Toasting Seva Foundation's 35 Years Of Curing Blindness

Pleased to join the Berkeley-based Seva Foundation in celebrating sight returned to 3.5 million people, at the Beaux-Arts Julia Morgan Ballroom in San Francisco, along with Bay Area luminaries like Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, men in tie-dye suits and women in saris. In keeping with the groovy beginnings of the foundation, each place setting had its own bottle of soap bubbles. The New York Times writes about the evening and the key role of Steve Jobs in helping to start the foundation with a $5,000 gift 35 years ago here.

Apparently 80% of blind people in the world can be cured with a 15 minute cataract surgery, which is what Seva set out to provide on a mass scale.

Seva was founded "by a group of medical professionals, counterculture activists, musicians, and compassionate individuals, all dedicated to the prevention of blindness around the globe" including public health expert Dr. Larry Brilliant, spiritual leader Ram Dass, and humanitarian activist Wavy Gravy.  Dr. Brilliant is the former director of Google's philanthropic arm Google.org.

Actor Peter Coyote was the MC of the evening which was capped by a performance by the Blind Boys of Alabama.  I got chills when they asked the many ophthalmologists who donated their time and expertise over the past three decades to stand up and be recognized.

A highlight of the evening was founder Dr. Larry Brilliant returning to Steve Jobs' widow Laurene Powell Jobs an Apple 2 which Jobs donated to the cause for use in Katmandu in 1982.

Good to meet young epidemiologist Jen Olsen who's manager of pandemics at Skoll Global Threats Fund established by eBay co-founder Jeff Skoll, where Dr. Brilliant is now president, and Amanda Marr Chung who was just finishing up her work with Seva.

Entrepreneurship & Social Media As The New Women's Movement

I'm seeing mainstream articles tackling my topics, especially at the intersections of women/invisible groups, entrepreneurship, platform-building, work/life and social media.

Like this "social media is the new women's movement" at the New York Times, last week's "entrepreneurship is the new women's movement" at Forbes.com, and the power of networked reality at The Atlantic last month.

As Tara Agacayak says, "What I'm seeing is the trend toward more customized, flexible, personally fulfilling work with the technology to facilitate it."

There's this "Why work-life balance is a crock" at CBSNews.com: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500395_162-57342505/why-work-life-balance-is-a-crock/

Women leaving mismatched corporate culture for work on their own terms:http://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/08/entrepreneurship-is-the-new-womens-movement/

Seth Godin calls platform building "a longterm shortcut": http://archive.feedblitz.com/720389/~4194314

Microsoft buys Yammer for $1.2B for the same reason GlobalNiche urges us to enter the conversation on our topics:

"You cannot underestimate the power of "working out loud" with social tools. So many conversations get trapped in the one on one world of email and instant messaging. With open sharing, new ideas emerge, experts are found, and teams are formed from the groundswell. Serendipity happens when conversations become public and others are encouraged to listen and contribute their ideas, all within the safety of the company walls."

http://socialmediatoday.com/jimworth/559907/why-yammer-worth-12b-microsoft

people "who reluctantly socialize via online methods due to skill or cost or personal disposition may well find themselves *left out* of conversation." http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/social-medias-small-positive-role-in-human-relationships/256346/

Plug in better (includes "unplug from disconnection"):http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/plug-in-better-a-manifesto/252873/

(altho the below link is hardly mainstream, it's exactly what GlobalNiche is all about): "disadvantaged groups have tools to reach out and organize across geographic boundaries" http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2012/04/23/sherry-turkles-chronic-digital-dualism-problem/

And thanks to global women's health doctor Nassim Assefi for noting that the forward-looking approach to life and "the American Dream" mentioned in this article is what I show people how to do in my GlobalNiche program and in general! We are way on the cutting-edge. http://www.more.com/women-new-american-dream

Measuring Social Media Influence: Klout & Empire Avenue

In the GlobalNiche LinkedIn group, designer and writer Catherine Salter Bayar shared this piece from the New York Times -- "Got Twitter? What's Your Influence Score"  -- and asked the group if we've looked at Klout. I said that I took a look this week (actually checked out Klout a while back -- so now I have an OG badge there....as far as I know "OG" stands for "original gangster" so I'm not sure what they could possibly mean by it, ha)

There are strangenesses, like their claim I am influenced by @GigaOm, which is an account I don't even follow.

Most interesting to me is the STYLE matrix: Today I'm a "broadcaster", yesterday I was a "specialist" and I'd like to be a "tastemaker" like @brainpicker. The change in my score (today is 62) must be due to some large retweets I got today on topics other than the narrow ones they ascribe to me). What models do you aspire to on Twitter and where are they in the matrix of your followed accounts?

Writer and artist Rose Deniz said, "My Klout score is erratic, too, so I don't put a lot of emphasis on it in terms of influence, and I do notice that it's fluid based on your activity level - how sensitive it is to daily fluxes, I don't know."

"I've found Empire Avenue to be a better indicator (and more interesting) - it just tracks more stuff," responded global marketing strategist Kirsten Weiss.

"I think any sort of measurement system is bound to be full of flaws," said social media educator Charlene Kingston.

"At first glance, not sure I love Empire Avenue's verbiage - banking terms repel more than attract me," said Catherine Bayar.

Talking To AJ Keen About Facebook Ruining Friendships

My replies to Web 2.0 critic Andrew Keen at FB (facebook ruins friendships on WSJ, becomes ghosttown in NYT) AUG 31 09: bleh, and bleh to the one about FB becoming a ghost town. i kinda like FB these days, and that's after a year on Twitter, which i prefer. different crowd, different use. funny to hear ppl complain that misusing the tech makes it harmful, or a waste of time -- two of the noisiest arguments against FB and Twitter, respectively.