighbor.com/
http://portland.brightneighbor.com/home

(Building upon: http://www.ideas4oregon.org/forums/59917-million-dollar-ideas/suggestions/896147 and http://www.ideas4oregon.org/forums/59917-million-dollar-ideas/suggestions/888059)

I've been building websites for NPOs for the last 5 years, before that I spent 8 years as a NPO organizer and fundraiser - as a "consumer" of these technology tools. There's been a lot of great advances in open source social networking platforms and CMS tools, such as Drupal. I agree with the two posts above that there's a significant opportunity to package these tools to provide a lower barrier to NPO's adopting them. But releasing these tools is not enough. I tell all my NPO Drupal clients to budget at least an equal amount of time and resources for training and staging content on the sites that I build with them.

To really help NPOs leverage open source web tools, the tech community needs to invest in packaging these tools - as well as the training and messaging/marketing materials that these organizations need to use them effectively.

My company partnering with two national river conservation organizations, East Coast funders, and an NPO messaging company called Water Words that Work, to build out a Drupal distribution and training program to help local watershed groups bootstrap the release of robust online communications, fundraising, e-advocacy, and volunteer management tools. You can read about the Drupal release here: http://drupal.org/project/drupalrivers.

What's unique about this approach is that we've coupled written training materials and the Drupal distribution itself with a one-day "boot camp" in which we will be helping 20 watershed organizations build and staging content on their new Drupal site. This formula allows us to dramatically cut the costs for organizations to launch these tools (our market price for installation of the release, a year of hosting with a reputable shared hosting provider, the training and 2 hours of subsequent support) from upwards of $10K for one group, to just $2K apiece for each of the 20 organizations participating in the camp.

This formula also immediately creates a network of peer organizations who can assist each other in training and support. And, it creates real deadlines and goals for these organizations to focus and launch their new sites quickly.

Developing similar boot camps and Drupal distributions for other NPO sub-sectors would be relatively easy-to-do. Partnering with TACS and NTEN (two national NPO technology training organizations), we could easily connect and coordinate with folks working in other NPO fields.

What's really awesome about this approach is that it's highly cost-effective. To be honest, it's economically viable without the support of MMT. What MMT could do to help this model substantially would be:

* To help us incubate additional Drupal releases and boot camps.
* To provide matching scholarships for NPO organizations that would like to participate in the boot camp program.

Thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

Cheers,
Sean Larkin
ThinkShout.com
760.223.0589(c)

The problems Oregon faces demand innovative solutions and active citizens. Today’s technology makes it possible to cost effectively engage citizens in new ways to: 1) harness the best thinking of our communities, and 2) organize collective action to implement promising solutions. Meyer Memorial Trust should fund the creation of tools that leverage the power of existing social networks, encouraging online dialog about the most pressing issues facing Oregonians, including our budget deficit. These tools include ways for individuals to identify their priorities, share their concerns, outline their vision for the state, and participate in a budget exercise. Engaged citizens will be able to organize their time, talents, and resources to implement the resulting solutions. Before our leaders make decisions in Salem, citizens need an opportunity to weigh-in and to know that their voices are heard. A statewide outreach effort can kick off the campaign, with a focus on engaging Oregon’s youth and young adults.

Think of Facebook for non-profits, to communicate (campaign) general and or specific needs real time. One stop shopping for givers to shop for a cause they wish to support, with categories of institutions. Each institution creates and maintains their own customizable presence, with hooks for leveraging other social networking sites (API's for Facebook, Twitter, Twitpay, etc.) and tools, giving the institutions yet another marketing tool. Givers and non-givers alike could "follow" an institution, linking to their personal Twitter/Facebook/etc to build a following growing potential givers.
Also with the available option to send a donation online, with givers accounts only for giving purposes so they can receive yearly tax statements of money given.
This type of site could also be duplicated very quickly once the initial IP (software model) is developed, so I imagine a similar site for research projects, where researchers can post a customizable presence detailing their project(s) and needs to solicit funding with interactive updates and communication to followers, again with one stop shopping for givers to land and search projects they might be interested in.
This type of site would concentrate these institutions into one place so they don't just end up becoming white noise in the huge social networks presently online.

Google is daunting and often gives you pages and pages of information that can’t help you. I propose we create an information resource (online and direct connect) where all government, private and non-profit organizations that provide public service and aid can be connected to through one portal. A simple site written in plain English – something like – If you are uninsured and need medical assistance click here: A list of medical providers that work with uninsured will appear; or If you are starting a business click here: A list of all requirements and links to bureau’s will appear. There are dozens and dozens of site that are an aggregate for fun, lets create one for survival.

Vizitnow3D is poised to introduce new technology that connects related communities online within a navigable, interactive 3D replica of real world environments. 3D navigable university campuses with nearby business and entertainment districts can connect students in real time with campus and off-campus activities while empowering school administrators and local merchants with 24/7 full control over rich content information (text, links, photos and videos) triggered by users. Users access the environment via Web browser and mobile device. Real time information provides students with data they can use while on the go or to plan their day and night activities. Visitors can quickly familiarize themselves with the campus and surrounding business and entertainment districts, plus area attractions. The online tool can be used to market the university while leveraging the collective marketing of the local community in a single 3D environment. The 3D navigable, interactive sports stadiums and arenas for the Beavers and Ducks (as well as other Oregon universities) will attract millions of college sports fans. The real time marketing and e-commerce capability of the environment empowers colleges and local merchants to capitalize upon the millions of online users flowing through the 3D environment each month. The scalable environment allows for continuous improvements, upgrades and additions that help to bring areas of Oregon to life and boost tourism. 3D campuses will attract new students, increase enrollment, boost recruiting efforts and help local businesses. The expected requests form universities around the nation to have their campuses built upon a 3D navigable, interactive platform will expand Vizitnow3D and create more jobs in Oregon while attracting revenues that add to the economy of the state.

No open source software is better suited to helping nonprofits than Drupal. From a small site that does nothing but tell you about a nonprofit and accept donations, through community sites to powerful sites with a CRM to help nonprofits better use and mobilize their supporters, donors and volunteers... Drupal does it all. And Drupal puts the maintenance and ownership of these websites into the hands of nonprofits and takes it out of the hands of expensive developers.

A small software team could use a fraction of that money to set up and maintain three (or more) Drupal distributions, one for each of those scenarios. What does this mean? It means a powerful website is within the reach of most nonprofits for a fraction of their current costs. Each distribution will be more than software, but will also contain extensive configuration, and it is the latter that usually costs the most. Currently, a nonprofit seeking a web presence can lay out $3,000 for something basic, all the way through to tens of thousands. These distributions will make it possible for all nonprofits who don't require extensive customization to get the same websites for a cost of hundreds of dollars, or possibly thousands if more customization is required. At ***** it will save most nonprofits thousands of dollars.

And why do they need a web presence? Because it helps them get their word out, shows people that they mean business and are capable, helps them get more donations and helps them make better use of the people who help and support them. The result is better-organized, more-effective nonprofits. Further, Drupal is almost endlessly extendable, so they can make it even more powerful, as they grow and their needs change.

An added benefit is that while these Drupal distributions would benefit most nonprofits in Oregon, they will be free and open source and could also be used/customized by nonprofits, NGOs and charities anywhere in the world. This would mean that while we make Oregon a better place, we also make the world a better place, which in turn would bring prestige to Oregon and help us to think of ourselves as innovators and trendsetters, rather than just a struggling State.

Oregon grants de facto taxing power to various private entities that supply mission-critical goods and services to the government. A conspicuous example is the licensing of proprietary software, used on somewhat more than 10,000 desktops in government offices. Free, public domain software would often be a satisfactory substitute.

With $1 million over two years, an effective demonstration project could be accomplished which would prove the point and provide step-by-step instructions for a transition. Many distinguished local professionals would be happy to provide pro bono consulting on this. Biggest obstacle would probably be a culture change, getting managers and IT supervisors to see the possibility. Implementation (like any change, such as revisions to commercial software suites) presents certain challenges, and should be an emphasis of the demo project.

Continuing the effort after the grant would entail savings rather than costs. Savings would continue to pay dividends over subsequent years. A bonus would be that, in many cases, ceasing to use certain commercial products could improve security.

State agencies are developing their own versions of e-governance, but there is no cohesiveness and uniting strategy in this approach. Right now every agency has different policies, leadership, expertise, agendas, assumptions and legacy systems that guide the development of some version of a collaborating, interconnected, sharing, transparent and paperless government.
My proposal is to unite these efforts and make them more efficient by:
1) developing a single state-wide e-government vision and strategy,
2) creating a work group that would run this process as a state-wide project, interact with every agency and ensure cohesiveness in implementation,
3) learning from examples of e-governance from around the world (Estonia), adapting the best practices to Oregon settings, and making sure we are not "reinventing a wheel."

Implementation of e-government will offer tremendous savings and efficiency in public services and will benefit people all around the state, not just in metro areas, creating ripple effect and offering a significant help in getting the state government out of the financial crisis